Your First Question
Why didn’t the Companions discover the troublemakers with the eye of sainthood, with the result that three of the four Rightly‑Guided Caliphs were martyred? For it is said that even the lesser Companions were greater than the greatest saints?
The Answer: This matter comprises two stations.
First Station
The question may be solved by explaining as follows a subtle mystery of sainthood:
The Companions’ sainthood, known as the greater sainthood, is one that proceeds from the legacy of prophethood, and passing directly from the apparent to reality without travelling the intermediate path, looks to the unfolding of divine immediacy. