Texts of Islam

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Abraham: The Infallibility of God's Viceroys

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This is a theological treatise from within the Shia Islamic tradition, functioning as scriptural exegesis focused on the doctrine of the infallibility (*ʿiṣma*) of prophets and their divinely appointed successors (imams/viceroys). Its central argument draws on Quran 2:124 — God's declaration to Abraham that "My covenant includeth not wrong-doers" — to assert that divine leadership requires not merely personal purity but complete ancestral purity extending back to Adam: no prophet, imam, or their forebears can ever have been a polytheist or sinner, even momentarily. The work's most distinctive claim is its extension of this infallibility requirement to the entire patrilineal chain, making genealogical purity a theological necessity rather than a biographical accident. It marshals specifically Shia authoritative sources — the Imams Al-Sadiq and Al-Hadi, the ritual texts *Ziyarat Al-Jami'ah* and *Ziyarat Warith*, Al-Sahifah Al-Sajjadiyyah, and Nahj Al-Balaghah — as corroborating evidence. The text also addresses a potential scriptural problem: the Quran depicts Abraham's father "Azar" as an idolater, which the author resolves by arguing Azar was Abraham's uncle rather than biological father (whose name was Terah), preserving the purity-of-lineage thesis. A parenthetical note explicitly frames the stakes in Sunni-Shia terms: Shia belief in God-appointed viceroys versus Sunni reliance on communal election, with the author treating the former as the only doctrinally coherent position.

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Abraham: The Infallibility of God's Viceroys

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