Let us accept, for the sake of argument, that it was a
genuine hadith. Now, who should have been informed of it by the Noble Messenger
(s.a.w.a.s.), his would be heirs (daughter, wives, uncle, cousins etc.) or a
stranger who could never think of inheriting anything from the Noble Messenger
(s.a.w.a.s.)? Common sense says that it was family members who should have been
told by him (s.a.w.a.s.) that, “Look, when I die, all that I leave shall become
charity, you will not inherit anything because I am a Prophet and Prophets are
not inherited from. So, be careful to give all my belongings to Sadaqa:’How was
it that he did not tell any of his would-be heirs and told it to Abu Bakr, who
had no claim in his inheritance? Why did he keep his daughter, wives, and uncle
in dark, thus starting a bitter quarrel between Khalifa and his family members?
Even when Fatimah’s claim was rejected with the help of
this ready-made hadith, the wives of the Prophet (s.a.w.a.s.) ‘sent Usman to Abu
Bakr asking their shares in the inheritance of the Prophet in Khaybar. It
clearly shows that the wives of the Prophet did not believe in that hadith, nor
was it believed by Usman (who later became third Khalifa); otherwise; he would
not have taken that message to Abu Bakr.
One may wonder why Abu Bakr did not accept the valid and
irrefutable arguments of Fatimah?
The first and basic cause has been mentioned by the
renowned Sunni scholar Ibn Abil Hadid in his book Sharah Nahjul Balaghah: - “I
asked Ali bin Fariqi, a teacher in Madrassa Gharbia at Baghdad, “Was not
Fatimah most truthful? He said, ‘Certainly! I said, “Then why did not Abu Bakr
returned Fadak when he knew that she was most truthful?” The teacher smiled and
said: Had he given Fadak today just because of her claim, she would have
returned the next day and claimed Khilafat for her husband and removed him from
his position; and then he would not excuse, because he had already accepted that
she was most truthful in her claim.”
Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (a.s.) told his disciple Mufaddal
bin Umar, “When Abu Bakr became Khalifa, ‘Umar advised him to deprive Ali and
his family from khumus, booty and Fadak, because when his partisans will know
it, they will leave him and will turn towards you, for material gains: ‘It was
for this reason that Abu Bakr deprived them from all their rights.”
The highhandedness used in this case totally negated the two
legacies which the Noble Messenger (s.a.w.a.s.) had left behind for the guidance
of his Ummah: He had repeatedly said in his sermons: I am leaving among you two
weighty things, the Book of Allah and my family- members who are my Progeny; as
long as you hold fast to them you will not go astray; and they will not
separate from each other until they reach me at the reservoir (Kawthar).
But Abu
Bakr and Umar destroyed the credibility of both: They degraded the Progeny of
the Prophet (s.a.w.a.s.) in the public eyes. People saw that despite all the
verses of the Qur’an and the Traditions extolling the virtues of Ali, Fatimah,
Hasan, and Husayn, they had less weight in the eyes of the Khalifa than many
ordinary companions like Jabir ibn Abdullah and Khuzaima bin Thabit. They
destroyed the sanctity and supremacy of the Qur’an, making it subservient to
the rulers’ expediencies; a system was established that the caliphs’ words could
change/abrogate clear rules of the Qur’an!
Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim have narrated: “Verily Abu
Bakr refused to give anything to Fatimah, so she was angry with him and she
forsook him and did not talk with him till her death.”
Source:
Fadak by Allama Sayyid Sa’eed Akhtar Rizvi
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