Their extensive close association and companionship, together with their perfect mutual affection, harmony (1), and love, and their shared engagement in knowledge and religion, necessarily mean that they had a greater claim to such preeminence than anyone else. This is plain to anyone familiar with the circumstances of those concerned.

As for al-Siddīq, he successfully dealt with matters requiring knowledge and jurisprudence that others had been unable to resolve until he clarified them for them (2). Moreover, no opinion of his is known in which he contravened a revealed text. This attests to the highest degree of acumen and learning. By contrast, many opinions are recorded from others that conflicted with revealed texts because those texts had not reached them.

Umar is found to have agreed (3) with the revealed texts more often than Alī. Anyone familiar with questions of religious knowledge, the scholars’ positions on them, and the legal proofs and their relative weight knows this. One example is the waiting period of a woman whose husband has died: Umar’s position is the one that accords with the relevant text, rather than the other position.

Similarly, regarding a husband’s declaring his wife forbidden to him, the position of Umar and others is more consistent with the texts than the other position, which is Alī’s. The same applies to a woman to whom her husband gives the choice, a woman married without a stipulated dower, the use in divorce of the expressions “free” (4), “released,” “separated,” and “finally severed” (5), and many other questions of jurisprudence.

It is narrated in the two Sahīh collections that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Among the nations before you there were people who were divinely inspired. If there is any such person in my community, it is Umar” (6).

It is also narrated in the two Sahīh collections that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“I saw in a dream that I was given