Umar ibn al-Khattab once approached Fatima's house bearing a...

Umar ibn al-Khattab once approached Fatima's house bearing a torch of fire and threatened to burn the house and everyone inside it if its residents refused to come out to swear the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr. In his Al-`Iqd al-Fareed, Ibn Abd Rabbih says, As regarding Ali, al-Abbas, and al-Zubayr, these stayed at Fatima's house till Abu Bakr sent them Umar ibn al-Khattab to get them out of Fatima's house.

He said to him: "If they refuse, fight them." So he came bearing a torch of fire in order to burn the house on them. Fatima met him and asked him, "O son of al-Khattab!

Have you come to burn our house?" "Yes," said he, "unless you accept that regarding which the Ummah has agreed."[^17] If Fatima al-Zahra is the Leader of the women of all the world, as indicated in the Sahih books of "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`ah," and if her sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn are the masters of the youths of Paradise and the Prophet's fragrant flower in this nation are thus humiliated and demeaned to the extent that Umar swears in front of everyone to burn them and their house if they refused to swear the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr, can anyone expect others to retain any respect for Ali ibn Abu Talib when most of them hated and envied him?

After the Prophet's demise, Ali became the leader of the opposition, yet he did not have any wealth to attract people to him. Al-Bukhari indicates in his Sahih how Fatima demanded that Abu Bakr return what she had inherited from the Messenger of Allah, whatever Allah had allocated for him in Medina in addition to Fadak and the spoils of Khaybar, but Abu Bakr refused to give anything to her.

Fatima, therefore, became very angry with Abu Bakr whom she boycotted and to whom she did not say a word after such unfair confiscation till she died only six months after the death of her father the Prophet. When she died, her husband Ali buried her at night. Abu Bakr did not perform the funeral prayers for her.