the Rightly Guided Caliphs, may Allah be pleased with them, embodied: they shunned every form of self-preference, regarded themselves as ordinary people, and never set themselves above anyone else. Their condition was no different from that of the rest of the community—so much so that ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, during the Year of the Ashes, forbade himself to eat choice foods and limited himself to the scantiest fare. He did all this lest he enjoy anything denied to his subjects, may Allah be pleased with him.

Yet this was in an age when the populace was upright upon Allah’s command and wary of what was unlawful. Hence the saying: A man once asked ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, “Why did the people rise against you while they never did so against Abū Bakr and ʿUmar?” He replied, “Because the populace in the days of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were like ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, whereas the populace in my day are like you.”

In the same vein, when Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik—some say it was ʿAbd al-Malik—noticed the people’s discontent, he assembled their notables and dignitaries, addressed them and said, “To proceed: you want us to be for you like Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. Then be for us like the men of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar’s time, and we will be for you as Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were.” A well-known report states: “As you are, so shall those set over you be.”

All of this is understood to mean that the two of them, may Allah be pleased with them, merely wished to determine exactly what kind of plant abb is; that it is vegetation sprouting from the earth is self-evident and undisputed, for Allah says, “and We caused therein to grow grain, grapes, edible plants, olives, date-palms, dense gardens, fruit, and abb” (Q 80:27-31).

Explanation

The words “fruit and abb” are the crux of the matter, and from His saying “fruit and abb” it is understood that