3. Spreading it(1) among the people and inviting them to it.

4. Showing patience and striving(2) in conveying it and putting it into practice.

Whoever’s aspiration(3) is to know the state of the Companions and wishes to follow them—this is truly their path. So if you long to reach that company, follow their road(4)… it now stands manifest to every earnest traveller.

Allah, Exalted is He, said to His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): “Say, ‘If I stray, I stray only to my own loss; but if I am guided, it is by what my Lord reveals to me. Indeed, He is All-Hearing, Ever Near’” (50). (5)

This is an explicit statement that the Messenger’s guidance came(6) solely through revelation. How astonishing, then, that people seek guidance elsewhere—from divergent intellects, conflicting opinions, and unstable assertions! Yet, “Whoever Allah guides, he is rightly guided; and whoever He leads astray, you will never find for him a protecting guide” (17). (7)

What misguidance could be worse than that of someone who claims(8) that guidance is not obtained through revelation, then refers the matter to the intellect of So-and-so and the opinion of Such-and-such(9)—to the words of Zayd and ʿAmr?