the Exalted: because making a person a prophet and messenger is one of the acts of Allah the Exalted, those who deny wise purposes and causes in His acts, regard those acts as dependent upon sheer will alone, deem it possible for Him to do anything possible, and do not declare Him transcendent above any action whatsoever—as is the position of Jahm ibn Safwān and many others, including al-Ashʿarī and the dialectical theologians who agreed with him from among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others who affirmed the divine decree—hold that any legally accountable person could be sent. In their view, prophethood is simply Allah’s informing a person of what He has revealed to him, while messengership is simply His commanding him to convey what He has revealed to him. Prophethood, according to them, is neither an affirmative attribute nor does it entail an attribute unique to that person. Rather, it is a relational attribute, just as they make the same claim concerning the rulings of Sacred Law.

This is the position of several groups of dialectical theologians, including Jahm ibn Safwān, al-Ashʿarī, and their followers. Accordingly, those who hold this position—such as al-Qādī Abū Bakr, Abū al-Maʿālī, and others—say:

Reason requires a prophet to be infallible only in conveying revelation, for this alone is what the miracle proves. As for anything beyond that, his infallibility from it is required only if revelation indicates it; otherwise, it is not required.

Leading authorities among them, such as Abū al-Maʿālī and others, have said that revealed evidence contains no definitive proof requiring infallibility, while the apparent meanings of the texts indicate that the prophets committed sins (1). Likewise, al-Qādī Abū Bakr affirms whatever infallibility he affirms beyond conveying revelation only where it is a matter of consensus, because consensus is authoritative proof. As for anything else, he says that neither reason nor revealed evidence indicates it.

And when the Muʿtazilah and those Shia who agree with them argue against these theologians that this necessarily entails