I fear that in time to come men will say that they find no...

I fear that in time to come men will say that they find no mention of stoning in God's book and thereby go astray by neglecting an ordinance, which God has sent down. Then we read in what we read from God's book, 'Do not desire to have ancestors other than your own for it is infidelity to do so.' I have heard that someone said, 'If 'Umar were dead I would hail So-and-so. Do not let a man deceive himself by saying that acceptance to Abu Bakr was a precipitate deal which was carried out.

Admittedly, it was that, but God averted the evil of it. He who accepts a man as ruler without consulting the Muslims, such acceptance has no validity for either of them: they are in danger of being killed.

What happened was that when God took away His Apostle (S.A.W.S.) the Helpers opposed us and gathered with their chiefs in the Saqifa of Banu Sa'ida; and 'Ali and al-Zubayr and their companions withdrew from us; while the Emigrants gathered to Abu Bakr.” “I told Abu Bakr that we should go to our brothers the Helpers, so we went off to go to them when two honest fellows met us and told us of the conclusion the people had come to.

They asked us where we were going, and when we told them, they said that there was no need for us to approach them and we must make our decision. I said, 'By God, we will go to them', and we found them in the Saqifa of Banu Sa'ida. In the middle of them was a man wrapped up. In answer to my inquiries, they said that he was Sa'd b. 'Ubada and that he was ill.

When we sat down their speaker pronounced the shihada , and praised God as was fitting and then continued, 'We are God's Helpers and the squadron of Islam. You, O the Emigrants, are a family of ours, and a company of your people has come to settle'. ('Umar) said, 'and lo, they were trying to cut us off from our origin and wrest authority from us.'[^5] When he had finished 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 this; 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 was, 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.