Are the prophets protected from sin?

While discussing loving what God loves and disliking what He dislikes, in volume ten of Majmu' al-Fatawa, Ibn Taymiyya builds his argument on a "principle": the protection (ismah) of the prophets, distinguishing protection in conveying the message from protection in other matters. ¹

Ibn Taymiyya states that the prophets are protected in what they report from God and in conveying His messages, by the agreement of the community, which is why belief in all that they were given is obligatory. ^{1 2} Others, he holds, are not protected as they are, even if they are friends of God; hence whoever reviles a prophet is put to death by the jurists' agreement, while whoever reviles another is not. This protection is what achieves the purpose of prophethood and messengership, so that no error remains in what they convey, by the agreement of Muslims. ²

Ibn Taymiyya relates two views on whether something can occur that God then corrects, abrogating what Satan cast and establishing His verses, as in the verse of al-Hajj. Later scholars who denied it criticised the addition reported in Surat al-Najm, saying it was not established, or that Satan cast it into the people's hearing and the Messenger did not utter it, and they took the "wish" in the verse to mean inner thought; those who upheld what is reported from the early generations said it is firmly transmitted and that the reports explaining the verse are well known. The reports from the early generations, he says, agree with the Qur'an on this. ³ He holds that the Messenger's making known that God had established His verses and abrogated what Satan cast is stronger evidence of his care for truth, and cites Aisha's saying that had he concealed anything of the revelation he would have concealed a verse of Surat al-Ahzab. ⁴

Ibn Taymiyya notes that people dispute protection in matters other than conveying the message: is it established by reason or by revelation? Does it cover major and minor sins, or some of them? Is it protection from being left in them rather than from committing them? Is it required only in conveying? Is it required before the mission? ^{4 5} The view of most people, agreeing with the reports transmitted from the early generations, is, he says, to affirm protection from being left to persist in sins in every case, and to reject the view of those who allow that they might be left in them. ⁵

Ibn Taymiyya holds that the arguments of those who affirm protection, properly examined, prove only this view. Their argument that following the prophets' example is prescribed is answered by noting that following applies to what they were left upon, not to what they were forbidden and turned back from – just as an abrogated command is not obeyed. Their arguments that sins contradict perfection, are uglier in one on whom great favour has been bestowed, or repel people, hold only, for him, where the sin persists without repentance. ⁵

Ibn Taymiyya says that sincere repentance, which God accepts, raises its doer higher than he was before. He quotes an early saying that David after his repentance was better than before his sin, and another: "Were repentance not the dearest thing to Him, He would not have tried the most honoured of creatures with sin"; he cites the hadith of God's joy at His servant's repentance, the hadith of bad deeds exchanged for good ones, and Sa'id ibn Jubayr's saying that a servant may do a good deed, admire himself for it and enter the Fire by it, and do a bad deed and remain fearful and repentant until he enters Paradise by it. ^{5 6}

Ibn Taymiyya does not name those who affirm absolute protection in this passage; their view needs to be set out from Ash'ari, Mu'tazili and Imami books. Academic studies of the question and a detailed account of the reports of the "cranes" episode and their criticism have not yet been added.