fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah. Once they do so, they will have protected their lives and property from me, except where a rightful claim applies.’?”
Abū Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, replied, “Did he not say, ‘Except where a rightful claim applies’? Zakat is one such rightful claim. By Allah, if they withheld from me even a young she-goat that they used to give to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, I would fight them for withholding it.”
‘Umar said, “By Allah, as soon as I saw that Allah had opened Abū Bakr’s heart to fighting, I knew that it was right.”
There are similar examples demonstrating Abū Bakr’s superiority over ‘Umar, even though ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, was a muhaddath (one granted inspiration). The rank of the siddīq (one of consummate truthfulness) is above that of the muhaddath, because the siddīq receives from the infallible Messenger everything the Messenger says and does, whereas the muhaddath receives certain things from his own heart. His heart, however, is not infallible, so he must test what he receives against what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, brought.
For this reason, ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, would consult the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, debate with them, and defer to them in certain matters. They would dispute some matters with him, and he would present evidence against them while they presented evidence against him from the Quran and Sunnah. He allowed them to disagree with him and did not tell them, “I am a muhaddath, inspired and spoken to, so you must accept what I say and not oppose me.”
Thus, if anyone claims—or his companions claim on his behalf—that he is an ally of Allah who is spoken to, and that his followers must therefore accept everything he says, never oppose him, and accept his spiritual state without assessing it against the Quran and Sunnah, then both he and they are mistaken. Such a person is among the most misguided of people. For ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him, is superior to him, and he is