At the beginning of the meeting...

At the beginning of the meeting, the following were in attendance: Sa’d Ibn Ibadah, Ibn al-Aas, Anas Ibn Malik, al-Mugheerah Ibn Shu’bah, Khalid Ibn al-Waleed, Abd al-Rahman Ibn Auf, Basheer Ibn Sa’d, Ma’adh Ibn Jabal, and Usayd Ibn Hudayr.[^5] Other individuals from the Muhajireen who found out about the meeting came later, such as Abu Bakr, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, and Abu Ubaydah Ibn al-Jarrah.

At the meeting, the Ansar initially recruited Sa’d Ibn Ibadah for the leadership of the Muslim community, however on that day he was extremely ill to the point that he could barely speak or move.[^6] He was the only man other than ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib that the Quraysh group feared during the time of the Holy Prophet.

Sa’d Ibn Ibadah was also popular amongst the Muslims - both the Muhajireen and the Ansar, due to the fact that during the battles he used to carry the flag of Islam until combat started, at which point he would pass it over to ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib.[^7] However, not everyone at the meeting agreed to his nomination. Some of those present began to bicker, hence the old rivalry between the two tribes surfaced.

When they realized that a mutual consensus would not be reached, they resounded to the following statement, “We will never pay allegiance (to anyone) except to ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib.”[^8] As the tension grew at the meeting, two members from the Aws tribe, Awaim Ibn Sa’ad and Maen Ibn Obed left the meeting unnoticed.

Fearing that the leadership of the Muslim community would fall into the hands of their former rivals, the Khazraj, they sought to inform ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab about what was taking place.[^9] After the two men informed ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab about the private meeting, ‘Umar grew anxiously impatient. As it so happened, ‘Umar had intended for Abu Bakr to be present when the death of the Holy Prophet would occur, but Abu Bakr was away in an outlying area of Madinah called al-Samh.

Hence, as the news of the Prophet’s death began to spread quickly and the shock and sadness amongst the Muslims grew, ‘Umar needed to react in order to buy some time to join the meeting - and there were two reasons for this. First, ‘Umar needed Abu Bakr to return so that both of them could attend the private meeting at Saqifah; and the other reason was to act as if the Prophet was not dead in order to delay the official appointment of ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib.