and Abū Hurayrah and ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with them all—as we shall shortly explain. Even had this report been related by al-Ṣiddīq alone—may Allah be pleased with him—every person on earth would have been obliged to accept his narration and submit to it.
If, however, Fāṭimah’s anger was due to her request that al-Ṣiddīq appoint her husband to oversee those lands—lands that were endowment, not inheritance—then he had already offered an excuse whose substance was that, as the Caliph of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he deemed it mandatory to act exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had acted and to take charge of whatever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had taken charge of. For this reason he said, “By Allah, I will not leave anything the Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to do with it without doing the same.” He (the narrator) said: “So Fāṭimah kept away from him and did not speak to him until she passed away.”
This estrangement, under those circumstances, opened a wide door of evil for the Rāfiḍite sect and led to prolonged ignorance; they thrust themselves, because of it, into matters that do not concern them. Had they understood affairs as they really were, they would have recognized al-Ṣiddīq’s merit and accepted the excuse that everyone is duty-bound to accept. Instead, they are a forsaken faction, a despised group, clinging to what is ambiguous while abandoning the clear, established matters (1) affirmed by the leading Imams of Islam—from the Companions and the Followers to the reputable scholars who succeeded them in every age and land—may Allah be pleased with them all and grant them His good pleasure.
Clarification of the Collective Transmission of What al-Ṣiddīq Narrated and Their Agreement with Him
Al-Bukhārī said (2): “Yahyā ibn Bukayr narrated to us; al-Layth narrated to us; from ʿUqayl; from Ibn Shihāb, who said: Mālik (3) ibn Aws ibn al-Ḥadathān informed me—and Muḥammad ibn Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim had mentioned something of this ḥadīth to me—so I went to him, entered, and questioned him. He said: ‘I went in to ʿUmar, and his doorkeeper Yarfāʾ came and said, “Would you like ʿUthmān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, al-Zubayr, and Saʿd to come in?” He said, “Yes,” and he admitted them. Then he said, “Would you like ʿAlī and al-ʿAbbās to come in?” He said, “Yes.”’
“Al-ʿAbbās said, ‘Commander of the Believers, decide between me and this man.’ ʿUmar replied, ‘I adjure you by Allah, by whose permission the heaven and earth stand fast: do you know that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “We, the prophets, are not inherited from; whatever we leave behind is charity”—meaning the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was speaking of himself?’ The group answered, ‘He did indeed say that.’ ʿUmar then turned to ʿAlī and al-ʿAbbās and asked, ‘Do you two know that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said that?’ They replied, ‘He did indeed say that.’
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb continued: ‘I shall now tell you about this matter. Allah had singled out His Messenger ﷺ with a portion of this fay’ that He did not give to anyone else. He says, “Whatever Allah has bestowed upon His Messenger from them…” until His words, “All-Powerful” [al-Ḥashr 59:6]. It was set aside exclusively for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and, by Allah, he neither kept it from you nor preferred himself over you. Rather, he gave it to you and distributed it among you until only this property remained. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to…’