In the book of Wilayah, Imam Muhammad bin Jarir Tabari has narrated a tradition through his chains from Zaid Ibne Arqam, at the end of which, it is mentioned that the Prophet of Islam (s.a.w.a.) said:
“O people say tell me: we, on the depths of our souls make a pledge to you and with our tongues, we make a covenant to you and place the hand in your hands and give our word that we would convey the matter without any change and distortion to our descendants and we make you a witness in this matter and the testimony of Almighty Allah is sufficient.
Say what I have told you and congratulate Ali (a.s.) as the chief of the believers and say:
الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي هَدْنَا لِهَذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِي لَوْلَا أَنْ هَدَيْنَا اللَّهُ
“All praise is due to Allah Who guided us to this, and we would not have found the way had it not been that Allah had guided us.”1
Indeed, Almighty Allah knows every call and dishonesty and every cheater;
فَمَنْ نَكَتَ فَإِنَّمَا يَنْكُثُ عَلَى نَفْسِهِ وَمَنْ أَوْفَى بِمَا عَهَدَ عَلَيْهُ اللَّهَ فَسَيُؤْتِيهِ اجْرًا عَظِيمَانَ
“Therefore whoever breaks (his faith), he breaks it only to the injury of his own soul, and whoever fulfills what he has covenanted with Allah, He will grant him a mighty reward.”2
Say that which will make the Almighty Allah pleased with you. Thus:
إِنْ تَكْفُرُوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ عَنْكُمْ
“If you are ungrateful, then surely Allah is Self-sufficient above all need of you.”3
Zaid bin Arqam says: At this point, all the people called out: Yes, we have heard, and we obey the command of Allah and the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.) with all sincerity. And among the first, who paid allegiance to Ali (a.s.) at that time were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Talha, Zubair and other Muhajireen and Ansar and then people in general and this allegiance continued till the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.) recited the Zuhr and Asr prayers together. Then the allegiance continued till the night so that Maghrib and Isha were recited together. The allegiance continued for three days.”
The historian, Khawind Shah, author of Rauzatus Safa,4 after the mention of tradition of Ghadeer has said in his book: Then the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.) sat in his special tent and instructed Imam Ali (a.s.) to remain in the adjacent tent so that people may felicitate him. When the felicitations ended, the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.) directed his wives to go to Ali (a.s.) and present felicitations to him and they did that. Among the companions, who presented felicitations to him was Umar bin Khattab, who said: “Congratulations to you, O son of Abu Talib, that you have become my master and the master of all the believers.”
Especially, congratulations of the two Shaykhs [Abu Bakr and Umar] is mentioned by a large number of Ahle Sunnat scholars of traditions, exegesists, historians from reporters of traditional reports, who cannot be regarded as few. Some of them have narrated it as a definite matter5 and some have narrated it through authentic chains of narrators, all of whose narrators are reliable and whose chains end with different companions of Prophet, like: Ibne Abbas, Abu Huraira, Baraa bin Azib and Zaid bin Arqam.
The late Allamah Amini, in the book of Al-Ghadeer6 , has mentioned the names of sixty persons, who have listed the names of those, who congratulated Imam Ali (a.s.) and who mentioned that Abu Bakr and Umar were at the forefront in this:
1. Ahmad bin Hanbal, chief of the Hanbalis (d. 241 A.H.).7
2. Hafiz Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Jarir Tabari (d. 310 A.H.), in his book of Tafseer.8
3. Hujjatul Islam, Abu Hamid Ghazzali (d. 505 A.H.).9
4. Abul Fath Ashari Shahristani (d. 548 A.H.).10
5. Fakhruddin Raazi Shafei (d. 606 A.H.).11
6. Jalaluddin Suyuti (d. 911 A.H.).12