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WHY
CAN NO ONE ELSE BE ON PAR WITH THE COMPANIONS?
Question:
There
are some narrations which say: At a time when
religious innovations are widespread and heresy is on
the attack, some of the righteous among the
God-fearing believers who try to conform to God’s
laws of religion and life, may attain to the rank of
the Companions, or even be more virtuous. Are these
narrations authentic? If so, what is their true
meaning?
Answer:
It is decisively proven that the Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a
(the majority of Muslims who follow the way of the Prophet
and his Companions) are unanimously agreed that, after the
Prophets, the Companions are the most virtuous of mankind.
Therefore, the authentic parts of the narrations such as
the one above have to do with [not virtuousness in general
but] with some particular virtues. One less virtuous may
excel a more virtuous one in some particular virtues. From
the viewpoint of general superiority, no one can be on a
par with the Companions, whom God describes as having
praiseworthy qualities at the end of the sura al-Fath in
the Quran, and whom the Torah and Gospel predicted and
praise highly. Out of many reasons for their superiority,
for the time being I shall mention only three:
First
reason: The companionship of the Prophet and being taught
by him is such an elixir that one who is honored with it
even for a minute may receive as much enlightenment as
another can in years of spiritual journeying. For
companionship and the Prophet’s education is the cause
of being colored with the color of the Prophet, upon him
be peace and blessings, and receiving his reflections. As
is known, by following the Prophet and being illumined by
the greatest light of Prophethood, one can rise to the
highest of the spiritual levels. This is like a servant of
a great king reaching through servanthood and absolute
allegiance to the king to the rank which even an ordinary
king cannot. For this reason, even the greatest of the
saints cannot rise to the same degree as the Companions.
Even those saints who, like Jalal al-din al-Suyuti, have
conversed with God’s Messenger many times while awake,
cannot be on a level with the Companions. For the
Companions were illumined by the light of the Prophethood
of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings; he lived
among them and communed with them as a Prophet. Whereas,
the saints who see God’s Messenger, upon him be peace
and blessings, after his death, are honored with the
light of his sainthood. That is, God’s Messenger
manifests himself to them as a saint, not as a Prophet,
because Prophethood ended with his death. Since this is
so, those two types of communication with God’s
Messenger differ from each other to the extent of the
difference between Prophethood and sainthood.
It
shows what an enlightening elixir is the Prophet’s
conversation and companionship that a primitive Bedouin
who had been so wild and hard-hearted as to bury his girl
alive, was honored with an hour of the Prophet’s
companionship and became so compassionate and
tender-hearted that he no longer trod on even an ant.
Savage and ignorant persons were honored with the Prophet’s
conversation and companionship only for one day and then
went as far as India and China to teach truths and guide
people to human perfections.
Second
reason: The absolute majority of the
Companions were at the highest degrees of human
perfections. For at that time, through the great
revolution of Islam, good and truth were seen in all their
beauties, and evil and falsehood, in all their ugliness,
and they were actually experienced. Such a difference was
apparent between good and evil and such a distance opened
between truth and lying that they drew apart and were
distant from each other to the extent that belief is
distant from unbelief and Paradise is from Hell. The
Companions, who by nature had lofty emotions, were enamored
of moral virtues and inclined to dignity and
glory, never approached evil and falsehood voluntarily,
nor fell to the level of Musaylima the Liar, who was the
sample and herald of lying, evil and falsehood and became
a laughing stock through his ridiculous words. Witnessing
the degree of the Beloved of God, the highest of human
perfections, who is the sample and herald of truth, right
and good, the purity of the Companions’ nature impelled
them to exert all their strength and efforts to follow
him.
It
sometimes happens that due to their dreadful results and
detestable effects, people (far from buying them) flee in
disgust from certain things in the market of human
civilization and the ‘shop’ of human social life,
while as if beneficial cures or brilliant diamonds,
certain other things are in much demand and draw everybody’s
attention because of their good effects and valuable
results. Everybody does his utmost to buy them. Likewise,
since in the market of human social life at the Age of
Happiness, the ‘articles’ like unbelief, lying and
evil yielded results like eternal doom and torment and
produced base laughing- stocks like Musaylima the Liar, it
was certain that the Companions, who were enamored of
high moral qualities and praiseworthy virtues, fled from
them in disgust as from a killing poison. And surely, the
Companions, with their pure natures and elevated
characteristics, would, with all their strength, feelings,
and faculties, be desirous of, and customers for, truth,
right, and belief, which result in eternal happiness and
have produced illustrious fruits like God’s Messenger,
upon him be peace and blessings, as if they were most
beneficial cures and most precious diamonds. However,
since then, the distance between truth and lying has
gradually become so slight that they are now standing side
by side in the same shop and being sold together. Social
morality has been corrupted. Political propaganda has
encouraged lying and made it in demand. At a time when the
awesome ugliness of lying remains concealed and the
brilliant beauty of truths is no more visible, who could
claim to have the same degree of strength, firmness and
meticulousness as the Companions had in justice,
truthfulness and moral sublimity? In order to clarify the
matter to some degree, let me describe an experience of
mine:
Why
can even the greatest saints reach the degree of
Companionship?
