Umar prepared ground for Abu Bakr-A Critical Analysis

Umar cheated the people of Medina...

At the time the Prophet died, Abu Bakr happened to be with his new bride at Sukh, about three or four miles from Medina.

With one pillar missing, their plan could not be put into action, 'Umar. Judging Imam 'Ali by his own standards, thought that he would come forward at once to take the Bai’a while the-man whom "Umar wanted to set up for the Caliphate was away. 

If information of the Prophet's death reached the Ansar. they might come and make the Bayat to Imam 'Ali. He therefore did what statesmen before and after him have done: he tried to conceal the Prophet's death until Abu Bakr came back. So he stood up, sword in hand. and declared that the Prophet ,(P) had not died, that like Moses he had gone to meet God on the mountain, that he would come back and cut off the hands and feet of those who were spreading the news of his death, and that he himself would kill outright any man who said that the Prophet (P) had died. 

Ibn Khaldun and others say that 'Umar said that the Prophet (P) would never die (1). 

Does it stand to reason that 'Umar really and 'honestly believed what he was saying? Moses, with his body, had gone to the mountain to meet God: he had not left his body behind him. Here the body of the Prophet (P) was lying before them. The Prophet (P) had' never alleged that he would not die. The Ouran, which 'Umar must have read hundreds of times, clearly stated that Muhammad (P) would die. It is inconceivable that he would forget this. Moreover, the 'question of the Prophet being immortal is one of fundamental doctrine. Only a day before this, 'Umar had considered Muhammad to be a very ordinary man, so much so that the heat of the fever cold overcome the strength of his brain and cause delirium: now he was considering him to be supernatural, and able to overcome death itself. 

On the day of the battle of 'Uhud, when the Muslims fled, forsaking the Prophet who was being defended by Imam 'Ali  at the risk of his life, 'Umar also fled and sought refuge in the mountains(2).

The enemy spread the news of the Prophet's death, 'Umar and Talha Ibn Ubaidallah”, with other ‘Muhajirin’ and Ansar, were sitting on a rock, having 'given up all hope, when Anas Ibn-an-Nadr came up to them, and enquired why they were sitting there like that. They replied, "Muhammad had been killed; what a good thing it would be if only there were someone who would go and ask Abdallah Ibn 'Ubai (a Munafiq) to intercede with Abu Sufyan on our behalf and get an amnesty for us. O friends, Muhammad is dead, let us go home now before the enemy-comes and kills us all".' Anas said, "O my friends, even if Muhammad is dead, his God is alive; get up and fight and die for the religion for which Muhammad had died. 0 God, I declare my abhorrence of what they have said". They did not move, but Anas Ibn An-Nadr, drawing his sword, advanced towards the enemy and fell fighting (3). That was the' proper occasion on which to have disbelieved the news of the Prophet's death. His body was not there, so 'Umar ought to have made a search for it. If it had not been found in spite of the search, and if he had really believed that Muhammad could not die, then this would have been the occasion on which to have declared that Muhammad (P) could not die, that he was alive but had gone to meet his God. (The Aya stating that Muhammad (P) is like other Prophets and will also die as they have died, was not revealed till after this battle was over and the Prophet had returned to Medina), It would also have been expedient, for the Muslims would have rallied and attacked the enemy. But he meekly accepted his death, and wanted to save his life by making peace with the enemy. 

The excuse for this conduct put forward by their followers is that on account of the love that 'Umar bore the Prophet, his brain gave way under the shock and he thought that the Prophet (P) was immortal. Let us examine this plea. 

Firstly, this love must have developed very late in the day; it was entirely absent in A.H.3 when the battle of 'Uhud was fought, as we have seen above. 

Secondly, this love, appears to have been generated very suddenly, because we find it absent at the beginning of the last days of the prophet's life, or even up to just one day before his death, when he rudely opposed the Prophet's wish to write a will with the hardly love-inspired remark "The man is talking nonsense under" the effect of delirium". From the Prophet's rejoinder, "Be gone with you", it would seem that no love had been felt either. It is clear that the love which is alleged to have upset the mental equilibrium of 'Umar on the death of the Prophet was only a pretext thought up at the last minute to cover up 'Umar's gambit. 

Thirdly, apart from being of such very recent growth, that love proved to be of very short duration. It vanishes as soon as Abu Bakr comes back; that exuberance of love that was bubbling forth in nonsensical sentences subsides at once and for ever. Never after wards do we find any trace of it, either in his treatment of the children of the object of his love, or in his behavior towards his memory. Not even attending to the last rites of his beloved Prophet, he engages heart and soul in the fight to win the throne, and not even after the victory, with the battle over, do we find that love returning to him. As a matter of fact, this theory of love must be rejected forthwith, in view of the speech of Abu Bakr laying down the extraordinary dogma that to mourn the death of the Prophet amounted to worshiping him. thus making the mourning of his death a sin. What did that emotion of love constitute for grief over the death of one's beloved not to be included; is a lover not to feel any grief for the death of the object of his love? Having established this principle, we are precluded from accepting that 'Urnar was overwhelmed with grief on account of love for the Prophet (P). 

The learned Muslim historian of India. Mawlawi Shibli, admits that this was mere acting for political purposes. He says. "In my opinion, as there were a good many of the Munafeqeen  in Medina who were awaiting the death of the Prophet to create disturbances in the city, 'Umar must have thought it prudent to prevent in this manner the news of the Prophet's death from spreading". 

This shows conclusively that it was mere acting  not love or affection.  

