Portal: Muhammad's Companions and Contemporaries

A checked version of this page, approved on 17 February 2021, was based on this revision.

Muhammad's contemporaries, companions, and successors play an elevated role in the lore of Islam. It is against many of his contemporaries that Muhammad defined his movement, it is through his companions that his tradition was passed forth, and it is by his immediate successors that his legacy was interpreted and formalized. Excepting those who opposed him, a hadith in Bukhari captures the general manner in which Muhammad's and following generations have been conceived by the Islamic tradition: "Narrated `Abdullah: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, 'The best people are those of my generation, and then those who will come after them (the next generation), and then those who will come after them (i.e. the next generation), and then after them, there will come people whose witness will precede their oaths, and whose oaths will precede their witness.'^[1] The earliest generations of Muslims have in the recent past become a topic of renewed interest as a result of the various Salafi movements that have spread across the world and which seek, more than anything else, to restore Islam to the version of it that was practiced by Muhammad's companions and immediate successors.

Overview

The varying levels of reverence and precedential importance accorded to Muhammad, his family, his companions, their contemporaries, and each successive generations is of great importance in the Islamic tradition. The reasoning for this importance is best understood in light of the fact that the Islamic tradition is one centered on the precedence set by individual persons, rather than on the particular arguments for or consequences of any given practice or belief. This is not to say that thinkers in the Islamic tradition did not elaborate and discuss the reasons for and consequences of any given practice or belief (be it religious or legal), but that, at the end of the day, these considerations were always secondary and tertiary to the authority of the individual who first implemented them. As a result, the variety of persons responsible for instituting a practice is overwhelmingly the justification for it, although other considerations may be factored in subsequently. More important than these other considerations, however, will always be the interpretations of the given practice or belief advanced (usually by subsequent generations or groups of persons of lesser authority, although a party may in some cases explain its own reasoning). Broadly speaking, therefore, the first question is in all cases is who said to believe or do this? ('Muhammad' being the best possible answer), the second question is who interpreted this practice or belief? (here again, as always, Muhammad is the best answer, however one will almost always need to look to Muhammad's companions or successors for an explanation), and the third question is what can be said rationally about this practice? (by this point, however, the room for autonomy on the part of the jurist or theologian is usually considerably diminished if not altogether gone). At each level, one hopes for the highest authority available, but available references usually increase in descending order and one will not, of course, expect to find an explanation for the actions of Muhammad's successors from someone who preceded them, such as, say, Muhammad himself.