The students of Ibn Masūd also learned from Umar, Alī, Abū al-Dardā, and others. Likewise, the students of Muādh ibn Jabal—may Allah be pleased with him—learned from Ibn Masūd and others. The students of Ibn Abbās likewise learned from Ibn Umar, Abū Hurayra, and others, while the students of Zayd ibn Thābit learned from Abū Hurayra and others.

Whoever Allah enabled to benefit derived benefit from each of them. They all agreed upon one religion, one path, and one way. They worshipped Allah and obeyed Allah and His Messenger (1)—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Whatever any truthful person conveyed to them from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—they accepted. They benefited from anyone who helped them understand, from the Quran and sunnah (2), what the Quran and sunnah teach; and they responded to anyone who called them to the good that Allah and His Messenger love.

No one among them made his shaykh a lord whom he called upon for relief, as though the shaykh were a deity whom he petitioned, in whom he placed his hopes, whom he worshipped and relied upon, and whom he called upon for relief whether alive or dead. Nor did anyone treat his shaykh like a prophet who must be obeyed in everything he commands, such that whatever he declared lawful was lawful and whatever he declared forbidden was forbidden.

Such conduct and anything like it constitute the religion of the Christians, concerning whom Allah says:

“They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords apart from Allah, as well as the Messiah, son of Mary, though they were commanded to worship only one God. There is no god but Him. Glory be to Him above what they associate with Him.”

[Surah al-Tawbah: 31]

They assisted one another in righteousness and piety, not in sin and transgression, exhorting one another to truth and exhorting one another to patience.