Can prophets commit minor sins?

In al-Shifa, Qadi Iyad reports the Muslims' consensus that prophets are protected from indecencies and ruinous grave sins, and from concealing the message or falling short in conveying it; on minor sins he reports three views — possible, suspended judgement, and protected — and chooses the last. ¹

Iyad says the majority base protection from grave sins on consensus, which is the view of Qadi Abu Bakr, while others ground it in transmitted proof together with consensus, the choice of Ustadh Abu Ishaq. ¹ He states that on either view they are protected from repeating minor sins or committing many of them, and from any minor sin that destroys dignity and decency, since that would lower the station of its bearer and turn hearts away from him. ²

A group of verifying jurists and theologians held that prophets are protected from minor sins as from grave ones, arguing from people's disagreement over which sins are minor, and from the saying of Ibn Abbas and others that whatever God is disobeyed by is grave, some being called minor only relative to greater ones. ¹ Some imams argued from the duty to follow the Prophet ﷺ's actions: if minor sins were possible for him, his acts of devotion could not be told apart from sins, and no one can be commanded to follow what may be a sin. Iyad adds that the Companions followed his actions whatever they were, throwing away their rings when he threw away his and taking off their sandals when he took off his. ^{2 3} This is the view Iyad defends; he devotes a section "to answering those who allowed minor sins to them". ⁴

Iyad reports that a group of the early generations and others held minor sins possible for prophets, and that this was the view of Abu Ja'far al-Tabari and other jurists, hadith scholars and theologians. ¹ They argued from the apparent sense of Qur'anic verses and hadiths: the verses on forgiveness of past and future sin and the command to seek forgiveness, the stories of Adam, Jonah, David and Moses, the Prophet's prayers for forgiveness, and the prophets' mention of their sins in the hadith of intercession. ^{5 6}

Another group suspended judgement, saying that reason does not rule out minor sins from prophets and that revelation brings no decisive proof either way. ¹

Iyad argues that the apparent meanings they cite, if taken literally, would lead to allowing grave sins and breaking consensus, and that exegetes differ on everything they cite; since their view is not a consensus, one must turn to the other. ⁵ On the verse about forgiveness of past and future sin he lists the exegetes' readings: sins before and after prophethood; what happened and what did not; what came before prophethood, with protection after it; that his community is meant; or what came from forgetfulness and interpretation — the reading reported by al-Tabari and chosen by al-Qushayri. ⁶

• All three views lie within the Sunni frame and are given here as Iyad reports them; no academic view, no other school's position (such as the Imami doctrine of complete protection) and none of al-Tabari's own texts have been added yet from their sources.

Commenting on al-Baqara 36, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi sorts the disagreement on the prophets' protection into four areas: belief, conveying the message, rulings and fatwas, and conduct. ⁷ He reports that believing unbelief is impossible for them according to most of the community; that the community agrees they are protected from lying or distortion in conveying the message deliberately, while some allowed it by inadvertence; and that all agree they cannot err deliberately in a fatwa, differing over inadvertence. ⁷ On conduct he gives five views: grave sins possible deliberately, which he ascribes to the Hashwiyya; minor sins possible deliberately except repellent ones, the view of most Mu'tazilis; neither deliberately but both by mistaken interpretation, al-Jubba'i's view; sins only by inadvertence and error, for which they are still held to account; and no sin at all, which he ascribes to the 'Rafida', his term for the Imami Shi'a. On when protection begins he gives three views, among them that it begins with prophethood and not before, the view of most of his own school. ⁸ He then chooses that no sin came from them at all during prophethood, giving sixteen arguments, and reads his opponents' proofs, such as the story of Adam, as leaving what was better. ^{8 9 10 11}