From this it becomes clear that the Prophet ﷺ endorsed the Companions—foremost among them ʿUmar—in their broad, all-inclusive understanding of the verse as covering the dead in the well and others besides. He did not censure them or say, “You are mistaken; the verse does not absolutely negate the hearing of the dead.” Rather, he affirmed their view and merely disclosed to them what they had not known about the people of the well: that they truly heard his words and that this was a special, exempted instance—granted as a miracle to him ﷺ, as already explained.

I then said there:

So pay close attention to this and realize that a subtle yet vital juridical principle is to track the matters the Prophet ﷺ tacitly approved and to cite them as evidence, for his approval is truth, as is well known. Without observing this rule, one can easily miss the correct understanding of many texts. We need not look far; the proof lies before you. Many writers and others habitually cite this very report—the hadith of the well—as proof that the dead can hear, clinging to the outward wording of his ﷺ statement, “You do not hear what I say any better than they do,” while failing to notice that he ﷺ confirmed the Companions in their belief that the dead do not hear. Once this overlooked point is recognized, the hadith actually turns into evidence that the dead do not hear, and that this is the default rule, from which one may depart only on the basis of explicit textual proof, as is the case with every general text. Allah is the One who grants success.

A researcher will find many examples of this kind, and it may be beneficial for me to mention here the two that come to mind at present …

After presenting them—one of which concerns ʿĀ’ishah—I said, p. 46: