Abū Bakr
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Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Quhāfa as-Siddīq ( Arabic أبو بكر عبد الله بن أبي قحافة الصديق, DMG Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Quḥāfa aṣ-Ṣiddīq ; * at 573 in Mecca ; † August 23, 634 in Medina ) was one of the first followers of the Prophet Mohammed and, as the father of Aisha bint Abi Bakr, his father-in-law. After Muhammad's death in June 632 he ruled as his "successor" or "deputy" ( caliph ) until 634 over the community of Muslims .
The Muslims are divided over the question of who was entitled to succeed Muhammad after his death: For the Shiites , ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib , cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, is the rightful successor of Muhammad, while the Sunnis believe that Abū Bakr, the who took over, also had a greater claim to it.
Role in the lifetime of Muhammad
Early life in Mecca
Abū Bakr belonged to the Taim, a rather insignificant clan of the Quraish tribe . His father was Abū Quhāfa ibn ʿĀmir , his mother Umm al-Chair Salmā bin Sachr belonged to the same clan. Abū Bakr made his fortune as a cloth merchant in Mecca. With his capital of around 40,000 dirhams, he had some influence in his clan. In pre-Islamic times he married two women, namely Qutaila bint ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā from the Meccan clan of the ʿĀmir and Umm Rūmān bint ʿĀmir from the tribe of the Kināna . Qutaila bore him a son named ʿAbdallāh and the daughter Asmā ' , Umm Rūmān bore him a son named ʿAbd ar-Rahmān and the daughter ʿĀ'ischa .
After Abū Bakr joined Mohammed, he became one of his most important helpers. In his biography of the prophets, Ibn Hishām names five people who, as a result of Abū Bakr's advertising, accepted Islam and were particularly firm in the faith: ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān , az-Zubair ibn al-Awwam , ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn ʿ Auf , Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas , Talha ibn ʿUbaidallāh . Abū Bakr's daughters ʿĀ'ischa and Asmā 'also joined the new religion very soon. While many other companions of the Prophets emigrated to Ethiopia around 615 , Abū Bakr stayed with Mohammed in Mecca.
Hijra
Abū Bakr was the only companion of Muhammad during his emigration ( hijra ) to Yathrib (later Medina). According to Islamic tradition, the two hid themselves for three days in a cave on Mount Thaur at the lower end of Mecca before emigrating, an event to which Sura 9:40 is supposed to allude: “God helped him as those who disbelieved , had driven him out, the second of two ( ṯānī al-iṯnain ) when the two were in the cave. "
In Yathrib / Medina
In Medina, Abu Bakr made money available to Mohammed to buy a piece of land on which he later built his mosque. He himself moved into a house in the Sunh district, which was in the upper part of the city.
During the battles against the pagan Quraish of Mecca, he stood out for his mildness. For example, while after the victory of Badr ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb demanded the execution of the Meccan prisoners, Abū Bakr turned to the Prophet for them, who finally released them for a ransom. At that time, several people from Abū Bakr's own family were hostile to Islam and remained in pagan Mecca. His father Abū Quhāfa, for example, did not accept Islam until 630, after the Muslim troops took the city. Abū Bakr married another woman in 629, namely Asmā 'bin ʿUmais from the Chathʿam tribe , the widow of Jaʿfar ibn Abī Tālib .
In 631, Mohammed put Abū Bakr at the head of a procession of 300 Muslim pilgrims who made the pilgrimage to Mecca from Medina . When Muhammad was dying, Abū Bakr led the prayer of the congregation. This gave him a certain nimbus .
