Companions of the Prophet (peace
be
upon him) and their Rights
Dr. Mozammel Haque
The importance of the Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in
the history of Islam and for the Muslim community is enormous. This first
generation of Islam is really very unique and remarkable in the sense that they
are the eye-witnesses of the revelation of the Qur’an to the Prophet (peace be
upon him); they are the ones who met the Prophet (peace be upon him) personally
and saw everything happened; they are the eye-witnesses of the biography of the
Prophet (peace be upon him); through them we got the text of the Qur’an; they
are the ones who collected the text of the Qur’an during the life of Abu Bakr
al-Siddiq; they are ones who did the second writing of the text of the Qur’an
during the life of the third Caliph Osman and finally, they are the ones who
presented the Qur’an to the Ummah as one Book. Thus, this first generation, the
Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is very important for us, for the
Muslim community. This is one of the reasons, the Islamic Cultural Centre,
London in cooperation with the Daw’ah Office in the UK held a Seminar recently.
Seminar on the Companions of the Prophet
(pbuh)
A one-day Seminar on the Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him)
and their Rights, organised by the Islamic Cultural Centre, London in cooperation
with the Maktab-e-Daw’ah, the Daw’ah Office in the UK, was held at the Library
Hall of the Centre, on Saturday, the 26th of February, 2011. The Seminar was
attended by the respected guests Professor Dr. Ghazi Makki, the Cultural
Attache of Saudi Arabia and Yasser Shaban, a Counsellor at the Embassy of
Egypt; Abdul Aziz Al-Harbi, Dr. Al-Hazmi and Dr. Sayyid from the Daw’ah Office
in the UK and other brothers and sisters.
There were two sessions: in the first session
under the chairmanship of Shaikh Saad Al-Jloud, there were two speakers; Dr.
Ahmed Al-Dubayan and Shaikh Haitham Haddad who spoke on the ‘Reading in the
Traditions of Ancestors’ Scholars about the Companions (RAA) and their Rights’
and ‘The Relationship between the Companions and the Family of the Prophet
(pbuh)’ respectively. In the second session under the chairmanship of Shaikh
Khalifa Ezat, there were again two speakers such as Shaikh Sultan Fayad
Al-Hassan and Shaikh Mohammed Abd Al-Hadi Afdal who spoke on ‘The Superiority
of the Mothers of Believers (RAA) in general and Mother of Believers Ayesha in
Particular’ and ‘The Mother of Believers Ayesha’s Participating in narrating
the Prophet’s (pbuh) Traditions’ respectively.
Welcome address by Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan
While welcoming the respected guests and other brothers and sisters, Dr.
Ahmed al-Dubayan mentioned about the importance and speciality of the Seminar.
Dr. al-Dubayan said, “When we talk about the first generation, we closely talk
about the biography of the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh), i.e. we talk about
the history of the Qur’an; we talk about the Sunnah al-Sharifa; we talk about
the beginning of our faith, ISLAM.”
“Our Seminar today is about the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh),
Shahaba and Their Rights. This is very important because it is really a very
fundamental piece of Islamic education for the young generation to know more
and more about the first generation of Islam,” mentioned Dr. Al-Dubayan.
Speaking about the first generation of Islam, Dr. Al-Dubayan mentioned,
“They are the eye-witnesses of the Qur’an and the Qur’an revealed to the
Prophet (pbuh); they are the eye-witnesses who met the Prophet personally and
saw everything happened whatever we read in the paper about the Prophet (pbuh).
It is very simple to say that they are the model for us; they are the models we
have to follow; they are the generations, as I said, who conveyed the message
from the Prophet (pbuh) to the next generation which we call historically
tabeyeen and the next generation after them which we call tabe tabeyeen.”
While explaining the objective of the Seminar Dr. Al-Dubayan mentioned,
“Recently we find some books, some articles, some people who try really
unobjectively to criticise this generation and they try to minimise what we
know about their rights and what attitude we have to have towards them as a
first generation of the Prophet (pbuh). I am saying unobjectively because I
myself read some of these articles, some of these books which talk about the
companions, written by some Orientalist and by some people in the modern times
from the Muslim themselves either from the Muslim countries or from the Muslim
communities. They really missed lot of the principles without understanding
many objective things.”
“It is very very important for every Muslim and
every Muslimah to know more and more about the Shahaba, the Companions of the
Prophet (pbuh) and to know about their rights and to know how we should deal
with this Hadith which actually we find in our Islamic heritage about the
Prophet (pbuh) and about the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh). Of course, when
we talk about the Companions, we don’t mean only men; we mean also women. We
have few thousands of women; they were the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh),”
mentioned Dr. Al-Dubayan.
First Session
In the first session under the chairmanship of Shaikh Saad al-Jloud,
there were two speakers as I mentioned earlier; the first speaker was Dr. Ahmed
Al-Dubayan who spoke on the “Reading in the Traditions of Ancestors’ Scholars
about the Companions (RAA) and their Rights.’ The second speaker was Shaikh
Haitham al-Haddad, well-known in the Muslim community and a member of the
Shari’ah Council who spoke on ‘The Relationship between the Companions and the
Family of the Prophet (pbuh)’.
Dr. Ahmed Al-Dubayan
Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan started with the first question: Who is the
Companion of the Prophet (pbuh)? He dealt with this question elaborately and
said, Muslim historians have different opinions and Muslim scholars have also
different opinions especially among the Ahle-Hadith about the definition of the
Companions of the Prophet (pbuh). “But I think the best one, most of them have
accepted that any Muslim who had met the Prophet (pbuh) and then died as a
Muslim, is a Companion even if he met the Prophet (pbuh) even may be for one
hour or two hours; he will be considered as one of the Prophet’s companion,” Dr
al-Dubayan said.
Who are the Companions?
Dr. Al-Dubayan also elaborated by saying, “Every Muslim, who met the
Prophet (pbuh) even for short time, is considered to be one of the companions
of the Prophet (pbuh). This is actually for men and women together; so we have
shahabis and shahabians, the male and female companions.”
Dr al-Dubayan also raised another question: How many companions we have?
This is a very good question and sometimes we used this question to ask the
younger generation at the secondary school: How many companions we have? Dr.
Al-Dubayan said, “Actually we don’t have one book or one record in which we
have all the records of the names of the companions or if we go to the
biography of the Prophet (pbuh) or if we go to the collections of the Hadiths
or Traditions of the prophet (pbuh).” Of course, at the end of his speech, he
has given some statistical information about one of the biggest collections of
the companions.
Their Classification
Dr. Al-Dubayan classified the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh) into two
groups: those who narrated the Hadiths and those who have only their names. Dr.
Al-Dubayan elaborated this point saying, “If we read the biography of the
Prophet (pbuh), for example, the battle of Badr, or the battle of Uhud, we find
some names of the Companions in these two battles but we don’t find any Hadith
from them. Either they were not at the beginning or they died early, so the
next generation did not have enough time to talk to them or take Hadith from
them or they were young. Whatever, actually we find some names but we do not
find their names in the Hadith.”
Their Exact number
Going back again to the question Dr. Al-Dubayan raised earlier about the
number of Companions of the Prophet (pbuh). There were different estimated
figures about this. Quoting of the greatest Muhaddeshins, who said when the
Prophet (pbuh) died there were more than 100,000 who saw him, met him and listened
to him, men and women. Dr. Al-Dubayan also mentioned there is another Tradition
from him, who said when the Prophet (pbuh) died; there was 114,000 Companions
of the Prophet (pbuh). The person, who talked to the Imam, asked him, ‘Who are
they’? ‘Where are they’?”
It is a big number, 114,000. Where are they? Then the Imam said, ‘These
are the people of Madinah, people of Makkah, people of the villages between
Makkah and Madinah and between who came from the desert and between Makkah and
Madinah and met Prophet (pbuh) and those who conducted with him the Farewell
Pilgrimage. There were more than 100,000; they listened to him, they saw him
especially when the Prophet (peace be upon him) standing in Arafat and
delivered the famous speech, the Sermons on the Mount of Arafat, the Farewell
speech, which we all know in the history. So all those people who met him we
can estimate the number 114,000,” mentioned Dr. Al-Dubayan.
Then Dr. Al-Dubayan mentioned that the names of the Companions
themselves were kept in the Seerah of the Nabubiyah, in the Prophet’s
biography. He mentioned that the first book or biography of the Prophet (peace
be upon him) was written by Muhammad ibn Ishaaq, who died in 151 AH. which is
768 according to the Gregorian calendar; i.e., in the 8th century. He is the
first one who actually collected all the Ruayat or Traditions about the
biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) as one collection. Of course there
were many before; but they were really separate traditions to collect this as one
story, Muhammad bin Ishaaq who started to do this.”
These are the reasons, maintained Dr. Al-Dubayan, Muslims love and
respect the Companions. There is no doubt that the message of the Qur’an is the
last message, the last revelation from Allah the Almighty. We believe that the
Qur’an is the last book revealed to Mankind. Allah the Almighty said in the
Qur’an He is going to protect this Qur’an and He will guarantee the continuity
of this. Dr. Al-Dubayan said, “The first generation of the Companions were very
straightforward, they were honest, reliable. Without them, the continuity of
the Message is not possible.”
Another point which Dr. Al-Dubayan wanted to make clear is about the
Companions. There is a wrong notion about Ahle Sunnah and Ahle Jamaah. “We
don’t believe that Shahabas are masumin, they are protected from doing sin; no.
They are human beings. They can have a mistake,” said Dr. Al-Dubayan and
mentioned, “What the Ahle Sunnah said is that Shahabas are all straightforward
and we love them; we respect them but we don’t say that they cannot commit sin.
This is not correct; this is wrong. And this misunderstanding many of the
writers has especially in the modern times.”
Speaking about his attitude to the Companions of the Prophet (peace be
upon him), Dr. Al-Dubayan said “two things, their straightforwardness and our
mahabbah, the appreciation and love that we have for all of them. Allah the
Almighty rewards them for the things they have done for all of us; because
without them, we will never be able to have the Qur’an; as we have it today;
and the Sunnah as we have it today; and this clear picture that we have about
the Prophet (pbuh) today.”
Shaikh Haitham Haddad
The next speaker of the First session was Shaikh Haitham Haddad who
spoke on the Relationship between the Companions and the Family of the Prophet
(peace be upon him). Shaikh Haitham said, “We need to understand this topic
because many Muslims and Orientalist attacked the Companions by claiming that
there was tension and dispute between the Companions (RA) themselves. They
capitalised on the dispute that took place after Ali ibn Abu Talib (RA) between
some of the Companions and the camps of Ali ibn Abu Talib and the camps of
Ayesha (RA).”
Shaikh Haitham through many narrations demonstrated how much love the
Companions had among themselves and how much the Companions used to love and
had love for the members of the family of the Prophet (peace be upon him). “We
have seen from many narrations the nature of relationship between all
Companions and even in particular the respect the Companions used to show, in
particular, to the family members of the Prophet (peace be upon him).
Then Shaikh Haitham mentioned about some sects who focussed on the relationship between Abu Bakr (RA) and Omar al-Khattab (RA) in particular with Fatema (RA) and in particular the relationship between Abu Bakr and Ali ibn Abu Talib (RA).. Again after quoting many narrations, Shaikh Haitham said, “There are many narrations and we can go on talking about those narrations I mean the statement from the companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him).
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