"The Caliphate and the Imamate in Islamic Thought" Series
By the writer and thinker Thaer Salama - Abu Malek
Episode Thirty-Five: The Theoretical Power Behind Consensus, Which Gives It the Characteristic of Certainty - Part 1
The theoretical strength lies in this consensus, which gives it the characteristic of certainty and the absence of the possibility of error in its possession of a set of characteristics, which can be summarized as follows:
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Firstly: It is definitively established that there is a need for messengers to convey the laws of the Almighty Lord and His religion that He has approved for His servants. If it were not for the messengers, God’s message would not have been conveyed to us. God Almighty chose the messengers to convey His message and they were human beings, and He provided them with miracles, and all of this is definitive. These messengers conveyed the messages, and they were sealed with our master Muhammad ﷺ, so he conveyed the message and the Companions who lived with him heard it from him. The Qur’an was written during his era, and the Companions heard the Sunnah, and the religion is the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Thus, the need to transmit this Book and the Sunnah to the nation from generation to generation, either in writing or by hearing and teaching, has been definitively established. This transmission from the Companions took two forms: an individual form or reports from individuals, and the amount of such reports is based on assumption due to the possibility of forgetfulness and error, and the possibility of the introduction of fabrications and lies in the chains of those who transmitted from them afterwards, and the possibility of abrogation and other things. Therefore, individual transmission or reports from individuals remain at the level of assumption.
The second form: the transmission that has been frequently reported, and the strongest and highest of them is: what they agreed upon, and there is no room for lying in this, and it is an extension of the need for messengers to transmit the laws. In a collective form, they transmitted the Qur’an to us and preserved it for us, and they transmitted the religion to us and preserved it for us, and this is definitive evidence of the authority of their consensus because it preserves the religion, preserves the Qur’an, and transmits God’s law.
For the definitive evidence, the definitive indication, praised them and clarified God's satisfaction with them, and the praise indicates the pleasure and collective purification of them, and one of the requirements of purification is: honesty, so the strongest of them, which they agreed upon, is certainly true, and this is definitive evidence of their honesty when they are together. As for the Qur’an’s praise of their individuals, it has a presumptive indication of the honesty of those individuals, and therefore, the proof of the honesty of their group is definitive. So God Almighty’s praise of the Companions is proven by definitive evidence of proof and indication, and His Messenger’s praise of the Companions is proven, and this praise came without restriction, and honoring them also, which indicates that their honesty (if they agreed) is a definite matter.
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Secondly: It is definitively established in Islamic law that God has preserved the Holy Qur’an, for God Almighty has preserved the Holy Qur’an by His promise, and He ﷻ made its collection and preservation His responsibility, which is what the Companions did, and also to the Companions is its transmission, and its protection from loss, distortion, or change, so they transmitted the Qur’an, the very Qur’an that was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ, so God promised to preserve His book, that is, what is stated in the verse ﴿Indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur'an and indeed, We will be its guardian.﴾ [Al-Hijr: 9], which is definitive in its indication, and it contains evidence of the truthfulness of their consensus, because whoever promised to preserve the Book, made the means of achieving that preservation the Companions, and the Companions are the ones who transmitted the Qur’an to us, and the verse in which God promised to preserve the Qur’an is definitive in its indication, and no one denies that the Companions are the ones through whom God preserved the Qur’an by collecting it and preserving it from distortion, loss, and forgetfulness, so this is definitive legal evidence that their consensus is definitive because the meaning of the non-definitiveness of their consensus is the introduction of doubt into the Qur’an, and the destruction of Islam, so this is taken as legal evidence that they are the ones through whom God preserved His book and religion, so their consensus must be definitive, and legal evidence,
Error in the Qur’an is impossible, and therefore it is impossible for their consensus, which was the reason for preserving the Qur’an, to be wrong.
And with the definitive evidence that falsehood does not come to the Qur’an from before it or from behind it, then definitive evidence has been established that the consensus of the Companions is a legal authority.
