Ubaidi Maliki in Umdatut Tahqiq1 has narrated from Shaykh Zainul
Abideen Bakri that:
When I recited the panegyric of his grandfather, Muhammad Bakri,
including the following lines:
“If praise and eulogy of the ancients are written down, indeed we are at the
beginning of the verses of Quran.”
He said: The beginning of the book implies:
….الٓمٓ (١) ذَٰلِكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبُ
“Alif Lam Mim. This Book…”2
In which ‘Alif’ implies Abu Bakr, and ‘Lam’ implies Allah and ‘Mim’
stands from Muhammad.
Baghawi says:3 The verse of:
واتَّبِعْ سَبِيلَ مَنْ آنَابَ إِلَى ثُمَّ إِلَى
“And follow the way of him who turns to Me, then to Me is your return.”4
…implies Abu Bakr. Commentators have said that the implication of the verse:
لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا
“And let not those of you who possess grace and abundance
swear against giving to the near of kin and the poor and those
who have fled in Allah’s way…”5
…is Abu Bakr.
Shaykh Muhammad Zainul Abideen writes: “Siddiq had 360 sofas and on
each sofa was a robe worth a thousand dinars.”
Allamah Amini says: We end the discussion about Abu Bakr here, and we
cannot say anything regarding verses, which Ahle Sunnat falsely say that they are
regarding Abu Bakr, and they have interpolated a large number of traditions and issued statements regarding every kind of inclination and desires with the Book
of God, and exaggeration in their excellence and has exposed shamelessness,
disgrace and lowliness as was mentioned.
I will not say anything regarding excessive exaggeration in verses about
him, like verses of Allamah Mulla Hasan Afandi Bazzaz Mosuli in his Diwan.6
Yes, we have the right to ignore the wealth of Abu Bakr, which he donated,
wealth due to which he shows favor on Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.), Islam and
the Muslims.
That excessive wealth, which they have estimated to be a million Awqiya,7
as mentioned in statement, which Nasai8 has quoted from Ayesha: “During the
period of Ignorance, I used to pride over the wealth of my father, which was a
million Awqiya.”
The wealth, which gathered 360 beds in his house and on each bed there was
a dress worth a thousand dinars, as narrated from Shaykh Muhammad Zainul
Abideen Bakri.
You know well that this luxury, whether necessary or not comprising of
garments, tables, vessels, carpets, which are not valued less than them, and which
are followed by servants and tall castles and huge chambers, and horses and
camels, and sheep and quadrupeds and agricultural lands and such other things,
are consequences of rank and wealth.
I don’t know which land carried this weight that none of the rulers till this
day have possessed such wealth. Whether all those beds collected in one room?
What huge rooms they must be that they were perhaps equal to fields and
spanning deserts! And how huge must be houses, in which these rooms were
situated and what day it must have been, when Abu Bakr welcomed guests, and
they would arrive and sit on these sofas? And why such things are not mentioned
in books of biography and history?
Were the mouths of those, who sit on thrones, locked up from quoting some
reports related to them? And the conditions demand that in this great gathering,
which takes place every week or at last every month or at least every year or at
last once in the lifetime; it would be reported in history and historians should not
regard it trivial.
But in spite of all this we don’t find such thing mentioned anywhere, except
the weak statement of Ubaidi after a long time had passed. From where did this
man get the figure of a million Awqiya? While the fact is that at that time, was a
period of poverty of Quraish and they were such that Lady Fatima Zahra (s.a.) in
her sermon addressed Abu Bakr and his companions, saying: