—for a prophet’s dream counts as revelation.

As for his words, “his drawing was somewhat weak,” they point to the short span of Abū Bakr’s caliphate, the nearness of his death, and his preoccupation with the war against the apostates—matters that restrained him from the conquests and territorial expansion that ʿUmar achieved during his longer rule.

In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections it is reported from Muḥammad ibn Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, from his father, that “a woman asked the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—for something, and he told her to come back to him. She said, ‘Messenger of Allah, suppose I come and do not find you?’—as though she were referring to his death. He replied, ‘If you do not find me, then go to Abū Bakr.’”

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī likewise transmitted—from Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khushani, Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ, and Muʿādh ibn Jabal—on the authority of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him