CHAPTER FIVE: The court of the book
Surely Allah commands you to make over trusts to their owners and that when you judge between people you judge with justice; surely Allah admonishes you with what is excellent; surely Allah is Seeing, Hearing.
Quran, 4:57
If we wanted to raise our study to an adequate level, we would have to follow the methods of the scientific research in studying two sides:
Abu Bakr’s situation on the Prophet’s inheritance
The first side: Abu Bakr’s situation regarding the inheritance of Fatima (s) that he justified according to a tradition, which he alone narrated from the Prophet (s) about the matter of inheritance. He narrated the tradition in different ways and different statements for the confrontations between him and Fatima (s) were many, so each saying of his had a different form and different statements according to the phrases that came to his mind at the time of each confrontation between them.
1. Before all we want to note how certain the caliph was of the truthfulness of the tradition, which he found that it showed that the Prophet (s) did not bequeath. How certain was he that he had heard it from the Prophet (s) and whether he changed his mind or not?
We can understand that from the traditions
saying that the caliph gave Fadak back to Fatima and the case was about to be ended unless Omar came and said to the caliph:“What is this?”
Abu Bakr said:“It is a document I wrote for Fatima confessing her right of her father’s inheritance”
. Omar said:“What will you spend on the Muslims and as you see that the Arabs stand against you?”
He (Omar) took the document and tore it.
We quote this tradition cautiously although we may believe in its truthfulness because every thing would encourage not narrating this story unless it had something of reality. If it was true, it would mean that (the attempt of) giving Fadak to Fatima (s) occurred after Fatima’s eternal speech and when Abu Bakr denied the Prophet’s inheritance by narrating his odd tradition, because of the wars of apostasy, Omar referred to in his saying, took place ten days after the day of the saqeefa
and Fatima’s speech was in the tenth day too.
2. Abu Bakr showed his regret for not giving Fadak to Fatima when he was about to die.
He was so moved that once he said to the people gathering around him:“Revoke your pledge of homage to me!”
We perceive by this that the caliph was so worried, feeling that he had committed a great mistake in his judgment against Fatima without a certain evidence. His conscience became so excited and he could not find a justification that might quiet his worried soul. He was unable to bear this bitter condition so his soul was brimmed to express the regret for his situation towards Fatima at the last hour of his life; the critical hour, in which one would review all the scenes one had acted on the stage of life when feeling that the curtain was about to be lowered, and the different threads of one’s life gathered in one’s memory that were about to be cut and nothing would remain but the burden of the sins committed.
3. Let us not forget that Abu Bakr had recommended in his will
to be buried beside the Prophet’s tomb. This would not be except if he had recalled his tradition, in which he had narrated that the Prophet (s) did not bequeath, and then he asked his daughter (Aa’isha) permission to be buried in her share of the Prophet’s inheritance (in the house)-if the wife would have a share of land and if that share of land would be enough for Abu Bakr-or if he thought that what the Prophet (s) had left was to be as common charity for all the Muslims, then he had to ask permission of all of them. Suppose that the adults permitted him, what about the minors and the children at that time?
4. We knew well that Abu Bakr had not seized the Prophet’s wives’ houses, in which they lived during the Prophet’s lifetime, so what was the reason that made him seize Fadak from Fatima (s)
and make its yields for the public interests while he let the Prophet’s wives make use of their houses as real keepers so that he asked Aa’isha permission to let him be buried in her house? Did the verdict of not bequeathing concern the Prophet’s daughter only? Were the wives’ houses their donations? We are to know what made the caliph do that without any evidence despite that no one of the wives had claimed that the house was hers. Inhabiting a house by a wife during the Prophet’s lifetime did not mean that she became the owner because it was not private ownership but it was as part of the Prophet’s ownership as for any wife and a husband. This verse (And stay in your houses. 33:33) did not mean that the houses were theirs because a little after that the houses were ascribed to the Prophet where Allah said: (O you who believe! do not enter the houses of the Prophet unless permission is given to you. 33:35) If the order of the Quran was sufficient evidence, this verse must be taken into account. It was mentioned in the Sunni books of Hadith that the house was ascribed to the Prophet when he had said:“Between my house and my minbar there is a garden of Paradise”
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5. Let us ask the caliph about the verdict that the prophets did not bequeath. Did it concern Muhammad (s) only and he kept it secret until it would be required to be applied to Fatima only from among all the heirs of the other prophets? Did the other prophets ignore it? Did they not inform their successors and heirs of it because of their greed of the transient wealth in order to remain with their sons and families? Or did they follow the verdict of not bequeathing but it was not mentioned in all the histories of the nations? Or did the actual policy at that time establish this verdict?
6. On the other hand could we accept that the Prophet (s) would bring distresses and disasters for his most beloved one, at whose displeasure he would be displeased, for whose delight he would be delighted and for whose distress he would be distressed?
Nothing would cost him to keep all those distresses away from his daughter more than to tell her the truth if there was such a thing. Would the Prophet (s) be pleased if his daughter suffered and faced ordeals and that ordeals would widen to be a cause for disagreement among all the Muslims whereas he was sent by Allah to be a source of mercy? Did he conceal it from his daughter while he had revealed it to Abu Bakr?
The variations of Abu Bakr’s tradition
1. In order to have a look at the tradition from the moral side, we divided the way of narrating the tradition into two parts:
The first: It was mentioned that Abu Bakr cried when Fatima (s) talked with him and said:“O daughter of the messenger of Allah, I swear by Allah that your father did not bequeath a dinar or a dirham and he said that the prophets did not bequeath”
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It was mentioned too that when Fatima did her speech he said:“I have heard the Prophet saying: We, the prophets, do not bequeath gold and silver nor lands, properties or houses but we bequeath faith, wisdom, knowledge and the Sunna”
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The second: Abu Bakr narrated that the Prophet had said:“We do not bequeath. What we leave is to be as charity”
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2. The important point in this research is to know whether these ways of the tradition lead clearly, without any doubt or other interpretation-the proviso (nass)
according to the scholars of Hadith-to that what the Prophet (s) had left would be as inheritance or it could lead to another meaning even if it apparently gave an impression showing the verdict of not bequeathing. The matter had a third account that was not to outweigh the meaning that served the caliph more than the other meanings the wording might have, which was called (mujmal) summary.
3. If we noticed the first variations of the tradition, we would find that the tradition might not refer to the legislation of bequeathing by the prophets but to another thing that the Prophet (s) wanted to clear; that was to glorify the prophethood and to exalt the prophets. There was no clearer aspect of the spiritual loftiness and the divine greatness than to be ascetic with regard to the evanescent luxuries and pleasures of the worldly life. Could not we suppose that the Prophet (s)
wanted to show that the prophets were angelic people or people of the highest rank that they would not be affected by the earthly egoism or the human tendencies, because their nature was derived from the elements of the Heaven flowing with goodness and not from the elements of the earthly world? They always and for ever were the sources of good and light. They were devisors of faith and wisdom. They fixed the divine authority on the earth. They were not the sources of material wealth and they did not look forward to its values. So why did not we consider his saying:“We the prophets do not bequeath gold or silver nor lands or properties or houses”
as metonymy referring to this meaning? Their bequeathing of these things did mean owning them and leaving them after their death whereas in fact they turned away from all these things. Hence the wording showed not bequeathing because the prophets did not have anything to bequeath as if we said:“the poor men do not bequeath”
not because the verdict of inheritance does not include them but because they do not have anything to bequeath. The real aim of the Prophet’s saying was to show the loftiness of the prophets. This style of eloquence agreed with the wonderful styles of the Prophet’s speech, which were full of such great meanings in short statements.
