Did the Companions Change the Sunnah After Prophet Muhammad?
Some deceivers quote the statement of Anas ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, as if it is an accusation against the Companions. In reality, it proves the opposite. It shows that the Companions preserved the Sunnah, noticed deviations when they appeared, and warned people when later generations began to drift from the practice of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
The Report of Anas ibn Malik
“I do not know anything today of what we used to do during the time of the Messenger of God.”
We said to him:
“Then where is the prayer?”
He said:
“Did you not do in the prayer what you have learned?”
First Response: The Report Defends the Companions, It Does Not Attack Them
Praise be to Allah who provided the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ with infidels who would defend them and prove to the world that we only fell behind and lagged behind because we changed and deviated from the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and the way of the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them.
The deceiver provides us with evidence that the Companions saw a difference that had occurred and a change in what the Messenger ﷺ and his Companions were upon. They carried out the duty of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, so they guided the people away from these mistakes.
This was especially necessary because, after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, many people entered Islam who had not witnessed the sayings and actions of the Prophet ﷺ directly.
People entered Islam from Ash-Sham, Iraq, Egypt, Persia, Europe, and after that from India, China, and others. They were people with different civilizations, habits, and inclinations. So they introduced things that the early Muslims from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not know.
But the Messenger of Allah ﷺ died while he was pleased with his Companions.
Second Response: Anas Was Correcting Later Practice
The noble Companion Anas ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, reminded them of what they had introduced.
When they tried to remove the accusation by saying that they were still praying as the Prophet ﷺ used to pray, he told them that even in the prayer they had changed some matters, especially some of its times, either due to laziness or due to preoccupation with the world.
The report is not saying that the Companions corrupted the religion. It is saying that the Companions noticed later changes and warned people against them.
This is exactly what preservation looks like. A Companion sees a deviation and identifies it. He does not remain silent. He does not normalize it. He points people back to the Sunnah.
Third Response: This Was Not Distortion of Creed or Revelation
The deceiver should not imagine that the change mentioned here was a change in creed or a distortion of the religion through addition or subtraction. That is the condition of the nations upon whom Allah is angry and the misguided nations who distorted and continue to distort words from their proper places.
As for this Ummah, its change is the dominance of desires over some of its individuals.
But this is the nation that preserves the religion of Allah through the guidance of its imams from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. They left us the legacy of knowledge by which we know whether we are following in the footsteps of the beloved Mustafa ﷺ or whether there is some deviation that must be fought and corrected through reform.
Anas ibn Malik’s statement proves that the Companions were the standard by which later Muslims were judged. When later people changed some practices, the Companions identified those changes and called people back to the Sunnah.
The Failed Accusation
What is this accusation that this impostor threw at the Companions of the beloved ﷺ?
There is no accusation here. The report praises the Companions by showing that they preserved the original practice and warned against later deviations.
The statement of Anas ibn Malik does not condemn the Companions. It condemns later deviation from the Sunnah. The Companion saw changes appear among later Muslims and corrected them. This proves that the Companions were not the source of corruption; they were the measure by which corruption was identified. The deceiver has once again brought evidence against himself.