without an overriding benefit, a form of blameworthy backbiting.
The Companions—may Allah be pleased with them all—(1) are more inviolable, loftier in standing, and more unsullied in honor. Their virtues, both collectively and individually, have been established to a degree unmatched by anyone else. Therefore, speech censuring them for the disputes that arose among them is more sinful than such speech concerning others.
If it is said, “Yet in this passage (2), you revile the Rāfida, condemn them, and mention their faults,”
The reply is: Mentioning blameworthy categories is not the same as naming specific individuals. It is authentically established that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—pronounced curses upon many categories, as when he said:
“May Allah curse wine, the one who drinks it, the one who presses it, the one for whom it is pressed, the one who carries it, the one to whom it is carried, the one who sells it, and the one who consumes its proceeds.” (3)
And:
“May Allah curse the one who consumes usury, the one who pays it, its scribe, and its two witnesses.” (4)
And:
“May Allah curse whoever alters the boundary markers of the land.” (5)
He also said, “Medina
(1) ن, م, and أ read: “May Allah be pleased with them”; ي and ر read: “May Allah’s pleasure be upon them.”
(2) ن reads: “Yet, in this matter, here in this passage, you…”; و reads: “Yet here you…”
(3) The hadith was cited previously, 4/568–569.
(4) The hadith was cited previously, 4/568.
(5) The hadith is narrated from Alī ibn Abī Tālib—may Allah be pleased with him—with differing wordings in Muslim, 3/1567, Book of Sacrifices, chapter “The Prohibition of Slaughtering for Other than Allah Most High and the Curse upon One Who Does So.” The first narration reads:
Abū al-Tufayl Umar ibn Wāthila narrated to us. He said: “I was with Alī ibn Abī Tālib when a man came to him and asked, ‘What did the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—confide to you?’ Alī became angry and replied, ‘The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—did not privately confide anything to me that he withheld from the people, except that he told me four things.’ The man asked, ‘What were they, O Commander of the Believers?’ Alī replied, ‘He said: “May Allah curse whoever curses his child; may Allah curse whoever sacrifices to other than Allah; may Allah curse whoever harbors an offender; and may Allah curse whoever alters the boundary markers of the land.”’”
Al-Nawawī states in his commentary on Muslim, 13/141: “By *manār al-ard*, with an a-vowel on the letter m, are meant the markers of its boundaries.” The hadith also appears in *Sunan al-Nasā’ī*, 7/204–205, Book of Sacrificial Animals, chapter “One Who Sacrifices to Other than Allah, Mighty and Majestic,” and in *al-Musnad*, al-Ma'ārif edition, 2/156. A hadith with the same meaning, narrated from Ibn Abbās—may Allah be pleased with them both—appears in *al-Musnad*, al-Ma'ārif edition, 3/266; 4/292–293, 326–327.