4. In order that you agree with me on a certain interpretation for this tradition, we have to know the meaning of bequeathing so that we can understand the sentence that negated bequeathing in the tradition. Bequeathing means leaving something as inheritance; that is to say that the legator is he, who becomes a cause of transmitting a property from the dead to his relative.
This transmitting depends on tow conditions:
First: the existence of the patrimony.
Second: the law that lets the heir have a share of the dead’s property. The first condition happens by means of the dead himself and the second condition happens by means of the legislator, who establishes the law of inheritance, whether he is an individual, who is entrusted with the legislative competence by people, or a society responsible for that or a prophet legislating according to the orders of the Heaven. Each of the dead and the legislator has a share in deciding the inheritance but the real legator is the dead, who founds the matter of the inheritance, because it is he, who prepares for the inheritance its second condition whereas the legislator is not a real legator because by establishing the law he cannot generate any inheritance. In fact he just legislates a law saying that if the dead leaves a property, it will be for his relatives. This is not enough to find inherited wealth unless the dead actually has left some of his own properties after his death.
So the legislator is like that, who adds a special nature to an element that enables it to burn whatever it meets. Then if you throw a piece of paper into it and the paper burns, you will be the one that burns it and not that one, who adds the burning element to that nature. The principle justifying that is to say that everything is ascribed to the final influence on it. In the light of this principle we know that ascribing bequeathing to somebody means that he is the final influence on the inheritance and it is he, who founds the patrimony.
It is understood from the statement (the prophets do not bequeath) that they do not prepare for the inheritance its final condition for they do not try to gather wealth and then to leave them for their heirs after their death. So the meaning of (the prophets do not bequeath) does not deny the legislative bequeathing because the verdict of the inheritance is not the real bequeathing but the real bequeathing is to prepare the patrimony, which is the matter of the inheritance. It is this, which was denied by the tradition.
On the other way, if the bequeathing that the Prophet denied was the legislative bequeathing it would mean canceling the law of bequeathing from the Sharia of the Heaven. This could not be because the legislative bequeathing did not concern the prophets’ heirs only. If the denial referred to the real bequeathing it would mean that the prophets had no wealth in order to bequeath and so Abu Bakr’s justification would be in vain.
5. In the first narration of the tradition Abu Bakr said:“By Allah, your father did not bequeath a dinar or a dirham”
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It showed clearly that the Prophet (s) did not leave any money. If Abu Bakr used that statement to refer to this meaning, then the tradition would lead to denying the patrimony and not the legislative bequeathing.
6. If we noticed the examples mentioned in the second variation of the tradition, we would find what confirmed the importance of this interpretation because mentioning gold, silver, properties and houses did not agree with the tradition that the patrimony was not to be bequeathed whereas every thing, even the insignificant things, must be mentioned to show that the verdict included every thing. If we wanted to show that the unbeliever was not to inherit from his (Muslim) father’s inheritance, we would not say that he was not to inherit gold, silver or a house but we would say that he was not to inherit anything of his dead father’s patrimony. It was clear that showing the generality of the verdict required showing some kinds of properties in order that no one would think that these kinds of properties were not among the patrimony, which would not be bequeathed. Saying that the prophets do not bequeath or the unbelievers were not to inherit their fathers’ inheritance shows that properties, houses, gold, silver and other valuable things of inheritance do not move to the heirs. Mentioning these things in the tradition might show that the meaning of (the prophets do not bequeath) was to confirm that the prophets did not pay any attention for such transient things of this limited worldly life, for which the rabble competed, for it was suitable for this purpose to mention these significant properties, whose owning and bequeathing contradicted the concept of asceticism and the high spiritual ranks. As for informing of not bequeathing in the Sharia, it would be more appropriate to mention the insignificant kinds of patrimony rather than the clear significant kinds.
7. Another thing that confirmed what we said about the interpretation of the tradition was the second part in the tradition: (but we bequeath faith, wisdom, knowledge and the Sunna).
It did not show the legislation of inheriting these things but it showed that the prophets had these things that they could spread among people. Then we could understand from the first sentence, which denied bequeathing, that the prophets did not try to gain gold, properties and the likes, therefore they did not have any to leave for their heirs as inheritance.
8. We are not to compare the Prophet’s tradition: (People are not to bequeath anything to the unbeliever of their relatives)
with that tradition but we have to differentiate between the two because if the legislator talks about those, for whom he legislates laws, it is clear from his speech that he imposes on them a verdict. When the Prophet informs of that people do not bequeath to the unbeliever of their relatives, it is not to be considered as just informing but it shows that the unbeliever is not to inherit according to the Prophet’s Sharia. It is different from that one narrated by Abu Bakr because that tradition talks about the prophets and not a group of people included in the Prophet’s legislations and verdicts. So there is nothing referring to a verdict behind the informing of not bequeathing by the prophets.
9. You are not to object by saying that the prophets often owned something of what were mentioned in the tradition for it would mean that the tradition was untrue. You may remember that what was denied related to the prophets was bequeathing, which had a special meaning that was to say: ascribing the patrimony to the legator. This ascribing depended on that the legator sought to gain properties, which would be left as inheritance after his death, exactly as the meaning of the educator, which depended on using the means of the education. If someone could read the thoughts of one of the ethicists and educated himself according to those thoughts then we would not call that ethicist as educator because founding anything whether it was educating, bequeathing, teaching or the like would not be ascribed to a person unless that person had a positive action and a noticeable influence on the achievement of that thing. Even if the prophets had some properties or houses, it was not because of their seeking to gain wealth like other people. The tradition did not show that the prophets did not bequeath or did not leave properties but it showed their high ranks and excellences. As long as the tradition referred to this meaning and its main aim was not behind the literary meaning of the words so it was not impermissible that the prophets might have some properties for the good intents. In the past he, who described a generous man as“he had a lot of ashes”
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was not to be considered as liar whether there was ash in the generous man’s house or not because he did not want actually to describe him so but he wanted to refer to his generosity because the clearest sign of generosity in those days was the amount of food cooked, which would leave a lot of ashes. And so not bequeathing was the clearest sign of asceticism and piety. Hence the Prophet (s) might have referred to the piety of the prophets by saying:“The prophets do not bequeath”
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10. In order to perceive the meaning of the second variation of the tradition we have to distinguish between three possible meanings:First: the patrimony of the dead is not inherited. This means that what the dead owned until his death will not move to his heirs but it becomes as charity after his death.
Second: what the deceased had paid during his lifetime as charity or what he had given to certain parties would not be inherited but would remain as charity and entail (waqf). The heirs would inherit other than the charities of the properties that the dead owned during his lifetime.
Third: the dead had no properties to be inherited and what he would leave would be charities and entails.
If we recognized the differences between these three meanings, the tradition would appear unclear and in need of researching and testing. In fact in its interpretation there were many possibilities and it could include all the items mentioned above. The second half of the tradition (what we leave is to be as charity) might be an independent sentence with full meaning or a complement for the sentence (we, the prophets, do not bequeath). In the first case the tradition agreed with the first and the third meanings because the sentence (what we leave is to be as charity) might mean that the patrimony would not transfer to the heirs after the owner’s death but it would be considered as charity or it might refer to the third meaning that all the patrimonies would be considered as charity and the dead had not owned anything to bequeath as if the dead before his death referred to the properties and said:“All these properties are not mine. They are for charity and I am just responsible for them”
. If we considered the entire tradition as having one independent meaning, it would refer to the second meaning that the charities, which the dead had given during his life,
would be excluded from the other parts of the inheritance. The same would be understood from the tradition if the wording was reversed as the following: (we do not bequeath what we leave as charity). It showed that only the charities would not be inherited but not the rest of the patrimonies were charities. Hence the tradition would be as evidence to prove that the charity was not to transfer to the heirs and not to cancel the legislation of bequeathing at all.
11. So we have put many meanings for the tradition in order to show its real content. Saying that the Prophet’s properties were to be as charity after his death, would not be preferred to the other two meanings. In fact we would prefer the second meaning: (what was left as charity would be excluded from the other parts of inheritance) if we pondered on the plural pronoun the Prophet (s) used in the tradition. The use of this pronoun by the Prophet to refer to himself would not be acceptable unless it was used metaphorically. Moreover it was far away from the Prophet’s humbleness in all his sayings and doings. The evidences confirmed that the pronoun referred to a group and the verdict decided by the tradition concerned the group and not the Prophet (s) alone. According to the principles of expression it was most suitable for this statement to refer to the group of the Muslims and not the group of the prophets because the tradition had no any context referring to the prophets. You cannot object by saying that the tradition might have a context when it was said by the Prophet (s) or it was preceded by an indication showing that the pronoun related to the group of the prophets because Abu Bakr had not mentioned anything of that, although the narrator of any tradition had to mention every thing concerning it in order to make interpreting it easy therefore your objection will be vain. Furthermore, ignoring these details was not for Abu Bakr’s benefit. So let the actual wording of the tradition be identical to the actual situation of Abu Bakr no more no less.
It was understood that the pronoun referred to the group of the Muslims, who were attendant when the Prophet (s) said the tradition. It was ordinary that if a speaker wanted to say something among a group of people and used the plural pronoun of the first person, he would refer by the pronoun to the attendant group. If a jurisprudent was among his friends and he began to talk to them using the plural pronoun, it would be understood that he meant by the pronoun himself and the attendant friends and not the group of the jurisprudents, whom he was one of. If he wanted to refer to another group, his speech in this matter might be considered mysterious and unclear. In the light of this account, what would you think about this verdict that the tradition had determined for the Muslims, whom we established that the pronoun concerned? Could it show that a Muslim was not to bequeath his patrimony? Were the properties every Muslim had not his own but they were to be considered as charities? Certainly not! This did not agree with the necessities of the Islamic Sharia. According to the holy Quran the Muslim had the right to own in different ways and had the right to bequeath what he would leave after his death (after (the payment of) a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt).
Perhaps it is clear now that the verdict is not but that the charity is not to be inherited. This is an important thing and it does not concern a certain charity but it concerns all the charities of the Muslims. It was no wonder in showing the verdict of not bequeathing the charities in the first age of legislation, because the laws and the verdicts of the Sharia were not yet fixed and widespread among the Muslims and there was a possibility of revoking the charities and entails and they would transfer to the heirs when the owner died. This interpretation could not be undermined even though Fatima (s) did not mention it and did not protest by it against the caliph.
Firstly because the critical situation of Fatima (s) in those difficult times did not let her debate these minute arguments because the ruling authority, which wanted to carry out its decisions strictly, controlled the situation with firmness and determination that did not accept any argument. Hence we found that Abu Bakr did not answer Fatima (s) when she protested by the Quranic verses talking about the matter of inheritance with more than to say:“It is so”
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So the fate of these arguments, if they had a share in the revolt, would face but denial and failure.
And secondly because these arguments had nothing to do with Fatima’s aim, which was to do away with the entire regime of the new caliphate. It was natural that she depended on the means that were nearer to achieve her aim. You found her in his parents, each of them shall have the sixth of what he has left if he has a child, but if he has no child and (only) his two parents inherit him, then his mother shall have the third; but if he has brothers, then his mother shall have the sixth after (the payment of) a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt). 4:11.
her eternal speech talking to the minds and the hearts of people together but she did not exceed in her protest the intuitive methods, which was ignored by the caliph. This indifference of the caliph was about to be denied by everyone which would lead to a fierce opposition.
She denied the availability of any evidence in the holy Quran confirming the rule of the caliph Abu Bakr. Then she mentioned the verses legislating the succession among all the Muslims.
Then she mentioned the verses talking about the succession of some prophets like Prophet Yahya (John) and Prophet Dawood (David). Then she argued the case in another way that if what Abu Bakr followed was true, he would be more aware than the Prophet (s) and his guardian Imam Ali because they both had not told her of that verdict and if they had known it, they would definitely have told her of it. It was definitely that Abu Bakr could never be more aware of the Prophet’s inheritance than the Prophet (s) or than Ali, whose guardianship
to the Prophet (s) was confirmed by her saying:“O ibn Abu Quhafa,[3] is it mentioned in the Book of Allah that you inherit your father but I do not inherit my father? Surely you have done a strange thing! Did you intendedly desert the Book of Allah and turned your back on it? Allah said: (And Sulaiman was Dawood's heir Qur’an 27:16) and said about Yahya bin Zachariah: (Grant me from Thyself an heir, who should inherit me and inherit from the children of Yaqoub. Qur’an 19:5-6) and said: (And the possessors of relationships are nearer to each other in the ordinance of Allah. Qur’an 8:75) So did Allah distinguish you with a verse, from which He excluded my father? Or do you say: people of two religions do not inherit each other? Am I and my father not of one religion? Or are you more aware of the Quran than my father and my cousin?”
The more prominent side of Fatima’s revolt was the sentimental side. It was no wonder that Fatima (s) tried her best to gain the battle of the heart for it was the first ruler of the soul and it was the cradle, in which the spirit of revolt grew up. Fatima (s) had succeeded in forming a wonderful image, by which she shook the feelings, electrified the sentiments and dominated the hearts. It was the best weapon for a woman having the same circumstances of Fatima (s).
In order to enjoy that wonderful image painted with the finest colors, let us listen to Fatima when she addressed the Ansar by saying:“O high-born people, you are the strong guards of the religion and the nourishers of Islam. What is this languor in helping me, this slowness in assisting me, this indifference to my right and this dozing towards my being wronged? Did not the Prophet say: “Being loyal to a man is by being loyal to his offspring”
? How quickly you changed the Sunna and how hurriedly you achieved your own intents. Was it because the Prophet died that you made his religion die? By Allah, his death was a great calamity, whose effect became greater. Its rip became obscure and there was no one to mend it. The earth became so dark. The mountains submitted. The hopes died. The sanctities were lost after him. The inviolabilities were profaned. It was a great misfortune that the Book of Allah informed of it even before the Prophet’s death. Allah said: (And Muhammad is no more than an apostle; the apostles have already passed away before him; if then he dies or is killed will you turn back on your heels? And whoever turns back on his heels, he will by no means do harm to Allah in the least and Allah will reward the grateful. Quran 3:144) Ah, people of Ouss and Khazraj,
my father’s inheritance was extorted in front of your sight and hearing. My call reaches you and you are with great number of men and arms.
You are the elite that Allah preferred and the choice that He chose…etc.”
Hence the arguments about the interpretation of the tradition would not be accepted by the ruling authority nor did it have anything to do with the main aim of the revolt of Fatima (s). This explained for us why Fatima did not mention the donation (of Fadak) in her speech.
The situation of the caliph towards the matter of the inheritance
1. Now we have to clarify the caliph’s situation towards Fatima about the matter of the inheritance and to show his opinion about it after we have clarified the meaning of the tradition through the different ways of narrating whether the meaning was clear or ambiguous. His situation seems to be somehow complicated if we study the historical documents of the case thoroughly. Although the documents are many, it is ambiguous to know the point, on which the two opponents disagreed and it is difficult to unify this point.
