When the Companions Disagreed: A Reference of Recorded Disputes in the Hadith Corpus

The hadith literature is usually presented as a record of what the Companions heard, saw, and practiced in the presence of the Prophet. Yet the same books preserve a large body of material in which Companions contradict, correct, rebuke, or flatly reject one another on questions of law, practice, and belief. These disputes are not found in obscure or disputed collections. They sit in the two books that Sunni tradition ranks highest, Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.

This article collects eighteen such cases. Each section gives the background of the dispute, the relevant reports in Arabic with an English rendering, the citation, and the outcome where the sources record one.

The purpose is evidentiary. Even if we accept every report below at face value, as authentic words of the Companions, then even the generation that lived beside the Prophet could not agree on basic matters: how to purify oneself, how to pray on a journey, whom one may marry, what a divorce means, whether a man was punished for his family’s grief. The disagreements that survive are only the ones someone happened to record. The reasonable inference is that many more existed that were never written down, and that the confident rulings later built on Companion practice rest on a far less unified foundation than is commonly assumed.

The point is not new, and it is not confined to polemical writing. Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, in his book, Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special Features, p. 106 states:

After the Prophet’s death, when people began to try and recall his words, several Companions were critical of some of the reporters, and rejected some of their reports. ʿAlī thus refused to accept a ḥadīth told by Maʿqil ibn Sinān.³ ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir once reported a ḥadīth of the Prophet with regard to the tayammum ablution, in a gathering of the Companions, and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb spoke up and said: ‘Fear God!’⁴—thereby indicating his disagreement with what ʿAmmār had reported. The Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim contains a report in which Ibn ʿAbbās criticises several judgements of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.⁵ When Maḥmūd ibn al-Rabīʿ reported in an assembly of the Companions that the Prophet had said that no-one who professed that there was no god but God would be sent to hellfire, Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī remarked that he did not think that the Prophet had ever said such a thing.⁶ Many other instances of the criticism of Companion-Narrators by their contemporaries (particularly ʿĀʾisha, ʿUmar, and Ibn ʿAbbās), may be easily discovered in works on ḥadīth and asmāʾ. These criticisms show that the Companions themselves were not above criticism.

For the record, I do not believe these statements or attributions actually go back to the Companions or the Prophet. The point here is an internal critique: even within the traditional corpus itself, the Companions are presented as disagreeing over the meaning and reliability of reports. And this is only what happened to be “preserved.” We have no way of knowing how they would have viewed the thousands of additional rules and regulations that the later Hadith corpus unlawfully introduced into the religion if they were alive today to witness this for themselves.

1. Did Muhammad See His Lord?

Disputants: Aisha on one side; Ibn Abbas (and, in a different form, Abu Dharr) on the other.

Context. Chapter 53 of the Quran describes a vision of the Prophet at the farthest boundary. Companions disagreed over what, or whom, he saw. Aisha denied that he saw God and called the claim a grave slander. Ibn Abbas reported that he saw his Lord with his heart.

Aisha’s position

Ibn Abbas’s position

Abu Dharr’s report

2. Is the Dead Person Punished for the Weeping of the Living?

Disputants: Umar and his son Abdullah ibn Umar on one side; Aisha and Ibn Abbas on the other.

Context. Umar and Ibn Umar transmitted a statement attributed to the Prophet that the dead are punished by the weeping of their families. Aisha rejected the report outright, arguing that it contradicts the Quranic principle that no soul bears the sins of another.

The report of Umar and Ibn Umar

Aisha’s rejection

Her comment on the narrators

3. Shortening the Prayer While Traveling

Disputants: Uthman ibn Affan and Aisha (who prayed the full four rak’ahs while traveling) against Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, Ibn Umar, and others.

Context. The reports agree that the Prophet, Abu Bakr, and Umar shortened the prayer to two rak’ahs at Mina. Uthman, in the later years of his caliphate, prayed four. A Companion’s reaction to this is recorded.

Ibn Mas’ud’s reaction

Aisha’s own practice

Urwa, who narrated this from her, was asked why Aisha herself then prayed four while traveling. His answer:

4. The Hajj Tamattu’ Dispute

Disputants: Uthman and Ibn al-Zubayr (against combining the umrah and hajj with a break between them) versus Ali, Ibn Abbas, and Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas (for it).

Context. Tamattu’ means performing the umrah, leaving the state of pilgrim sanctity, and then entering it again for the hajj. Some Companions forbade it during their authority; others insisted the Prophet had practiced and permitted it.

