This is an important tool that the Companions  established to safeguard the Sunnah against any foreign material interference and accidental or deliberate mistakes. This was a common prac­tice amongst all of the Companions  when receiving or narrating the Sunnah. Imaam Ath-Thahabi  mentioned this practice, in one of his great books, addressing the issue of Hadeeth Memorizers. He said that it was one of the ways used by of the four Caliphs  to protect the Hadeeth. For example, Abu Bakr  was asked to rule in the case of a grandmother who came asking for her right in inheritance, he  said that he knew of no amount due to her neither in the Book of Allaah (i.e., Quran) nor the Sunnah of the Prophet . But when Al-Mugheerah  told that he has wit­nessed the Prophet  give one-sixth of the total amount of the inheritance, he asked him if he had witness to substantiate this claim. And when Muhammad Ibn Maslamah  witnessed to the truth of that figure, Abu Bakr  accepted it and gave the grandmother exactly that.

 

In the case of ‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab  Ath-Thahabi  mentioned many incidents that testify to the fact that he  always ascertained the narration when it was necessary to do so. He  narrated that Maalik Ibn Aws  heard ‘Umar  say to ‘Abdur-Rahmaan Ibn ‘Awf, Talhah Ibn Az-Zubayr and Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqaas : “I ask by Allaah, Who maintains the Heaven and Earth! Did you hear the Prophet  say: ‘I am not to be inherited, whatever I leave is to be given in charity'? They said: ^`Yes, Allaah is our witness.” [Ahmad]

 

After narrating the above incidents among others, Imaam Ath-Thahabi repeatedly asserted that the verifications were not meant to doubt the truthfulness of any of the Companions  rather they were necessary to establish a standard of care and respect for what the Prophet, sallallaahu alay­hi wa sallam, said or did. They  did that for themselves and to institute a tradition to be fol­lowed and honored by all who come after them.

In summary, it is essential to note the following about this method:

 

- The purpose was to protect the Sunnah, not to doubt one another. All of the Companions  are trustworthy as clearly stated in the Quran, and doubting their trustworthiness can certainly damage one's faith.

- The purpose, also, was to establish a method and set an example to be followed by the rest of the Muslim nation. The truth, however, remains that Companions  used to accept narration conveyed by any one of them. Their request of witnesses or that the narrator gives an oath that he is saying the truth was to establish the methodology, so that people would not take narrating a Hadeeth lightly. This fact may further be supported when considering that:  

- Sometimes they  required a witness while at others they had the narrator give oath or reminded him of how serious it is to lie against the Prophet . This variation indicates that the purpose was actually to establish awareness of the significance of narrating the Hadeeth rather than set up a requirement of having more than one narrator as a condition for its authenticity^.

- There are a very large number of narrations, which indicate that in many cases the Companions  had actually accepted Hadeeth from one narrator without seeking any substantiation or verification.