of common knowledge about which there is no disagreement among Muslim scholars. It is likewise well known to all ordinary Muslims who are not scholars. It has reached them through transmission, and they accept it as true and know it to be so; throughout every Muslim land, none of them denies it to another.

Nor could anyone claim that any Muslim caliph, in earlier or later times, ever denied the burial of Abū Bakr and Umar alongside the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—from the caliphates of Uthmān ibn Affān and Ali ibn Abī Tālib—may Allah be pleased with them both—through the caliphate of the Umayyads. Neither the elite nor the general populace disputed it. Likewise, throughout the caliphate of the descendants of al-Abbās—may Allah be pleased with him—they have not disputed it, down to our own time and until the Hour comes and Jesus, son of Mary—peace be upon him—is buried alongside them. This was related from Abdullah ibn Salām.