the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is required to provide, for he must explain both its wording and its meaning. Since this is so, and they acquired knowledge of its meaning from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), the same applies to the Successors in relation to the Companions. For the scholars among the Successors were eager and strongly motivated to ask the Companions about the meaning of this name. This is evident from the established course of human conduct.

If, then, this was transmitted through numerous independent channels from the leading Successors, alongside what was reported from the Companions and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), the reason its transmission through chains of narrators from authorities cited by scholars has become widely known among us is simply that knowledge was diminishing among later generations. An individual would ask whichever Successor he happened to encounter, and so they came to transmit it through particular channels. The same occurred with matters known to all the Companions, such as the military campaigns of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), the outward form of his prayer, his pilgrimage, and similar matters. Eventually, some people even disputed such matters as his reciting “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate” aloud and his qunūt supplication.

It is well known that such disputes could not have arisen during the time of Abū Bakr and Umar, because the Companions who had witnessed these things were still present. For this reason, the practice of Abū Bakr and Umar is cited as evidence that this was the practice of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), since it is known that the Companions did not collectively agree to alter his Sunnah.

The fourth consideration is that interpreting al-Samad as “the One who has no internal cavity,” besides being the best-known interpretation of this beautiful and sublime name transmitted from