Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) Is Infallible

No further arguments from Con may be presented in R4, at risk of default loss. PM = Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) Foundation I. By accepting this debate, Con thereby concedes all stipulations made in R1. It thus follows, to have any chance of wining this debate Con must necessarily disprove the affirmative resolution within said stipulations. Specifically, Con must disprove the statement ‘PM is infallible as per the doctrine of Ismah’ -already established in R1-R2, more precisely, the statement ‘PM is unerring & not liable to mislead or deceive in conveying the message of God & acting upon it’, which he has yet to negate, entailing then a decisive loss. All attempts to argue against or for anything else other than this from Con are, by definition, straw-man & red-herring -the bulk of Con’s case, & thus must all be dismissed. II. Con yet assumes an unintelligible notion of Infallibility. An analogy to elaborate: to establish that X is a law abiding American citizen one is required to verify that all X’s acts conform to American Law. Con inevitably understands ‘law abiding’ here to mean something else so he would argue instead, X’s acts are not conform to non-American Law. This essentially renders the whole notion of ‘law abiding’ utterly senseless & self-contradictory! Similarly, to establish that PM is an infallible messenger of Allah, one is simply required to verify that PM’s acts conform infallibly to Allah’s Law. Instead, Con concedes this under the pretext of “tautological claim” & instead argues that PM’s acts are not conform to other than Allah’s Law. Absurd! Con’s use of the definition of ‘Infallibility’ is simply an equivocation of its meaning, analogous to the use of ‘law abiding’ for an American citizen under non-American Law. This is crucial to Con’s entire case & rebuttals, hence should wholly invalidate it. III. Con essentially ignores my formulation claiming it’s circular in nature by “disproving” his own made up bogus versions of it! That’s straw-man by definition. In particular, the statement “an Islamic doctrine is valid, if & only if it is consistent with the Qur’an” straw-manned into a jumble of unrelated syllogisms, which thus must wholly be ignored. If Con wishes to contest the statement, he must necessarily show that an Islamic doctrine is valid when it isn’t consistent with the Qur’an, or invalid in case it is. Which is an impossible task to accomplish, for the statement is true by design. Akin to saying, an American code of law is valid, if & only if it is consistent with the American Constitution ; which I’m sure Con wouldn’t designate as circular reasoning. To elucidate the absurdity, if we take the Labor code for example, Con’s argument is to say that “the Labor code (/Islamic doctrine) is valid, if & only if it is consistent with the Constitution (/Qur’an)” is a circular statement! On a similar note, Con resorts to Ad populum fallacy [9], “If many believe so, it is so”. In truth, opinions of non-Muslims or Muslims alike regarding the infallibility of PM would simply be utterly inconsequent, as they inform it as much as they would inform the validity of the Labor code. That is, the ultimate authority on the validity of the Infallibility doctrine or the Labor code is the Qur’an & the Constitution, respectively, not opinions! Final Rebuttals 1. Purity - Adrressed. 2. Inerrancy - Uncontested. 3. Exemplification - Straw-man. “worthy to be followed” is entirely beside my argument here, about inerrant divine guidance! 4. Morality - Straw-man & fallacy of composition [6]. I argued that having great moral character necessarily negates having immorality, entailing being infallible to fall into immorality. It says nothing about being infallible in everything else as Con implies, which is irrelevant here. PM was illiterate! 5. Imperfection - Bare assertion fallacy. Contrary to what Con pretends, the Qur’an unequivocally asserts the infallibility of PM, in inerrant divine guidance, high moral character & inerrancy in relaying revelation, all of which contradict him falling into actual sin. This however does not entail PM to be perfect as God is, for as a human he can not worship God as He deserves, especially in matters which have yet to be revealed to him, thus must ever pray to God & asks for His forgiveness. To avoid contradicting the explicit statement of the Qur’an Muslim theologians are thus forced to opt for this only explanation. As we see in the Bible, Jesus asking the Father for forgiveness, Matthew 6:12 “forgive us our sins/debts”. According to Ellicott’s Commentary “It is, of course, opposed to the whole teaching of Scripture to believe that there dwelt on His human spirit the memory of a single transgression” asserting "in reference to the limitations of the true, yet absolutely sinless, humanity which [Jesus] vouchsafed to assume, it is just conceivable that He too Himself may have used this prayer” [5]. It is hence absolutely unjustifiable to discard the divinely asserted inerrancy of PM in the Qur’an or that of Jesus in the Bible, just because they asked for forgiveness for 'sin', then only warranted by their human limitations. Polysyllogism - Con dismisses my entire argument because it doesn’t qualify as a categorical syllogism without actually disproving it! We should invent a new fallacy for this! The argument conclusively establishes the exact resolution of this debate “PM Is Infallible”, which completely fulfils the BOP required on Pro, thus unless logically disproved without resorting to straw-mans & red-herring & other fallacies, it shall stand for Con’s loss & Pro’s decisive win. A. - Addressed. Ad populum. B. - Con’s source here is a Christian missionary article, violating the rules of the debate, thus dismissed. If Ali Dashti means ‘sin’ as immoral act then he is speaking against the clear statement of the Qur’an & the consensus of Muslim theologians of all sects of Islam regarding the infallibility of PM. C. - False. Special pleading is to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule without justification [11]. The Qur’an makes rules & makes exceptions for these rules, themselves rules -like any legislation or constitution does, which is all that matters here. - There are simply no verses stating it’s the duty of PM to appoint a successor! The Sunni/Shi’a split is a modern political designation. Historically, there were a great number of sects or groups rising against the orthodox Sunni tradition:Khawarij, Mu’tazila, Jahmyyah, Shi’a, among many others [10], each with their own ideas on legitimacy & succession. Today, Imamyyah & Zaydyah (Shi’a sects) survive. Con’s “jewel of the crown” is merely an argument from ignorance. According to Sunnis & Zaydyyah (oldest Shi’a sect), PM is not required to appoint a successor nor should he, for they believe legitimacy in Leadership stems from the community & not divine ordinance [7], the latter pertaining to Imamyyah beliefs based on their own sources deemed forged [8]. D. - Addressed. Conclusion - It has been throughly established in R2 through R4 that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), though remains imperfect as a human, is infallible (defined as unerring & not liable to mislead..) in conveying & acting upon God’s message as per the doctrine of Ismah -in perfect accordance with the resolution, shown to be unequivocally & necessarily implied by the Qur’an in R2, conclusively through the polysyllogism laid in R3. Uncontestedly Fulfiling the BOP. While Con resorts to exposed series of straw-mans & many other fallacies, arguing from equivocations & proven senseless notions of infallibility, all irrelevant to the resolution, such he has yet to prove that Muhammad (pbuh) was not infallible in conveying or acting upon God's message. => Vote Pro.Sources [5] goo.gl/1fy4nE [6] goo.gl/S8QVJ8 [7] goo.gl/bRXN7a / goo.gl/7RYtKy [8] goo.gl/SPfNTS [9] goo.gl/CekA4E [10] goo.gl/HinHYL [11] goo.gl/aekc3A