reports, “I am the Messenger of Allah,” for he maintains: “Allah has sent down to me this entire Book and has commissioned me to do such-and-such for such-and-such a people. If I have lied in any part of what I relay from Allah, then Allah has not sent me at all, for the very One who dispatches me has charged me to convey His words exactly as they are, without addition or omission.

When Allah sends a messenger, two elements are implicit. First, Allah Himself originates the mission: He is All-Wise and knows best where to place His messages, entrusting them only to the most perfect and truthful of His creatures. Second, Allah bears witness to that messenger’s veracity in everything he conveys on His behalf—everything for which he says, “Allah has sent me with this.” Just as Allah validates his declaration “He has sent me” through manifest miracles, He likewise validates every matter concerning which the messenger says, “He has sent me with it,” for to affirm that Allah dispatched him while doubting the truth of what he reports yields no benefit and thwarts the very objective of the mission.

Allah, exalted is He, knows what He attests to concerning the one He has sent, unlike a human patron who may commission someone he merely assumes to be truthful, only to discover later that the envoy has lied about him. Allah knows the ultimate outcomes of affairs, and the commissioning of messengers issues from His knowledge and wisdom; He is All-Knowing, All-Wise. Anyone who fabricates against Allah—if only in a single word—has not, in fact, conveyed anything on His behalf and therefore cannot be His messenger.

For this reason, the followers of every religious community agree that the messengers are infallible in what they transmit from Allah; they do not lie about Him, neither deliberately nor inadvertently, for that is the very purpose of messengership. Hence, likening this matter to a deed of debt is an invalid analogy, because the person claiming that the obligation has been discharged is not alleging any statement