   
Pacific — the qur
ānic foundations and
models of social and communal life of
Muslims predominate and provide an ever
fresh and innovative approach to defining
what it means to be Muslim and how to
live in a pluralistic world alongside other
communities and societies, whether reli-
gious or secular in nature. For an examina-
tion of the qur
ānic terminology relating to
the commercial and economic aspects of
communal life, see   .
Frederick Mathewson Denny
Bibliography
Primary: Rāzī, Tafsīr; Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf.
Secondary: L. Ahmed, Women and gender in Islam.
Historical roots of a modern debate, New Haven ;
M.F. Ansari, The qur$ānic foundations and structure of
Muslim society,  vols., Karachi  (extensive
applications of qur
ānic teachings for the
contemporary Muslim world); A.J. Arberry, Seven
odes, London ; T. Ashkenazi, La tribu arabe.
Ses elements, in Anthropos - (-), -;
D. Bakker, Man in the Qur$ān, Amsterdam 
(ch.  is a thorough summary of human
groupings in the Qur
ān); J. Chelhod, Fabīla, in
  , iv, -; C.S. Coon et al., Badāwī, in   , i,
-; F.M. Denny, Ethics and the Qur
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, -; id., The meaning of ummah in the
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Some religio-communal terms and concepts in
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in the Constitution of Medina, in   (),
; F. Donner, From believers to Muslims.
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L’honneur chez les Arabes avant l’Islam, Paris ; L.
Gardet, La cité musulmane, Paris ; H. Gätje,
The Qur$ān and its exegesis, London ; A.
Grohmann et al., Arab, in   , i, -; J.
Horovitz, Jewish proper names and derivatives in
the Koran, in Hebrew Union College annual, 
(), ; R.S. Humphreys, Islamic history. A
framework for inquiry, Princeton  (revised);
H.E. Kassis, A concordance of the Qur$ān, Berkeley
 (an excellent reference work for readers
without a knowledge of Arabic that includes
386
topical headings in English with the original
Arabic qur
ānic terms in Roman transliteration);
M. Khadduri, War and peace in the law of Islam,
Baltimore ; H. Lammens, L’Arabie occidentale
avant l’Hégire, Beirut ; L. Massignon,
L’umma et ses synonymes. Notion de
“communauté sociale” en Islam, in 
(), -; McAuliffe, Qur$ānic; C.A.O. van
Niewenhuijze, The ummah. An analytic
approach, in   (), -; Nöldeke,  ; J.
Pedersen, Der Eid bei den Semiten, Strassburg ;
C. Pellat, ilf al-fuūl, in   , iii, ; F.E.
Peters, Muhammad and the origins of Islam, Albany
 (a clear, non-technical but sophisticated
historical analysis of Islam’s founding); F.
Rahman, Major themes of the Qur$ān, Chicago
; G. Rentz, Djazīrat al-*arab, in   , i,
-; R. Roberts, The social laws of the Qoran,
London  (still a useful overview); F.
Rosenthal, Nasab, in   , vii, -; R. al-Sayyid,
Mafāhīm al-jamāāt fī l-islām, Beirut ; id.,
al-Umma wa-l-jamāa wa-l-sulān. Dirāsāt fī l-fikr
al-siyāsī l-arabī l-islāmī, Beirut ; W.C. Smith,
The meaning and end of religion. A new approach to the
religious traditions of mankind, New York ; W.
Robertson Smith, Kinship and marriage in early
Arabia, Cambridge ; London  (rev. ed.);
B. Stowasser, Women in the Qur$ān, traditions and
interpretation, New York  (includes a review of
modern interpretations); E. Tyan, ilf, in   , iii,
-; A. Wadud-Muhsin, Qur$ān and woman,
Kuala Lumpur ; W.M. Watt, Islam and the
integration of society, Evanston ; id., Muhammad
at Mecca, Oxford ; id., Muhammad at Medina,
Oxford ; id., Muhammad’s Mecca, Edinburg
.
Companions of the Prophet
The body of people who had known or
seen the Prophet Muammad during his
lifetime. The plural “Companions of the
Prophet” (aāb al-nabī), otherwise known
simply as “the Companions” (aāba), is
derived from the root --b and has re-
ferred, at least since the classical period, to
this group. (On the question of whether a
merely ocular encounter with the Prophet
could be considered a sufficient criterion to
render someone a Companion, cf. Gold-
ziher,  , ii, .) For Sunnī Muslims, a
reference to the Companions serves not
 387
only to describe certain individuals as a
collective entity but also carries with it an
immense weight from a theologico-political
prescriptive: Appeal is made to the sayings
and deeds of the Prophet and his Com-
panions, as recorded in the adīth, in all
matters of Islamic decision-making as well
as for guidelines about personal piety and
everyday conduct.
As explicitly articulated in al-Shāfi*ī’s
(d. ⁄) great legal treatise al-Risāla,
the manner of conduct (sunna, q.v.) of the
Prophet and his Companions is considered
one of the four sources of the law (uūl al-
fiqh) and commands an authority second
only to that of the Qur
ān. Al-Shāfi*ī lo-
cates the authority for the prophetic sunna
in the Qur
ān itself, insofar as the Qur
ān
commands Muslims to obey the Prophet’s
orders. Although al-Shāfi*ī asserts that the
Qur
ān “explains everything,” he argues
nonetheless that the sunna may clarify
the general or particular meaning of a
qur
ānic passage or supply an answer to an
issue not treated in the book. In response
to the question whether the Qur
ān can
ever abrogate the sunna, al-Shāfi*ī replies
that only another sunna can abrogate the
sunna (see ). This statement
appears to be based on his explicit pre-
sumption that the sunna can never be in
contradiction with the Qur
ān. He also
avers that if there “is a contradiction [in
the sunna], it is not a contradiction” (cf.
al-Risāla, chapter ix, “On Traditions”).
Qur$ānic references
Given the enormous religious significance
later accorded the Companions of the
Prophet by Sunnī Muslims, it is interesting
to note that the phrase aāb al-nabī does
not appear anywhere in the Qur
ān. Nor
does the plural form aāba occur there. Of
the  times that the noun āib and its plu-
ral aāb do appear in the Qur
ān, the vast
majority of instances are found in the fol-
   
