Eighth:

The subject of brotherhood has already been discussed, and it has been shown that brotherhood is general and unrestricted, so it does not imply preeminence or the imamate. It has also been shown that no one else shares the merit established for al-Siddīq, as evidenced by the Prophet’s words:

“If I were to take an intimate friend from among the people of the earth, I would take Abū Bakr as an intimate friend” (1),

his statement that Abū Bakr was the man dearest to him, the Companions’ testimony in his favor (2) that he was the dearest of them to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and other evidence showing that the argument based on the cited report of brotherhood is invalid both as a transmitted report and as evidence.

Ninth:

Some people suppose that bonds of brotherhood were established among the Emigrants themselves because hadiths have been narrated to that effect. The certainly correct position, however, is that this did not happen. Everything narrated in this regard is false: it was either transmitted by someone who deliberately lies, or someone erred concerning it. This is why the compilers of the Sahīh collections * included none of it.

What the Sahīh collections contain concerns only the bonds of brotherhood between the Emigrants and the Helpers. It is well known that if he had paired the Emigrants with one another and the Helpers with one another, there would have been every reason and incentive to transmit it. It would have been mentioned in the hadiths (3) concerning the bonds of brotherhood and would have been frequently reported. How, then, could this be so when there is no authentic hadith about it and the compilers of the Sahīh collections * (4) included none of it?

These matters are known to anyone familiar with authentic hadiths and the Prophet’s biography (5),