Title: Allegations Against Hazrat Omar ( ra ) Question/Comments: In answering to the allegation that hazrat omarr added "prayer is better than sleep" in the fajer azan, you stated that hadithes against this are mentioned in many relied sources of sunnah (e.g. sunan ibne nasai, sunan ibne majah etc), BUT YOU DIDNT MENTION THE MOST RELIABLE SOURCES OF HADITHES: SAHI BUKHARI, SAHI MUSLIM.Can you please let me know the rulings on this matter in sahi Muslim and sahi bokhari. Secondly, it is said that after the death of the holy prophet (pbuh), hazrat omarr burned the door to the house of hazrat Fatima, and pushed it on the prophet's beloved daughter, which resulted in the miscarriage of her expected child. How would you view this allegation. Do not ignore this by saying that it was an accident, such an intentional accident cannot happen. Please give me logical answer, because I have to satisfy my Shia brothers. Answer: Before referring to Bukhari and Muslim and then moving to the issue of miscarriage, please first let me elaborate on the very thoughtful response that brother Hashmi provided as I think this might be beneficial for other readers and for further referencing: In consulting the sources of history about a personality, one may choose two approaches: Deciding that the person is good or bad and then looking into the sources to extract appropriate evidences to support the opinion. Looking at the sources to find as much information as possible about a person before even beginning to rule any judgments about him/her. In the first approach one limits oneself in looking at only certain versions of certain records from certain sources without testing the reliability of the records and without considering the context and the situation in which the incident might have happened. In the second approach one tries to look at a reasonable number of the relevant versions of a reasonable number of the relevant records in a reasonable number of sources. This will then be followed by carefully testing the reliability of the records and consideration of the context and situation in which the incident might have happened. The first approach falls in the category of prejudice; the second approach falls in the category of research. By the 'Prejudice Approach' it is possible to criticize any personality and in fact anything (from God almighty - as being criticized by atheists - and the Prophet of Islam - as being criticised by some none-Muslims - to the companions of the Prophet - as being criticised by some of our Shia brothers). I can guarantee that no personality (whether Ali or Umar) can be immune from criticism when it is based on the 'Prejudice Approach'. I am extremely sorry that I have to say that unfortunately when it comes to some of the great companions of the Prophet, some of our Muslim brothers/sisters take the first approach in looking at these personalities. I think brother Hashmi's reply to you was aimed to provide you with a view that was relevant to the second approach (research) rather than the first approach (prejudice). You have made it clear that the question was originated from a Shia brother. Please let me look at the points that brother Hashmi made while considering the Shia perspective: I can summarise his points in three sections: "P eople mix up the administrative directives and interpretation or implication of the texts by the caliph with religious doctrines." (This point was made by brother Hashmi originally about the issue of three divorces at one time, however I want to look at it from a wider view). The head of the state has unavoidable duties. In fulfilling these duties many times he will need to use his authority to interpret or adapt some of the rules of Shariat in new circumstances. To give you an example from Shia context: The late Imam Khomeini, one of the most influential leaders of the Shia of our time says in one of his speeches that governance is the most important of all divine ordinances and it takes precedence over secondary divine ordinances. Not only does the Islamic state permissibly enforce a large number of laws not mentioned specifically in the sources of the Shari'ah , such as the prohibition of narcotics and the levying of customs dues; it can also suspend the performance of a fundamental religious duty, the hajj, when this is necessitated by the higher interest of the Muslims. (Sahifa-yi Nur, XX, pp. 170-71). In one of his other speeches he says that the Walye Faqih (i.e. religious leader) even has the authority to suspend the primary divine ordinances like obligatory prayers if he finds that this is necessitated by the higher interest of Muslims. (Unfortunately I do not have the exact reference for this part but it is well known by all Iranian Shia brothers who used to follow the developments at the time). Not the same but relevant to the above, are some practices of Shia brothers that are approved by Shia scholars. Adding a statement about Ali in Azan and Iqama , considering mourning and beating oneself as a religious practice, doing the five prayers in three times rather than five separate times, celebrating the birthday of Shia Imams as a religious duty, allowing people to make golden shrines for some of the scholars who pass away and seeking cure and intercession from them are some of the well established practices of Shia brothers that are added to the Shariat . In the more recent times we can see more newly arrived practices like sending greetings to the Prophet three times after hearing the name of Imam Khomeini , organising