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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims A Critique of Saqifa Muhammad ibn Ishaq, the biographer of the Prophet of Islam, writes in his Seera (Life of the Messenger of God): Umar said: “And lo, they (the Ansar) were trying to cut us off from our origin and wrest authority from us. When he (an Ansari) had finished (his speech), I wanted to speak, for I had prepared a speech in my mind which pleased me much.

I wanted to produce it before Abu Bakr and I was trying to soften a certain asperity of his; but Abu Bakr said, ‘Gently, Umar.' I did not like to anger him and so he spoke. He was a man with more knowledge and dignity than I, and by God, he did not omit a single word which I had thought of and he uttered it in his inimitable way better than I could have done. He (Abu Bakr) said: ‘All the good that you have said about yourselves (the Ansar) is deserved.

But the Arabs will recognize authority only in this clan of Quraysh, they being the best of the Arabs in blood and country. I offer you one of these two men: accept which you please.' Thus saying he took hold of my hand and that of Abu Ubayda b.

al-Jarrah's...” Muhammad, the Messenger of God, had not been dead an hour yet when Abu Bakr revived the arrogance of the Times of Ignorance by claiming before the Ansar that the Quraysh, the tribe to which he himself belonged, was “better” than or “superior” to them (the Ansar) “in blood and country!” How did Abu Bakr know about this “superiority” of the Quraysh? Qur’an and its Bringer, Muhammad, never said that the tribe of Quraysh was superior to anyone or that it had any superiority at all.

In fact, it were the Quraysh who were the most die-hard of all the idolaters of Arabia. They clutched their idols, and they fought against Muhammad and Islam, with cannibalistic fury, for more than twenty years. The Ansar, on the other hand, accepted Islam spontaneously and voluntarily. They entered Islam en bloc and without demur. The “superiority” of the Quraysh which Abu Bakr flaunted in Saqifa, before the Ansar, was a pre-Islamic theme which he revived to reinforce his claim to khilafat.

Only a few days earlier, Umar had withheld pen, paper and ink from Muhammad when the latter was on his deathbed, and wished to write his will.