The Anṣār said, “A leader from us and a leader from you.”

ʿUmar then came to them and said, “O company of the Anṣār, do you not know that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ appointed Abū Bakr to lead the people in prayer? Which of you would be pleased to put himself ahead of Abū Bakr?”

The Anṣār replied, “We seek refuge with Allah from going before Abū Bakr.”

Al-Nasāʾī has transmitted this report through Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh, and through Hannād ibn al-Sarrī from Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Juʿfī from Zāʾidah with the same wording. ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī likewise related it from Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, saying, “It is sound; I know it only through the narration of Zāʾidah from ʿĀṣim.”

Al-Nasāʾī also recorded it through the chain of Salamah ibn Nubayṭ, from Nuʿaym ibn Abī Hind, from Nubayṭ ibn Sharīṭ, from Sālim ibn ʿUbayd, from ʿUmar with similar wording, and a comparable account has reached us from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb by another route.

A version likewise comes by way of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, from ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Bakr, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUbaydullāh ibn ʿAbdullāh, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from ʿUmar, who said:

“I declared, ‘O Muslims! The one most entitled to the Prophet’s authority is the second of the two when they were in the Cave—Abū Bakr, the foremost and manifestly deserving.’ I then took hold of his hand, but a man from the Anṣār outstripped me and struck his hand in pledge before I could do so. After that I struck my hand upon his, and the people followed in succession.”

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd has also narrated—through ʿĀmir ibn al-Faḍl, from Ḥammād ibn Zayd, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad—an account similar to this. In it he names the man who pledged allegiance to the Ṣiddīq before ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, saying: he was Bashīr ibn Saʿd, the father of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr.

Mention of Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah’s acknowledgment of the correctness of what the Ṣiddīq said on the Day of the Saqīfah

Imām Aḥmad said: ʿAffān narrated to us; Abū ʿAwānah narrated to us; from Dāwūd ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Awdī; from Ḥumayd ibn—