Abstract:

According to the Sunni schools of law and theology, the hadith ‘the Imams are from the Quraish’ was used as a basis of the election of Abu Bakr as the caliph in the assembly of Saida. However, there is no mention of such a hadith neither in the hadith collections nor in the siyar books except in the Ridda of Waqidi. In this book, we realized that the above mentioned hadith was not the first reason on which Abu Bakr was elected as the caliph and that despite this hadith, Sa’d b.Ubada whom the Ansar desired to see as the caliph did not give up his demand of Caliphate and never took oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr. The main reason for this is that this hadith is nothing to do with the election of the head of the government (caliph); rather it is related to the appointment of the military commands. The election of Abu Bakr was totally in accordance with the tribal custom of the day. So, the aforesaid hadith is not legally binding. It does no more than show the social condition of the day

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