In the meantime, Omar’s argument prevailed. His
words had their intended eʃect, and the sickroom
subsided into somewhat shamefaced silence. If
Muhammad had indeed meant to name an heir, he had
left it too late. He no longer had the strength to make his
ɹnal wishes known, let alone to quiet down the
argument. Perhaps he was not as lucid as he appeared,
or perhaps everyone in the room truly did have his best
interests at heart, or the community’s, but it is no
contradiction to say that more was involved. Nearly
every person there surely feared that Muhammad was
about to put in writing what he had indicated just three
months before, at the end of his last pilgrimage to Mecca
—or as it would soon be called, the Final Pilgrimage.
Had he sensed then that he would never see Mecca
again? That he didn’t have much longer to live? Was
that why he had made such a point of singling out Ali
the way he did?
Shia scholars would maintain that he had a clear
intimation of mortality, and that he prefaced his
declaration with these words: “The time approaches
when I shall be called away by God and I shall answer
that call. I am leaving you with two precious things and
if you adhere to both of them, you will never go astray.
They are the Quran, the Book of God, and my family, the
People of the House, Ahl al-Bayt. The two shall never