lowing phrases: companions of the fire
(q.v.; or hell, q.v.) and companions of para-
dise (q.v.;  times), and companions of the
right hand and companions of the left
hand ( times; see ). The Compan-
ions of the fire (or hell) are also usually
identified, in a nearly formulaic fashion, as
“those who disbelieved [see  
; ] and lied about our
signs (q.v.).” It is emphasized that those
people are not only “Companions” of the
fire but also that they are most emphatic-
ally “dwelling in it.”
The remaining instances of āib carry a
wide range of generic meanings including
any fellow traveler, fellow dweller, friend or
mate. In the three instances in which a ver-
bal form of the root --b occurs in the
Qur
ān, the actions are predicated by
Moses (q.v.; lā tuāibnī,  :), Luqmān
(q.v.; āibhumā,  :) and those who
worship other gods ( yuabūna,  :; see
  ), respectively.
The Qur
ān qualifies the Prophet three
times as “your [ pl.] companion” and once
as “their companion.” However, in these
four cases the Prophet is not being de-
scribed as the companion of the faithful
but rather as the companion of those who
disbelieve. “Those who have lied about our
signs” are addressed by the qur
ānic verse,
“your companion is not possessed”
( :). The same group is urged to see
that “there is no madness in their com-
panion” ( :). After recalling those
who have “lied about my messengers”
( :), the Qur
ān attests that “there is
no madness in your companion” ( :).
The Qur
ān also reminds that “your com-
panion has not gone astray (q.v.), nor is he
deluded” ( :; see  
).  : is the only qur
ānic
verse in which someone is designated as
the “companion” of the Prophet. However,
Abū Bakr appears to be designated as such
only insofar as he is Muammad’s “fellow
    
dweller” in the cave (q.v.) where they were
hiding (see ). The notion of the
Companions of the Prophet as a defined
body with a special theologico-political
authority thus does not appear to be at-
tested by the revelation.
The Companions in the adīth and exegetical
literature
While the Companions as a body as such
are not mentioned in the Qur
ān, they, as
well as their relations to the Qur
ān, are
amply attested in the adīth and exegetical
literature. One finds adīth collections in
the form of short manuscripts or pam-
phlets dedicated to the sayings and deeds
of a single companion, as well as larger an-
thologies that treat individual Companions
in sub-chapters (kutub, literally “books”).
The well known adīth collections of the
classical period gather stories about the
virtues ( faā$il or manāqib) of the Com-
panions, taken as a group, in discrete chap-
ters. The remaining narratives about the
sayings and deeds of the Prophet and his
Companions in this literature are organ-
ized according to practically expedient
themes such as prayer (q.v.), fasting (q.v.),
alms (see ) and so forth. Other
compendia supply a list of the Compa-
nions with short biographical references
along with some of the reports they
handed down. (For some of the most fa-
mous collections of adīth, sīra and abaqā,
see bibliography below; see also  
 
).
For Muslims, it is the reputation of the
men and women who handed down the
stories about the sayings of the Compa-
nions that guarantees the veracity of these
accounts rather than the content of the
stories and sayings themselves. Accord-
ingly, one finds prefixed to the text of each
adīth story (matn) a chain of transmitters
(isnād) linking that particular account
back to one of the Companions or to the
388
Prophet himself (see   

