Translation and Explanation of Surah Sharh [94] Verses 3
بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
3- “Which weighed down your back?”
An-kadha comes from the word naqeed which literally means the sound a camel makes when it’s overloaded with luggage.
According to scholars the burdens that are referred here are the burdens placed by the non-Muslims against the Messenger ﷺ to prevent him from spreading the message of Islam. The physical and financial harms they affected him, and how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made them easy for him.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to take his past sins seriously, so much so that he would feel a weight on his shoulders because of them. What about our situation? Do we really think of sins in the same way, that when we commit a sin do we take it as a serious thing? That’s why the salaf of the past would say the true believer when he commits a sin, even if it's a small sin, it's as if a huge mountain is about to fall on his back. Whereas the sinner, the one who isn’t worried about his sins, commits a sin and sees it as if it is a fly in front of him and just swats it away like it is no big deal.
These verses, according to some of the scholars talk about the minor sins which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ committed before he was a Prophet living amongst the Quraish, and this brings up the question where the Prophet ﷺ was infallible, meaning was he free from any type of mistake or error.
The Prophets of Allah were given the duty of conveying the message from Allah even though they were human. So when we are talking about the infallibility of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ we are talking about whether or not he was perfect, whether he was completely free of any sort of error. If we say that he was free of any error, there are verses in the Quran that contradict this. For example like when he divorced his life, and Allah told him why have you divorced your wives. Like when they freed the prisoners of war after the battle of Badr, and Allah told him that he ﷺ should have executed the prisoners instead. These contradict those who claim that the Prophet of Allah ﷺ was perfect, but can we say that he was imperfect and made errors?
When we talk about the infallibility of the Prophet ﷺ, they divide into two categories, first is the infallibility in conveying the message of Islam, and the second is the infallibilty of human error. With regards to the first issue, of conveying tawheed and Shari’ah, in this case all prophets and messengers were infallible. They never made any errors or mistakes in conveying the message from Allah, and they never concealed what was revealed to them. This is why Allah says in the Quran:
“O Messenger (Muhammad ﷺ)! Proclaim (the Message) which has been sent down to you from your Lord. And if you do not, then you have not conveyed His Message. Allah will protect you from mankind. Verily, Allah guides not the people who disbelieve.” (5:67)
And:
“And if he (Muhammad ﷺ) had forged a false saying concerning Us (Allah), We surely should have seized him by his right hand (or with power and might), and then certainly should have cut off his life artery (Aorta), and none of you could withhold Us from (punishing) him.” (69:44-47)
Everything that came to the Prophet ﷺ with regards to the revelation, the Quran, and with regards to the Shar’iah, had to be conveyed, whether he liked it or how he felt about it. For example he ﷺ made dua to Allah if he could make dua for his mother (Amna bint Wahab), but Allah forbade him from doing so. But He ﷺ allowed the Prophet ﷺ to visit her grave. This is one of the signs that he ﷺ was a prophet, because if he had wanted to he could have said that yes my mother’s in Paradise, but this shows that he was conveying the revelation from Allah.
Hence with regards to conveying the message of Islam from Allah, he ﷺ never made a mistake. There was no inadequacy and no inconsistency with regards to revelation being propagated to the rest of mankind, whether it be major or minor. So he was infallible in this sense.
The second issue remains with regards to the prophets of Allah as people, and this can be divided in sub-categories as well. The foremost is that prophets of Allah never ever committed major sins, they were protected from major sins before and after their mission began. The second with regards to human error is matters that don’t have anything to do with conveying the message and revelations. When we talk about sins, we don’t say that the prophets sinned, we say that they made mistakes. Using the word sins would suggest that they did them intentionally, but rather they make mistakes. Hence minor mistakes may be committed by the messengers of the past, as well as by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, but they did not sin. For example Adam AS “..Thus did Adam disobey his Lord, so he went astray. Then his Lord chose him, and turned to him with forgiveness, and gave him guidance.” (20:121-122)
Similarly regarding Musa AS “..so Musa struck him with his fist and killed him. He said: "This is of Shaitan's doing, verily, he is a plain misleading enemy. He said: "My Lord! Verily, I have wronged myself, so forgive me." Then He forgave him. Verily, He is the Oft-Forgiving, the Most Merciful.” (28:15-16)
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the Quran in several places there are instances where he made these mistakes because he was a human. For example the issue regarding his wives, who basically wanted more with regards to the dunya, so he divorced all of them. So Allah revealed: “O Prophet! Why do you ban (for yourself) that which Allah has made lawful to you, seeking to please your wives? And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (66:1)
Another incident is about the prisoners of war after the battle of Badr related in a hadith: “The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said to Abu Bakr and `Umar (Allah be pleased with them): What is your opinion about these captives? Abu Bakr said: They are our kith and kin. I think you should release them after getting from them a ransom. This will be a source of strength to us against the infidels. It is quite possible that Allah may guide them to Islam. Then the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: What is your opinion, Ibn Khattab? He said: Messenger of Allah, I do not hold the same opinion as Abu Bakr. I am of the opinion that you should hand them over to us so that we may cut off their heads. Hand over `Aqil to `Ali that he may cut off his head, and hand over such and such relative to me that I may cut off his head. They are leaders of the disbelievers and veterans among them. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) approved the opinion of Abu Bakr and did not approve what I said. The next day when I came to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), I found that both he and Abu Bakr were sitting shedding tears. I said: Messenger of Allah, why are you and your Companion shedding tears? Tell me the reason. For I will weep, or I will at least pretend to weep in sympathy with you. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: I weep for what has happened to your companions for taking ransom (from the prisoners). I was shown the torture to which they were subjected. It was brought to me as close as this tree. (He pointed to a tree close to him.) Then God revealed the verse: "It is not befitting for a prophet that he should take prisoners until the force of the disbelievers has been crushed..." to the end of the verse: "so eat ye the spoils of war, (it is) lawful and pure. So Allah made booty lawful for them." (Muslim 1763)
This incident also shows the faith and love of Umar RA for the Prophet ﷺ, that even when he ﷺ is crying, he wants to cry with him. For example when a child sees their parents cry, he starts to cry as well. So this shows the love they had for one another. This reinforces the idea that we should weep when we are making dua or supplication, so that our longing and need for what we are asking in the dua is conveyed.
Going back to the mistake of the Prophet ﷺ regarding the prisoners of war, there are always benefits even in the mistakes of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, concerning this incident the benefit was that it occurred, booty of war was considered lawful for the Muslims. So this hadith shows us that when the Messenger chose to ransom the prisoners, it was a decision he made by ijtihad after consulting with the other companions, the revelation concerning this came after to correct the Messenger ﷺ.
What has been narrated from the majority of the scholars is that the Messenger ﷺ was not infallible to the mistakes he had made. But the prophets were not left to persist in the mistakes they made, they were always corrected by Allah. This proves that we must not hold the opinion that the Prophet ﷺ never ever made a mistake. The prophets of Allah made mistakes, and they would repent after being corrected by Allah.
The third issue regarding the mistakes of Prophets as people are unintentional mistakes with regard to some worldly matter. He ﷺ would make mistakes in worldly matters as well, and this happened on several occasions, one example is during the Prophet’s time in Madina, when he came across companions who were farming according to a specific method. The Prophet told them not to do it in that way, after which the harvest failed. So he ﷺ said to them: “..If there is any use of it, then they should do it, for it was just a personal opinion of mine, and do not go after my personal opinion; but when I say to you anything on behalf of Allah, then do accept it, for I do not attribute lie to Allah, the Exalted and Glorious.” (Muslim 2361)