People thought that the object of the disagreement between Abu Bakr and Fatima was the matter of the prophets’ inheritance. Fatima claimed that they bequeathed and Abu Bakr denied that. Accounting the situation in this way would not solve the matter and would not interpret many issues:
First: the saying of Abu Bakr to Fatima when she asked for Fadak:“This property was not the Prophet’s but it concerned the Muslims. The Prophet (s) spent from it on the soldiers and for the sake of Allah. When the Prophet died I managed it as he did”
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This saying showed clearly that he was arguing about something else than the prophets’ inheritance.
Second: his saying to Fatima in another dialogue:“By Allah, your father is better than me and you are better than my daughters but the messenger of Allah had said: “We do not bequeath. What we leave is to be charity”
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This explanatory sentence that the caliph added to the tradition needs some attention. It makes us understand that the caliph thought that the verdict determined in the tradition concerned Prophet Muhammad and it was not certified to concern the inheritance of the other prophets or the rest of the Muslims. He defined the patrimony that would not be bequeathed and mentioned that the Prophet meant it by the tradition. According to this, we understand that Abu Bakr did not mean not bequeathing the charities, because this was a general verdict and did not concern the Prophet only. It was clear also that Abu Bakr did not interpret the tradition as: (the Prophet’s properties were not to be inherited but they were to be considered as charities after his death) because if he thought so in understanding the tradition, his interpretation would refer to another matter. The subject of the tradition then would refer to all of the Prophet’s patrimonies and not to the actual property, which Fatima asked for. By this I mean that if these properties were excluded from the Prophet’s ownership before his death, the verdict of not bequeathing would not affect them. In the same way, if the Prophet had other properties, he would not bequeath them to his relatives too. So not bequeathing of the Prophet’s properties, if it was proved, would concern all the Prophet’s properties whether those, which he left or others. It would not be right to say that he meant by the inheritance the specific properties that Fatima asked for.
As if you said to your friend:“honor every one visits you tonight!”
Then two persons visited him. You did not mean by your saying these two persons in particular yet the order complied with these two persons by chance. So limiting the patrimonies that would not be inherited to certain properties required that the verdict mentioned in the tradition to concern these certain properties only.
No doubt if the Prophet’s patrimonies were not to be inherited, the verdict would not be assigned to those certain properties but it would be applied to every property that the Prophet (s) would leave after his death. With regard to the scientific relevance of the research, I want to ask about the use of the explanatory sentence and the aim behind it whether the opinion of the caliph about the tradition was that the Prophet’s properties were not to be inherited. Was it suspected that the meaning of patrimony referred to the actual properties, which Fatima asked for, or not and then he wanted to remove the suspicion in order that the tradition would agree with the meaning so that the verdict of not bequeathing would be proved? If this account was true, the suspicion would be in the interest of the caliph because if it was not certain that an asset was a part of the dead’s patrimony, it would not transfer to the heirs. Hence it was not possible that the caliph wanted to remove this suspicion and it was not possible that he wanted to prevent Fatima from arguing about the application of the tradition to the properties she asked for because as long as she asked for the properties as inheritance so she obviously acknowledged that they were among the Prophet’s patrimonies. Let us suppose that those properties were a part of the Prophet’s patrimony and not all what the Prophet (s) had left-it might refer to the real estate like Fadak-so can we guess that the aim of the caliph was to limit the properties that Fatima had no right to inherit? I do not think so because the Prophet’s patrimonies did not differ in bequeathing or not bequeathing. We derive from these reflections a result that the caliph’s intent from this tradition of the Prophet that these properties were not his property and he described them by saying:“What we leave is to be charity”
, so he was, in this respect, as that, who gathered his heirs and said to them:“All my patrimonies are to be for charity”
trying to tell them that they were not his properties so they could not inherit them. This is the meaning that can be understood from the caliph’s tradition.
Third: the caliph’s answer to a messenger sent by Fatima to ask for the Prophet’s properties in Medina and Fadak and the remainder of the khums of Khaybar when he said to the messenger:“The Prophet (s) said: “We do not bequeath. What we leave is to be charity. Muhammad’s family spends from this money”
. By Allah, I will not change anything of the Prophet’s charities. They will remain as they were during the Prophet’s lifetime”.
If we supposed that the meaning of the tradition according to Abu Bakr’s opinion was that the Prophet (s) did not bequeath his properties, then Abu Bakr’s speech would be contradicted because his conclusion in the beginning of the tradition showed that he confessed that what Fatima asked for was among the Prophet’s patrimonies and properties he left after his death, but his last sentence of the tradition:“By Allah, I do not change anything of the Prophet’s charities. They will remain as they were during the Prophet’s lifetime”
opposed this meaning because what Fatima wanted to change-as Abu Bakr claimed-was Fadak, the Prophet’s properties in Medina and the remainder of the khums of Khaybar. When Abu Bakr said:“By Allah, I do not change anything of the Prophet’s charities”
he meant the properties that Fatima asked for and he saw that she asked to change them from their previous condition. When he called them as the Prophet’s charities it meant that he thought they were not the Prophet’s properties but they were charities that the Prophet (s) managed during his lifetime. Abu Bakr’s conclusion in the beginning of the tradition showed that he did not want to prove that the Prophet’s properties were not to be inherited but he wanted to prove that those properties, which Fatima asked for, were not among the Prophet’s properties because he mentioned that they were charities.
2. We can conclude out of some variations of Abu Bakr’s tradition that he argued about the prophets’ properties and he did not limit the dispute to the previous point because the tradition, which mentioned Fatima’s speech and the conclusion of Abu Bakr when he mentioned the Prophet’s saying;“We, the prophets, do not bequeath…..etc.”
and when Fatima protested against him by mentioning the general Quranic verses talking about the matter of inheritance and the special verses talking about the succession of some of the prophets, uncovered a new side of the dispute where Abu Bakr denied the bequeathing of the Prophet’s properties to his heirs and insisted on his denial whereas Fatima insisted on arguing him
and defended her opinion on the matter.
3. So the caliph had two traditions:
The first:“We do not bequeath. What we leave is to be charity”
.
The second:“We, the prophets, do not bequeath gold or silver”
.
He therefore claimed two things:
One of them that Fadak was charity and so it was not to be inherited.
The other was that the Prophet’s properties were not to be inherited. He used the first tradition to prove that Fadak was charity and the second tradition to prove that the Prophet did not bequeath.
The results of the argument
1. It might be not difficult to sue the caliph after his situation became clear and the notes we noticed in the two traditions narrated by Abu Bakr, claiming that the Prophet (s) had said them, were fixed. The censure we got against Abu Bakr until now related to many points. We refer to them here to conclude the results:
First: the caliph was not certain about his tradition as we explained at the beginning of this chapter.
Second: it would be implausible to imagine that the Prophet (s) confided the verdict of his inheritance to Abu Bakr and hid it from his daughter and the rest of his heirs. How did the Prophet confide this verdict to Abu Bakr?
The Prophet was not used to meet Abu Bakr alone unless he told him this news in a deliberate privacy so that it would be ignorant by his heirs and especially his daughter, who would receive a new ordeal-because of that-in addition to her other pains!
Third: Ali was the Prophet’s guardian undoubtedly according to the true tradition narrated recurrently by the great companions and recited in their poetry. Among those, who narrated the tradition were Abdullah bin Abbas, Khuzayma bin Thabit al-Ansari, Hujr bin Adiy, Abul Haytham bin al-Tayhan, Abdullah bin Abu Sufyan bin al-Harth bin Abdul Muttalib, Hassaan bin Thabit and Imam Ali.