congregational ( Jama'at ) Itikaf , reading a certain prayer in groups on Thursday nights, organising and performing political rallies during Hajj and shouting slogans in Friday prayers in support of the political statements of the Friday Imam, etc. Please note that here I do not intend to criticise any of the above or to argue if these practices are allowable in Islam or not. All I am saying is that it is strange to see that a Shia brother, with such background, is criticising one of the great companions of the Prophet for (supposedly) adding a sentence to the Azan or for interpreting a Shariat rule. It is also clear from various reports that any addition that is deemed appropriate with reference to the circumstance can also be made in the words of this call for prayer. Here I would like to express my understanding that Azan is different from (say) a Surah of the Qur'an. While no changes can be brought about in the words of any Surah of the Qur'an, Azan is only part of the preparation for prayer in which people are advised that the prayer time has approached and they are called to join congregational prayer. Azan is only a tool to facilitate doing the prayer. When you consult the collections of Hadith you find many records that suggest that Azan was in fact the product of mutual thought of companions themselves, approved by the Prophet. If you look at books of Bukhari (No. 569), Muslim (No. 568), Sunan Termezi (No. 174) you will find that Muslims wanted to have a device for announcing the prayer time, but one that was different from what Christians and Jews used to have. In many of the ahadith , including those I have referred to above, it is the companions themselves that come up with the idea of a human being calling for prayer. Ironically in the above-referred ahadith in Bukhari and Muslim it is said that the suggestion came from Umar and the Prophet approved it. My conclusion is that while in no way can one make any changes to the words of any Surah of the Qur'an, it does not seem as forbidden to add a sentence to Azan for the matter of necessity or appropriateness by the authority of the head of state. Perhaps this is why we see that our Shia brothers add a variety of versions of the statement about Ali in their Azan (for instance some simply say "I bear witness that Ali is the Wali of Allah", while others say "I bear witness that Ali and his infallible sons are Wali of Allah"). Also there is a legion of narratives, which clearly mention that the practice has been in vogue during the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) time. This is a very important part of the brother Hashmi's response to you. It will be only a prejudice approach that can make us focusing on certain ahadith and ignoring other ahadith . The same approach can be done with Shia sources. Do you know that the sentence of "Prayer is better than sleeping" is also approved in some of the Shia ahadith : Al-Tahzib by Al-Toosi, Vol. 2, No. 14: " Imam Jafar says: ... Al-Taswib (i.e. the statement of 'Al-Salat Khayron Min Al-Nawm') in Iqama is part of the Sunnat . Al-Tahzib by Al-Toosi, Vol. 2, No. 15: " Imam Baqir (RA) says: My father (i.e. Ali Ibn Alhusayn (RA) used to say 'Al-Salat Khayron Min Al-Nawm,' in his Azan at home...' Wasa'el Al-Shia , No. 6998: " Imam Jafar (RA) says: When you are in morning prayer say 'Al-Salat Khayron Min Al-Nawm' after 'Hayye Ala Khayr Al-Amal' [1] in Azan but don't say it in Iqama . According to the Shia scholar, Majlesi in his book Bihar Al-Anwar , Vol. 81 P. 150 certain Shia scholars of old times had allowed saying the sentence in the morning prayers. These are Ibn Al-Junayd and Al-Ju'fi. I do appreciate that the majority of the ahadith in Shia collections and almost all their scholars do not allow this sentence in Azan or Iqama . However I wanted to establish the fact that by the prejudice approach, almost for anything, some evidences can be found. I hope by the above elaboration on brother Hashmi's reply you can now appreciate that firstly it is not easy to conclude with a reasonable degree of confidence that the sentence was added by Umar . Secondly that even if for the sake of discussion we agree that the sentence was added by Umar , there are no rooms for criticising him about it, in particular by our Shia brothers. This is the result of a "research approach" to the issue rather than a "prejudice approach." You asked about the content of Azan in the books of Bukhari and Muslim : In the book of Bukhari ( as far as I have seen ) there are no mentions of the content of Azan. In the book of Muslim (as far as I have seen) there are only two places where the content of Azan is mentioned: Hadith number 572: The narrator says that the Prophet has taught him how to say Azan . The sentences of Azan are then mentioned and the statement about prayer being better than sleeping is not included. Hadith number 578: Here the narrator asks what should we say after hearing the sentences of Azan and the Prophet explains what is to be said after each sentence. The statement about prayer being better than sleeping is not mentioned. Please note that the statement of the concern is only specific to the morning prayer. In other words, Azan by default is without this statement unless it is said for the morning prayer. (This is like someone asks you how many Rak'at of prayer should I read at noon and you say four, without mentioning that on Fridays it will be replaced with two Rak'at if going to Friday prayer). It is therefore difficult to conclude from the above two ahadith that the sentence