Moreover, Umar had excluded his own son from the matter and did not include his cousin Saīd ibn Zayd, one of the Ten, each of whom was specifically attested to be in Paradise in a single hadith(1). Both men(2) belonged to the tribe of Banū Adī. Nor was Umar in the habit of appointing anyone from Banū Adī; indeed, he appointed one man from among them and then dismissed him.

By the agreement of all, he feared no critic’s reproach in the cause of Allah. What motive, then, could have induced him to favor one man over another when he had no end to gain(3) in this world(4)?

Thus, one who excluded his own clan and ordered that the debt he owed be paid only from the wealth of his relatives, then from the wealth of Banū Adī, and then from the wealth of Quraysh—with nothing taken from the public treasury or from anyone else—what need could he have had of Uthmān, Alī, or anyone else, such that he would give him precedence? He had no need of him either with respect to the family he would leave behind or with respect to his outstanding debt.

A person favors someone who will assume authority after him only because he needs him for such matters. But if a man needs neither one nor the other, what motive could induce him to do so? This is especially true at the approach of death—a time when an unbeliever embraces Islam and a wicked sinner repents. Had he known that Alī alone possessed the rightful claim, or that he was more entitled to authority than anyone else, he would then have been obliged to give him precedence: either as repentance to Allah [or to lessen his sin](5), (6 for if no worldly impediment stood in his way, nothing remained but religion; so if religion required that 6) (6)