The rightly-guided caliphate and its order (in the Tahawi creed)

"We affirm the caliphate after the Messenger of God, first for Abu Bakr al-Siddiq — preferring and advancing him over all the umma — then for Umar ibn al-Khattab, then for Uthman, then for Ali ibn Abi Talib; they are the rightly-guided caliphs and the guided imams" ¹.

Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali.

Ibn Qudama says: "The best of his umma is Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, then Umar al-Faruq, then Uthman Dhu al-Nurayn, then Ali al-Murtada" ², and he cites Ibn Umar's hadith on their order in the Prophet's era ². He then reasons the caliphate: Abu Bakr "for his virtue and precedence, the Prophet's advancing him in prayer over all the Companions, and the Companions' consensus on advancing him and pledging to him"; Umar "for his virtue and Abu Bakr's appointment of him"; Uthman "for the shura council's advancing him"; Ali "for his virtue and his contemporaries' consensus upon him" ³. He cites the hadith "The caliphate after me is thirty years", its last being Ali's caliphate ⁴.

Ibn Taymiyya says the people of the Sunna "affirm what transmission has established from the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abi Talib and others — that the best of this umma after its prophet is Abu Bakr, then Umar; they put Uthman third and Ali fourth" ⁵. He mentions that some differed over which of Uthman and Ali is better — a group advanced Uthman, a group advanced Ali, and a group suspended judgement — "but the matter of the people of the Sunna settled on advancing Uthman then Ali"; this question — Uthman versus Ali — "is not among the principles in which the dissenter goes astray, with the majority of the people of the Sunna", unlike the question of the caliphate: they "believe that the caliph after the Messenger of God is Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, then Ali" ⁵.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ⁶. He relates there that they "advance Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, then Ali", and "affirm that they are the rightly-guided, guided caliphs — the best of all people after the Prophet" ⁷.

This entry presents the positions of the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya, and what al-Ash'ari related in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin of the people of hadith and sunna and declared his own — each attributed to its book. The sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools from their own books have not yet been added; the entry needs specialist review before promotion.