—namely, the act of transmission and the chain of authority. Others said it also refers to the written record, for transmission and isnād are committed to writing. The word atharah comes from athar, “a trace”: the knowledge conveyed by a reliable transmitter leaves its trace through the chain of narration and is fixed upon the page, so all of that counts as its traces.
The Exalted also described the hypocrites:
“Have you not seen those who claim to believe in what was sent down to you and what was sent down before you, yet they wish to take their disputes to the false judge (ṭāghūt), although they were commanded to reject him? Satan only seeks to lead them far astray. When it is said to them, ‘Come to what Allah has sent down and to the Messenger,’ you see the hypocrites turn away from you completely. But how will it be when disaster strikes them because of what their own hands have sent ahead? Then they come to you swearing by Allah, ‘We only wanted good and reconciliation.’ Those are the ones Allah knows what is in their hearts; so turn away from them, admonish them, and speak to them a penetrating word about themselves.” (Q 4:60–63)
These verses contain many lessons: they demonstrate the misguidance of anyone who seeks judgment from other than the Book and the Sunnah, and they brand him a hypocrite—even if he claims he only wants reconciliation, or that he is weighing the revealed proofs against what he calls “rational considerations” taken from certain false authorities among the polytheists, the People of the Book, and the like.
Thus, whoever falls into error because he has been negligent in fulfilling his duty to follow the Quran and believe, or because he has overstepped Allah’s limits by treading the paths He has forbidden, or because he pursues his own desires without guidance from Allah—such a person has wronged his own soul and is among those under threat of punishment. By contrast, the one who strives—inwardly and outwardly—to obey Allah and His Messenger, seeking the truth with the ijtihād that Allah and His Messenger have enjoined, will have any error of his forgiven.
As He said—