the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—and that it only took firm root after his ﷺ passing! On that assumption the cause would still exist and the ruling would necessarily remain in force, a notion so patently false that I can scarcely imagine anyone espousing it. If someone were to contend, “No—the cause disappeared before he ﷺ died,” we reply: How could that be, when he ﷺ issued this prohibition during the very last breaths of his blessed life?! This is further confirmed by the

Third point: some of the previously cited hadiths state explicitly that the ruling will remain in effect until the Day of Resurrection, such as hadith 12.

Fourth point: the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—buried him in his own chamber only out of fear that his grave might be turned into a mosque, as ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with her—related in hadith 4. That fear must have been directed either at the Companions themselves or at those who would come after them. If it was the former, we say: fear for the later generations was even more deserving. And if, as we hold, it was the latter, then this is decisive proof that the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—never regarded the underlying cause as having vanished.