Bakr is itself proof of the extreme ignorance and mendacity of these Rāfidis. Some people, however, have related that Umar issued seventy different rulings concerning the grandfather. Yet even this is false (1) as a report from Umar, for it is not the case that seventy grandfathers died during his caliphate, each having a grandson with siblings, and that those cases could have admitted seventy different opinions. Indeed, not even all the grandfather cases in the world (2) could admit such a range of disagreement. It is therefore evident that this is a lie.

As for Abū Bakr’s position concerning the grandfather, he treated the grandfather as a father. This was the position of more than ten Companions and is the school of many jurists [including Abū Hanīfa, a group of the followers of al-Shāfiī and Ahmad—such as Abū Hafs al-Barmakī—and it is also reported as one narration from Ahmad] (3), as previously mentioned (4). It is the better-supported of the two positions.

That is why it is said: No mistaken fatwa is known from Abū Bakr, unlike the other Companions. His position (5) concerning the grandfather is the better-supported of the two. Those who held that siblings inherit alongside the grandfather—namely Alī, Zayd, Ibn Masūd, and, according to one of the two reports from him, Umar—disagreed among themselves on the matter. Most jurists follow Zayd’s position, which is also the position of Mālik, al-Shāfiī, and Ahmad.

Thus, concerning the grandfather, jurists follow either Abū Bakr’s position or Zayd’s position, which Umar endorsed. None of the leading authorities in issuing fatwas adopted Alī’s position concerning the grandfather. This shows that the truth does not lie outside the positions of Abū Bakr and Umar, for Zayd was Umar’s judge, even though Abū Bakr’s position is stronger than Zayd’s.