If it is objected:
“That passage mentions Umar because he was the living ruler.”
The reply is:
“But Abū Bakr(1) had already died.” It is therefore clear that they also mentioned one who had died.
The second aspect:
It has been said that Umar ibn Abd al-Azīz mentioned the four caliphs because some of the Umayyads used to revile Ali. He countered this by mentioning the caliphs and asking Allah to be pleased with them, thereby eradicating that corrupt(2) practice.
The third [aspect](3): What he said about al-Mansūr having instituted this practice and about his motive for doing so is false. Abū Bakr and Umar—may Allah be pleased with them both—held the caliphate before al-Mansūr and before the Umayyads. Thus, al-Mansūr’s mention of them did not rub his own nose—or the noses of Ali’s descendants—in the dust. That would only have been the case if some members of the clans of Taym or Adi [were contesting the caliphate(4) with them—but no one from those clans](5) ever contested it with them.
The fourth aspect:
The people of the Sunnah do not say that mentioning the [four](6) caliphs in the sermon is obligatory. Rather, they say that restricting mention to Ali alone, or mentioning the Twelve, is a reprehensible innovation that no one ever practiced—not the Companions, the Successors, the Umayyads, or the Abbasids.
Similarly, they say that reviling Ali or anyone else [among the early generations](7) is a reprehensible innovation. Therefore, if it should be the case that