A Character Built on Faith

A Character Built on Faith

1989 6 June 13 A Character Built on Faith (339) The faithful had gathered in the Prophet’s mosque for congregational prayers, but, at the appointed hour, there was no one to lead them. The Prophet himself lay dying in an adjacent chamber, attended by his wife, Aisha, and her father, Abu Bakr, who would normally have taken the Prophet’s place, was elsewhere. This was a critical moment, for whoever lead the prayers would have a better chance of becoming the Prophet’s successor. At first no one came forward but then, on the insistence of Abdullah ibn Zamaah and certain others from amongst the Prophet’s Companions, Umar al-Farooq agreed to lead the prayers. He began with the incantation Allahu akbar and his voice, being very loud, became audible to the Prophet in his chamber. “Where is Abu Bakr?” The Prophet asked, and he added: “This will not be acceptable either to God or the Muslims.”

When Umar came to know of the Prophet’s sentiments and of his being in Aisha’s apartment when he expressed them, he might have been assailed by the thought that Aisha had staged some kind of drama to ensure that her father, Abu Bakr, would be chosen as the Prophet’s successor in preference to himself. He might have felt himself the victim of a conspiracy which was meant to ease him out of contending for the Caliphate. But Umar’s fear of God did not permit him to harbour any such suspicions and, as Ibn Hisham has written in his biography of the Prophet: “Umar did not lay any blame upon Abu Bakr.”

It is essential for the unity and solidarity of any community that its members should be free of suspicion towards one another. In the building of a strong society, an atmosphere of mutual trust is as important as cement is to the setting up of a solid construction. So long as early Muslims displayed such trust, their society remained a model of unity and solidarity. Today, Muslims have forfeited their unity, for that vital element of mutual trust has disappeared from their daily living.