Sahaba - The Blessed

those most faithful admirers); nor were his nails clipped or hair cut.
They would compete with one another to seize at least one small
sample of those blessed pieces disposed of from his luminous body,
and to keep it as the most valuable, blessed and fruitful souvenir.
If a statement made by one of those pure people and explored
recently should contain an expression that can be interpreted as an
irreverence towards the Messenger of Allah in today’s world of
lies and deceits with which even the areas of meanings and
semantics have been contaminated, the expression must be given a
benevolent meaning and good meanings conveyed by the entire
statement must be taken into consideration, rather than the
semantic distortions that every individual word should have gone
through in process of time.
Question: Inasmuch as mistakes are said to be likely in
religious teachings obtained by way of ijtihâd, can all the religious
information provided by Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa
sallam’ be said to be correct?
Answer: When the religious teachings which were found by
way of ijtihâd in the time of Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa
sallam’ were inconsistent with one another, the correct one would
be revealed by Allâhu ta’âlâ. For it was not permissible for
prophets to do something wrong. When there were contradictory
ijtihâds concerning a certain matter, Allâhu ta’âlâ would declare
which one was correct, and thus the correct one would be
distinguished from the incorrect ones. When various differring
ijtihâds were reached on a certain matter in the time of Rasûlullah
‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, the angel in charge would descend
with the wahy revealing the correct answer. Thus the correct
ijtihâd would be acted in accordance with and what was done
thereupon would be right and correct. Hence, every fact taught by
Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ was certainly true and
everything he did was definitely correct. A slightest mistake in his
teachings was quite out of the question. In fact, whereas the direct
and overt religious teachings are correct because they were
revealed by the angel in charge, the religious teachings inferred by
way of ijtihâd are equally correct since they were verified by the
revelation realized through the angel. Some matters were left to
scholars’ ijtihâd instead of being revealed directly and clearly; this
divine policy should have been applied as a kindness to scholars
and so that they would attain the blessings created in the nature of
ijtihâd. The religious teachings which were inferred by way of
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