a set of established forms.”
[Ibn Taymiyyah’s comment]
I say:
The statement, “The Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—died without knowing these matters,” requires qualification.
These discussions contain both truth and falsehood. The falsehood includes such notions as affirming the indivisible atom, al-Nazzām’s theory of the leap, the impossibility of an accident persisting for two moments, and similar claims.
Such notions may never occur to the prophets or the allies of Allah, whether among the Companions or others. If one of them does encounter such a notion, its falsity becomes clear to him. False and untrue statements are like the things that do not invalidate ablution: there is no exhaustive rule encompassing them. What is required is to know the truth and act upon it. When falsehood arises, it is recognized as false and rejected. This is like forbidding wrongdoing and fighting the enemy: not every Companion witnessed and condemned every form of wrongdoing.
Nevertheless, one cannot categorically assert of every Companion that he was unfamiliar with such claims and unaware of their falsity. They conquered Syria, Egypt, the Maghrib, Iraq, and Khurāsān. Among the unbelievers in those lands—polytheists, Sabians, and People of the Book—were people who possessed writings by misguided philosophers and others containing these false notions. The Companions may therefore have been addressed concerning these notions in one formulation or another and explained their falsity to those who questioned them.
One of us may meet various kinds of misguided people, and they ask him about