a fetus, seeking permission before entering, and a woman’s inheritance from the blood money paid for her husband, among other matters that he learned from others. Uthmān—may Allah be pleased with him—learned from someone else the hadith concerning a widow’s remaining in her home until the prescribed term had run its course, and Alī—may Allah be pleased with him—learned from someone else the hadith concerning the prayer of repentance.
Such knowledge may remain hidden from a person of superior merit until he dies without ever learning it, while someone of lower rank transmits it. Instances of this are numerous, but this is not the place to discuss them. The purpose here is to explain the avenues by which knowledge is acquired.
Following the four caliphs, the Companions from whom people acquired knowledge included Ubayy ibn Kab, Ibn Masūd, Muādh (ibn Jabal)(1), Abū al-Dardā, Zayd ibn Thābit, Hudhayfa, Imrān ibn Husayn, Abū Mūsā, Salmān, Abd Allāh ibn Salām, and others like them.
After these came figures such as Aisha, Ibn Abbās, Ibn Umar, Abd Allāh ibn Amr(2), Abū Saīd, Jābir, and others.
Among the Successors from whom knowledge was acquired were jurists and others, including Saīd ibn al-Musayyab, Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, Ubayd Allāh ibn Abd Allāh ibn Utba, al-Qāsim ibn Muhammad, Sālim ibn Abd Allāh, Abū Bakr ibn Abd al-Rahmān ibn al-Hārith ibn Hishām, Alī ibn al-Husayn, Khārija ibn Zayd ibn Thābit, Sulaymān ibn Yasār, and such figures as Alqama, al-Aswad, Shurayh the judge, Ubayda al-Salmānī, al-Hasan al-Basrī, Muhammad ibn Sīrīn, and others like them.
Then, after them, came figures such as al-Zuhrī, Qatāda, and Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr,