Who shall' quarrel with us...

Who shall' quarrel with us, his Friends and kinsfolk, about the authority of Muhammad, or what he has bequeathed, but a deceiver - one given to sin and tangled in failure?”[^15] In sum: the method used by the first and second Caliphs to appoint a successor; the absence of any disapproval of it by most Muslims; the spirit that dominated the thinking of the Muhajirin and the Ansar (the two rivals of the first generation on the Day of Saqifah); the initial tendency which clearly set the Muhajirin on the path to establishing a principle restricting all power to themselves; the Ansar's exclusion from power; the emphasis on what the Prophet has bequeathed, justified in terms of the precedence enjoyed by his clan above all others; the readiness of…