As to Shibli's pleading the Munafeqeen as the reason, it does not hold water for a moment, for why was this attempt to conceal the death of the Prophet not continued after the arrival of Abu Bakr? Was that fear of the Munafiqtn over in a few minutes? And let us see what  they did to meet this "danger": they went straight to the Saqifa. There can be only two possible explanations: either the danger referred to by Shibli was apprehended from the side of the Ansar  and related to the occupation of the throne left vacant by the death of the Prophet (P); or else it was some other danger. In the former case, which is substantiated by their conduct in going at once to the Saqifa, my point is proved. In the latter case, we are at a loss to know what that danger could have been. It never showed itself at any time, and the Munafiqin of Medina never rose against the Government. Expeditions were sent in various directions: into the interior of Arabia against those tribes who refused to acknowledge the headship of Abu Bakr, to Syria, and to Persia; but no expedition was sent against the Munafiqin of Medina. Mawlawi Shibli admits that from their conduct it appears that 'Umar and Abu Bakr had no grief whatsoever over the death of the Prophet (P). He says, "It is clear that 'Umar and Abu Bakr .... left' the burial of the Prophet and went to the Saqifa, and it is also a fact that at the Saqifa they engaged in a struggle with the Ansar for the Caliphate, and busied themselves with such activities as clearly showed that nothing sorrowful had happened to them,,(4). 

That the Ansar were not the first to act is also evident from the fact that after the death of the Prophet, and even before this lecture of his, "Urnar had gone to Abu Ubaida Ibn Al-Jarrah, and asked him to accept the Caliphate. Ibn Saad says, "Just after the death of the Prophet (P), 'Umar came to Abu 'Ubaida Ibn Al-Jarrah , and told him, "Stretch out your hand, so that I may make the Bai'a to you, as according to a saying of the Prophet' you are the Amin (Trustee) of this Umma". Abu 'Ubaida said, "I have never seen you joking since you became a Muslim. But are you joking with me today? Would you make the Bayat to me when As-Siddiq. the One-of-the-two is among you?,,(5). 

It is evident that this must have happened before he stood up to deny the death of the Prophet (P). At the moment when the Prophet (P) died, 'Umar was at a loss what to do in the absence of Abu Bah. Time was of the essence for the whole scheme, so he went to Abu 'Ubaida to urge him to accept the Caliphate. There is reason to believe that these three men, Abu Bakr 'Umar and Abu 'Ubaida. had decided among themselves to take the Caliphate one after the other. But neither 'Umar nor Abu 'Ubaida wanted to be the first Caliph, for that was a difficult proposition. To break the ground is always a difficult job: the reaction to be expected from the general public was unknown; the line of action that Imam Ali and Banu Hashim might take was not apparent; it was not known what form affairs would take on crystalizing into stability. Just then the crown appeared to be a thorny one, and neither of them liked to wear it and take the risk inherent in the first attempt. Abu Bakr had agreed to be their feeler. so to speak. And right then he was not available. So when approached now by 'Umar. Abu 'Ubaida stuck to the original agreement. and therefore mentioned Abu Bakr in this connection.

Nothing else could be done, so the simple device of delaying the news of the Prophet's death commended itself to 'Umar. and he acted accordingly. I might mention at this point that Abu Bakr always rued his having accepted the Caliphate first. Even at the time of his death, this was his chief grievance; he said it would have been better if he had wound the chain of the Caliphate round the neck of either Abu 'Ubaida or Umar(6). This repentance  as also the fact that these three persons alone from the Mohajereen were present in the meeting at the Saqifa at the time of the selection, clearly shows that their agreement was to confine the Caliphate to themselves in the first instance. It was for this reason that Abu Bakr did not even think of leaving the Caliphate to the chance of an election, and thereby jeopardise the certainty of 'Umar's succession. 

He nominated him at once not caring that according to the Theory of Non-appointment as invented by them. 

He was contravening the Sunna "established" by the Prophet (P) and thus changing the constitution itself. Now we turn to the lecture given by Abu Bakr when he returned from Sukh and learnt that the Prophet (P) had died. There are two points in his harangue which need attention. In the first place. he prevents the people from grieving over the death of the Prophet, and tries to make this grief detestable in the eyes of the Muslims by saying that it is akin to worship. I need hardly add that this idea is as much discountenanced by the Qur'an as the idea of the Prophet's immortality. The Qur'an very vividly describes the grief and sorrow of Ya'qub over his separation from his son Yiisuf. It states that Yaqub grieved so bitterly over this separation that his eyes became white with constant weeping. He could hardly worship his son and enjoy the rank of a Prophet at the same time. Abu Bakr appears on this occasion to have forgotten the Qur'an. His object was to wean people away from the love of the Prophet's memory, as the love and sympathies for a dead man are generally transferred to his nearest of kin, and this they did not want as it was quite against their interests. The second notable feature of his harangue is his general invitation to the people  to select a man from among themselves for the Caliphate, an invitation which was very pleasing to many of them. News from the Ansar had not yet been received at that time . 

From all that has been said above, it is quite clear that these gentlemen. and not the Ansar, were the first to commence the struggle for the Caliphate, and had long been preparing the ground for this.

References:

(1) Ibn Khaldun: Vol. 2, Supplement. p, 63. (Cairo 12X4 A.H,),

(2) As-Suyyuti: "Ad-Dur Al-Munthur", Vol. 2. p. XX. ,At-Tabari: "Tafsir-al-Qur'an", Vol. 4. p. 90. At-Tabari: "Tarikh". Vol. 3. p. 19            

(3) Shibli: "Al-Faruq", Part 1, p. 65. 

(4) Shibli: "Al-Faruq", Part l , pp. 65. 66. (Agra. 1908). 

(5) Ibn Saad: "At-Tahaqat-al-Kuhru

(6) A!Tabari: Vol. 4. p. 52. (Cairo).

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