Sahaba - The Blessed

promoted to, and so unique was the love lavished on them, that
the blessings that would be given to others in return for
mountains of gold dispensed in the name of alms are said, (in
authentic narrations,) to hardly equal half the blessings which
those most fortunate people attained by giving a handful of
barley. Allâhu ta’âlâ lauds and praises them in the Qur’ân alkerîm.
He declares that He is pleased with them and that they are
pleased with Allah. The final âyat of Fat-h sûra promotes them in
honour. Allâhu ta’âlâ states in that âyat-i-kerîma that those who
harbour a grudge against them are disbelievers. Therefore,
hostility against them should be bewared from with the same
alarm and trepidation as we would feel if we should lapse into
kufr (disbelief).
So unprecedented was the affection which attached those
blessed people to Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ and
so nonpareil were the honours which they attained by enjoying
his special love and attention (tawajjuh), that it is quite
preposterous to malign them or to dislike them on the pretext
that they fell out with one another as a result of differring ijtihâds
on matters whose solutions needed ijtihâd and that every group
acted in accordance with their own ijtihâd. In matters of that
nature difference was more appropriate than unity, and others’
ijtihâd was not to be imitated. It would have been wrong, for
instance, for Imâm Abû Yûsuf ‘rahimahullâhu ta’âlâ’ to imitate
the ijtihâd of Imâm a’zam Abû Hanîfa ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ
’aleyh’, (who had educated him,) after he himself had attained
the grade of ijtihâd. It was compulsory for him to act in
accordance with his own ijtihâd. Imâm Shâfi’î ‘rahmatullâhi
’aleyh’ would not hold the views and conclusions of any of the
Ashâb-i-kirâm ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anhum ajma’în’ preferrable
to his own views. He would refuse any ijtihâd that was counter to
his own ijtihâd, even if it belonged to Abû Bakr as-Siddîq or
Hadrat Alî. He deemed it appropriate to act in accordance with
his own ijtihâd even when his ijtihâd was contradictory with their
ijtihâd. Since an ordinary (non-Sahâbî) mujtahid’s disagreeing
with the ijtihâds of the Sahâba is permissible and rightful, why
should the Sahâba be blamed for disagreeing with one another’s
ijtihâd, and how can they ever be maligned on account of their
rightful practices?
The Ashâb-i-kirâm ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anhum ajma’în’
sometimes had ijtihâds contrary to the ijtihâd of Rasûlullah ‘sall-
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