Difference Between Prophet & Messenger

Out in the ether, an interesting discussion is taking place about the difference in Islamic theology between prophet (nabi) and messenger (rasul).

There are two terms being used, namely 'Prophet' and 'Messenger.' The Arabic equivalents of these are 'Nabi' for prophet and 'Rasool' for Messenger. So every rasool/Messenger was a nabi/Prophet, but not every nabi/Prophet was a rasool/Messenger.

Therefore, 'Messenger' is the higher status. And there are basically 5 messengers, while there are lots and lots of prophets. The first 'Prophet' was the father of mankind, Adam, and 25 prophets are mentioned in the Qur'an. The first 'Messenger' however was Noah, and according to most scholars the messengers are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Regarding being protected from sin, both prophets and messengers are considered to be protected from major sins, and infallible as regards conveying the message which has been given to them. So they do not commit major sins, and they do not make mistakes in conveying the message. But they are not protected from minor sins or mistakes in other matters.

Are there any comments about the veracity of these interpretations by the educated folk here?

I am unsure of the exact question.....

however, i will elaborate some for you if this is appropriate or not...... I have written extensively on this topic and I will share with you one particular writing of mine


Sinlessness of our beloved Prophet (pbuh)

the sunni view is that all the anbiya (as) are sinless, there is no sunni who holds a different view.

mistakes is a different story, some sunnis believe that the anbiya (as) doesn't make mistakes while others believe that they can make mistakes, the latter view is the majority view, if a person goes around saying this prophet made this mistake and that mistake etc thereby trying to disparage a nabi (as) then it will be taken as if he'swill be ca insulting the nabi (as) and the sharia hadd will be carried out on him.
(the above is a quote from a sunni aalim)

now here is where the sunni differ from shi3a in this matter, shi3a believe that no nabi (as) can even to make a mistake but even this veiw is also held by many sunni...

the quran has no contradicitons in it... when ever something is not clear to us it is simply in our misunderstanding of ayat and not a contradiciton......whenever we think there is one we simply need to ask questions and study further........ I will leave you now with the ayah that proves the sinlessness of our beloved Prophet (pbuh)

‏53:2 ماضل صاحبكم وماغوى
Your companion does not err, nor does he go astray


definition of "mistake"

. An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.

therefore a mistake is something that totally and completely 100% goes against the quran insofar as the character of the anbiyah (as) is concerned......... let me to explain.......

the Prophets came to convey to people the Message of God. If we liken this Message or the Divine Revelation to light or pure water, as the Qur’an itself does (al-Ra’d, 13. 17; al-Nur, 24.35), it is absolutely necessary and indispensable to the nature of the Revelation that both the Archangel Gabriel who brought the Revelation, and the Prophet himself who conveyed it to people, should be absolutely pure. Otherwise, that Divine light, the Revelation, would have been extinguished or dimmed, or that ‘pure water’ polluted. Every falling off is an impurity, a dark spot, in the heart. Like Gabriel, the heart or soul of the Prophet is like a ‘polished mirror’ through which the Divine Revelation is reflected to people, or a ‘cup’ from which people quench their thirst for that pure ‘Divine water’. Any black spot on the mirror would absorb a ray of that light; a single drop of mud would be enough to make the water unclear. This would mean that the Prophets did not – God forbid such a thought! – convey the whole of God’s Message. Whereas, in truth, they performed their duty perfectly and left nothing of the Message not conveyed. This is clear from the following verses of the Qur’an:

O Messenger! Convey what has been sent to you from your Lord. If you did not, you would not have fulfilled His mission. And God will defend you from people. Certainly, God guides not the unbelieving people. (al-Ma’ida, 5.67)

Today I have perfected your religion for you, and I have completed My favour upon you, and I have chosen and approved for you Islam as religion. (al-Ma’ida, 5.3)

Secondly, people learn from the Prophets all the commandments and principles concerning belief and conduct. In order that people should learn these commandments in their pristine purity and truth and as perfectly as possible to secure their happiness and prosperity in both worlds, the Prophets must, first, represent, and, then, present them without any faults or defects, for they are guides and good examples for people to follow, as explicitly stated in the Qur’an:

You have indeed in the Messenger of God a beautiful pattern, an excellent example, for anyone who aspires after God and the Last Day, and who engages much in the remembrance of God. (al-Ahzab, 33.21)

