and swearing by the rival he has taken—his imam, his shaykh, or some other figure—without considering it permissible to lie. You implore him, “By Allah, by Allah,” yet he gives you nothing; but when you beseech him by someone he venerates—his imam, his shaykh, or some other figure—he gives you what you ask. He prays to Allah in his home and calls upon Him, yet experiences little humility. But when he visits the grave of someone he venerates, hoping to call upon the deceased, to supplicate through him, or to supplicate at his grave, he experiences humility and tears such as he never experiences when worshipping Allah and supplicating Him in the House of Allah or in the home of the worshipper engaged in supplication. You will also find one of them becoming angry when the rival he has taken is spoken of as having some fault or deficiency, whereas Allah may be described in terms of faults and deficiencies without his becoming angry for His sake.

The same is often found among outright polytheists and among those in this community who harbor some element of polytheism. Christians declare human beings free of many things that they attribute to the Lord: they say that Allah has a son, yet declare many of their eminent figures above having a son. Many of them say that Allah sleeps, whereas, in their view, al-Bāb does not sleep. There are many such examples.] (1).

[The Second Approach: Infallibility before the prophetic mission is not obligatory]

It may further be said:

Second (2): Muslims agree that they are infallible in what they convey (3) from Allah. [Thus, He cannot allow them to persist in error concerning anything they convey from Him] (4), and this secures the purpose of the prophetic mission.

[As for the claim that, before being sent as a prophet, he must never err or sin, there is nothing in