The guardianship was one of the highest Islamic decorations that no doubt only Ali possessed.
Ali’s followers and Abu Bakr’s followers disagreed on the meaning of guardianship. The first great companions believed that it was a decree for Ali’s caliphate but the others interpreted it and said:“Ali is the guardian of the Prophet’s knowledge, Sharia and affairs.”
Now we do not want to oppose these or to support those but we want to discuss the tradition as much as concerning the subject of this research and then to decide what result comes out of each interpretation.
Let us suppose first that the guardianship meant the caliphate to try Abu Bakr’s situation in the light of the tradition. We will find that he had usurped the most precious Islamic values and had disposed of the fates of the umma without any legal authority. So this man had no right to rule or judge between people and any tradition of his could not be believed. Let us abandon this interpretation for it would be so severe to the caliph. Let us say:“Ali was the guardian of the Prophet’s knowledge and Sharia.”
Then could we, while confessing such kind of holy guardianship, believe in a tradition denied by the guardian himself? And as long as he (Ali) was the wakeful guard of the divine Sharia
so his opinion had to be obeyed in every matter as an indisputable decree because he was the most aware of what the Prophet (s) had recommended and entrusted him with. And if Ali was the guardian of the Prophet’s patrimonies and affairs, so what would be the meaning of plundering the Prophet’s patrimonies by the caliph whereas the Prophet’s guardian was available and he was more aware of their verdict and legal fate?
Fourth: the nationalization of the Prophet’s inheritance was one of the caliph’s initiatives in history. It was unprecedented in any of the (prophets’) nations’ histories. If it was a basis followed by all, who ruled after the prophets, it would be so famous and all the nations of the prophets would know that.
Denying the Prophet’s ownership of Fadak by Abu Bakr-as it was shown by some of his arguments with Fatima-had much hastiness because Fadak was not gained as booty in war but its people gave in because of fear as it was mentioned by all the historians;
Sunni and Shia. Each land, whose people gave up like that (without fighting), was to be pure property of the Prophet (s).
Allah declared in the holy Quran that Fadak was of the Prophet (s) by saying: (And whatever Allah restored to His Apostle from them you did not press forward against it any horse or a riding camel. Quran 59:6) It was not proved that the Prophet (s) had granted Fadak as charity or with the truth and the truth is with Ali”. He (s) also said:“Ali is from me and I am from him. No one is to carry out my tasks except him…”
.Refer to as-Sawa’iqul Muhriqa by ibn Hajar p.122 and ibn Assakir’s Tareekh, vol.17 p.256-.
he entailed it.
Fifth: both of the traditions that Abu Bakr protested with in this concern had no any evidence certifying what he wanted to prove. We have already studied both variations of the tradition and shown that their meanings had nothing to do with the caliph’s intent. If this is not acceptable, let us suppose the two meanings to be equal and then no one could be preferred to the other in order to depend on it.
2. These were the objections we already got. We add to them now a sixth objection after supposing that the phrase (We, the prophets, do not bequeath) is closer to denying the verdict of bequeathing than to deny the existence of the patrimony to be inherited and to suppose the phrase as following: (We do not bequeath what we leave as charity), which will be in the interest of the caliph and to cancel the interpretation saying that the charity left is not to be inherited and then to study the case in the light of these accounts. The clearest meaning of the caliph’s tradition, after interpreting it according to all the possibilities, determines that the prophets were not to bequeath their patrimonies as it was clear in his saying: (We, the prophets, do not bequeath). Let us have a look at his saying: (We do not bequeath. What we leave is to be charity). The pronoun refers to the plural that the verdict concerns a group. Since the verdict in the tradition concerns not bequeathing of the patrimony then it is clear that it relates to the group of the prophets because there is no another group that we can think that their patrimonies are not to transfer to their heirs. The holy Quran declared the matter of bequeathing by the prophets. Allah, the Almighty, said about Zachariah: (And surely I fear my cousins after me, and my wife is barren, therefore grant me from Thyself an heir, who should inherit me and inherit from the children of Yaqoub, and make him, my Lord, one in whom Thou art well pleased. 19:5-6) The inheritance in the verse means the inheritance of wealth because it is wealth, which actually transfers from the bequeather to the heir but knowledge and prophethood do not transfer in the real sense.
It is definitely clear that knowledge does not transfer according to the theory of the union of the apprehender and the apprehended data.
But if we acknowledge the existential difference between them, then there is no doubt of the abstractness of the scientific images
and that they (the scientific images) are existing in the soul in an emanational existence,
which means that it is an effect of the soul and the one effect according to the soul-not by connection only-is rectified by its cause and connected with it identically so it is impossible for it to transfer to another cause. And if we supposed that the apprehended images were symptoms and qualities existing in the apprehender immanently, it would be impossible to transfer because of the impossibility of the movement of the symptom from a subject to another as it was proved by philosophy whether we thought of its abstractness or materiality in accordance with our acknowledgement that the apprehended images included the general aspects of the material object like the ability of division and the likes.
So it is impossible for knowledge to transfer according to the philosophical isms concerning the scientific images.
And if we consider prophethood, we will also find that it cannot be transferred whether we interpret it according to the ism of some philosophers to say that it is a rank of the spiritual perfection and a degree of the virtuous human existence, to which the human essence ascends towards the infinite perfection or we interpret it according to the general concept understood by people that prophethood is a divine position unlike the position of a king or a vizier and that spiritual perfection is a condition for that divine position. Hence in the first sense transfer cannot occur because it is the very existence of the prophet with his personal perfections and prophethood in the other sense is impossible to be transferred too because it is a moral matter with its specified aspects and it is not possible for any aspect to transfer except by the change of the individual himself into another individual. For example the prophethood of Zachariah (S) concerned Zachariah himself. It was not possible that it would refer to other than him for it would not then be Zachariah’s prophethood but a new position or a new prophethood.
In fact the initiative look at the matter determines that it is impossible for prophethood and knowledge to transfer with no need for prospect or lengthy discussion on the matter. Reason decides easily that wealth is the only thing that transfers by bequeathing and not prophethood and knowledge.
3. Someone might object that the interpretation of inheritance in Zachariah’s speech might not refer to wealth because Yahya (Prophet John) wasmartyred during his father’s life and did not inherit his father’s wealth. So it must be interpreted to refer to prophethood because Yahya inherited the prophethood and that Allah responded to the prayer of his father then. But this objection should not have to concern one interpretation rather than the other because as Yahya did not inherit his father’s wealth, neither did he succeed him in prophethood. The prophethood of Yahya was not hereditary and it was not the wish of Zachariah. Zachariah asked his God to grant him an heir inheriting him after his death when saying according to the holy Quran: (And surely I fear my cousins after me).
He meant: (after my death). It was clear from his saying that he wanted an heir succeeding him and not a prophet coeval with him otherwise his fear from his cousins after his death would remain. We have to explain the verse in a way free from objection that the phrase (Who should inherit me and inherit from the children of Yaqoub. 19:6) was to be an answer for his prayer. His prayer meant:“O my God, grant me a son to inherit me!”
So what he asked his God for was realized when he got a son. Bequeathing him wealth or prophethood was not included in what Zachariah asked his God for but it was as a result of what he asked for in his prayer.
