Imam Ali (peace be upon him): From Salman (may Allah have mercy on him) in the hadith of the bay'ah [it is narrated that] they brought Ali (peace be upon him) — while they had seized him by the collar — dragging him harshly and by force towards Abu Bakr, until they reached Abu Bakr, [while] Umar stood over his head with a sword in hand, and with him were Khalid ibn Walid al-Makhzumi, Abu Ubayda al-Jarrah, Salim the freedman of Abu Hudhayfa, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, Usayd ibn Hudayr and Bashir ibn Sa'd, and other people were seated around Abu Bakr with weapons slung upon them ... Ali (peace be upon him) entered, saying: "By Allah! Had my sword been in my hand, I would have made you know that no one other than me will attain [this position], and by Allah I do not blame myself, had I forty helpers I would have scattered your company. May Allah curse a people who pledged allegiance to me and then abandoned me ..." Umar rebuked him and said: "Give the bay'ah and cease this idle talk!" His Eminence said: "And if I do not?" He said: "We will kill you with humiliation." His Eminence said: "In that case you would be killing a servant of Allah and the brother of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family)." Abu Bakr said: "As for the servant of Allah, yes, but as for the brother of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family), we do not accept that of you." His Eminence said: "Do you deny that the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) established brotherhood between himself and me?" And he repeated this statement three times. Then Ali (peace be upon him) turned to the people and said: "O company of the Muhajirun and Ansar! I place you under oath by Allah: did you not hear what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said on the day of Ghadir Khumm, and [what he] said at the battle of Tabuk: 'O Ali (peace be upon him), are you not content that you should be to me as Harun (peace be upon him) was to Musa (peace be upon him), except that there is no prophet after me?'" Then the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) recounted, one by one, all the things the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) had said openly among the gathering of the Muslims in praise of Ali (peace be upon him), and the people confirmed and said: "By Allah, it is so." ... Ali (peace be upon him) said: "O Zubayr, O Salman, and you O Miqdad! I invoke Allah and Islam: did you not hear from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) that he said to me: 'So-and-so and so-and-so [until] he counted those five persons, have written a pact between themselves and made a covenant and signed it to carry out what they intend (that the caliphate not reach the hands of Banu Hashim)'?" They said: "By Allah, yes, indeed we heard this, that he was telling you this matter ... and he told you: if you find helpers, fight them and break with them ... and if you do not find helpers, give them the bay'ah and preserve your blood." Ali (peace be upon him) said: "By Allah, if those forty men who had pledged allegiance to me had remained faithful to their bay'ah, I would have waged jihad against you for the sake of Allah and in the way of Allah, and by Allah I [would not have let] any one of your descendants attain this position until the Day of Resurrection." ... Then, with the rope around his neck, before giving the bay'ah, he called out and pointed towards the grave of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) and said: ابْنَ أُمَّ إِنَّ الْقَوْمَ اسْتَضْعَفُونِی وَ کادُوا یَقْتُلُونَنِی [O son of my mother! Indeed the people reckoned me weak and were about to kill me].