There is for you an excellent example in Abraham and those with him – there was indeed in them an excellent example for you – for those who aspire after God and the Last Day. (al-Mumtahana, 60. 4,6)

the Qur’an commands believers to obey all the orders or prohibitions of the Prophet without exception, and emphasizes that: it is not fitting for a believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by God and His Messenger, to have any option about their decision (al-Ahzab, 33.36). It also warns believers that what falls to them when God and His Messenger have given a judgment is only to say, ‘We have heard and obeyed’ (al-Nur, 24.51). Absolute obedience to a Prophet means that the Prophet is right in all his commands and prohibitions.

Prophethood is so great a favor that all the Prophets bore unbearable pains in fulfilling the duty of thanksgiving and were always worried about not having worshipped God sufficiently. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, often implored God using the following words:

Glory be to You, we have not been able to know You as Your knowledge requires, O Known One.

Glory be to You, we have not been able to worship You as Your worship requires, O Worshipped One.

so to say that the prophets make mistakes is severely false and a lie against our anbiya (as)
there are no contradictions in the quran so when there appears to be a contradiction in the quran the fault then lies with us and our interpretation thereof.......

please ask yourself this:

1)If the Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wa Aleihe Wasallam was able to make mistakes then he was fallible authobillah.

2)If the Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wa Aleihe Wasallam was fallible then what is Islam?

3)if any prophet (as) was fallible what does say about allah (swt) ? cannot allah is great enough to make sure that his message was given to the people without error? authobillah!!!!! Allah swt is soooo greater than this...... it is a sin to say otherwise about our anbiyah (as)

The word Rasool does mean messenger, meaning that the person has been given by God a Risaalah [Message] to convey to people. Incidentally, the same word Risaalah is used in modern Arabic to refer to a letter.

The word Nabi means Prophet, and comes from the root Nabaa, meaning to give news, or to predict the future.

Some people believe that Rasool is a higher status than Nabi. I tend to be very careful about such ideas, as the Qur'an has asserted consistently that we should make no differences between any of the teachers God has sent to give us guidance.

The Qur'an says that Muhammad was the Last Prophet. We also believe that the Qur'an is the last book, the final Risaalah.

The Qur'an also has used the phrase messenger or messengers [Rasool, Rusul] in reference to angels.

Sometimes people giving us information we need may be sent by God, but we don't call them a Rasool.

I hope this had made sense.

In general, Muslims consider the Prophets sinless, meaning they did not commit any sins. There is some disputes today as to this idea, as well as the understanding of certain Quranic words [Dhamb, Ithm, Istighfaar], suggesting the Prophet Muhammad at least did mistakes. That, however, is beyond the scope of my humble post.

I should also mention this, in relation to the idea the Prophets are sinless, is that Muslims do not accept the many Biblical assertions regarding them to be true. For example, Noah is said to have engaged in sexual relations with his daughters while in a drunken state, Solomon is said to have engaged in idol-worship at the urging of his Foreign wives, and David is said to have arranged the murder of a man to get his wife.

These are actions no normal human would engage in, so how could we think that God's prophets, who are sent to be guides and moral examples, would do these things?

Dear Fatima and Brother Waheed,

Thanks for such comprehensive explanations.

I left it open-ended in the hopes that I'd get more than a stock answer from the scholars. As an aside, if anyone wonders why I encouraged Fatima to pop in to Islam In View, I think my motivations were obvious (LOL!).

Part of the reason I leave questions open-ended is due to semiotic differences between the definitions. Prophet can be defined in different ways, and between myself and you guys it certainly is, simply based upon our different backgrounds.

There is an ethical term called deontology. The classical Greek stem is δέον, which roughly translates to obligation or necessity. Philosophers use this term to describe good and evil in the structure of obedience to laws, rules or mores.

The deontologists tend to be modernists. Classical ethics, in contrast, revolved around Aristotle's idea of principles. Principles are internal beliefs which we can use to answer complicated questions on the fly, as they come up, rather than relying upon one-size-fits-all duties.

This is an interesting illustration which I remember as a philosophical problem I had when I was about 7 years old.