). According to al-Shāfi*ī, the mini-
mum proof for the authenticity of a narra-
tive about the Prophet is that the narrative
must be “related by one person from an-
other back to the Prophet or to one next to
the Prophet.” adīths are thus not only
about the Prophet and his Companions but
they are also recounted by them as well.
The adīth narratives also address the
question of their own authenticity inter-
nally. For example, one finds adīths in
which a Companion recounts that a adīth
about the Prophet and his Companions is
to be considered sound only if two Com-
panions can testify to it. In some story cy-
cles, one finds the Companions openly dis-
cussing and then deciding upon the limits
of their own authority. In the absence of a
clear prophetic precedent, they are often
called upon to make their own decisions on
the basis of utility, which in turn may be
further validated by God. One sees this, for
example, in *Umar’s and Abū Bakr’s suc-
cessful persuasion of Zayd b. Thābit to
compile the revelation into one written
book after the Prophet’s death on the basis
of God having “opened” their breasts to it
and its being a “good” thing despite the
fact that the Prophet himself had not done
it (cf. Bukhārī, aī, Tafsīr al-Qur$ān, ,
Faāil al-Qur$ān,  and Akām, ; see
   
;  
 
).
Certain Companions enjoy a special dis-
tinction in adīth literature. The first four
caliphs (or successors to the Prophet; see
) are remembered by Sunnīs as the
Rightly Guided Ones (Rāshidūn). They are
Abū Bakr (r. -⁄-), *Umar b. al-
Kha((āb (r. -⁄-), Uthmān b.
*Affān (q.v.; r. -⁄-) and *Alī b. Abī
ālib (q.v.; r. -⁄-) respectively.
Sunnīs recall the period of their political
leadership as a golden age from which the
Muslim community has devolved not only
 389
in time but also in righteousness. The
caliph *Umar also appears to have pre-
dicted the revelation, verbatim, before it
was announced by the Prophet on at least
three different occasions. Accordingly, the
narratives have him claim that “my lord
agreed with me about three (things)” and
that “I agreed with God about three
(things)” (cf. Bukhārī, aī, Tafsīr al-Qur$ān,
 and alāt, ). The Prophet’s cousin Ibn
*Abbās (d. ca. -⁄-; see  
 ), as well as Muammad’s
youngest wife *Ā
isha bint Abī Bakr (q.v.;
d. ⁄), are also frequently mentioned,
among many others. Over  women are
mentioned by name in the six canonical
collections alone, either as transmitters or
in the adīth stories themselves.
The canonical adīth also mention that
“ten will be in paradise” although the ten
names that comprise that list vary. Accord-
ing to Abū Dāwūd (d. ⁄) and A-
mad b. anbal (d. ⁄), the ten in-
clude Muammad, Abū Bakr, *Umar,
*Uthmān, *Alī, ala, Zubayr, *Abd al-
Ramān b. *Awf, Sa*d b. Abī Waqqā2 and
Sa*īd b. Zayd. According to al-Tirmidhī
(d. ca. ⁄-), Ibn Sa*d (d. ⁄)
and Amad b. anbal, on the other hand,
the name of Abū *Ubayda b. al-Jarrā is
substituted for that of Muammad in this
list. The ten later came to be referred to as
al-ashara al-mubashshara, although this term
does not appear in the canonical adīth
collections themselves.
The Prophet’s Companions were also
commonly distinguished according to
other categories such as whether they ac-
companied him as emigrants (muhājirūn)
from Mecca to Medina (then known as
Yathrib; see ), whether they were
“helpers” (anār; see   -
) from Medina, whether they fought in
certain battles (such as the battle of Badr,
q.v.) and how early they converted to Is-
lam. (Cf. Nawawī, Shar, v, , for a col-
   
lection of the differing views about the
gradations attributed to the Companions).
Whereas the muhājirūn were largely pagan
converts to Islam from Mecca, the anār
were primarily converts from the Aws and
Khazraj tribes of Medina (see  
). Both categories are mentioned by
name in  : and :. The term anār
is related to the verb naara, in the sense of
coming to the aid of someone who has
been wronged by his enemy, which is found
in  :, among other instances of its use.
The word anār also bears some resem-
blance to the Arabic naārā or “Christians,”
as when Jesus (q.v.) asks in  : “who will
be my helpers in God’s cause?” The more
common exegetical etymology of naārā,
however, connects it to the village of Jesus,
i.e. Nazareth (al-Nā2ira; see 
 ).
Another group of Companions is distin-
guished as the so-called “people of the
bench” (ahl al-uffa). According to Lane,
these were the people who reclined on the
bench or banquette in a long, covered por-
tico or vestibule attached to Muammad’s
home, part of the mosque complex in
Medina. Later legend traces the origins
of the mystical, ascetic &ūfī group to these
Companions — based in part on the simi-
larity between the Arabic words for bench
(uffa) and for the woolen (ūfī) garment the
&ūfīs wore (see
   
).
Some commentators, such as Muammad
b. Ka*b al-Qura.ī claim that qur
ānic pas-
sages such as  :-, :, :- and
:- are intended to refer to the ahl al-
uffa even though they are not explicitly
mentioned by name there. Other orthodox
commentators, such as al-Bayāwī (d. ca.
⁄-), are more hesitant to make
such assertions reporting only that “it is
said” to be the case.
Although some of the stories in Shī*ī col-
lections of adīth overlap with those found
in their Sunnī counterparts, they are read
 
by the Shī*a (q.v.) in different, and some-
times in directly opposite, ways. Most nota-
bly, the Shī*a read the Prophet’s sayings
and deeds regarding *Alī b. Abī ālib as an
indication that the Prophet intended *Alī to
succeed him following his death. Thus, in
direct antithesis to the Sunnīs, the Shī*a
regard the rule of the first three caliphs
not as a golden age but a period of unjust
usurpation.
In many cases, this difference results in
the paradoxical situation wherein Shī*a
may point to a adīth about one of the
first three caliphs as evidence of wicked-
ness while Sunnīs may point to the very
same story in their adīth collection as evi-
dence of that person’s exemplary conduct.
A classic example of this phenomenon
would be their diametrically opposed read-
ings of the second caliph *Umar. Shī*a
read these stories, such as the one where
*Umar refuses to let the Prophet write
something for his followers at the moment
of his death, as evidence of *Umar’s unsur-
passed wickedness while Sunnīs interpret it
as yet another example of *Umar’s uncom-
promising defense of the Prophet’s tradi-
tion (cf. Bukhārī, aī, Itiām, ).
According to the tradition about the
“people of the cloak” (ahl al-kisā$) the Shī*a
recount that Muammad went out one
morning during the visit of the Najrān
(q.v.) delegation and drew his daughter
Fā(ima (q.v.), her husband *Alī and their
sons al-asan and al-usayn under his
cloak (see ; ). He then ut-
tered the words in  :: “God only de-
sires to put away filthiness from you as
his household (ahl al-bayt), and with cleans-
ing to clean you.” While the Sunnīs inter-
pret the “filthiness” in this verse as unbe-
lief, the Shī*a understand it as a concern
with this impure world and in particular
with the Sunnī caliphate. For the Shī*a,
the ahl al-bayt, or Family of the Prophet
(q.v.), have a special salvational function
390
(see ). Devotion to them is cen-
tral to the religion and it has a redemptive
quality. In one version of the Prophet’s
farewell (q.v.) sermon, Muammad pro-
claims that God has given two safeguards
to the world, his book (q.v.) and the Proph-
et’s sunna. In another version, however,
Muammad describes the two safeguards
God left the world as his book and the
Prophet’s family (itra). The heads of the
family are the infallible and sinless Imāms
(see ). For Muslims in general and for
Sunnīs in particular, the Companions of
the Prophet, collectively, can also be said to
have played a certain role in the work of
salvation as the link between the Prophet
and the transmission of the faith.
Linda L. Kern
Bibliography
Primary: Bukhārī, Saī; Ibn *Abd al-Barr, Kitāb
al-Istīāb fī ma*rifat al-aāb,  vols., Hayderabad
⁄-; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-ghāba fī ma*rifat
al-aāba,  vols., Cairo ⁄- (critical
compilation of and supplement to Ibn Sa*d and
Ibn *Abd al-Barr); Ibn ajar, al-Iāba fī tamyīz al-
aāba,  vols., Calcutta -;  vols., Cairo
-⁄- (in-depth treatment of works on
the Companions); Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr; Ibn Sa*d,
8abaqāt (contains short biographical references
and excerpts from the narratives of the most
famous authors of works on the Companions);
Nawawī, Shar.
Secondary: I. Goldziher, A2āb, in   , i, -;
id.,  ; L. Kern, The riddle of Umar b. al-Khaāb in
Bukhārī’s Kitāb al-Jāmi al-saī (and the question of
the routinization of prophetic charisma), Ph.D. diss.,
Harvard ; E. Kohlberg, Some Zaydi views
on the Companions of the Prophet, in  
(), -; W. Schmucker, Mubāhala, in   , vii,
-; A. Tritton, Ahl al-kisā
, in   , i, ; L.
Wiederhold, Blasphemy against the Prophet
Muammad and his Companions (sabb al-rasūl,
sabb al-aābah). The introduction of the topic
into Shafi*ī legal literature and its relevance for
legal practice under Mamluk rule, in  
(), -.
Compensation see 