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From: whaddara@kean.ucs.mun.ca (AL-NABEGHA AL-DHEBYANI)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: The nature of the Prophet
Message-ID: <1991Apr30.134051.3489@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 30 Apr 91 13:40:51 GMT
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From: zeeshan@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Zeeshan Hasan)
Subject:the nature of the Prophet
Date: 26 Apr 91 21:53:10 GMT
Message-ID:<1991Apr26.215310.5015@wpi.WPI.EDU>


>	It seems to me that this board has been somewhat lacking in 
>serious discussion about Islam, which I think is a pity.  There are 
>plenty of things out there that we as Muslims need to discuss, and 
>the fact that we are not all scholars does not mean that we should 
>keep quiet.  
>	With this in mind, I would like to start a discussion about 
>about the ways in which the Prophet is viewed.  I ask this as it is 
>an extremely important issue, with many consequences for the ways in
>which we view the Hadith and Quran.
>	I hope that no one will be offended by this.  My point is not
>to insult Islam or the Prophet in any way.  I would rather that we 
>all learn something through discussion that will make better Muslims
>of all of us.
>	To begin, I would like to point out the following Hadith, from
>the Sahih Bukhari:
		
>	"I am only a man.  He who takes something from me must
>	 beware, for he may have taken a portion of the Fire."

>	This Hadith would appear to indicate that the Prophet was 
>capable of making mistakes in the matter of religious guidance.  If 
>that is the case, the Hadith themselves must be abandoned as a source
>of Islamic law, as their authority stems from the infallibility of the
>Prophet.  In that case, the vast majority of what is now known as 
>"Islamic Law", which has its foundations in the Hadith, must be revised.
>The Quran would be the only reliable source.

	Let me point out that it is exceedingly dangerous to do a 
freehand interpretation of Qur'an or Hadith. It is even more dangerous 
to attempt to do so from a translation. The hadith given above can be 
interpreted in a number of ways. An obvious one that was already 
indicated is that he was talking about things only he was allowed to 
do. 

>	Besides the obvious legal implications, the ideas presented
>above seem to conflict with the common traditional view that the Prophet 
>was a perfect man whose divinely guided life was free from error and sin.
>This has usually been thought to be a necessary assumption, as without it
>we must face the possibility that errors were made in the prophets 
>transmission of the Quran to us.  It may seem that by acknowledging his
>fallibility we lose our assurance that Islam is indeed based on the word 
>of God.  However, this is not the case.  It is possible to hold that, 
>though he was a human being as fallible as are all others, his function 
>as a conveyor of the divine word was done completely according to God's 
>wishes, and therefore free from error.  Thus the Quran may still be the 
>perfect divine word, even if the prophet was not a sinless man.

	The prophet pbuh was not a sinless man as he has said in a 
hadith :" All children of Adam are sinners. The best of the sinners are 
those who repent..."
	But in terms of Religion and religious verdicts he was in fact 
infallible. Infallibilty does *not* mean that he will never have given 
an 'incorrect' ruling, but rather that if he did, the correct ruling 
would be transmitted to him by God , and this happened a couple of 
times :" Ma kana lerasulen an yakuna lahu asra hatta yuthkhena fil 
ardh" ( Qur'an) I don't have the translatio, but this was referring to 
the prisoners of Badr. 
	As to the possibilty of the prophet being only half-fallible, 
that's not possible, since there are a number of things in the Qur'an 
that are incomplete without the hadith e.g. prayers. Hence either he 
was completely infallible as far as Islam went, or Islam is not a 
'true' religion. I've thought ** a lot ** about this latter point and 
have decided to the contrary, as have most other people. Therefore if 
one is to believe in Islam, one must believe in the infallibility of 
the Prophet.

>	I'll continue this later.  Again, I apologize for offending anyone.
>But I think some things are important enough that they must be discussed.  
>+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>   Zeeshan Hasan              zeeshan@occs.cs.oberlin.edu 
>                              skh7063@oberlin.bitnet     
>      "Of course I love mankind... it's people I can't stand!"   
>                                         - Linus Van Pelt    
>+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
-- 
Salam

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Wael M. Haddara	 	           | whaddara@kean.ucs.mun.ca
School of Pharmacy                 |
Memorial Univ of Newfoundland      | "I have tried too to be a 
St.John's, Newfoundland            | philosopher in my time; but I 
Canada                             | don't know how, cheerfulness was
				   | always breaking in"
All Disclaimers apply- I'm only    |   Oliver Edwards
a student :-)	                   |
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