Scroll after the death of Muhammad
Elevation to command
When Mohammed died at noon on June 8th 632, according to Islamic tradition, Abū Bakr was with his family in Sunh. At the news of the Prophet's death, he hurried back to his house in the center and entered the chamber of his daughter ʿĀʾischa, who was still holding the body of Muhammad in her arms. Abū Bakr kissed his face and then stepped out into the courtyard and spoke to the crowd of the assembled believers: “Whoever worships Mohammed, let him know that Mohammed is dead. But whoever worships God, may know that God lives and does not die. ”A messenger rushed into this meeting in the courtyard of the Prophet's house, reporting that the Ansār had gathered to choose their own commander. Abū Bakr then hurried together with ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb and Abū ʿUbaida ibn al-Jarrāh to the meeting place ( Saqīfa ) of Saʿd ibn ʿUbāda to prevent the breakup of the Muslim community. When they entered the meeting, Saʿd ibn ʿUbada, who at that time was the head of the Khazradsch but was sick with a fever himself, had been proposed as the new commander of Medina, although he had not yet been elected.
According to a report given by Muhammad ibn Saʿd , the companion of the Prophet Hubāb ibn Mundhir suggested that the Muhādjirūn and the Ansār should each choose their own leader. Abū Bakr emphasized in the meeting the priority claim of the Quraish tribe. Literally he is said to have said: "We are the commanders and you are the viziers " ( Naḥnu al-umarāʾ wa-antum al-wuzarāʾ ). Above all, ʿUmar strongly opposed any division of the community. Abū Bakr then came forward and suggested that the Ansār should either take the oath of allegiance to ʿUmar or Abū ʿUbaida . The latter rejected this, in turn asked Abū Bakr to stretch out his hand and took the oath of allegiance to him. Abū ʿUbaida is quoted in this context with the statement that he could not take an oath of allegiance from a community in which Abū Bakr, the "second of the two" (an allusion to Sura 9:40, see above) is still. The arrival of the Banū Aslam, a clan from the area around Medina, who were known for their special loyalty to the Prophet, was decisive for the further course of the meeting. They came to the congregation in large numbers and paid homage to Abū Bakr.
Abū Bakr gave an inaugural address the following day, but many Muhādjirūn and Ansār refused to pay homage to him. The Banū Hāschim under the leadership of al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib protested against the fact that, despite their kinship with the Prophet, they had been ignored in the settlement of the succession. In this situation, Abū Sufyān ibn Harb , the head of the Umayyads at the time , insisted on the political privileges of the descendants of ʿAbd Manāf ibn Qusaiy , who included both his clan and the Banū Hāschim. He is said to have questioned Abū Bakr's rule with the words: "You descendants of ʿAbd Manāf, can you be satisfied that a man from the Taim clan takes over your affairs?" Another sharp opponent of Abū Bakr was Chālid ibn Saʿīd , like Abū Sufyān Umayyade, but in contrast to him one of the earliest followers of Muhammad. Al-Yaʿqūbī reports that in this situation both he and Abū Sufyān expressed their willingness to take the oath of allegiance to ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib . ʿAlī apparently also had the support of some Ansār. Of decisive importance in this situation was that Meccans from other Quraysh clans sided with Abū Bakr, such as ʿUmar from the clan ʿAdī ibn Kaʿb, Chālid ibn al-Walīd from the Machzūm and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs from the Sahm. After all, it was ʿUmar who, with the support of the Banū Aslam, ensured that almost all residents of Medina took the oath of allegiance to Abū Bakr .
Dispute over the Fadak estate
Only ʿAlī and his wife, the prophet's daughter Fatima bint Mohammed , withheld the oath of allegiance. A little later, the dispute over the Prophet's estate in Fadak in northern Hejaz led to a confrontation between Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and them . When Fātima asserted claims to this estate, the two countered her that the Prophet had bequeathed all of his property to the Muslim community as Sadaqa . Since Fātima could not bring enough witnesses that the Prophet had given her the estate while she was still alive, Abū Bakr moved it in. Fātima then completely broke off contact with Abū Bakr. She died six months later. Only after her death did ʿAlī also swear allegiance to the caliph.
