Chapter I: Acquisition of Knowledge
(11) ELEVENTH SIGN: Another sign of the learned man of the next world is that he relies on his insight and knowledge which enlighten his heart and not on books and what he learns from others. His object of following is what the law giver said and enjoined. The companions believed blindly what they heard from the Prophet and they put into it practice. He from whose soul screen has been removed and whose soul has been illumined with the light of guidance is an object to be followed and he should not follow others besides him. For this reason, Ibn Abbas said: There is nobody except the Apostle of God whose knowledge is not sometimes followed and sometimes rejected.
One sage said: We placed in our hearts and in our eyes what we received from the Prophet. We accepted something of what came from the companions and rejected something. Their successors were mere men like ourselves. The companions were superior, because they saw the circumstances under which the Prophet had lived and saw with their own eyes the revelation of the Quran and hence their rank is higher as their minds were imbued with it. The light of Prophethood was so strong on them that it saved them from many sins. They were not satisfied with the words of others. Their minds were distant from books and manuscripts which were not in vogue in their times, nor in the time of their successors. These books were compiled first in about 120 Hijra after the death of the companions and some of their successors specially after the death of Hazrat Sayeed-b- Masayyeb, Hasan Basari and other pious successors. Hazrat Abu Bakr and one party of the companions did not like to collect even
Vol-I KNOWLEDGE 89
the Quran in a book form for fear that the people would not commit the Quran to memory and lest the people depend only on this. Then Hazrat Omar and some companions gave advice to put it in to writing. Thus Hazrat Abu Bakr had the Quran collected in one book. Ahmed-b-Hanbal was critical of Malek for his composition of Al-Muatta and said: He has done what the companions did not do: