An example of tacit approval is the Prophet’s ﷺ question to the slave girl: “Where is Allah?” She replied, “In the heaven.”1 He accepted her answer, and this is marfūʿ in the category of tacit approval.

Now, is everything that was done or said during his lifetime automatically considered marfūʿ? We say: if he knew of it, then it is marfūʿ, because his knowledge entails his approval. If he did not know of it, it is not marfūʿ, for it is not ascribed to him. Even so, according to the correct opinion it still constitutes proof, and the reason it is proof is that Allah approved it.

The evidence for this is that the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—used to reason from Allah’s approval of certain actions of theirs that He did not censure. Jabir—may Allah be pleased with him—said, “We used to practise coitus interruptus while the Quran was being revealed,”2 and the Quran was being revealed in the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ. It is as though they were saying: If this act were forbidden, Allah would have prohibited it in His Book or revealed its prohibition to His Messenger ﷺ, for Allah does not approve of what is unlawful.

Another proof is His statement: “They seek to hide from people, but they cannot hide from Allah; He is with them when they spend the night plotting speech that He does not approve.” (al-Nisāʾ 4:108). Those who, by night, hatched words displeasing to Allah tried to conceal themselves from people, who knew nothing of them, yet because their act was unacceptable to Allah, He reproached them for it.

This shows that whatever was done in the Prophet’s ﷺ lifetime and was not disapproved of by Allah is authoritative proof, though we do not term it marfūʿ, because it cannot rightly be attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.