Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari's Response to a Question on the Infallibility and Knowledge of the Prophet

Question: One part of the question concerned the infallibility of the Prophet, which you were asked to explain further, and more specifically, the question was: How did the prophets encompass modern knowledge?

Answer: I have addressed such questions to some extent in that article, A Prophetic Reading of the World (first issue). My general basis is that one can judge the prophets in two ways, and this can serve as a principle for you to pursue. One way is that we first sit down and define for ourselves who a prophet is; with philosophical and theological premises, we list characteristics for the prophet that are required by our philosophical and theological exposition. We say a prophet means this, and this, and this—we ascribe certain characteristics to him. Then we look at those who, throughout history, have claimed prophethood; whichever one we correctly identify as, in our view, the prophet, we then say that all those characteristics we had previously determined through philosophical and theological proofs must certainly exist in this person, regardless of whether we see any sign of those attributes in him or not. For instance, we say we have a philosophical proof, a theological proof, that the prophet must be knowledgeable in all sciences, or must know the sciences of the first and the last, or, as some Islamic philosophers have said, the prophet must be someone who has encompassed the entire microcosm and macrocosm, and so on and so forth. Then, when they see that someone has claimed prophethood, they say that all those things we arrived at through these proofs are present in this person, regardless of whether there is anything in his sayings about, say, chemistry or physics. And when we ask them, they say, well, he did not deem it necessary to mention them; he knew, but did not deem it necessary to express them, or he was not asked so that he would say. This is one way of approaching the matter. If some people approach it this way, we must ask them what kind of proofs these philosophical and theological proofs of theirs are, and examine those proofs to see whether they truly have the power to yield such a conclusion. I believe such philosophical and theological proofs do not exist. Another way is that we examine differently: prophets have appeared throughout history, and what they have been has shown what they are and who they are, and on what subjects they comment and on what subjects they do not comment. Just as a natural scientist, through his life, his actions, and his books, shows what this person does and what his specialty is, we cannot say about a physicist that he also knew chemistry but did not wish to comment. He has commented on physics, as far as we know. Or philosophers are the same; we judge philosophers based on the works they have left behind and what they have said and written—just as I arrived at that point in my earlier remarks in the body of the lecture. Or take someone who is a very good instrumentalist; we cannot then come and say, no, he also knew how to sing very well but did not sing. That cannot be done. Nor can we say of someone who sings very well that he can also play an instrument well but simply did not play it; that cannot be done either. In my view, judgments about the prophets are of this kind. That is, I believe, and I consider this correct and am expressing my own opinion, that to judge what the prophets knew and did not know, and the extent of their knowledge, one must examine history, one must examine their works, one must examine the domains in which they spoke. One must look at what fields they have spoken about; whatever they have said and expressed, that is what can be attributed to them. Now, whether we look at the sacred books of the Jews and Christians or at our own Quran—on which I focus more—our Quran, which is the most important work of the Prophet, when we look at the Quran, we do not see chemistry in it, nor physics, nor such things, the modern sciences. We see other things there; it smooths the human path toward God. This book, therefore, we can say that the Prophet's task was to smooth the human path toward God. And as I have written in the article A Prophetic Reading of the World, the Quran is the Prophet's interpretation of existence. It is the Prophet's monotheistic interpretation, with divine aid, of existence: the meaning of existence, the truth of existence, the foundation of existence, the future of existence, the beginning of existence. This is what religion, in fact, guides and shows to the human being.

When nothing more than this has remained from the Prophet, what reason do we have to claim that the Prophet also knew chemistry and physics? There is no reason for this, and it is no shortcoming for anyone. What deficiency is it for a prophet who opens the way for humanity toward God not to have spoken about or known chemistry? Is this a shortcoming? What flaw is this? This was my answer to this question.

Question on the Infallibility of the Prophet — Clarification

Answer: Ah, so you mentioned infallibility quietly; I didn't catch what was asked about infallibility.

- The main question is about the infallibility of the Prophet, regarding which you said in your talk that there were some shortcomings in his being. The question pertains to this discussion.

Answer: Look, ladies and gentlemen, I have again written something about infallibility in that article on prophetic reading. What is certain, what emerges from the Quran and from the statements of the Prophet himself, is that the Prophet possessed infallibility in that primary duty he bore—meaning that his duty was to call to the One God, and he never diverted the call to the One God into a call to other than God. In this sense, it is correct: the Prophet always called to God. Examine the entire Quran from beginning to end; you will not find a single instance where the Prophet deviated from this principle—that is, where he called to other than God or called to anything other than that monotheistic way of living. Yes, in this calling of his, he was infallible and did not deviate from that path. This cannot be denied. But what does infallibility beyond this meaning mean? Two issues arise here. In the Quran itself, it is stated—there are certain expressions of this kind regarding some of the prophets—that such-and-such a prophet committed a sin in such-and-such a place and then sought forgiveness. Regarding Adam, it is said (ʿaṣā), he disobeyed. Regarding the Prophet himself, it is said, li-yaghfira laka Llāhu mā taqaddama min dhanbika wa mā taʾakhkhar—this is a Quranic verse, after all—"that God may forgive you your sin, that which has preceded and that which is to come." Therefore, one issue is whether he committed sins or not, which is a matter of dispute among Muslims and Muslim scholars, and has been a matter of dispute throughout history. There have been some who said, yes, it was possible for a sin to occur from the Prophet as well. This issue has always been a disputed matter throughout history. And supposing a sin did occur, it would in no way harm that primary duty and primary calling. Perhaps one could understand something like this from qul innamā anā basharun mithlukum ("Say: I am only a mortal like you")—that such an error might also occur from a human being. That is one issue. The other issue I mentioned, those darknesses that would appear and such talk—this is another world entirely. This is part of the properties of being human. This narration is attributed to the Prophet himself, which I read to you: that darknesses come, delusions come, fancies come, and I always try to push them aside. Well, this is part of the properties of being human; a human being has such things. In my view, this in no way harms the prophetic mission. He is human. What is important is that a human being is in a diligent struggle to push aside these delusions and fancies; this is what matters. Let me tell you something: I implore you, go and study these issues from this angle from now on. What do you think all this worship attributed to the Prophet and the friends of God, like Imam Ali, for example, means? Can one perform artificial supplication? Can someone not feel deficiency and darkness within themselves and yet still perform genuine supplication? Why do we not reflect at all on these matters? Sometimes supplicating is imitation, a result of upbringing, a habit—which is how many of us supplicate. But if someone truly supplicates, wants to take flight, wants to break out of that framework and find an opening within, who does this with their entire being? If someone always has an opening within, is it possible for them to do this again? To attain what is already attained, so to speak. If someone is not thirsty, do they seek water? On the one hand, we attribute to the religious leaders that they supplicated from the depths of their hearts. For instance, it is said of Imam Ali's states that he would supplicate in such a way that he would writhe like a person bitten by a snake—it is in Nahj al-Balagha. After all, if someone does not feel a deficiency or a weakness within themselves, and their entire being is not stirred to emerge from that deficiency and that weakness, can they perform genuine supplication at all? That would just be putting on an act. This shows that the conceptions we hold about these figures, about the religious leaders, are very simplistic, vulgar, and unstudied conceptions. They too had these human limitations, and they too wanted to emerge from these human limitations. The difference between their supplication and our supplication is that they possessed himma—that which the mystics emphasize so greatly: aspiration. Unfortunately, my memory is very weak, and I cannot recite the appropriate verses for you. The himma they possessed—meaning they would rise up from within with such intensity, from within toward their supreme destination.

We lack the resolve to leap; we keep sinking into what is called lethargy, idleness, laziness, or whatever. They did not have that; they would leap. Leaping begins with resolve—that is their virtue, not that they had no limitations. Otherwise, the acts of worship attributed to them become meaningless; genuine supplications lose their meaning then. And sometimes we recite certain prayers without paying attention. These prayers are attributed to the Imams, yet in them they come and say: 'O God, I am grateful that You have seen so many unworthy deeds from me and You have covered them.' What do these words mean? For instance, in the Kumayl supplication, if I remember correctly, there is this sentence: 'And how many a vile deed You have concealed.' You saw vile deeds from me, but You concealed them; others did not learn of them. Or a prayer like this: 'O God, make me better than what they think of me.' This too is in the supplications. 'O God, make me better than what people imagine about me. I am not what people imagine; they think I am, for example, pure light. I myself know I am not like that. Make me better than that.' You see, there are many issues. When we examine these, we see that we are caught up in exaggerations, to the point that we remove our religious leaders from humanity and place them between God and man. Now, where the roots of this come from—I have views on this, that the issue of incarnation in Christianity has greatly influenced Islamic theology and Islamic culture. Anyway, this has gone on too long, I apologize. So, what I can say on this matter is this.

The question and answer session on the infallibility and knowledge of the Prophet was conducted during a speech by Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari on the occasion of the Prophet's (PBUH) passing at the Islamic Association of Isfahan University of Technology.

Date of speech: 2009/03/04

Download the audio of the Q&A on the infallibility and knowledge of the Prophet

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