Once
it occurred to me why certain saints with extraordinary
qualities like Muhy al-Din al-‘Arabi cannot reach the
degree of the Companions. While reciting one day during
the prostration in the prayer, Glorified be my Lord, the
Highest, some portion of the full meaning of this phrase
was unveiled and its truth revealed to me. I thought: If
only I were able to perform a single prescribed prayer as
perfectly as I discovered the meaning of worship. I came
to understand after the prayer that that experience was to
guide me to perceive why it is impossible to reach the
degrees of the Companions. In those mighty social
revolutions brought about by the lights of the wise Qur’an,
the opposites were completely separated from each other
and evils with all their darkness, details and
consequences, and good and perfections with all their
lights and results, stood face to face. Thus, in that
exciting, stimulating time, together with revealing all
the levels of their meanings in all their freshness, bloom
and originality, all words and phrases of recitation,
praise, and glorification stirred up and awakened all the
feelings and spiritual faculties of the people who were
fully experiencing that mighty revolution in all its
stages, and caused even senses like those of fancy and
imagining to be fully awake to receive and absorb the
various meanings of those phrases in accordance with their
kind of perception.
It
is because of such reasons as those that when the
Companions, all of whose senses were awakened, and
faculties alert, pronounced the blessed words and phrases
containing all the lights of faith and glorification, they
pronounced them in all their meanings and derived their
shares with all their faculties.
Whereas,
with the passage of time after that bursting forth and
revolution, people have gradually lost the taste and
pleasure they have received from those blessed phrases
because, due to much familiarity and loss of sensitivity,
their faculties have fallen into sleep and their senses
into heedlessness. Since what has remained of those ‘fruits’
is only some moisture because of superficiality, only
through a reflective and contemplative operation can those
faculties and senses be restored to their former state.
For this reason, others cannot attain in forty days, even
in forty years, the degree and virtue which a Companion
reached in forty minutes.
Third
reason: When compared to sainthood, Prophethood is like
the sun in relation to its images in mirrors. Thus, as
much higher in rank Prophethood is than sainthood, so too,
being the servants of Prophethood and the planets around
that sun, the Companions must be greater than saints to
the same degree. Even if a saint attains to the rank of
absolute truthfulness and loyalty and succession to the
Prophet, which is the highest rank of sainthood belonging
to the Companions, he cannot reach the degree of the
Companions. Out of many aspects of this third reason, I
will explain only four:
First
aspect: No one can reach the Companions in ijtihad, that
is, in deduction from God’s Word of His ordinances and
the things He approves of. For the mighty Divine
revolution at that time aimed at learning and
understanding God’s commandments and the things of which
He approves. All the minds were concentrated upon deducing
the Divine ordinances, and all of the hearts wondered what
their Lord wanted from them. All the events and
circumstances impelled people to that, and conversations,
discussions and stories occurred in a way to teach Divine
ordinances and wishes to some extent and perfected the
capacities of the Companions and enlightened their minds,
and since their potentials to make deductions and exercise
ijtihad were as ready to ignite as matches, a modern man
of the same intelligence and capacity as the Companions
cannot attain in ten or even a hundred years to the level
of deduction and ijtihad which the Companions reached in a
day or a month. Because, at present, people consider
worldly happiness rather than eternal happiness, they turn
their attentions to other aims. Since the struggle to make
a living in lack of reliance on God has bewildered and
stupefied the spirits, and naturalistic and materialistic
philosophy has blinded the intellects, the social
environment does not strengthen people’s minds and
capacities in exercising ijtihad, rather it scatters and
confuses them. While discussing ijtihad in The
Twenty-seventh Word, I explained why at the present time
one of the same intelligence as Sufyan ibn Uyayna, could
not obtain in a hundred years what Sufyan obtained in ten.
Second
aspect: No one can reach through sainthood the rank of the
Companions in nearness to God. For God Almighty is nearer
to us than everything, while we are infinitely far from
Him. One can acquire nearness to Him in two ways:
One
is through God’s favor to make one near to Him and
making one realize His nearness. Through companionship
with, and succession, to the Prophet, the Companions were
endowed with this sort of nearness.
The
second is through continuous promotion to higher and
higher ranks until honored with nearness to God. Most of
the saints follow this way and make a long spiritual
journey in their inner world and through the outer world.
The
first way is purely a gift of God; it does not depend upon
one’s own efforts. Nearness to God in this way is
realized through attraction of the Merciful One and being
beloved by Him. This way is short but extremely elevated
and sound, perfectly pure and free of obscurities. The
other is long and depends on one’s own endeavors, and it
has obscurities. Even if the one following it is endowed
with miracle-like wonders, this way is inferior to the
former in acquiring nearness to God Almighty.
Consider
this example:
One
can experience yesterday once more in two ways. Either,
without following the course of time, one rises by a
sacred spiritual power to a position from which one can
see the whole of time, including yesterday and today, as a
single point. Or, following the course of time, one lives
the whole of the year and reaches the same day next year.
Despite this, one cannot preserve yesterday, nor prevent
it from slipping by.
