Abū Bakr As-Siddīq
The scholars of the Salaf used to say that the rank of a man is known by the company he kept, the trust placed in him when the earth shook, and the quiet certainty with which he carried the burdens others could not bear. Few lives illustrate this more completely than that of the man whose truthfulness was attested by the Lord of the Worlds, whose companionship with the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ remains the closest after the Prophets, and upon whose superiority the early generations and the later imāms of Ahl as-Sunnah have agreed without dispute.
Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq
ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Quḥāfah ʿUthmān ibn ʿĀmir ibn ʿAmr ibn Kaʿb ibn Saʿd ibn Taym ibn Murrah ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy al-Qurashī at-Taymī. His mother was Umm al-Khayr Salmā bint Ṣakhr ibn ʿĀmir. He was born in Makkah approximately two years after the Year of the Elephant and died in Madīnah on a Monday in Jumādā al-Ūlā of the year 13 AH at the age of sixty-three.
Ibn Saʿd records in aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā that he was of medium height, slender, fair of complexion with a slight yellowish tinge, thin-faced, deep-set of eye, high of forehead, with a sparse beard that he dyed with ḥinnāʾ and katam. Adh-Dhahabī opens his entry in Siyar Aʿlām an-Nubalāʾ by naming him “the Imām of the Ṣiddīqīn, the Khalīfah of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, the first of the men to believe, the most truthful of this Ummah after its Prophet, the greatest of them in certainty, the most forbearing, and the most generous with his wealth.”
When the revelation came he accepted it without hesitation. He spent his wealth at once, purchasing and freeing Bilāl and other weak believers tortured under the sun of Makkah. ʿUmar later said: “I brought half my wealth, hoping to surpass him. He brought all that he possessed and said, ‘I have left for them Allāh and His Messenger.’” The report is in Abū Dāwūd and at-Tirmidhī; Ibn Kathīr transmits it with its chains.
His Hijrah with the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ is written in the Book of Allāh itself. They left Makkah as the second of two. In the cave of Thawr the verse descended: “the second of two, when they were in the cave, when he said to his companion, ‘Do not grieve; indeed Allāh is with us’” (at-Tawbah 9:40). Al-Bukhārī records the Prophet’s words to him in that hour of danger and the divine reassurance that joined Allāh’s presence to theirs. The journey to Madīnah sealed a companionship that never broke.
In Madīnah the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ gave him further marks of distinction. In the ninth year after the Hijrah he appointed Abū Bakr Amīr al-Ḥajj; he led the people in the rites and announced the dissolution of the treaties with the polytheists. During the final illness of the Prophet ﷺ, when the Messenger could no longer lead the prayer, he ordered that Abū Bakr lead the people. ʿĀʾishah later related that she tried to dissuade her father out of concern for his tenderness, yet the Prophet ﷺ insisted: “Tell Abū Bakr to lead the people in prayer.” Al-Bukhārī and Muslim both preserve the multiple narrations of this command. The Companions prayed behind Abū Bakr while the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ was still alive among them.
His daughter ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr became Umm al-Muʾminīn, the most beloved of the Prophet’s wives after Khadījah, the most knowledgeable of the women of this Ummah, and the transmitter of a great portion of the Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ died in her house, upon her chest, on her day. The bond between Abū Bakr’s household and the household of the Messenger was thus made complete in both blood and revelation.
His bravery remained quiet and steadfast. At Uḥud he was among those who shielded the Prophet ﷺ when the lines broke. He stood firm at Badr, at the Trench, and at Ḥunayn. After the Messenger’s death, when the Arabs apostatised or withheld zakāh, he rose against the counsel of many and said: “By Allāh, I will fight whoever separates ṣalāh from zakāh.” Al-Bukhārī records the words and ʿUmar’s later admission that Allāh had expanded Abū Bakr’s chest to the truth.
It was under his command, after the slaughter of the qurrāʾ at Yamāmah, that the decision was taken to compile the Qurʾān between two covers. He entrusted the task to Zayd ibn Thābit, with the surviving Companions as witnesses. The muṣḥaf that later passed to ʿUmar and then to Ḥafṣah began in that hour of resolve.