Defense against the Ridda movement
Abū Bakr's most important task was to combat an insurrection among the Arab tribes, which is referred to in the sources as Ridda after the Arabic word for apostasy . The starting point of this movement was the refusal of some Bedouin tribes to continue to pay the zakāt . They said it was part of a contract they had made with the Prophet, which had expired upon his death. From Mālik ibn Nuwaira, for example, who was employed by Mohammed as a tax collector from the Yarbūʿ, it is narrated that after the death of Mohammed he did not transfer the camels that he had received as sadaqa to Medina, but rather sent them back to his fellow tribesmen. When Abū Bakr found out about this, he is said to have been extremely angry and to have made Chālid ibn al-Walīd promise from God that he would definitely kill Mālik if he could get hold of him.
In some areas of Arabia, counter-prophets appeared during the Ridda movement, who also questioned the new Islamic system in the religious field. In Yemen , for example, the counter-prophet al-Aswad was established, which was able to bring large areas of southern Arabia under its control in a short time. Like Mohammed, he appeared in the name of Allah and took advantage of resentment against the Quraish for his cause. The Prophet Musailima , who preached in the name of Rahmān , stood out among the Hanīfa tribe, who lived in the Yamāma in eastern Arabic .
Abū Bakr sent various armies from Mecca and Medina to win back the fallen tribes by force of arms. In doing so, he relied in particular on representatives from the old Meccan aristocracy, who converted to Islam relatively late. Chālid ibn al-Walīd, who belonged to this group, was able to subdue the main breakaway areas of the Arabian Peninsula within about six months. Another Meccan who excelled in these battles was ʿIkrima, the son of Mohammed's former opponent Abū Jahl . He suppressed the uprisings in Oman and in Hadramaut on behalf of Abū Bakr . The final victory over the renegades came in a decisive battle in May 633.
Collection of the Quran
According to the prevailing Islamic tradition, Abū Bakr had the Koranic texts collected after the war against Musailima at the suggestion of ʿUmar. A well-known report says that ʿUmar was troubled by the fact that many men who knew the Quran by heart were killed in the decisive battle of al-Yamama . Fearing that as a result of such losses, knowledge of the sacred text could ultimately be lost, he advised Abū Bakr to have a collection of the Koran made. Abū Bakr commissioned Zaid ibn Thābit , who had been one of Muhammad's secretaries , with this undertaking . Zaid wrote down what he had gathered from written and oral sources and gave it to Abū Bakr. However, there is no evidence that this “collection” was accepted anywhere as authoritative.
The title "Follower of the Messenger of God"
Abū Bakr assumed the title of ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh ("Successor of the Messenger of God") as ruler . According to at-Tabarī , he also used this title in letters to the Arab tribes. A popular tradition according to which he explicitly rejected the title ḫalīfat Allaah (“representative of God”) is almost certainly made up.
Resumption of jihad
The Ridda defensive battles in the north of the Arabian Peninsula now seamlessly turned into a movement of conquest. As late as 633, Chālid and his fighters raided areas of southern Iraq , made the nomad tribes living there lawful and conquered al-Hīra , the capital of the Lachmid Empire . Al-Balādhurī (d. 892), the author of the most important Arabic work on the Futūh , reports that Abū Bakr wrote to the inhabitants of Mecca, at-Tā'if , Yemen and the Bedouins in Najd and Hejaz in the spring of 634 , "in order for the Jihad excavate and in them the desire to it and at the at the Rhomäern to be fetched spoils of war to rekindle." was obviously His call a success. It is reported that he was able to raise three armies in Medina. Four contingents of troops under the command of Abū ʿUbaida ibn al-Jarrāh , one of the earliest followers of Mohammed, moved towards Syria . When a major confrontation with the Byzantine army was on the horizon, Abū Bakr sent Chālid ibn al-Walīd, who was still in Iraq, to reinforce them in Syria. The two Arab armies met in southern Syria, and together they could take the city of Bosra . Under Chālid's command, the Arabs defeated a Byzantine army in July 634, which they faced at Adschnādayn in Palestine .
