All the people of the Sunnah and the community, together with the leading scholars of the religion, hold that none of the Companions, the Prophet’s relatives, the earliest believers, or anyone else is infallible. Rather, they acknowledge that these people may commit sins. Allah Most High forgives them through repentance and raises their ranks thereby. He also forgives them through good deeds that erase sins, or through other means. The Most High says:

“Those who bring the truth and believe in it—they are the righteous.
They will have whatever they wish with their Lord. That is the reward of those who do good,
so that Allah may absolve them of the worst of what they did and reward them according to the best of their deeds.”

The Most High also says:

“Until, when he reaches full maturity and reaches forty years, he says, ‘My Lord, inspire me to be grateful for Your favour which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and to do righteous deeds that please You. Make my offspring righteous for me. Indeed, I have repented to You, and I am one of those who submit to You.’
Those are the ones from whom We accept the best of what they did and whose misdeeds We overlook, among the people of Paradise.”

It is the prophets, however—may Allah Most High be pleased with them all—whom the scholars describe as protected from persisting in sin. As for the foremost in truthfulness, the martyrs, and the righteous, they are not infallible. This concerns actual sins.

As for matters in which they exercise independent scholarly judgment, sometimes they are right and sometimes they are mistaken. When they exercise such judgment and reach the correct conclusion, they receive two rewards. When they exercise it and are mistaken, they receive one reward for their effort, and their error is forgiven.

Those who are astray regard error and sin as inseparable. At times they go to excess in venerating these people, saying that they are infallible; at other times they treat them harshly, saying that their errors make them transgressors. People of knowledge and faith are not infallible, nor are they deemed sinful for their errors.