should not be said for the morning prayer as it is clear from the above that the default version of Azan is under question. I am not aware of any scholars who conclude merely from the above two ahadith that the sentence was not originally part of the Azan of the morning prayer. I now address your second inquiry about the issue of miscarriage of Fatima (RA): This accusation, in a way, is even more serious than the previous one. Let us for a while forget about the personalities of Umar (RA) and Fatima (RA). Let us just concentrate on the point that we are accusing a human being of murder. We are therefore in a position of a judge and like any judge we need strong evidences before being able to announce the suspect to be guilty. So let us see what the evidence propose: Evidence in Mainstream Sources "The accusation here is: The suspect (Umar) burned the door to the house of the victim (Fatima) and pushed it on the victim, which resulted in the miscarriage of her expected child." Now let us look at one of the popular sources of evidence of this sort, one that is brought forward occasionally by Shia brothers: Tarikh Al-Tabari: It is recorded that Umar threatened to set the house of Fatima on fire. There is no mention that he actually did that. Further more, the hadith is not reliable. It is narrated via Muhammad Ibn Hamid Ibn Hayyan . This is a very unreliable narrator. In the book of Tahzib Al-Tahzib we read that Bukhari says: There are concerns about his narrations An-Nasayee says: Not reliable, has been reported that he was a liar Al-Joozajani says: Not reliable Al-Razi says: I have 5000 ahadith from him and will not narrate even one of them Saleh Ibn Muhammad Al-Asadi says: I Haven't seen any one bolder to Allah Ta'Ala than him. He used to collect ahadith and forge them together. I haven't seen any one cleverer than him and Sulayman Al-Shazekuni in lying. Baihaqi says: The Imam of Hadith , Ibne Khuzayma does not narrate from him. Based on the above we can safely conclude that the above evidence (in Tabari ) is both insufficient and unreliable. Moreover when we look further in the book of Tabari we find ahadith that conflict with the above story. Only few pages after the above record we read the following two: Abu Sufian asked Ali to give him his hand for Bay'at and Ali shouted at him and said we had agreed on Abu Bakr. When hearing about the Bay'at in Saqifa, Ali came out of his house while he was not dressed properly only to rush in doing bayat with Abu Bakr. Please note that here I am not arguing that the above two records are reliable. All I am saying is that an unbiased mind should take all these into consideration and test all of them before any attempts for ruling a judgment. I am really amazed to see how some Shia brothers ignore the rest of the records in books like Tabari and only mention those parts that suit their belief and even then without any attempts to test the reliability of what they are quoting. I have examined a number of other sources that are usually referred to by Shia brothers (e.g. Al-Imama wa Al-Syasah, Al Iqd Al-Farid, Qurra Al-Ayn Fi Tafzil Al-Shaykhayn). In none of them have I found a record that fulfils the following conditions: Clearly suggesting that Umar actually burned the door or pushed the door on Fatima (RA). Having reliable chains of narrators (in fact the majority of these sources do not even have a chain of narrator) Not accompanying with conflicting records. Based on the above I can say that there is no evidence in the mainstream sources that can support the accusation. Please do let me know if your Shia friends are aware of any sources that fulfil the above three conditions. However please note that even if such a source can be found (which I think is very unlikely) still we will end up with only one record in support of the accusation and a number of records (as mentioned above) and evidence (as will be mentioned later) in conflict with the accusation. Evidence in Shia Sources It is one of the basic rules of judgement that witnesses who have any benefit in accusing the suspect cannot be trusted. Having said that, and while appreciating that there are records in support of the accusation in some of the Shia sources, I would like to point out that it is very strange that in some of the more popular and old Shia sources there are no mention of the incident. For instance the book Al-Irshad by Mufid: According to the Shia brothers the book is one of the very reliable sources of history not only because of its author (who is one of the gurus of Shia ) but also because of the closeness of the time of writing the book to the time of the presence of Shia Imams . In his book, when it came to naming the children of Ali, (RA) initially we find no mention of the name of the miscarried infant (Muhsin). Mufid then says: "and in Shia there are some who say Fatima miscarried a male infant after the Prophet, who had given been a name by the Prophet, and that is Muhsin. So based on the saying of these people the children of Amir Almo'menin (Ali) will be 18 and God knows best" ( Irshad p. 336 by Mufid) It is interesting that Mufid is not approving the miscarriage and attributes the story to some of Shia . It is also interesting that even here there is no mention of the alleged attack on Fatima (RA). This is while the book of Irshad is dedicated to narrate the important incidents of the life of Shia Imams , including Ali (RA). In Kafi , one of the four main books of Shi'ism there is again no mention of the incident in the chapter on life of Fatima. It