She said, “in what (1) people call lying”—namely, equivocation.

As for the Rāfidah’s fabricated claim that neither error nor any minor sin can ever issue from the Prophet, whether before or after his prophethood, and that the same is true of the Imams, this is a doctrine in which they alone differ from every other group within the Muslim community. It contradicts the Quran, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early Muslims.

One of their aims in this is to impugn the imamate of Abu Bakr and Umar—may Allah be pleased with them both—because they embraced Islam after having been unbelievers. They claim that Ali—may Allah be pleased with him—was always a believer and never erred or sinned, and they make the same claim concerning all twelve Imams.

The falsehood and error of this claim are evident to every rational person familiar with their circumstances. This is why they are the most extreme of all sects in this regard and the furthest removed from both reason and revelation.

The crux of their position is that they deemed the occurrence of such things among the prophets and Imams to be a deficiency from which they must necessarily be declared free. Yet they are mistaken in one of these two premises or the other.

As for the first premise, anyone who repents to Allah Most High and returns to Him, thereby attaining after repentance a higher rank than he held before it, is neither deficient nor diminished in standing. Rather, he is greatly favored and honored. This resolves all the specious arguments they advance.

Once it is understood that a man may be among the allies of Allah despite having embraced Islam after unbelief, believed after hypocrisy, and obeyed after disobedience—as was the case with the finest allies of Allah from this Muslim community, namely, the foremost and earliest believers—the soundness of this principle becomes clear.