Muhammad died around noon. We know the room was crowded with relatives, and either A’isha or Ali held him in his last hour before he stopped breathing. Many believers were standing or sitting in the mosque just outside the house, and quickly the word passed that the Prophet had died. It was unexpected for many who were not close to him, since he had come outside to the prayers just that morning, although he had needed help and kept silent. They may have assumed he was recovering.
The immediate task of laying out the body for burial belonged to his closest male relatives Abbas and Ali, and two cousins. They would wash him, rub him with herbs, and wrap the shroud, while they prayed over him. The others left the room; A’isha probably went to Hafsah’s room for a much-needed nap.
Abu Bakr and Umar went outside to the mosque, where they saw commotion: wailing and crying, tearing clothes. Umar went through an episode of shock and denial, crying out to everyone that the Prophet couldn’t be dead, and where was their faith? But Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s first convert outside his family and oldest friend, calmed both Umar and the crowd. “If you worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. For those who worshipped Allah, He is alive. Messengers have passed away before this. Why, if God’s messenger dies, should you turn back on your heels?”
There was another response to the news of the Prophet’s death among the leading men of Medina. Ubadah ibn al-Samit, the chief of the Khazraj tribe, called for a shura, a traditional conclave between the Khazraj and Aws tribes of Medina. By mid-afternoon, they were meeting in some undisclosed house to discuss post-Muhammad leadership. They viewed Muhammad’s Banu Hashim clan as Medinans, since one of the founders had grown up in Medina. But during the decade of sharing their oasis with a growing contingent from Mecca, they had never quite adopted those other men as Medinans.
And recently, it had grown worse, with the wholesale conversion of Mecca and sudden importation of some of its leading men as new-minted Muslims promoted into important positions. When those vast flocks of camels and sheep were seized from the Thabit tribe, Muhammad had gifted most of them to Meccans. Now the Medinans were very afraid that one of these bossy foreigners would take over and instead of being the core of a city-state, they would become a conquered people ruled from Mecca. It would be far better to move quickly and swear allegiance to one of their own, either Ali or a chief like Ubadah. Ubadah had been an early believer who fought in the Battle of Badr (very few Medinans could say this). He knew Muslim law every bit as much as the Meccans did (there are about 180 hadiths from Ubadah).
What would have happened had they quickly settled on either Ubadah or Ali? But they didn’t. As the hours passed, some of the Meccans heard about the meeting. By early evening, they had joined it in force. Now the room was crowded and probably split by halves, those already there moving away from the door as newcomers filled in the space. Sunni sources say little about the meeting, telling us only that there was some discussion. They quote the Prophet that when the Muslim community agrees, it cannot be in error. They cut to the outcome: everyone swore allegiance to Abu Bakr.
But Shi’ite sources say that the Meccans, led by Umar and Abu Bakr, escalated the “discussions” to loud arguments. Just as they loved poetry, they loved rhetoric and long speeches. One after one, and probably often two at once, they built towers of words in the air, lashing emotions into a storm. The meeting went on for more than 24 hours, lasting into the next evening; some men probably left and came back, while a few die-hards didn’t budge. Some Medinans suggested splitting the Muslim polity into two, with a Medinan ruler and a Meccan one. But the Meccans insisted that Muslims must remain under one rule as Muhammad wanted, and that the leader must be from Mecca, where it had all begun. Not just a veteran of Badr, but a convert from the earliest years.
One of the political problems that Muhammad had inadvertently created was that Islam was rigidly egalitarian, and yet it also expected and required authoritarian rule. There was not much of a governing structure, no layers of judges or governors to draw from. Muhammad himself had led prayers until he became sick. He had been everything, and nobody could take his place. Someone had to be elevated over the others, but the Quran was also insistent on the equality of all believers. Muhammad had tried to weaken and nullify the old clan aristocracies.
Why didn’t Muhammad set up a solution in advance? It seems most likely that he wasn’t sure what to do and waited for certainty, for a revelation, since most major decisions had been made that way. In that case, Allah had let him die before telling him what to do. There were two possibilities then. Either Allah wanted them to somehow settle it themselves and had kept some other solution from happening, or Allah had, in fact, already settled it by making Ali the personal and spiritual heir. Right there we have one of the major divisions in the world, essentially the same issue today but in very changed circumstances.
If the shurah had worked out a way to vote for the next leader, it would have been an early step toward democracy, fitting with the egalitarian ideals of the Quran. But it would also have been a step away from believing they were ruled directly by Allah’s decrees. So instead, the argument became about merit: who had the greatest right to be the leader? Whose merit earned him this role?
Muhammad had many companions who had been with him for years, but the Meccans had a top rank of three men: Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman. As the meeting wore itself out, Abu Bakr proposed that Umar should be the successor, and Umar proposed Uthman. Uthman was from the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh, the same one with Hind the liver-eater. Tempers flared on the Medinan side of the room now, since bringing in that family was the last thing they wanted.
Ubadah made a speech that accused the Meccans of collusion and partisan dealing. Someone shoved or grabbed Ubadah and fists flew. A small group of Meccans (probably led by Umar, the perpetual speaker of violent solutions) beat Ubadah unconscious. We have to remember that Ubadah and Abu Bakr had been in the same little cluster around Muhammad for ten years! These men had been friends who fought and traveled together. Muhammad’s funeral had not taken place, and already there was blood on the floor and a question of murder. (Ubadah did recover.)
In the shock that followed Ubadah’s body being removed, Umar suddenly knelt to Abu Bakr and swore allegiance to him. Uthman did the same. The other Meccans followed. And then one Medinan, then another. The meeting broke up and Abu Bakr had been chosen as Muhammad’s successor.
Where was Ali? He was still with the body, in A’isha’s room. Abbas and Ali must have been told about the meeting, but Ali in particular was very, very principled about doing what was right. He would mourn for the prescribed three days, no matter what. Abbas, a more pragmatic man, might have been persuaded to go, but Ali would not move. The little room, beginning to smell of decomposition, would have received the excited news of Abu Bakr’s elevation. Ali didn’t even want to talk about. But he and Abbas did one unusual thing.
Muhammad had said that prophets should be buried where they died, but we don’t know if he meant that in the literal sense that they applied it. His little son Ibrahim was buried in a new cemetery, with the daughters and wives who had already died. But Abbas and Ali began digging a hole in A’isha’s room. A’isha’s bed was a stone slab, not a very comfortable bed in my eyes, but apparently it was standard then. I suppose it would stay cool in the long hot summers. When the shallow grave was large enough for the Prophet’s body, they slid it in. After they replaced the dirt, they put the stone slab over the whole thing, now the cover to a grave. It was all done before the community outside knew it. In a society with big public funerals, they had only family present at a secret burial.
Why? One reason is certainly that Muhammad had said prophets should be buried where they died. But although they were still in grief and shock and could not think much about what the others had just done, they knew they could not face a public funeral. Who would lead prayers over the body? Who would lead the procession? Abu Bakr the successor, of course. Abbas and Ali would not be given the rights of close kin, but would be pushed aside, again. It would be the grand opening of Abu Bakr’s rule, with thousands seeing him in the Prophet’s place. And so Abbas and Ali did the one thing they could see to do: they denied Abu Bakr this honor.
A’isha did not sleep in her room again. The house became part of the mosque and the place of the Prophet’s grave. The widows were all given houses and apartments in the city, with pensions.
- After the Prophet, by Lesley Hazelton.
- Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, by Martin Lings.
- Revelation: The Story of Muhammad, by Meraj Mohiuddin and Sherman Jackson.