what is sahaba and sahaby in islam

[16:125] "You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment and debate with them in the best possible manner. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and He knows best who are the guided ones."

[39:17-18] As for those who discard the worship of all idols, and devote themselves totally to GOD alone, they have deserved happiness. Give good news to My servants. They are the ones who examine all words, then follow the best. These are the ones whom GOD has guided; these are the ones who possess intelligence.

[39:55] And follow the best path that is pointed out for you by your Lord, before the retribution overtakes you suddenly when you least expect it.

DEFINITION of SAHABA

Many of the Muslim brothers and sisters talk about the companions (SAHABA) of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) as if they were a different breed of people or a different race. They made them flawless who are unable to make mistakes. They made them worth the respect and love that only the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) deserved for what he was, the messenger of God and the last prophet.. While we can witness many people defending the SAHABA (companions) of the prophet irrespective of what they did, many of those actually do not know what the word SAHABA means or how it was or should be used.

The student of the Muslim history will be shocked to know the different definitions of the word SAHABA (Companion) of the Prophet. Knowing such a definition make it easy for us to talk about our history, our religion and our books.

In general the Muslim scholars disagreed on the definition of: who should be counted as one of the SAHABA (companions) of the Prophet?!! Studying these definitions will clarify for us the position of many people like Imam Al-Bukhary who used his definition of the word Sahaba to accept many of the false and fabricated Hadiths that were included in his book, Sahih Al-Bukhary. Here are the definitions considered by the Muslim Scholars:

DEFINITION of  SAHABY

(1) The definition of Imam Al-Bukhary : Bukhary defined the SAHABY (single of Sahaba) as the one who was in the company of the prophet Muhammed (PBUH) or just SEEN him. Ibn Hanbal who also has a book of his own collecting more Hadiths than Bukhary accepted this definition and clarified it by saying ; "The SAHABY is anyone who accompanied the Prophet for a year, a month, a day or even an hour or even just seen him."

(2) The definition by Abdullah Ibn Omar Ibn Al-Khattab " anyone who has seen the Prophet Muhammed even for one hour as long as he reached the puberty, and is a known Muslim who understood his religion and accepted it."

According to this definition all the children (who had not reached puberty) who witnessed the Prophet cannot be counted as SAHABA.

(3)The definition of Al-Tabaey Saeed Ibn Al-Museeb; "Only those who accompanied the Prophet Muhammed for a year or two and fought with him in a battle or two should be considered SAHABA" This is a definition accepted and encouraged by Imam Al-Ghazali

From the above three definitions, any sincere and guided Muslim can sense the corruption and confusion of Bukhary, a reason for him to get all these corrupted hadiths included in his book. With these corrupted Hadiths, the Muslims after Bukhary changed their religion from the religion of the Prophet Muhammed (the Quran), to the religion of Bukhary and his likes (the fabricated hadiths and Sunna). Let us look at the definition by Bukhary; and reflect on its corruption;

(1) His definition that anyone who seen the Prophet is a SAHABY has no support from the Quran or even from the Islamic history given by other Muslims of the early life of the Prophet and his companions.

The Quran is full of the stories of the HYPOCRITES and the wicked people of Medina where the Prophet lived who seen the prophet and listened to his message and his ceremonies and they cannot be considered his SAHABA (Companions) as Bukhary did;

9:101  "Among the Aarabs around you, there are HYPOCRITES. Also among the city dwellers, there are those who are accustomed to HYPOCRISY......"

And in 63:1 "When the HYPOCRITES come to you they say, "We bear witness that you are the messenger of God." God knows that you are His messenger, and God bears witness that the HYPOCRITES are LIARS,"

And in 33:60 "Unless the hypocrites, and those with disease in their hearts and the vicious liars of the city (Medina) refrain (from persecuting you) we will surely grant you the upper hand, then they would not be your neighbors within a short while."

All these hypocrites and wicked people witnessed the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and listened to him. They are according to Imam AL-Bukhary's definition, SAHABA. His corrupted definition of the word SAHABA definitely played a role in the collection of HADITHE form such FAKE SAHABA.

(2) Again the corruption of Bukhary appears in his acceptance of children who witnessed the Prophet as SAHABA, and he accepted their narration of HADITHS despite the fact that they were too little to realize what was going on at the time. Bukhary had many HADITHS narrated by Abdullah Ibn Abbas who was a young child during the Prophet's life. He was never documented to accompany the Prophet as one of the SAHABA, but Bukhary made him one. Other children who narrated hadiths and accepted by Bukhary are Al-Nuaman Ibn Basheer (8 years old), Mahmoud Ibn Al-Rabee (5 years), Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubeer (9 years), Al-Hussein Ibn Ali (7 years), Al-Hassan Ibn Ali ( 8 years), Omar Ibn Aby Muslima ( 9 years)......etc. Who would accept to take his religion from these children ??!!!!!

(3) Because BUKHARY IDENTIFIED HIMSELF WITH THE ABBASYEEN and politically was against the TALIBEEN (followers of Ali Ibn Abu-Talib), he gave in his book many pages to the HADITHS of Abdullah Ibn Abbas, the grandfather of the Abbasyeens with whom Bukhary identified. Here we witness politics influencing what HADITHS to report and what to omit (those praising Ali Ibn Abu Talib). Some of the HADITHS narrated by Ibn Abbas contradict the laws of the Quran , e.g. the laws of inheritance. To witness the political corruption of BUKHARY in reporting HADITHS that would serve his views and please his masters (Abbasyeen then) is to witness the corruption that God described 6:112-113 in action.

(4) The position that Bukhary took in elevating people who were hypocrites and wicked to the level of Sahaba by his corrupted definition helped nothing but to corrupt the book that he called SAHIH (Authentic). His personal disregard to the TRUE SAHABY (Companion) of the Prophet, Ali Ibn Abu Talib only reflects his misguidance and underachievement.

DEFINITION of SAHABY

Those who refused to believe God and accept His assertion that the Quran is COMPLETE, PERFECT AND FULLY DETAILED will only fall to the false lords of religion who decided to improve on God's book and add to it by collecting all kinds of lies and fabrications and put them in a book and allege them to the Prophet. Those who seek to "obey the messenger" and follow the steps of the Prophet can do such that by following the book that was never fabricated and was definitely given to us by God through His Prophet, the Quran. Those who seek to follow the Prophet by following Bukhary and his likes are just following Bukhary and his likes and the messenger will complain to God from them on the Day of Judgment that they deserted the QURAN. See 25:30

[17:15] Whoever is guided, is guided for his own good, and whoever goes astray does so to his own detriment. No sinner will bear the sins of anyone else. We never punish without first sending a messenger.

[17:84] Say, "Everyone works in accordance with his belief, and your Lord knows best which ones are guided in the right path."

[39:29] GOD cites the example of a man who deals with disputing partners (Hadith), compared to a man who deals with only one consistent source (Quran). Are they the same? Praise be to GOD; most of them do not know.