As for the devil who says to someone who is not a prophet, “You are a true prophet; Allah has sent me to you,” such a devil is one of the greatest liars. Lying entails debauchery, so he must necessarily command the person to do what is not righteousness but sin, and must convey to him not truth but falsehood—just as happens with those devils mislead from among the ignorant devotees, and with anyone in whose sight it is embellished that he is a prophet, or the Mahdi, or the Seal of the saints. All of these will inevitably be ordered by the devils to commit sin, and the devil will inevitably lie in part of what he tells them, in fulfillment of the Almighty’s words:

“Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend?” ⦗ash-Shuʿarāʾ 26:221⦘ (221)

“They descend upon every persistent liar and sinner.” ⦗ash-Shuʿarāʾ 26:222⦘

Accordingly, such a condition never accompanies a claim to prophethood on the part of the righteous—those whom Allah has accustomed to having their supplications answered in ways that defy normal patterns. Rather, it accompanies the claim only of the mendacious libertines. If, however, a person is truthful in claiming prophethood and knows that he is truthful, it is established that he is indeed a prophet.

Prophets are protected from being allowed to persist in error in what they convey from Allah—this is unanimously agreed upon—and therefore everything they transmit from Allah is truth, and it is—