In Defence of the Sahaba

Also published in Daily Trust

Over the past couple of days, Shiite religious adherents in many cities around the world held their annual procession purportedly to mourn the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib who was killed in Karbala, Iraq, one thousand three hundred and seventy-seven years ago. It’s an annual Shiite religious occasion in which the Shiites openly chant curses and unprintable insults at the Sahaba i.e. the companions of the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, peace be upon him, especially Abubakr As-siddeeq, Umar ibn Al-Khattab, Othman ibn Affan etc, and particularly two of his wives, Aisha bint Abibakr and Hafsat bint Umar.

The main procession was, of course, to the city of Karbala in Iraq, which, according to their religious belief, is holier than Makkah, as they also believe that whoever makes a ‘pilgrimage’ to the grave of Hussein therein, especially on the Day of Arafat while Muslims are in faraway Makkah performing Hajj, earns a reward as though he has performed Hajj and Umra one thousand times. (See Biharul-Anwar, v101, p109, and Furu’ul Kaafi, v1, p324).

Nigerian Shiites who equally maintain this belief, are also growing increasingly audacious enough to openly and unambiguously insult the Sahaba in their public gatherings and Hussainiyya shrines, unlike in the past when they would only utter derogatory innuendoes and other vaguely insulting insinuations against them.

By the way, though Muslims rightly take offence at insulting the Sahaba, which, however, doesn’t justify taking any extrajudicial action against the insulters, yet, many Muslims don’t actually realize the implications of such insults and the agenda behind it. In reality, the Sahaba weren’t actually the ultimate target for the insults, after all. Instead, Islamic religion is actually the ultimate target, because inasmuch as the Sahaba were the only people who learnt and collected the Qur’an and the Sunnah directly from the Prophet, rejecting their credibility necessarily implies rejecting the authenticity and validity of the Qur’an and the Sunnah., which they narrated. Therefore, insulting them is an attempt to discredit the Islamic religion in disguise. Over the centuries, the imposters masquerading as Muslims who fabricated this blasphemous ideology and engineered its spread among Muslims had this in mind, having realized that they couldn’t achieve their anti-Islamic agenda if they did not pretend to be Muslims, in fact, Muslim scholars for that matter.

Anyway, the Sahaba actually need no defence by anybody against the Shiites’ insults, because it’s Allah the Almighty Himself that acknowledges their Iman, sincerity, piety and devoutness. Hence, He praises them in the Qur’an more than any other group of people that ever lived in the world before them, or will live in it in the future, of course with the exception of His prophets and messengers, (peace be upon them). Likewise, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (pbuh) recognized their sacrifices and enormous contributions toward the success of his mission as the last messenger of Allah on earth. 

  

Therefore, this piece is merely a modest attempt to highlight some of their acknowledged virtues in the Qur’an, which the Shiites simply deny by clinging to some unfounded and fabricated narrations falsely attributed to some pious members of the Prophet’s Household, or some Qur’anic verses or Hadiths, which the Shiite classical theorists over the centuries maliciously misinterpreted, misquoted or simply quoted out of context, and which the successive generations of turbaned Shiite religious clerics have been propagating over the decades.

Obviously, Allah the Almighty extols the virtues of the Sahaba as a whole, and according to their individual and collective virtues, as well. In many verses of the Qur’an, Allah the Almighty repeatedly praises, in particular, the Al-muhajroon, i.e. those Sahaba who were forced to migrate from Makkah to Madina, and Al-ansar i.e. their Madinan hosts. In verse 100 of Surat-Attauba, for instance, Allah the Almighty says “And the foremost to embrace Islam of the Al-muhajroon and the Al-ansar and those who followed them exactly (in Faith), Allah is well-pleased with them as they are well-pleased with Him. He prepared for them Gardens under which rivers flow (Paradise) to dwell therein forever. That is the supreme success.”

Though the Sahaba weren’t infallible anyway, after all, actually only the messengers and prophets of Allah were infallible, the Pleasure of Allah they already earned as a result of their sheer sincerity, piety and righteousness, made their sins, which were, in any case, rare, immediately forgiven by Allah the Almighty. For instance, when, during the Battle of Uhud, some of them retreated from the battlefield out of an overwhelming pressure from their adversaries, Allah the Almighty commented on the incident in a clearly understanding manner then pardoned them straightaway. He, the Almighty says ‘Those of you who turned away the day the two hosts met (i.e. the Battle of Uhud), it was Satan who caused them to backslide (run away from the battlefield) because of some (sins) they had earned. But Allah, indeed, has forgiven them. Surely, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Forbearing’ (Surat Al-Imran, verse 155).