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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Leading The Ummah Chapter 11: The Sad Story Of Saqifah Bani Saedah The Prophet's worry about the regression of the Ommah The Quranic verses and historic clues all indicate that the dearest prophet of Islam was extremely worried about the future of the Islamic community, and besides the hidden inspirations, the undesirable occurrences caused the Prophet to assume that some groups of Muslims might, upon his death, resume their ignorance and forget divine traditions altogether.

This probability became stronger in his mind when he saw most of the Muslims desert the war zone in the Holy war of Uhud in which the rumor of the assassination of the Prophet was spread by the enemy. Those Muslims fled to the mountains and distant places and even some of them tried to ask Abu Sufyan for amnesty through the leader of the hypocrites, Abdullah bin Abi.

Their religious ideology became so weak and shaky that they even became suspicious of the existence of God and let their minds retreat to the age of idolatry.

The Holy Quran reveals this secret in the following verse: ﴿ وَ طائِفَةٌ قَدْ أَهَمَّتْهُمْ أَنْفُسُهُمْ يَظُنُّونَ بِاللَّهِ غَيْرَ الْحَقِّ ظَنَّ الْجاهِلِيَّةِ يَقُولُونَ هَلْ لَنا مِنَ الأَْمْرِ مِنْ شَيْ‏ءٍ ﴾ “And there was another party whose souls had become anxious; they entertained about Allah thoughts of ignorance quite unjustly saying “we have no hand in the affair” [^1] Elsewhere, the Holy Quran implicitly reveals the disagreements and discrepancies among the Prophet's followers: ﴿ وَ ما مُحَمَّدٌ إِلاَّ رَسُولٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ مِنْ قَبْلِهِ الرُّسُلُ أَ فَإِنْ ماتَ أَوْ قُتِلَ انْقَلَبْتُمْ عَلى أَعْقابِكُمْ وَ مَنْ يَنْقَلِبْ عَلى عَقِبَيْهِ فَلَنْ يَضُرَّ اللَّهَ شَيْئاً وَ سَيَجْزِي اللَّهُ الشَّاكِرِينَ ﴾ “And Muhammad is no more than an apostle; other apostles have already passed away before him; if then he dies or is killed, will you turn your back upon your heels?

And whoever turns back upon his heels, he will by no means do harm to Allah in the least; and Allah will reward the grateful” [^2] By dividing the Prophet's followers into two groups of ‘skeptics’ and ‘constant believers’, this Quranic verse says implicitly that after the Prophet's demise Muslims would divide into the above-mentioned two groups.

Does our wisdom lead us to the assumption that the Prophet of Islam could ever leave alone such an Ummah who was on the verge of disintegration and who could not care about their future Imam?

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