Assault on Fatima (may Allah be pleased with her)

Assault on Fatima (may Allah be pleased with her)

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.

https://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/04/05/69991.html

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.

Abdul Rahim