Are the Prophets sinless?
Question:
I truly want to live a life that is most pleasing, most honouring to God above anything else. So in view of this I want to ask if you can help me to better understand the view of Islam on how to live such a life:
1. What must I do to have 100% full confidence that God will grant me access to His eternal presence in the Day of Judgement?
2. On the internet I find mixed opinions on whether the prophets have lived sinless lives. Some say they did commit sin but that it is excusable because of the circumstances. Some say they did not commit sin but only made mistakes. Is there a difference between sin, moral failures, and mistakes in Islam?
3. I have committed some really horrible sins in my life. What can I do to obtain peace and full confidence that God will forgive me for those sins.
4. In the Day of Judgement, will God measure me based on how I lived compared to the lives of other people (the requirement of my life being more acceptable to Him than that of most other people), or will He measure me against the example of pureness that was set by the prophets, or will He measure me to a standard of complete and full obedience and holiness?
I will greatly appreciate your guidance and wisdom on these questions please. Thank you so much for your time, teachings, and all the readings you’ve sent me.
Have a wonderful afternoon.
Answer:
I want to begin by commending you for these thoughtful and insightful questions that should really be the worry and concern of every human being till he/she finds the answers.
Question 1:
The first thing to do, in order to attain this type of certainty, is to ensure that we have certainty in the words of God. That we truly believe the Quran is the word of God and that God will always fulfill His promises as He has stated in His book. Without this initial certainty, we cannot then be certain of what God will do.
Secondly, in Islam, God has promised that His eternal pleasure is reserved for those who
1. Accept Him as the only being worthy of worship (and by corollary accept all His prophets)
2. Try their best to do good deeds and refrain from evil deeds
3. Seek forgiveness whenever they err (which must happen)
This is clearly and explicitly mentioned by God in the Quran and since we know the Quran is from Him, we have 100 percent confidence that if we try our best in these regards we will attain His happiness.
It also depends what you mean by full confidence. Can we ever know that we will never change our minds and go back to a life of sin or leave God? No, because we don’t know the future. When we say we are 100% certain we will attain bliss we mean that if we try our best in doing good and seeking forgiveness when we err, we are 100 percent sure of attaining Gods happiness.
Note: We must remember that God is not expecting us to always follow the correct path and not to make mistakes. He rather wants us to try our best and He will do the rest.
As God says, if my servant comes to me walking I go to him running.
Question 2:
In Islam, scholars are quite clear on the idea that prophets do not commit sins in the sense of doing things that are accepted as being bad by their entire nation and are explicitly prohibited by their law code. So like stealing, fornication etc. However, even they are humans, and it is possible that whilst they didn’t break the explicit law of God, they still chose a course of action that was not the most preferable. So there is a difference between a sin, which is the breaking of the explicit law of God and a mistake, which may not be a sin.
At times, when they do this, God may reprimand them and they ask for forgiveness, even though this wasn’t a sin. This is because they are specially chosen by God and are subject to a higher criteria. This is like when a stranger makes a comment that is insensitive about us as opposed to when our close friend does something like that. We may overlook the stranger but not the friend because he is expected to know not to say things like that. Similarly, if our own child were to do something wrong we would get more angry than if it was another child because our own child is special to us.
There is a saying of Islamic Scholars, “the good deeds of the pious are the sins of those who are very close to God”.
What this means is that those who are considered pious would be reading Quran and praying etc but even whilst doing that, they could become negligent and think of other things etc. However, God does not take them to task for this. When it comes to His special servants however, God may take them to task for such lapses due to their high rank although they too will be pardoned if they repent.
Question 3:
In Islam, based on what we have learnt from the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet ﷺ, a person who has committed even the most horrendous of crimes can be redeemed. In 39:53, God says:
Say, ˹O Prophet, that Allah says,˺ “O My servants who have exceeded the limits against their souls! Do not lose hope in Allah’s mercy, for Allah certainly forgives all sins. He is indeed the All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
There are four conditions which ensure that a person can know he has been forgiven:
1. To sincerely repent
2. To get himself out of the sin
3. He truly regrets his actions
4. He firmly intends never to do it again
Once these conditions are met, we can be sure that God will forgive us but God also advises that we further emphasize this