The imāms of Ahl as-Sunnah are agreed that Abū Bakr is the best of this Ummah after its Prophet. Al-Bukhārī dedicated an entire chapter of Kitāb Faḍāʾil Aṣḥāb an-Nabī to his virtues, beginning with the ḥadīth: “If I were to take a khalīl from my Ummah, I would have taken Abū Bakr.” Another narration states that the sun has not risen upon a man better than Abū Bakr after the Prophets. An-Nawawī, Ibn Ḥajar, and adh-Dhahabī all affirm the consensus of the early generations on this superiority. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib himself is reported to have said: “The best of this Ummah after its Prophet is Abū Bakr.”
The poets of the predecessors returned to him again and again. Ḥassān ibn Thābit and the early shuʿarāʾ praised his certainty and sacrifice. In the poetic tradition that includes works such as Mandhūmat Dhāt ash-Shifā bi-Sīrat al-Muṣṭafā and the longer historical poems of later scholars, his name is joined to the themes of ṣidq, sacrifice, and the preservation of the Ummah. Lisān ad-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb, in Raqm al-Ḥulal fī Naẓm ad-Duwal, captured the moment of his succession and rule:
وارْتَجَّتِ الآفاقُ لَمَّا وَلَّى
قامَ أبو بكرٍ بها وَاسْتَلاَّ
للحقِّ سيفاً بالتُّقَى مُحَلَّى
كانَ النبيُّ خَلْفَهُ قدْ صَلَّى
فقُلِّدَ الأمرَ وكانَ أَهْلا
فَأَكْرَمَ الشيخَ وَوَاخَى الكَهْلا
ورَضِيَتِ النفوسُ بَعْدَهُ
واعْتَبَرَتْ وَعِيدَهُ ووَعْدَهُ
وخَلَطَ اللِّينَ ببعْضِ الشِّدَّهْ
وردَّ للإِسْلامِ أهلَ الرِّدَّهْ
وكانَ للإيمانِ خيرَ عُدَّهْ
لكنَّهُ كانَ قصيرَ المُدَّهْ
وجَهَّزَ الجيوشَ والكَتَائِبَا
وَواصلَ الغزوَ بِهِنَّ دَائِبَا
ثمَّ مضى في أَثَرِ الرسولِ
فنالَ عندَ اللَّهِ كلَّ سُولِ
“The horizons shook when he (the Prophet) departed.
Abū Bakr rose with the matter and drew forth
for the truth a sword adorned with piety.
The Prophet had prayed behind him.
So the affair was entrusted to him and he was worthy of it.
He honoured the elderly and befriended the middle-aged.
Souls were content after him
and took heed of his warning and his promise.
He mixed gentleness with a measure of severity
and returned to Islām the people of apostasy.
He was the best equipment for faith,
yet his period was short.
He prepared the armies and the battalions
and continued the conquests with them diligently.
Then he passed in the footsteps of the Messenger
and attained with Allāh every desire.”
In two years and three months he reunited the peninsula, despatched the army of Usāmah as commanded, ordered the compilation of the Qurʾān, and established that authority exists to protect the Dīn. When death approached he ordered that his small property be sold to repay the modest stipend he had taken from the bayt al-māl. He left almost nothing of this world.
Among the most thorough of the later imāms who gathered and clarified the evidences for his rank is Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, who devoted a specific writing to this subject under the title Kitāb Faḍl Abī Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu. In it he sets forth, with the chains and the statements of the Salaf, the decisive proofs of Abū Bakr’s superiority over the rest of the Ummah after the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, the consensus of the Companions and the Tābiʿīn upon this matter, and the refutation of those who would contest it. He demonstrates that this superiority is not a matter of later opinion but of transmitted texts, of the Prophet’s own words, of the actions of the Companions in giving him precedence, and of the clear signs Allāh placed upon his life. The book stands as one of the firmest scholarly testimonies that the mirror of Abū Bakr remains the first and brightest after the Prophets themselves.
Look into that mirror until your own certainty is sharpened, your own hand opened in giving, and your own feet made firmer when the ground shakes.
We ask Allāh for the Tawfīq of emulating him and training a generation in its accordance, āmīn
Bārakallāhu Fīkum.