Death and posthumous judgment
Abū Bakr died in Medina in August 634 and was subsequently buried next to the Prophet Mohammed. Both tombs and the tomb of the subsequent second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb are now integrated in the main mosque of Medina, the Prophet's Mosque . His father survived him by seven months. He died in Mecca in March 635 at the age of 97. Shortly before his death, Abū Bakr had married another wife, Habība bint Chāridscha from the Medinian tribe of the Khazradsch . She gave birth to a daughter named Umm Kulthūm after his death.
In the eighth century, a dispute arose among Muslims again over the question of whether Abū Bakr had been entitled to lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet. While the Shiites said that only ʿAlī had a claim to the Imamat , i.e. the leadership of the Ummah , because he was the most excellent person after Mohammed and Mohammed had designated him at Ghadīr Chumm , most other Muslims said that the Imamat was after Abū Bakr died. Al-Jahiz (d. 869), for example, derived this from the fact that Abū Bakr was one of the earliest Muslims and, in contrast to ʿAlī, who was still a child at the time, had helped Mohammed a lot by winning many people over to the new religion.
The Sunni theologian Abū l-Hasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 935) took the view in his "Book of Spotlights" ( Kitāb al-Lumaʿ ) that the evidence for Abū Bakr's Imamat was already provided by the fact that ʿAlī like all other Muslims Abū Bakr took the oath of allegiance after a while. The fact that all Muslims finally addressed Abū Bakr as “the successor of the Messenger of God” proves his imamate, because the Umma never agrees on error. In his view, the Imamat Abū Bakrs results from the consensus of the Muslims of his time.
literature
- Arabic sources
- al-Balādhurī : Ansāb al-ašrāf . Ed. Suhail Zakkār and Riyāḍ Ziriklī. Beirut, 1996, Vol. X, pp. 51-114. Digitized
- Muhammad ibn Saʿd : Kitāb aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr . Ed. Eduard Sachau . Brill, Leiden, 1904. Vol. III, Part 1, pp. 119-152. Digitized
- Muḥammad Ibn-Ǧarīr aṭ-Ṭabarī : Taʾrīḫ ar-rusul wa-l-mulūk . Brill, Leiden, 1890. Vol. I, pp. 1816-2144. Digitized
- Al-Wāqidī : Kitāb al-Maġāzī . German shortened translation by Julius Wellhausen . Berlin 1882
- Studies
- K. Athamina: “The pre-Islamic roots of the early Muslim caliphate: The emergence of Abū Bakr” in Der Islam 76 (1999), 1-32.
- Wilferd Madelung: The Succession to Muḥammad. A Study of the Early Caliphate . Cambridge 1997. pp. 28-57.
- William Muir : The Caliphate, its rise, decline and fall; from orig. sources. New and rev. ed., repr. Edinburgh: Grant 1924. pp. 1-7.
- Miklos Muranyi : “A New Report on the Election of the First Caliph Abū Bakr” in Arabica 25 (1978), 233–260.
- Elias Shoufany: Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia . University of Toronto Press, 1973.
- William Montgomery Watt : "Abū Bakr" in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. I, pp. 109-112.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The date of the year of birth is based on tradition that he was three years younger than Mohammed, so that a birth shortly after 570 is assumed, cf. Watt 1986, 109.
- ^ Watt: "Abū Bakr" in EI² Vol. I, p. 109b.
- ↑ Cf. his Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh from d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vol. Göttingen 1858–59. S. 162. Available online: The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâk
- ↑ Cf. Ibn Hischām: Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh from d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vol. Göttingen 1858–59. S. 162. Available online: The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâk
- ↑ Sura 9:40 on corpuscoranicum.de
- ↑ Cf. Al-Balādhurī : Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān. Ed. Michael Jan de Goeje . Brill, Leiden, 1866. p. 6. - German transl. Oskar Rescher . Pp. 100-105. Digitized
- ↑ See Watt 110a.
- ↑ Cf. al-Wāqidī: Kitāb al-Maġāzī . 1882, p. 69.