If we noticed the story of Zachariah in its other place of the holy Quran, we would find that he did not ask his God but for good offspring. Allah said: (There did Zachariah pray to his Lord; he said: My Lord! grant me from Thee good offspring. Quran 3:38)
The best way of understanding the holy Quran is what is explained by the Quran itself.
Hence weunderstand from the verse that Zachariah did not ask his God but for good offspring. The Quran gathered Zachariah’s prayer in one phrase one time and made individual phrases at another time for each of the offspring and his description when saying: (…grant me from Thyself an heir) to show his asking for the offspring and: (...and make him, my Lord, one in whom Thou art well pleased) to show that he prayed Allah that his offspring would be good. If we gathered these two phrases, they would refer to the same meaning of the phrase (My Lord! grant me from Thee good offspring). Then the phrase of (inherit me) would get out of the prayer after comparing between the two phrases of the Quran. It must be then as the answer of the payer.
4. According to that it was clear that the word of inheritance mentioned in the Quranic verse was burdened with usage to mean inheriting the prophethood because it would be the answer to the prayer if it was inherent in what was asked for (in the prayer) and it would be realized always or more often whenever the required thing was available. But inheriting the prophethood was not inherent in the availability of the offspring at all. In fact it might not happen for hundreds of millions of people because prophethood required nonesuch qualification and great perfection therefore prophethood with its unique loftiness could not be put as an answer for asking Allah for a good offspring because the proportion between the human beings and those, who were well-qualified to undertake the divine mission, was as the proportion between the units and the millions. But as for inheriting wealth, it could be as the answer to Zachariah’s prayer because the offspring might live after the father’s death at most and so inheriting wealth could be as a result of the availability of the offspring in the most cases. In addition to that, Zachariah himself did not think that prophethood was inherent in his offspring nor any of the spiritual ranks lower than prophethood, therefore he asked his God after that to make his son be content.
5. Let us leave that away to study the subject of the inheritance in the verse. The word (inherit) referred to inheriting wealth undoubtedly. What determined this meaning for the word were two things:
The first: If Zachariah had asked his God to grant him a son to inherit his prophethood, he would not have asked Him after that to make his son be content because he had asked in his first prayer for something higher than contentment.
The second: if ignoring the matter of inheritance in the story of Zachariah mentioned in the sura of Aal Imran did not show that inheritance was out of the prayer, it would, at least, show that the meaning of inheritance mentioned in the story in the other place of the Quran referred to the inheritance of wealth and not prophethood because if Zachariah had asked his God for two things; one was to grant him a good content son and the other thing was to make his son inherit his prophethood, the holy Quran would not be limited to the first thing Zachariah had asked for because it had no value in comparison with prophethood. In order to agree with me on this, suppose that someone asked you for a garden and a dirham and you granted him both. When you wanted to relate the story, would you mention the dirham? I do not think you would do that unless you were too humble. The preference of the garden to the dirham in the account of the material values is less than the preference of prophethood to the goodness of the offspring in the account of the spiritual morals. Hence the story of Zachariah mentioned in the sura of Aal Imran, which had nothing much or little about inheritance, was as evidence of that inheritance referring to the inheritance of wealth and not prophethood, otherwise it would be the most important part of the story that would not be ignored.
Sixth: some of the researchers noticed in the holy verse two points interpreting inheritance as the inheritance of prophethood:
The first: Zachariah’s saying after (inherit me): (and inherit from the children of Yaqoub) that Yahya was not to inherit wealth from the offspring of Yaqoub (Jacob) but he might inherit prophethood and wisdom.
The second: what Prophet Zachariah said as a preface for his prayer: (And surely I fear my cousins after me) that he feared for religion and wished it to last by the lasting of the prophethood because this was the most suitable for the prophets to fear for and not the properties whether they reached their heirs or not.
Our fellows (the Shia) objected to the first point by saying that Zachariah did not ask God that his son was to inherit all the properties of Yaqoub’s offspring but some of them. So this would not be as evidence to their claimed interpretation.
As for the second point, it is an inference confirming the interpretation we chose because fearing for religion and knowledge from the cousins had no meaning because the divine mercy would not leave people in vain without any guide. The religion and the word of Heaven would be protected by Allah and prophethood was always granted to the few highly distinguished people with no any fear forbeing extorted or stolen. So what would Zachariah think of his God to do if He did not grant him Yahya? Was it possible that Allah would entrust Zachariah’s cousins with the divine mission in spite of that they were not well qualified to undertake this divine task and they did not deserve this honor? Or did he think that Allah would ignore the affairs of His people so that they would have the evidence to protest against Him (on the Day of Punishment)? Neither this nor that would be possible for any prophet to think of. Zachariah was afraid of his cousins to seize his wealth, therefore he asked his God to grant him a contented son in order to inherit his wealth. He would not be blamed for that because he might wish to turn his properties away from his cousins, who would spend them wrongly in the way of sin and corruption as long as they were wicked and immoral until it was said that they were the worst among the Israelites.
Ibn Abul Hadeed (the author of Sharh Nahjul Balagha) tried to show a side of Zachariah’s fear for religion in two ways:
The first: according to the beliefs of the Shia when he mentioned that the prophet’s fear for religion would not be acceptable in the Shia point of view because people were deprived, by the absence of the Imam,
of many mercies related to the legal matters like punishments, Friday prayer and Eids. They (the Shia) said that people were to be blamed for that because they themselves deprived themselves of those mercies. So Zachariah had not to worry about changing the religion and spoiling the legal laws because Allah had to inform of His mission to the people by the prophet and if the people changed the religion and spoiled the divine verdicts, Allah would not have to keep the religion because people themselves deprived themselves of the mercies.
I would like to record my note about this speech before I move to the second point. I say: the worry about the desistance of prophethood, according to the beliefs of the Shia, would be true if it arose from the possibility of that people might spoil their religion in a way that they would not deserve mercies as it was during the absence of the expected Imam (s) and not because there were no ones well qualified for prophethood when the people were in need of it. In this case sending a prophet or appointing someone replacing him would be necessary for Allah to do because He Himself promised to spread mercy among His people. So the insufficiency of the cousins to gain the divine position would not lead Zachariah to expect the desistance of prophethood and the effacement of the religious properties if people deserved the divine mercies. And if people did not deserve the divine mercies, it would be possible for the connection between the Heaven and the earth to be cut whether the cousins (of Zachariah) were good or bad and whether Allah granted Zachariah a son or let him remain sterile. The Quranic verse showed that the cause, which made Zachariah worry, was the corruption of his cousins and not the corruption of people.
The second: by interpreting the word (mawali)
mentioned in the verse to mean emirs. It would mean that Zachariah feared that the emirs and the rulers after his death might spoil the religion, therefore he asked Allah for a son, who was to be granted prophethood and knowledge in order to preserve the religion.
We are to ask about those rulers, whom Zachariah feared that they might spoil the religion. Were they the prophets, who would succeed him, or the rulers, who had nothing to do with the Heaven? If they were the prophets, so there would be no need for fear because they would have been infallible prophets but if they were the kings, they might have been a threat to religion. But we should notice if the existence of the prophet would prevent them from playing with the Sharia and disrespecting the divine laws or not. If the existence of the prophet would suffice to safeguard the Sharia and keep its dignity, then why did Zachariah fear those emirs whereas the divine mercy promised to keep the continuity of prophethood throughout the human history and to keep the eternality of the connection between the Heaven and the earth as long as the earth would be ready to receive the divine instruction? And if the existence of the prophet was not sufficient to safeguard the religion, so the existence of Zachariah’s son, who was to inherit the prophethood, would not remove fearing the rulers as long as the prophet would be unable to stand against the ruling power and as long as the emirs would be of the trickers whereas the verse showed that Zachariah’s fear would be removed if he was granted a contented son to inherit him.
