Another group reviled Abū Bakr. Their leader was Abd Allāh ibn Saba, and Alī sought to have him killed, whereupon he fled from him to al-Madā'in.

Another group held Alī to be superior, prompting him to say:

“If word reaches me that anyone prefers me(1) over Abū Bakr and Umar, I shall flog him as a slanderer is flogged(2).”

It has been narrated from Alī through approximately eighty routes of transmission that he said from the pulpit of Kūfa:

“The best of this ummah after its Prophet are Abū Bakr and Umar.”(3)

In Sahīh al-Bukhārī and elsewhere, the following report is transmitted by men of Hamdān—his close associates(4), of whom he said:

“Were I the gatekeeper at the gate of Paradise,
I would say to Hamdān, ‘Enter in peace.’”

When his son Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya asked him, “Father, who is the best of people after the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him?” he replied, “Abū Bakr.”

He asked, “Then who?”

He replied, “Then(5) Umar.”

He asked, “Then you?”

He replied, “Your father is merely one man among the Muslims.”(6)

Al-Bukhārī said(7): Muhammad ibn Kathīr narrated to us; Sufyān al-Thawrī narrated to us(8),