to us accounts of His prophets’ repentance, their good outcome, and the lofty ranks and honor from Allah they ultimately attained after certain things had happened to them. It is not permissible to suppose that they are hated on account of those things, when what counts is the perfection attained at the end, not the shortcomings at the beginning.

The same applies to the earliest forerunners: whoever supposes that they are hated [on account of those things, when what counts is the perfection attained at the end] (1), as mentioned (2), is ignorant. The point, however, is that Abū Bakr al-Siddīq was the most perfect and virtuous among them, the foremost in good deeds, and without an equal among them.

This is a clear matter, doubted only by someone ignorant of their conduct with the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—or someone whose pursuit of his own desires has prevented him from recognizing the truth. Anyone possessing knowledge and fairness would have no doubt about this, just as the people of knowledge and faith had no doubt. Rather, they unanimously acknowledged al-Siddīq’s precedence and superiority over everyone else. The Muslim scholars and their finest representatives among the Companions, the Successors, and those who followed them agreed upon this. It is the position of Mālik and his followers, al-Shāfiʿī and his followers, Ahmad and his followers, Dāwūd and his followers, al-Thawrī and his followers, al-Awzāʿī and his followers, al-Layth and his followers, and all the other scholars who enjoy an honorable reputation within the Muslim community.

Anyone who supposes that the disobedience of those who opposed the Messenger’s command on the day of al-Hudaybiyyah—or on another occasion—was not among the sins requiring repentance is mistaken, as in the claim made by someone who began offering excuses