Sahabah

The sahabah (الصحابة‎; lit. "companions"; sing. sahabi) were the companions of Prophet Muhammad. According to tradition, an individual must have: seen Muhammad, believed in his prophethood, and died as a believer in order to be considered a sahabi or companion of the Muhammad (and thereby attain the concomitant theological status).^[1][2] These would exclude, for example, Ubayd-Allah b. Jahsh (brother of Zainab b. Jash, the cousin and wife of Muhammad),^[3] who was considered one of the sahabah but later converted to Christianity.^[4] Those that saw Muhammad but held off believing in him until after his death are not considered Sahabah but rather tabi'un (sucessors).^[2] In hadith attributed to Muhammad, he says that the sahabah are among the best generation of Muslims on Earth, along with the tabi‘un and the tabu' al-tabi'een (successors of the successors). These three generations (sahaba, tabi'un, and tabu' al-tabi'een are said to comprise the salaf al-salah, or "pious predecessors".

All the hadiths, or narrations describing a sayings and doings of Muhammad, are attributed to Muhammad via a chain of narrators that always concludes with a companion of Muhammad, who is trusted to have witnessed the events described or words recounted in the narration and faithfully described them. Consequently, all of Islamic doctrine not directly derived from the Qur'an is traced back to one or a group of Muhammad's companions. Even the Qur'an itself is interpreted in light of narrations attributed to Muhammad's companions which attest to the revelational circumstances of individual verses in the Qur'an (such narrations giving details on the meanings of the Qur'an comprise the earliest exegetical writings, or tafsirs). While hadith reports are generally viewed with a degree of skepticism by modern historians, Islamic scholastics rely on the authenticity of the hadiths as a basis for most of Islamic thought, including interpretation of the Qur'an. This reliance on companions' reports raises belief in the integrity of the companions to the level of basic Islamic doctrine. The emergent argument ad absurdum is as follows: if the integrity of the companions may be doubted, all of Islam may be doubted (even, indeed, the Qur'an, which the companions transmitted) - and since Allah must leave believers with knowledge of Islam that is certain, it follows that the sources of this knowledge must be reliable. The Shi'ite view is more nuanced, and allows the possibility of corrupted or unreliable companions, their judgement of character generally revolving around the companion-in-question's loyalty to Ali (notably, for Shi'ites, Aisha, Abu Bakr, and Umar do not make the cut).

Upon hearing or saying the name of a companion of Muhammad, Muslims are obliged to say radi Allahu anhu (lit. "Allah is pleased with him") - a practice inspired by a verse in the Qur'an.^[5]