Right after one's 8th birthday, in the Mormon tradition, a child is baptized. About a year prior to this, s/he is prodded to go to various classes in preparation for the rite. The process (at least when I endured it) is quite different from baptism in the generic Christian sense (which usually happens when one is a baby), and if I'm forced to compare it, it is most similar to Bar Mitzvah. At 8 years old, a Mormon child becomes an autonomous member of the community, rather than an extension of his parents.

In any event, it was at this point in my life that I began pondering the underlying structure of the Jesus character. For most of my childhood, I had been encouraged to believe that Jesus (saw) existed, but in our tradition Jesus (saw) was a mortal human being, rather than an emanation of God as most Christians define him.

What made Jesus (saw) a great man, I decided then, was not that he never made a mistake, but that he consciously decided to overcome temptation. His greatness was a function of the fact that he could have made mistakes, but usually decided not to.

At that time in my life, and in that particular location (99 percent LDS small town Utah) one could not ask too many questions. I don't know what sharia hadd entails, but I doubt it woulda been worse than the punishment for being too analytical as a Mormon kid in St. George, and this was not lost on me then, so I was forced to ponder all these things in isolation.

I read the gospels of the Christians (which are not our main scripture, but do occupy a respected place in our history) and decided that Jesus (saw) did indeed make a mistake when he trashed the usurers in the temple. I felt at this time that this was inconsistent with his message of peace and nonviolence. Interesting to note that my philosophy has changed so radically. Today I think that he didn't go far enough in that regard, and I think that particular activity was probably the greatest act of heroism in his entire story, but that's neither here nor there.

Back to the point: I think many Muslims see Muhammad in a way that is a bit similar to the way Christians see Jesus. From my perspective (and I realize you guys don't share it) to negate Muhammad's (saw) freedom to choose is to detract from the greatness of his life.

I believe that at any time he could have decided to raise taxes, arbitrarily execute all his critics, plunder his neighbors, build himself a big house and become a successful Arabian landlord. Had he gone this route, he also would have faded into the dim netherworld of obscurity shortly after his passing. (My reading of history suggests that these types were all too numerous back then.)

When you look at him as a regular human being, he proves himself both incredibly insightful and amazingly principled. When you see him as someone who is controlled by the supernatural, he becomes mythologized to the extent that he's no longer an identifiable character. The human Muhammad is sympathetic. The deified Muhammad (saw) simply did what he did because he didn't have a choice in the matter.

The greatness and power of Muhammad (saw) lies in the fact that he was a real human, like men and women today; rather than a robot operating within the limits of a set of divine programming. He faced temptation to sink into the petty and the greedy, and overcame it due to the strength of his own character, and he leads the way for other human beings to hold themselves to a higher standard.

respected brother,

firstly allow me to thank you for explaining that which I did not, I think I often (even though he does make sure to state it) forget that brother Yishmael is not a muslim as he seems to have a very good understanding of Islam and is reasonably learned on the subject.

also, the majority sunni veiw as we both have asserted is that the Prophets (as) are sinless and the shi3a veiw is that they are infallible (please note the difference in the english language) and if you like i think it would be interesting if you join in the conversation concerning this (the ongoing discussion at the other place however we can move it to hear if you like and have one hear just you and I).... i have indeed done extensive study on the matter and i do feel that the anbiyah (as and saaws) are in fact infallible rather than sinless.....but either way one looks at it the discussion most certainly makes for a thought provoking discussion (and i do enjoy that which makes me think)........

if you have the time and the inclination only, this is just a humble invitation......however, I do feel that the discussion between two (perhaps more learned.... inchallah.... not that i have knowledge mind you and im absolutely positive that your knowledge far exceeds my own) individuals with more open minds might also help to teach brother Yishmael true Islamic concepts concening the anbiyyah (as)..... i dont know it is just a feeling this after reading his words........also elsewhere my words concerning this were dismissed as confused and seemingly they became lost on the general public, and I have a good feeling that you will better understand me and have the ability to converse on the matter.... (you also explain much better than I and where I have not properly explained you have the ability to assist my humble explainations......

wallahu aalim

your humble sister
Fatima

I would be happy to have further discussions on this issue, although admittedly I am a bit confused as to what exactly the issue is. By the word "infallible", you mean 'Ma'soom', correct?

