Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

are like stars, whoever you will follow you will be guided,” 1 states:
وليس المراد به ‏)أي الصحابي(‏ من لقي رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أو بايعه أو رآه رؤية واحدة،‏ وإنما
أراد ‏)يعني النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم(‏ من لزمه غدوة وعشية،‏ وكان يتلقى الوحي منه طريا ويأخذ عنه
الشريعة التي جعلت منهجا لألمة،‏ وينظر منه إلى آداب اإلسالم وشمائله
The intended (by the word companions) is not a person who met Rasūl
Allāh H, pledged allegiance to him or saw him once. Rather he (Nabī
H) is referring to those who accompanied him morning and evening,
received from him the knowledge of revelation when it was freshly
revealed, learnt the Sharīʿah from him, which is the constitution of this
Ummah, and assimilated from him the ethics of Islam and its attributes. 2
This group has thus considered prolonged companionship of Nabī H to be
a condition rather than merely narrating from him.
The evidence for their position is drawn from language and from convention, as
asserted by al-Samʿānī 3 who says:
اسم الصحابي من حيث اللغة والظاهر يقع على من طالت صحبته مع النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم وكثرت
مجالسته،‏ بخالف الرواية عنه صلى الله عليه وسلم،‏ فإن اشتراطها لتحقق مفهوم الصحبة بعيد لغة وعرفا
1 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr has cited the narration of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh I in Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa Faḍlih
2/91, and ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd has cited the narration of Ibn ʿUmar, which is slightly variant, in his
Musnad p. 250, amongst others. The ḥadīth is not authentically established in any of its transmissions.
See: Khulāṣah al-Badr al-Munīr 2/431; Aʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn 2/242; Talkhīṣ al-Ḥabīr 4/191; al-Silsilah al-
Ḍaʿīfah 1/144.
2 Nawādir al-Uṣūl 3/62.
3 Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Tamīmī, Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī. A versatile scholar and
an author of many books. He was born in Khorasan in 426 A.H. He grew up and studied there as well.
He was one of the leading scholars of the Ḥanafīs who studied the school and mastered it. Thereafter
he reverted to the Shāfiʿī School. He passed away in 490 A.H. Some of his books are the following: al-
Iṣṭilām, al-Radd ʿalā al-Rāwandī and Qawāṭiʿ al-Adillah. See al-Ansāb 3/299; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ 19/114;
al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 12/153; Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah al-Kubrā 5/335.
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