Ali and Uthman

Ibn Abbas and Ibn al-Zubayr

Sa’d and Mu’awiya

5. Temporary Marriage (Mut’ah)

Disputants: Ibn Abbas (who permitted it) against Ali, Umar, and Ibn al-Zubayr.

Context. Temporary marriage was practiced in the early period. Reports say the Prophet permitted it for a time and then forbade it. Companions disagreed over whether the prohibition was final and who knew of it.

Ali’s rebuke of Ibn Abbas

Jabir’s report of practice after the Prophet

The reports disagree even on when it was forbidden

The reports that the Prophet forbade mut’ah do not agree on the occasion. Each places the prohibition at a different moment, and Jabir’s report places it after the Prophet’s death altogether.

Claimed time of prohibition	Narrating Companion	Source
The day of Khaybar (7 AH)	Ali ibn Abi Talib	Sahih Muslim, no. 1407; Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 4216
The conquest of Mecca (8 AH)	Sabra ibn Ma’bad	Sahih Muslim, no. 1406
Permitted for three days at Awtas, then forbidden	Salama ibn al-Akwa’	Sahih Muslim, no. 1405
Never forbidden by the Prophet; practiced through Abu Bakr’s reign until Umar banned it	Jabir ibn Abdullah	Sahih Muslim, no. 1405

Outcome. One Companion says the matter was settled at Khaybar; another says it was permitted and then forbidden at Mecca; another says Awtas; another says the practice continued until the second caliph banned it. The dispute between Ibn Abbas and Ali is recorded as unresolved, and the reports that are supposed to settle it do not agree with one another.

6. Three Divorce Pronouncements in One Sitting

Disputants: the practice described by Ibn Abbas for the era of the Prophet and Abu Bakr versus the policy of Umar.

Context. If a man says “you are divorced” three times in one sitting, is that one divorce or three? According to Ibn Abbas, the early practice treated it as one. Umar changed this.

Outcome. By the account of a Companion, the ruling that later scholars treated as fixed was altered by one Companion’s policy decision against earlier practice. Ibn Abbas’s report remains in the canonical collection beside the later ruling.

7. Housing and Maintenance for the Irrevocably Divorced Woman

Disputants: Umar and Aisha against Fatima bint Qays.

Context. Fatima bint Qays reported that her husband divorced her irrevocably and that the Prophet awarded her no housing and no maintenance. Umar and Aisha rejected the report.

Umar’s rejection

Aisha’s rejection

Outcome. A Companion’s testimony about a ruling of the Prophet was set aside by two other Companions on the grounds that she might have forgotten. The principle applied there, that a report may be rejected because the narrator might have misremembered, is the same one the Companions are asked to be exempt from.

8. Is Ghusl Required Without Ejaculation?

Disputants: Uthman, Ali, al-Zubayr, Talha, and Ubayy ibn Ka’b against Aisha; the Ansar against the Muhajirun.

Context. Does a person need a full bath after sexual intercourse if there was no ejaculation? The early answer from several senior Companions was no. Later reports reversed it.

The senior Companions

Aisha’s ruling and the narrator’s note of disagreement

Outcome. The Companions did not share a single understanding of one of the most routine questions of ritual purity.

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9. Tayammum for the Person in a State of Major Impurity

Disputants: Umar and Abdullah ibn Mas’ud against Ammar ibn Yasir and Abu Musa al-Ash’ari.

Context. If a person is in a state requiring ghusl and has no water, may he use dust? Umar said no, and one Companion contradicted him to his face.

Umar and Ammar

Abu Musa and Ibn Mas’ud

Outcome. The caliph acted on one understanding of the verse and the Prophet’s instruction while a fellow Companion reminded him of a contrary experience. The exchange ends without agreement.

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10. What Interrupts the Prayer?

Disputants: Abu Dharr and Abu Hurayrah against Aisha.

Context. One report holds that a woman, a donkey, or a black dog passing in front of a praying person nullifies the prayer. Aisha rejected the report as an insult to women and as contrary to what she had seen.

The report of Abu Dharr

Aisha’s objection

Outcome. The disagreement turns on what each Companion remembered or understood, and the sources record no resolution between them.

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11. Fasting After Waking in a State of Major Impurity

Disputants: Abu Hurayrah against Aisha and Umm Salama.

Context. Abu Hurayrah taught that a person who wakes up in the morning still in a state requiring ghusl has no valid fast. The Prophet’s wives said he used to do exactly that and fast.

Aisha

Abu Hurayrah’s response

Outcome. In this case a retraction is recorded: Abu Hurayrah deferred to the wives and traced his earlier statement to a secondhand report. The case still shows that a ruling was taught to others, and in circulation, before it was corrected.

