wikishia:Featured Article/2019/12

The Six-Member Council refers to the council 'Umar b. al-Khattab (d. 23/644) assigned for selecting the next caliph, which led to 'Uthman b. 'Affan being elected as the third caliph of Muslims.

Prior to that time, specifically after the Holy Prophet's (s) demise, some of the Prophet's companions gathered together in a place called Saqifa and selected Abu Bakr as the caliph of Muslims, disregarding the Event of Ghadir in which the Prophet (s) had introduced Imam Ali (a) to the Muslims as the caliph. They claimed that the selection of the caliph must be assigned to people. However, Abu Bakr reversed his opinion at the end of his lifetime by selecting 'Umar as his successor.

'Umar also chose a new method, confessing that selecting Abu Bakr had not been Muslims' option. Consequently, he established a council comprising of six people who would select one of themselves as the caliph by consulting with each other. 'Umar had obliged all the people to conform to the final agreement of the council and commanded to cut off any opponents' head. Imam Ali (a) had anticipated the council would select 'Uthman, since the appointed members all had the same bias. Read more...