The result of this research showed that the inheritance mentioned in the verse referred to the inheritance of wealth undoubtedly. It showed that some prophets bequeathed while the tradition of Abu Bakr determined that all the prophets did not bequeath.
The Quranic verse and Abu Bakr’s tradition were contradicted and whatever contradicted
the holy Quran must be null.
We were not to exclude Zachariah from the rest of the prophets because the tradition of Abu Bakr did not accept such exclusion or differentiate between Zachariah and the others. If prophethood required not bequeathing so all the prophets would not bequeath. We do not think that the prophethood of Zachariah had a special aspect that made him bequeath rather than the rest of the prophets. What was the guilt of Zachariah, or what was his virtue that gave him this excellence? Then why do we have to burden the word (prophets) mentioned in the tradition with more than its actual meaning? In any case it is just an interpretation so why do we interpret the tradition as the Prophet’s patrimony was not to be inherited and then to be obliged to say that Prophet Muhammad (s) meant by (the prophets) other than Zachariah? Let us take the other interpretation to understand the tradition as that the prophets had nothing of value to bequeath and so we will keep the truth that the wording of the tradition refers to.
If the tradition actually had the meaning that Abu Bakr intended to show, it would contradict the holy Quran and then it must be brushed aside. The matter had no any way to consider the tradition as legal evidence about the subject of bequeathing and so the caliph did not have any answer to defend himself against his opponent, who protested with the previous Quranic verse, and no one of his companions succeeded in defending him. It was so because they realized that the tradition, which justified the rulers’ situation, contradicted the Quranic verse.
It could not be possible to justify the caliph’s situation by saying that he chose one of the contradicted forms of the tradition and carried it out as some Muslim jurisprudents thought, because whatever contradicted the holy Quran would definitely be null.
The matter of donation
It was the dispute between the caliph and Fatima (s) when she argued that the Prophet (s) had donated Fadak to her. Imam Ali and Umm Aymen witnessed of that but the caliph refused Fatima’s claim
and was not satisfied with these two witnesses and asked her to bring two men or a man and two women as witnesses.
1. The first thing that we would blame Abu Bakr for was his situation in this case as a ruler in spite of that his caliphate did not gain the legal quality until that day at least.
But now we do not want to study this blame because such argument will take us to wider horizons.
2. The second note about the subject is that if Fadak was with Fatima, then she would not have to have any evidence. There were two things about this note:
First: in whose possession Fadak was? Was it really in Fatima’s possession? We could understand that from the letter of Imam Ali to Othman bin Hunayf:“Yes, Fadak (only) was in our possession away from all what were under the heaven but some people became stingy with it and others turned away from it”
.
This means that Fadak was in the Prophet’s family’s possession. This was confirmed by the traditions of the Shia.
The meaning of Imam Ali’s speech showed that Fadak was in Imam Ali and Fatima’s possession and it could not be interpreted as it was in the Prophet’s possession; first because the Prophet’s possession meant the Prophet’s family’s possession and second because the Prophet had his own properties other than Fadak.
Second: was possession as evidence of ownership? Yes, the Muslims agreed on this unanimously.
If it was not so, the social system of the human life would be disordered.
Someone might object by saying that if Fadak was in Fatima’s possession, so why she did not protest with this evidence. It would suffice for her than to claim it was donated to her and to protest with the Quranic verses of the inheritance. In the documents of the Shia about this case there was an answer to this objection for they mentioned the protest of the Prophet’s family against the caliph by means of the very evidence but we did not want to study the case in the light of something of that.
But we should notice that Fadak was a very wide land and was not like small properties, whose possession would be known easily. If we supposed that Fadak was in Fatima’s possession and it was undertaken by her agent, who managed it, so who would know this other than the agent?
We knew well that Fadak was not near Medina so that the people of Medina would know about its affairs or the person, who managed it. It was at a distance of some days from Medina and it was a Jewish village.
It was not in the Islamic environment to be known among the Muslims that it was in Fatima’s possession.
Fatima thought if she claimed her possession of Fadak that the caliph would ask her for evidence as he asked her about the donation as long as he-in her opinion-was controlled by a prevailing power of his tendency that did not make him confess anything.
It was easy for the (whale) on that day to swallow Fatima’s agent of Fadak and anyone else, who knew the truth, as it swallowed Abu Sa’eed al-Khidri and prevented him from telling the truth of the donation of Fadak whereas he told of it after that as it was mentioned in the Sunni and Shia books, or it was easy for the jinn to kill as they killed Sa’d bin Obada and relieved the caliph Omar
from him, or to accuse anyone of being apostate if he refused to give the zakat to the caliph as those, who refused to give the zakat of the Muslims to the caliph Abu Bakr, were accused.
3. Let us leave this argument aside to get to the basic matter, which is: did Abu Bakr believe in the infallibility of Fatima and the verse of purification, which purified the Prophet’s family, among which was Fatima, from any sin or not?
We do not want to discuss in details the concept of infallibility or to prove it for Fatima by the verse of purification because the books of the Shia about the virtues of the Prophet’s family suffice the task. We do not doubt that the caliph was aware of that because his daughter Aa’isha herself often narrated that the verse of purification concerned Fatima, her husband and her two sons
as it was declared by the Sunni and Shia books of Hadith. Whenever the Prophet (s) went to the mosque to offer the Fajr
prayer, after the revelation of this verse, he passed by Fatima’s house and called out:“O people of the house, it is the (time for) prayer. (Allah only desires to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! and to purify you a (thorough) purifying. Quran 33:33)”
He kept on that for six months.
So why did Abu Bakr ask Fatima for evidence? Did the claim, whose truthfulness was certified, need evidence?
Those, who objected to Abu Bakr, said:“Evidence is needed to confirm the truthfulness of the claimant, but being certain (of the claimant’s truthfulness) is firmer (than the evidence). If it is necessary to judge for the one, who has true evidence, it must be judged for the one, whose truthfulness is known by the judge.”
There is a weakness in this justification because the comparison did not occur between the evidence and the certainty of the judge in addition to the actual reality, but it considered the effect of each of them on the judge and the result was that knowledge was to be firmer than the evidence because certainty was firmer than supposition. The comparison had to regard the nearest of the two to the truth that was to be regarded in every dispute. The knowledge of the judge, in this kind of comparison, was not to be preferred to the evidence because a judge might mistake as evidence might mistake. Both of them were equal in the regard of falling into error.
But there was something in the matter that the researchers ignored. It was impossible for the caliph’s knowledge about Fatima’s truthfulness
to be but the truth because the reason behind his knowledge of her truthfulness was not of those reasons that might lead to errors or mistakes but it was the holy Quran, which declared her infallibility.
In the light of this quality of knowing Fatima’s truthfulness, we could determine that the evidence, even if it was the legal proof, on which the judgment would depend, might fall into error. But the knowledge that could never fall into error, because of the witness of Allah, was worthier to be relied on when judging.
In another way we say: if the holy Quran had declared Fatima’s ownership of Fadak, then the matter would not have had any way of doubting or hesitating for any Muslim to judge. It was much clear that declaring the infallibility of Fatima by the holy Quran would strongly confirm her claim about her donation because the infallible would never lie and whenever claiming, the claim was definitely true. There would be no difference between determining the infallibility and determining the donation as related to the case, except that the ownership of Fadak by Fatima (s) was the literary meaning of the second text (the tradition) and the perceived concept of the first text (the verse) via its literary conception.