- ↑ Cf. Ibn Saʿd : Biographies of Muhammad, his companions and the later bearers of Islam up to the year 230 of the flight . Leiden 1904-40. Vol. V, pp. 333f. Digitized
- ^ Watt: "Abū Bakr" in EI² Vol. I, p. 109b.
- ↑ Al-Wāqidī: Kitāb al-Maġāzī . 1882, pp. 416-417.
- ↑ See Muir: The Caliphate, its rise, decline and fall . 1924, p. 2.
- ↑ See Muir: The Caliphate, its rise, decline and fall . 1924, p. 2f.
- ↑ Muhammad ibn Saʿd: Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr . 1904, Vol. III / 1, p. 129, line 10.
- ↑ Muir: The Caliphate, its rise, decline and fall . 1924, p. 3f.
- ↑ Cf. al-Balādhurī : Ansāb al-ašrāf . Ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh. Cairo 1959. p. 579.
- ↑ See Madelung: The Succession to Muḥammad. 1997, p. 34.
- ↑ See Shoufany 50.
- ↑ Cf. al-Yaʿqūbī : Tārīḫ . 2 vols. Beirut 1960. pp. 125f.
- ↑ a b Cf. Madelung 40f.
- ↑ Cf. al-Ǧāḥiẓ: al-ʿUṯmānīya . Ed. AM Hārūn. Cairo 1955. p. 60: Raḍītum maʿšara Banī ʿAbd Manāf an yaliya umūra-kum raǧulun min Banī Taim?
- ↑ Cf. al-Yaʿqūbī: Tārīḫ . 126.
- ↑ See Shoufany 59f
- ↑ See Madelung: The Succession to Muḥammad. 1997, p. 43.
- ↑ See Madelung: The Succession to Muḥammad. 1997, pp. 50-53.
- ↑ See Ella Landau-Tasseron: Art. "Mālik ibn Nuwaira" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. VI, pp. 267a-269a. Here p. 267b.
- ↑ See Shoufany: Al-Riddah . 1973, p. 61f.
- ↑ Cf. M. Lecker: Art. "Ridda" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. XII, pp. 692b-695a. Here pp. 693b-694a.
- ↑ Cf. Theodor Nöldeke : History of the Qorāns, 2nd volume: The collection of the Qorans . 2nd edition, completely revised by Friedrich Schwally . Leipzig 1919. pp. 11-15.
- ↑ Cf. William Montgomery Watt , Alford T. Welch: Islam I. Mohammed and the early days, Islamic law, religious life . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1980. p. 177.
- ^ Madelung: The Succession to Muḥammad. 1997, p. 46.
- ↑ Cf. aṭ-Ṭabarī: Taʾrīḫ ar-rusul wa-l-mulūk . Vol. I, p. 1881.
- ↑ Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds: God's Caliph. Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a., 1986. pp. 19f.
- ↑ Quoted from Tilman Nagel: Mohammed. Life and legend . Munich 2008. p. 475.
- ↑ Cf. Ibn Saʿd: Kitāb aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr . 1904, Vol. V, p. 334.
- ^ Watt: "Abū Bakr" in EI² Vol. I, p. 109b.
- ↑ See the German partial translation of his treatise al-ʿUthmānīya in Charles Pellat : Arabische Geisteswelt. Selected and translated texts by Al-Gahiz (777–869). Zurich and Stuttgart 1967. pp. 119–135.
- ↑ See Richard J. McCarthy: The Theology of al-Ashʿarī. Beirut 1953. pp. 112-116.
See also
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| - |
Correctly Directed Caliph 632-634 |
ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abū Bakr |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Quhāfa as-Siddīq (full name); أبو بكر عبد الله بن أبي قحافة الصديق (Arabic) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | first of the four “rightly guided” caliphs, the successor of Muhammad according to the Sunnis |
| DATE OF BIRTH | at 573 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mecca |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 23, 634 |
| Place of death | Medina |