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12. Did the Prophet Perform Umrah in Rajab?

Disputants: Abdullah ibn Umar against Aisha.

Context. This is a dispute over a historical fact rather than a legal ruling, but its effect on practice is direct. Ibn Umar stated that one of the Prophet’s umrahs fell in Rajab. Aisha heard him from her room and corrected him.

Outcome. According to the narration, Ibn Umar did not reply. The report leaves each position standing. Note that Aisha asserts Ibn Umar was a witness to all of the Prophet’s umrahs yet denies the one he asserted.

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13. The Rules of Riba in Exchange

Disputants: Ibn Abbas (relying on Usama ibn Zayd) against Abu Sa’id al-Khudri and Ubada ibn al-Samit.

Context. Reports forbid unequal exchange of gold for gold, wheat for wheat, and so on. Ibn Abbas held that riba applies only to credit transactions, not to immediate unequal exchange, and cited a report from Usama.

Ibn Abbas, via Usama

The opposing report

Outcome. One of the most learned Companions took a position on usury that the majority rejected, and in some narrations is said to have retracted it. The reports preserve him arguing it on the authority of a single Companion’s memory.

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14. The Farewell Circumambulation for a Menstruating Woman

Disputants: Zayd ibn Thabit (and at first Ibn Umar) against Ibn Abbas.

Context. Is a woman in her period required to wait for the final circumambulation of the Kaaba before leaving Mecca after the pilgrimage? Pilgrims were generally commanded to make it the last act, and the question was whether an exemption applied.

The general command and the exemption

Zayd and Ibn Abbas

Outcome. A senior Companion, expert in inheritance law and the person who compiled the Quran, issued a public ruling that was wrong by the standard of a Companion woman’s testimony.

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15. Fighting Those Who Withheld the Zakat

Disputants: Umar ibn al-Khattab against Abu Bakr.

Context. After the Prophet’s death, several tribes refused to pay the zakat to the caliph. Abu Bakr resolved to fight them. Umar objected on the basis of a statement of the Prophet.

Umar’s objection

Abu Bakr’s answer

Umar’s conclusion

Outcome. The two foremost Companions disagreed on whether to wage war, and each cited the Prophet’s statement or practice. The matter was settled by the authority of the caliph and by Umar’s change of mind, not by an agreed text.

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16. The Inheritance of the Prophet and the Property at Fadak

Disputants: Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, against Abu Bakr; later, Ali and al-Abbas before Umar.

Context. After the Prophet’s death, his daughter asked Abu Bakr for her inheritance from him. Abu Bakr replied with a statement he attributed to the Prophet. The reports record that she was angry and did not speak to him afterward.

Abu Bakr’s reply

The later dispute before Umar

Outcome. The narrations preserve language from one Companion about another that later tradition would not tolerate. A statement attributed to the Prophet about his own estate was not known to his own daughter or to two of his closest relatives, and the only witness to it in Abu Bakr’s account was Abu Bakr himself.

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17. Aisha’s Rejection of Abu Hurayrah’s Reports

Disputants: Aisha against Abu Hurayrah.

Context. Aisha is recorded rejecting reports that Abu Hurayrah attributed to the Prophet, on the ground that they contradicted the Quran or that he had misheard. Two cases are preserved with her reasoning.

Omens in the woman, the mount, and the house

A fair reading must add that a statement about ill omen in the house, the woman, and the horse is also recorded from Ibn Umar and Sahl ibn Sa’d (for example Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 2858; Sahih Muslim, no. 2225), so the dispute is not only between Aisha and one narrator. It is between Aisha and a whole stream of Companion reports.

The child of adultery

Outcome. In both cases Aisha applies a test that appeals to the Quran and to her own knowledge of the Prophet, and rejects another Companion’s report as a mishearing. This is the mechanism the later critical tradition adopted, but applied here by a Companion to a Companion.

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18. Restricting Transmission Itself

Disputants: Umar ibn al-Khattab against Companions who narrated freely, including Ibn Mas’ud, Abu al-Darda, Abu Mas’ud al-Ansari, and Abu Hurayrah.

Context. This is not a dispute over one ruling. It is a dispute over whether, and how much, the Prophet’s words should be circulated at all. Reports preserved in the biographical literature, including al-Dhahabi’s Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, say that Umar kept prominent Companions in Medina and told them to narrate less. A report in the history of Abu Zur’a al-Dimashqi has him threatening Abu Hurayrah with being sent back to his tribal lands if he did not stop narrating from the Messenger of God.

