The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c16.72

v4.c16.72

The notion of infallible human guidance is not entirely foreign to Islām. Each of the four orthodox schools of law of the Sunnīs virtually attributes infallibility to its founder, and the Shiah sect bestows the title "infallible" on its *Imāms*, ‘Alī, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, and his eleven successors. Since the disappearance of the twelfth *Imām* the *mujtahid*, who holds, in Shiah communities, the highest rank among divines and jurists is regarded as infallible in questions of faith and morals. But a text of the Korān and a traditional saying of Muhammad place the authority of the lawful and just ruler above that of divines and jurists, and the leading ecclesiastics of the court were so discredited by their dissensions, and by their unseemly wrangles in debates arranged by Shaikh Mubārak and his two sons in the "Hall of Worship", that their claim to religious leadership could be challenged without difficulty, and Shaikh Mubārak avenged himself on his former persecutors by preparing the famous Infallibility Decree. This was drawn up in the form of a petition beseeching the sovereign to assume the authority imposed upon him by the Korān and the Traditions, and was couched in the following terms: