“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah and do not be divided. Remember Allah’s favour upon you when you were enemies, then He united your hearts, so you—by His grace—became brothers. And you were at the brink of a fiery pit and He saved you from it. This is how Allah makes His revelations clear to you, so that you may be ˹rightly˺ guided.” (Qur’an 3: 103)
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The following PDF file upload is an article written by Amr Osman a Professor from Qatar University about the Sunni doctrine of Adalat Al Sahaba.
We cannot hide the fact that over all we are dissapointed with the paper.
We feel one does not get into the meat until page 33 and 34 and even then it is designated to a mere footnote 145.
We feel the author could have done more to give concrete Murji’ sources rather than that which is held in dispute.
He could have elaborated examples of the Murji’ making use of the same hadith that Sunnis in general use for justification of all the companions being just.
The other point we disagree with is the contention that Adalat Al Sahaba is some how a Sunni doctrine. This is something we have come to learn is simply not true. It is simply not true because it is well known that the Umayyads had cursing of Ali at the pulpits. So, if there was such a doctrine it was either blatantly ignored (a highly contentious position) or simply was not developed as of yet (which is what we contend).
It would be correct to say that Adalat Al Sahaba is an Abbasid Sunni doctrine. Yes, this we would agree. But we certainly would not hold this doctrine to be contemporaneous with the Umayyads.
In fact it is a real missed opportunity to show why the growing Sunni Abbasid imperium would develop such a doctrine that would do it’s level best to try and bridge the gap between Umayyad, Alid and other factions of the Muslims. Especially when it came to the contentions civil wars of the early companions.
This would have given a great deal of thrust to the article and indeed show the readers ‘how the sausage is made‘ so to speak.
The other point in the article is the tired oft repeated and lazy claims concerning the so called “Khawarij.”
“Other 4th/10th-century writings reflect more aspects of the emerging doctrine. Defining the proper attitude towards the Companions as a middle way between excessive hate (similar to that of Harigis towards ‘Ali b. Abi Talib and Mu’awiya b. Abi Sufyan who fought each other during the schisms) and excessive love (like that of Si’is towards ‘Ali).”
1) You have to wonder on what basis is the claim being made. Source material for example?
2) The Ibadis are the one’s who went to Umar Abdul Aziz and asked that they stop cursing Ali
at the pulpits. This is hardly the marker of people who hate an individual.
The other eye opening take away from the PDF article below, is that practically every study done by orientalist you will find one of them contradicting the findings of other other.
One of them strongly disagrees with the perspective of the other. This simply shows that they do not have a consistent ontology nor a consistent epistemology either. They often critique traditional views as speculative only for the avid reader to find out that they (orientalist) offer speculation as well. Albeit with the wide eyed claim of not having any presuppositions.
What we can show is that the doctrine of everyone’s ijtihad is correct, even if it leads to the
separation of the Muslim Ummah, and killing; is demonstrably a false doctrine.
“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah and do not be divided. Remember Allah’s favour upon you when you were enemies, then He united your hearts, so you—by His grace—became brothers. And you were at the brink of a fiery pit and He saved you from it. This is how Allah makes His revelations clear to you, so that you may be ˹rightly˺ guided.” (Qur’an 3: 103)
- Hold firm to the rope of Allah and do not be divided.
- You were enemies and Allah united your hearts.
- By the unification of your hearts you became brothers.
- By being divided and being enemies you were at the bring of a fiery pit.
- By being being united and being brothers you avoid this fiery pit.
This whole idea that everything the companions did is simply a matter of ijtihad even if it leads to killing each other flies in the face of this very verse of the Qur’an!
Meeting on a field and killing each other does not result in being united and not being divided.
Killing each other’s sons and father’s does not unite a person’s heart and make one have the feeling of brotherhood.
In fact, those Sunnis doing Daʿwah in Hyde Park United Kingdom and other venues throughout the world would get destroyed in a discussion on logic.
You see if person A says that an Elephant has a tail and person B says that an Elephant has four legs these are not mutually exclusive points.
It is both possible that a person A and person B are correct.
However, if person B says that an Elephant has four legs and person A says that an
Elephant has two legs we have a problem. One of them is in clear error.
So on this point, those who engage with these people can point out that Sunnis do indeed believe that contradictory information can indeed be acceptable.
Now, it is one thing to believe that contradictory information is acceptable, and quite another thing, altogether to say contradictory information that leads to separation and division and killing is acceptable.
Those that believe that ijtihad that leads to killing and strife among the believers and on top of it gets rewarded even if they are upon error is such a surprising doctrine.
Narrated Ibn `Umar:
I heard the Prophet (saw) saying, “Do not revert to disbelief after me by striking (cutting) the necks of one another.”
Source: (https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7077)
Adalat al-Sahaba: The Construction of a Religious Doctrine by Amr Osman Qatar University.
If you are interested in this article you maybe interested in reading the following:
https://primaquran.com/2022/10/04/ibadi-stance-on-sahaba-according-to-the-quran/
https://primaquran.com/2022/10/04/are-all-the-companions-just/
https://primaquran.com/2023/02/11/the-genius-of-mufti-abu-layth-can-we-criticize-the-companions/
May Allah (swt) forgive the Ummah!
May Allah (swt) guide the Ummah!
Prima Quran 