First and foremost...

First and foremost, according to the “sahih” hadith of ‘Aishah, the Messenger – during his lifetime - literally took over the salat from Abu Bakr, thereby effectively terminating the latter’s alleged appointment (assuming it ever existed). It was the Zuhr prayer of that Monday, and that was the last recorded salat of the Prophet. As such, Abu Bakr’s prayer leadership – even if it had been true – was cut off before the Messenger’s death.

Besides, Ibn Taymiyyah submitted that the reports about Abu Bakr’s conscription into Usamah’s army had no known chains. How true was this claim? Our Shaykh further stated that all the Sunni scholars of narrations, without a single exception, from the time of the Prophet up to his own lifetime, had explicitly declared those same narrations as “a lie”. So, we should be able to easily harvest from hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of ancient Sunni books tons of statements to that effect.

The truth, however, is the opposite. Malik b. Anas (d. 179 H), Ibn al-Mubarak (d.