merely says that Fatima was angry with Umar without any references to any attacks taken place. In Kashf Al-Qumah another classical book of Shi'ism again we read that there are differences of opinion about Muhsin and that some of Shia consider him to be the son of Ali from Fatima who died because of miscarriage. Again no mention of the incident itself. Among the Shia scholars, we have Allamah Fadhlullah who is famous for putting a question mark on the incident and calling it unlikely because of the conflicting records and also based on rationality. He was denounced severely by other Shia scholars for his opinion. The point is that when it comes to mourning, Shia brothers do not hesitate to say whatever could bring more tears to the eyes of the crowd. However when it comes to scientifically proving that the incident really happened then the arguments seem to lose their strength. Based on the above I think no judge can conclude that the Shia sources can provide us with satisfactory evidence. Rationality Being disappointed in finding hard evidence to rule against the suspect, let us now turn to rationality: Ali (RA) according to Shia was the bravest of Arabs. In the Shia book Nahj Al-Balaqah we read that he has said something to the effect that he was not afraid of anything when it comes to protecting the right. I find it very strange that such an incident could take place without Ali (RA) trying to protect his wife (the daughter of the Prophet). We fail to find anything about such natural reaction by Ali. Later we find no attempts by Ali (RA) or any of the other companions or people closed to Ali's family to bring Umar to justice. Not only this, we even find Ali give the name of "Umar" to one of his children. I do not want to claim that Ali named his son after Umar the second Khalifa. However I find it very strange that someone like Ali could give the name of the murderer of his wife (the daughter of the Prophet) to his son. Ali was from the same family as the Prophet. It is narrated that the Prophet never wanted to see the face of Wahshi the killer of his uncle Hamzah even when Wahshi embraced Islam. This is a very serious issue. Today you find no Shia with the name Umar. The other two sons of Ali, Uthman and Abu Bakr were present in Karbala with Husayn (RA) and were brutally martyred in protecting their brother. Yet when you go to the mourning ceremonies of Shia brothers you will hear the story of all the Ahl Albayt of Husayn except Uthman and Abu Bakr merely because of their name. This attitude of Shia to me is very acceptable if we assume that their accusations about the companions of the Prophet are correct. However, these facts make one wonder why Ali's attitude was not as would have been expected from any normal human being. To see the further complication, we will be amazed to find that according to records in Shia books Ali gave her daughter Umme Kulthom to Umar as his wife (although recently Shia brothers make some arguments to deny this). So here we have the husband of the victim not only calling his son with the name of the murderer of his wife but also giving his daughter to the murderer of his wife! I think it is safe to conclude that even rationality does not support the accusation. For the Sake of Discussion One last point I want to make is that if we assume that the story of Umar threatening to burn down the house of Fatima (RA) is correct then by the standards set by Ali (RA) - according to Shia - still we cannot criticise Umar. To understand what I mean, please see the following letter of Ali to Moawiah as recorded in Nahj Albalaqah (the Shia collection of sermons and letters attributed to Ali): "People who did Beyat to Abu Bakr and Omar, did beyat with me in the same way. So the one who is present cannot select any one else (as Imam) and the one who is absent cannot reject (the decision). Shora belongs to Mohajer and Ansar , so if they gather around a person and appoint him as their Imam this is to the satisfaction of Allah. If any one disapprove them on this or innovate something about it he will be taken back to the people who he has left (by accepting the appointed Imam), and if he refused to do so people fight with him as he is going to a path other than of Muslims and God will do to him as he wants ..." Nahj Al-Balaqah Letter No. 6 Now all I discussed above was in a generic form, trying to forget the personality of Umar. I think a Muslim who wants to be closer to Allah Ta'Ala and have better Taqwa should even have more cautious and fear in accusing a close companion of the Prophet of such incident. Let us not forget that we are advised in the Qur'an to pray that Allah cleanse our hearts from any bad feelings about the early immigrants (i.e. Muhajerin ) and Helpers (i.e. Ansar ). This of course does not mean that we cannot criticise them but at least we should be fair enough by basing our criticism on sound evidence. I can guarantee we would not criticise an ordinary man in our time based on such evidence. You said: "please give me logical answer, because I have to satisfy my Shia brothers." Dear brother, let me assure you, you will not be able to satisfy your Shia brother. These issues are the subject of debate for more then 1000 years. I suggest if you like to have a fruitful dialogue with your Shia friend then focus your discussion on the main cause of difference between Shia and mainstream Muslims. In need of your prayers. Abdullah Rahim [1] This is a sentence that according to Shia brothers is part of Azan. It is said after " Hayye Ala Al-Falah ".