In Tadhkirat al-huffaz, al-Dhahabi reported from Shu’bah, from Sa’id ibn Ibrahim from his father, that Umar detained Ibn Mas’ud, Abu al-Darda’, and Abu Mas’ud al-Ansari, saying to them: You have narrated hadith abundantly from the Messenger of Allah. It is reported that he had detained them in Medina, but they were set free by Uthman.

Ibn Sa’d, and Ibn Asakir reports from Mahmud ibn Labid that he said: I heard Uthman ibn Affan addressing people from over the pulpit: It is unlawful for everyone to narrate any hadith he never heard of during the time of Abu Bakr and that of Umar. Verily that which made me abstain from narrating from the Messenger of Allah was not to be among the most conscious of his Companions, but I heard him declaring: “Whoever ascribing to me something I never said, he shall verily occupy his (destined) abode in Fire.”

Outcome. The restriction did not prevail, and the volume of transmitted hadith grew enormously after the first generation. What matters for this reference is that the Companions did not share one view of the status of such transmission.

19. The Waiting Period of the Pregnant Widow

The Quran requires a woman whose marriage has ended to observe a waiting period, which it calls an interim, before she may marry again. For a widow, the rule is in the second sura:

Sura 65 deals with waiting periods in the context of divorce and gives different terms for women in other circumstances, including the pregnant:

The dilemma arises when a man dies and leaves a pregnant wife who gives birth a few weeks later. She is a widow, so 2:234 seems to hold her to four months and ten days. She is pregnant, so 65:4 seems to release her at delivery. Neither verse mentions the other case, and the Companions did not agree on which one governs.

Ibn Abbas held that she must wait for the longer of the two periods. A Successor named Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman asked him how that fit the verse about the pregnant, and Ibn Abbas answered that the verse applies only to divorce. Abu Hurayrah sided with Abu Salama. The dispute is recorded in the following report, which is also the Sunni argument that Hadith is needed to settle what the Quran leaves open:

The report that settled the room is the story of Subay’a herself, as Umm Salama related it. Abu al-Sanabil ibn Ba’kak proposed to her, and said she could not marry him until the longer of the two periods had passed. She delivered about ten days later and went to the Prophet, who told her to marry:

Ibn Mas’ud took the opposite side from Ibn Abbas, and argued from the order of revelation rather than from the Prophet’s ruling. In the narration of Ibn Sirin, a member of a gathering in Kufa questioned the Subay’a report, and Ibn Sirin traced Ibn Mas’ud’s position through Abu Atiyya:

Later scholarly reports also list Ali with Ibn Abbas among those who held the longer-period position. I have not traced a primary citation for that, so check it before attributing it to him in print.

Several points stand out in these reports. Ibn Abbas and Abu Salama were both arguing from the Quran, one reading 65:4 as limited to divorce and the other reading it as general. Neither of them cited a ruling of the Prophet. Men at the center of the community, including Abu Hurayrah and Ibn Abbas, had no such ruling in hand, and it reached the room only because a servant was sent to ask a widow of the Prophet. Ibn Mas’ud, meanwhile, reached the same verdict as Subay’a’s report by a different route, from the order of revelation.

The strongest Sunni reply is that the Companions disagreed only because the report had not yet reached them, and that they yielded when it did. Ibn Abd al-Barr, as quoted by al-Nawawi, says Ibn Abbas went back on his view. That reply is coherent, but it concedes that a ruling of the Prophet on a question of this kind was not common knowledge among those closest to him. It also leaves the reader trusting one chain of transmission to say that a ruling ended the dispute, when the dispute may have been what brought the ruling to light. The reports do not decide between these readings, and this reference does not claim that they do.

20. Wudu After Eating Food Touched by Fire

Disputants: Abu Hurayrah against Ibn Abbas.

Context. Abu Hurayrah transmitted an instruction attributed to the Prophet to perform wudu after eating food that fire had touched. Ibn Abbas challenged him, and the Prophet’s own practice was reported in the opposite direction.

Abu Hurayrah’s report

The opposing report of the Prophet’s practice by Ibn Abbas

Then Ibn Abbas gives a contradicting report to what was reported by Abu Hurairah.

Then we have two reports where Ibn Abbas challenges Abu Hurairah

Finally, we have another refutation from Jabir to Abu Hurairah claiming that the practice was abrogated.

Outcome. This is a clear example of Companions disputing regarding a practice. Notice that Ibn Abbas never claims that the practice was abrogated because he never believed that this was a practice from the Prophet. In his narrations, he seems to go along with what Abu Hurairah claimed.

21. Did the Companions Prevent the Prophet from Writing His Final Instructions?

Disputants: Umar ibn al-Khattab and those who agreed with him against Companions who wanted the Prophet’s request for writing materials to be fulfilled. Ibn Abbas later condemned what happened.

Context. During the Prophet’s final illness, he reportedly asked for writing materials so that he could leave behind a statement that would prevent his followers from going astray. Umar objected, arguing that the Prophet was seriously ill and that the Book of God was sufficient. The Companions disagreed and began quarreling in the Prophet’s presence. The dispute became so heated that the Prophet ordered them to leave without writing the statement.

Narrated ‘Ubaidullah bin `Abdullah: Ibn `Abbas said, “When the ailment of the Prophet (ﷺ) became worse, he said, ‘Bring for me (writing) paper and I will write for you a statement after which you will not go astray.’ But `Umar said, ‘The Prophet is seriously ill, and we have got Allah’s Book with us, and that is sufficient for us.’ But the companions of the Prophet (ﷺ) differed about this, and there was a hue and cry. On that, the Prophet (ﷺ) said to them, ‘Go away (and leave me alone). It is not right that you should quarrel in front of me.” Ibn `Abbas came out saying, “It was most unfortunate (a great disaster) that Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) was prevented from writing that statement for them because of their disagreement and noise.

حَدَّثَنَا يَحْيَى بْنُ سُلَيْمَانَ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي ابْنُ وَهْبٍ، قَالَ أَخْبَرَنِي يُونُسُ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ عُبَيْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ، قَالَ لَمَّا اشْتَدَّ بِالنَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم وَجَعُهُ قَالَ ‏”‏ ائْتُونِي بِكِتَابٍ أَكْتُبُ لَكُمْ كِتَابًا لاَ تَضِلُّوا بَعْدَهُ ‏”‏‏.‏ قَالَ عُمَرُ إِنَّ النَّبِيَّ صلى الله عليه وسلم غَلَبَهُ الْوَجَعُ وَعِنْدَنَا كِتَابُ اللَّهِ حَسْبُنَا فَاخْتَلَفُوا وَكَثُرَ اللَّغَطُ‏.‏ قَالَ ‏”‏ قُومُوا عَنِّي، وَلاَ يَنْبَغِي عِنْدِي التَّنَازُعُ ‏”‏‏.‏ فَخَرَجَ ابْنُ عَبَّاسٍ يَقُولُ إِنَّ الرَّزِيَّةَ كُلَّ الرَّزِيَّةِ مَا حَالَ بَيْنَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم وَبَيْنَ كِتَابِهِ‏.‏

Sahih al-Bukhari 114
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:114

Outcome. According to the narration, the Companions disagreed so intensely in the Prophet’s presence that his requested statement was never written. Umar maintained that the Book of God was sufficient, while Ibn Abbas later described the incident as a great calamity. The report does not identify every participant or disclose what the Prophet intended to write. What it does establish, within the traditional account, is that even a direct request attributed to the Prophet during his final illness became a subject of disagreement among those closest to him

Further Cases for Expansion

The following disputes are documented in the canonical literature and are candidates for future additions to this reference once the texts have been checked against the sources:

• Ali’s refusal to accept a report transmitted by Ma’qil ibn Sinan (noted by Siddiqi, p. 106)
• Abu Ayyub al-Ansari’s doubt about a statement Mahmud ibn al-Rabi’ attributed to the Prophet, concerning whether anyone who professed the oneness of God would enter hellfire (noted by Siddiqi, p. 106)
• Ibn Abbas’s criticisms of several judgments of Ali, recorded in Sahih Muslim (noted by Siddiqi, p. 106)
• The share of the grandfather in inheritance: Abu Bakr and Ibn Abbas against Ali, Zayd ibn Thabit, and Ibn Mas’ud
• The meaning of kalala, which Umar said he could not settle despite repeatedly asking the Prophet
• Umar and Abu Musa over seeking permission to enter, and Umar’s demand for a second witness
• Ibn Umar and Abu Hurayrah over the permitted categories of dogs, with Ibn Umar’s remark about Abu Hurayrah’s farm
• Wiping over the leather socks: Ali and Aisha versus those who restricted it
• The number of rak’ahs in the night prayer of Ramadan
• The ruling on fasting while traveling and the rebuke of those who fasted
• The permissibility of eating the flesh of horses and of the lizard
• The sale of the mother of a child (umm walad)
• Ibn Abbas’s position on the ruling concerning a pregnant widow’s waiting period against Abu Hurayrah and others

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