As
in the example, one can pass from the outward observation
of religious commandments to realization of their truth in
two ways. Either, without entering the intermediate world
of religious orders, one submits oneself to the attraction
of truth and finds it directly in its outward aspect; one
sees the outward and inward combined into a single unity.
Or, one is initiated into a spiritual way and promoted to
higher and higher ranks one after the other.
However
successful in self-annihilation and killing the
evil-commanding self, the saintly people are never able to
reach the Companions. Because, since the Companions were
purified and their souls refined, they were honored with
all varieties of worship and sorts of praise and
thanks-giving with the multiple inborn faculties which
selfhood has. Whereas, after the annihilation of selfhood,
the worship of the saints acquires some sort of
simplicity.
Third
aspect: No one can reach the Companions in merits of
deeds, rewards for actions, and virtues pertaining to the
Hereafter. Just as through keeping an hour of watch and
guard on a dangerous point under perilous conditions, a
soldier can gain the merits of a year of worship or of
being martyred by a bullet, he attains in a minute to the
rank of some sort of sainthood which others can only reach
in no less than forty days, so too, the services of the
Companions in the establishment of Islam and propagation
of the commandments of the Qur’an, and their challenging
the whole of the world for the sake of Islam were so
meritorious and rewarding that others cannot gain in one
year the merits which they acquired in a minute. It may
even be said that every minute of theirs is equal to the
minute of that soldier martyred while in that sacred
service. Every hour of theirs is like the hour of watch of
a self-sacrificing soldier under perilous conditions,
which though it seems a small act, is extremely valuable
and meritorious. Since the Companions formed the first
line in the establishment of Islam and dissemination of
the lights of the Qur’an, according to the rule The
cause is like the doer, they are given a share from the
rewards of all the Muslims until the Last Day. The Muslims’
calling on them God’s peace and blessings saying, O God,
bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad and on
his family and Companions, shows that the Companions have
shares in the rewards of all Muslims [without causing any
reduction from the Muslims’ rewards]. Just as an
insignificant characteristic in the roots of a tree takes
on a great form in the branches of trees and is larger
than the largest branch, and just as a small amount at the
beginning gradually becomes a big mass, and just as a
little point in the center forms a wide angle in the
circumference, so too, since the Companions formed the
roots of the blessed, illustrious tree of Islam, since
they were among the leaders of the Muslim community and
first in establishing their traditions, and since they
were the nearest to the center of the Sun of Prophethood
and the Lamp of Truth, their few actions become multiplied
and their little service is huge in consequence. To reach
them requires to be a Companion.
Fourth
aspect: The reward of a deed changes according to the
circumstances in which it is done and the purity of
intention in the heart of its doer. Endeavoring in the way
of God, for example, in severe circumstances such as fear,
threats and shortage of necessary equipment, and purely
for the sake of God without aiming at any worldly profit,
is much more rewarding than the same action performed in a
free and promising atmosphere.
The
Companions accepted and defended the religion of God in
the severest circumstances of all times. The opposition
was extremely inflexible and unpitying. As Abu Bakr is
reported in Musamarat al-Abrar by Muhyi al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi,
to have told ‘Ali after the death of the Prophet, the
early Companions did not dare to go out except at the risk
of their lives. They always feared that a dagger would be
thrust at them from the front or from behind. Only God
knows how many times they were insulted, beaten and
tortured. Especially the weak and slaves such as Bilal,
‘Ammar, and Suhayb were tortured almost to death and the
young, like Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas and Mus‘ab ibn ‘Umayr,
were beaten, boycotted and imprisoned by their families.
None of them ever thought of renouncing their religion,
nor did they oppose God’s Messenger in any of his
commands. They forsook for the sake of God everything they
had; they left their homes, their native lands and
belongings and emigrated to another land. The believers of
Madina welcomed them enthusiastically and protected them;
they shared with them everything they had. They fulfilled
their covenant with God willingly; sold their goods and
souls to God in exchange for belief and Paradise, and
never broke their word. This gained them so high a rank in
the view of God that no one can attain it until the Last
Day.
The
severity of circumstances, along with other factors
mentioned and unmentioned, made the Companions’ belief
strong and firm beyond compare. To cite an example, God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, once entered
the mosque and saw Harith ibn Malik sleeping there. He
woke him up. Harith asked: ‘May my father and mother be
sacrificed for your sake, O Messenger of God! I am ready
to carry out your orders!’ God’s Messenger, upon him
be peace and blessings, asked him how he had spent the
night. Harith answered: ‘I have spent the night as a
true believer.’ The Messenger asked again: ‘Everything
which is true must have a truth (proving it). What is the
truth of your belief?’ Harith replied: ‘I fasted
during the day, and prayed to my Lord in utmost sincerity
all night long. Now I am in a state as if I were seeing
the Throne of my God and the recreation of the people of
Paradise in Paradise’. The Messenger, upon him be peace
and blessings, concluded: ‘You have become an embodiment
of belief.’
1
The
Companions became so near to God that ‘God was their
eyes with which they saw, their ears with which they
heard, their tongues with which they spoke and their hands
with which they held.’
1.
Haythami, Majma‘ al-Zawa’id, 1.57; Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal,
13.353.
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