4. None 0f the Muslims ever doubted about Fatima’s truthfulness and no one ever accused her of fabricating but the dispute arose between the disputers that whether knowing the truthfulness of the claim would be sufficient evidence for judgment or not. Let us put the verse of purification aside for a moment and suppose that Abu Bakr was like anyone of the other Muslims and then his knowledge of Fatima’s truthfulness did not have the quality we referred to in the previous point but it was as the rest of thoughts, which would be liable to errors and mistakes.
But nevertheless the ruler might judge according to his knowledge
or he might depend on the evidence as it was mentioned in the holy Quran. Allah said: (..and that when you judge between people you judge with justice. 4:58) and: (And of those whom We have created are a people who guide with the truth and thereby they do justice. 7:181), which means that they judge with justice.
There are two notes about truth and justice:
First: truth and justice as an actual and real matter.
Second: truth and justice according to the judicial criteria. So judgment according to the evidence is right and just in the light of this note even if it fails in error. In opposition to that, judgment according to the witness of a sinner (fasiq) is neither right nor just even if the sinner is truthful in his saying.
If the two previous verses referred to the first meaning of truth and justice then they would show that judgment according to the actual reality was to be true with no need to the evidence. If the ruler found someone’s ownership of a certain property, he could judge of that because he thought it was the fixed truth according to the actual reality. His judgment for that person of being the owner of that property would be the confirmation-in his opinion-of judgment with truth and justice that Allah had ordered to be followed. But if we interpreted the two verses according to the second meaning that was according to the judicial criteria hence the two verses could not be of any use in this concern because they did not prove-then-that any judgment would be right and according to the criteria! And which judgment would be but so?
It was clear that the concept understood from the verses referred to the first meaning and specially the word truth because whatever was described by this word would be understood that that thing was a fixed true matter. So to judge with truth was as determining a fixed fact. The form of the first verse showed that. It included judgment with justice. It was clear that the application of the Islamic rules in the case of a dispute would not need a legal order because their very legislation as law for judgment meant that they must be applied. And so the order of keeping to the law would not be but to remind and to warn and had nothing to do with the essence of the matter. The order of judging according to the actual facts, whether they had evidence and witness or not, was a part of the essence of the matter because it was a new determination showing that the reality was the basis of the Islamic judgment and the axis, around which it should turn without being limited to formalities and special evidences.
Then the two verses were considered as evidence of respecting the judge’s knowledge in the Islamic judicial laws.
In addition to that Abu Bakr himself often was satisfied with claims without any evidence. It was mentioned in al-Bukhari’s Sahih
that when the Prophet (s) died, Abu Bakr received a sum of money from al-Ala’ bin al-Hadhrami. Abu Bakr announced:“Whoever the Prophet (s) was in debt for or that the Prophet had promised a gift, let him come to us”
. Jabir said:“The Prophet had promised to give me so and so and so…”
He extended his hand three times. Jabir said:“He (Abu Bakr) put in my hand five hundred (either dirham or dinar) then five hundred then five hundred”
.
It was mentioned in at-Tabaqat al-Kubra by ibn Sa’d
that Abu Sa’eed al-Khidry had said:“I heard the caller of Abu Bakr, when he received a sum of money from Bahrain calling in Medina: “Let whoever the Prophet (s) had promised to gift, come to us”
. Many men came to him and he gave them money. Abu Basheer al-Maziny came to Abu Bakr and said:“The Prophet (s) said to me: O Abu Basheer, come to us if we get something (of money)”
. Abu Bakr gave him two or three handfuls. After counting them they found that they were one thousand and four hundred dirhams”.
If Abu Bakr did not ask anyone of the companions about any evidence so why did he ask Fatima for evidence regarding her gift?
Did the judicial system apply to Fatima alone or were there special political circumstances behind all that?
It was really odd to accept a companion’s claim of being promised by the Prophet (s) to be given a sum of money and to deny the claim of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, just because she did not find evidence to prove what she claimed.
And if knowing the truthfulness of the claimant permitted to give him what he claimed, was not Fatima more deserving of not being suspected by he, who did not suspect Jabir or Abu Basheer of lying?
If the caliph did not give those, who claimed that the Prophet had promised them of what they asked for according to their claim but according to the possibility of their truthfulness-and the imam had the right to give anyone any sum-then why would not he do the same with the case of Fadak?
Thus the caliph fulfilled the Prophet’s promises, which had no evidence, and ignored his (the Prophet’s) donation to his daughter, the head of the women of the world. The question about the difference between the debts and promises on one hand and the donation on the other remained without an acceptable answer!
5. Let us resume our argument in a new way: that the ruler could not judge the claim that he already knew its truthfulness if the claimant could not find any evidence proving his claim and let us for now ignore the result we got in the previous point to ask according to this account:
First: What prevented Abu Bakr from witnessing to the donation of Fadak if he had known the truthfulness of Fatima (s)? He could join his witness to Imam Ali’s witness
and so the evidence would be sufficient and the right would be fixed. And since he himself was the judge, it would not annul his witness because the witness of the judge
was to be taken into account and it was not irrelevant to the legal evidence, which would be the reference in the disputes.
Second: about the acceptable interpretation showing that the caliph ignored the reality that was well known for him. In order to explain this point, we had to differentiate between two things that confused the researchers, who studied the case.
One: it was to judge for the claimant what she claimed.
The other: it was to carry out the effects of the actual reality.
If we supposed that the first was limited to the evidence, the other would be obligatory because it was not a judgment to be bound to its limits. If someone knew that his house belonged to another and he handed it over to him, this would not be a confession of his ownership but it would be carrying out the judgments determined by the law. Also if someone claimed before the judge that the house, which was in his possession, was his own then the judge and anyone of the Muslims had to consider that house as any of the other properties of that claimant. This did not mean that the judge judged that the house was the claimant’s property according to the principle of the possession of the hand
or being under one’s control. The Muslims got themselves to follow this judgment. In fact even if there was no judge among them, they must keep to that. Neither the controlling of a property nor the possession of the hand were among the criteria of judgment in the Sharia but they made it necessary to apply the judgments of the actual reality.
The difference between the judgment of the judge about someone’s ownership, or his sinfulness or any of the other affairs, which the judge’s authority held, and between the application of the effects of these matters was that judgment decided the dispute that was to be considered as an excellence of the judgment. It meant that if the judge pronounced a judgment, it would be prohibited for all the Muslims to annul it and it would be obeyed without looking for any other excuse but to the very judgment.
But as for the judge’s application of the effects of the ownership without judgment, would not have that regard and not every Muslim had to follow it and to carry out those effects except if he (any Muslim) got the knowledge of that as what the judge got.
The result: if the caliph knew of Fatima’s ownership of Fadak, it would be compulsory for him not to make use of it in any way she disliked and he was not to extort it from her whether it was permissible for him to judge according to his knowledge or not. There was no any other disputer in the case, who would dispute Fatima about Fadak, in order to be asked to swear and then he would deserve it if he swore because the property that Fatima asked for was either hers or the Muslims’.
We assume that Abu Bakr was the legal caliph of the Muslims at that time; therefore he would be their guardian, who was to be responsible to guard their rights and properties. If Fatima was truthful according to his opinion and there was no one to litigate her, then the caliph had no right to extort Fadak from her. Deciding the case according to the evidence only prohibited the judgment and would not permit seizing the property from its owner.
Then the impermissibility of a judgment decided by a judge according to his own knowledge
would not commute the punishment and would not take the caliph out of the test successfully.
Notes
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Author: Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr
