nothing but a craving for authority. You two know full well that this matter is not yours to decide, and that someone other than the two of you has been instructed regarding it. Step forward, Suhayb, and lead the funeral prayer.” So Suhayb led the prayer.

Abu Maʿshar narrated, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar: ʿUmar was laid out between the grave and the pulpit. ʿAlī came, stood among the rows, and said, “May Allah have mercy on you. After the record of the Prophet, there is no one whose record of deeds I would rather present to Allah than that of this man who now lies shrouded.” Similar reports have been transmitted from ʿAlī through several chains.

Maʿdān ibn Abī Ṭalḥah said: ʿUmar was struck down on Wednesday, with four days remaining of Dhu al-Ḥijjah. The same was stated by Zayd ibn Aslam and others.

Ismaʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said: He was buried on Sunday, the first of Muḥarram.

Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib said: ʿUmar died at the age of fifty-four or fifty-five; this was related from him by al-Zuhrī.

Ayyūb and ʿUbayd Allāh reported, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, that ʿUmar died at the age of fifty-five. The same was affirmed by Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Abū al-Aswad—the protégé of ʿUrwah—and Ibn Shihāb.

Abū ʿĀṣim related, from Ḥanẓalah, from Sālim, from his father: I heard ʿUmar, about two years before his death, say, “I am fifty-seven or fifty-eight years old.” This report is unique to Abū ʿĀṣim.

Al-Wāqidī said: Hishām ibn Saʿd told us, from Zayd ibn Aslam, from his father, that ʿUmar died at the age of sixty. Al-Wāqidī remarked: “This is the most reliable of the reports,” and likewise