the division of the community into seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one. When they asked him about that single group he said, “They are those who are upon what I and my Companions are upon today.” (1)
Abu Zurʿah—foremost among Imam Muslim’s teachers—said: “If you see a man disparaging any of the Companions, know that he is a heretic (zindiq). The Quran is true, the Messenger is true, and everything he brought is true, and it was only the Companions who conveyed all of this to us. So anyone who attacks them merely intends to undermine the Book and the sunnah. Such a person is the one who deserves to be maligned, and judging him to be a heretic and astray is more fitting and proper.”
Al-ʿAllāmah Ibn Hamdān states in Nihāyat al-Mubtadiʾīn: “Whoever reviles any of the Companions while deeming it lawful has disbelieved; and if he does so without deeming it lawful, he is a sinner (fāsiq). Another opinion from him is that he disbelieves outright. Likewise, whoever declares them to be sinners, impugns their religion, or pronounces them disbelievers, himself becomes a disbeliever.” (2)
- The prohibition of reviling the Imams of guidance from among this ummah: After the Companions, the Imams of guidance occupy the next rank in virtue, honor, and station.