Perhaps I should start by stating my own personal view, rather than the views of others. The Prophet Muhammad was many things, the Qur'an has repeatedly placed his humanity in full view. 'Say: I am a human, similar to yourselves" [Qool: Anna Bashara Mithlukum].

I have written about this in more detail in the section entitled "Muhammad" in the book "The language of revelation" [Lughat-ut-Tanzeel].

Occasionally, the Qur'an points out that the Prophet should have taken one action instead of the other that he may have done. Examples include some dealings with his wives, the issue with Zayd and Zaynab, his turning away from the blind man ['Abasa wa Tawal-laa], and so forth.

Admittedly, this would contradict mainstream Shi'ah [and perhaps Sunni] views with regards to his being "Ma'soom", but even with that, I don't think "Sin" is really an appropriate description of these actions either [although some writers see the Quranic words used as Istighfaar and Dhamb as showing otherwise].

I say that the word "sin' would be inappropriate because in Islam, we are taught that the messengers of God cannot and would not do many of the things that have been attributed to them in other religious traditions. In a prior post, I showed examples, from Biblical texts, asserting David [Dawud 'Alayhis salaam] committed adultery, Solomon becoming an idol worshiper [Mushrik], Noah committing incest, etc..

The few incidents mentioned in the Qur'an about the Prophet Muhammad also shows that the Qur'an is not from Muhammad. Had it been from him, in the sense that he was its author, he would have never allowed criticisms of his actions to have been recorded for all to see. This shows that the Qur'an is from Allah, and that Muhammad was an honest messenger, conveying whatever was sent to him. May peace and blessings be upon him.

In any case, the Quranic usage of certain words show that while he may not have been "Ma'soom" in the usual sense understood in Arabic [meaning free from sin, errors of any kinds, both before and after the revelation], he was certainly not a 'sinner' in the sense understood in the West. He was an exemplary model for any whose hope lies in God and the final day [Q 33:20]. This was a man whose dedication before God was such that he would seek God's forgiveness and protection at least seventy-times daily, as given in the traditions. This was a person who practiced forgiveness, granting amnesty to his defeated enemies when he could have justifiably executed them. This was a person who worked hard to keep his family, his wives, happy, even when their demands may have been unreasonable. A person who controlled the lives of so many people, yet continued to sleep on a mat, give all his money in charity, living a normal life, rather than one of luxury.

It is my hope these words have been thought-provoking and helpful to the discussion.Ramadan Kareem, wa siyaam maqbool.


wassalaam,
S.Waheed

Brother Waheed,

Are you 100% sure that it was the habib Allah who ['Abasa wa Tawal-laa]. We are talking about ashraf al-ambiya and mercy to mankind.

There were two people beside the blind man, thus a total of three people.

walaikumus salaam,


I know Shiites assert that 'Abasa wa Tawal-la refers to someone else. Yes, the Prophet was a mercy to all nations, but he was still a human being. He was not an angel or some semi-divine being. Repeatedly he is told to proclaim his human qualities.

It is because he was a normal human being that he is able to be an example to other human beings, who believe in Allah, the last day, and engage often in the remembrance of Allah [Q 33:21].

In any case, even if 'Abasa wa tawal-la does not refer to Muhammad , the other evidence found throughout the Qur'an shows that he was indeed a human whose actions had to be occasionally be corrected by Allah.

Brother Waheed,

Can you please quote these other verses that you refer to!

Thanks in advance!

W/salaam,

Well, let's start with just one example. In 33:36-38, we are told that the Prophet had the inclination to marry Zaynab, but feared people's reaction. He is told by God that it is God whom he should fear, not the reaction of people. When Allah has made something Halaal, there is no shame in it.

None of these imply character flaws, only that he [the Prophet] acted like a human. Moreover, he did not claim for himself any special qualities. He was God's messenger, the Final Prophet who delivered God's message to mankind. He still had to live a normal life, nothing supernatural or anything of the sort.

Thanks for your quick reply. I would like for you to quote all these verses. This is not for debate but to increase my knowledge in Islam!

This post has been edited by aladdin on Sep 13 2008, 01:57 PM

Insha-Allah, I will compile a list of verses for your review tomorrow.

am i allowed to discuss giving my point of veiw ?

Of course sister Fatimah, we want to hear from you.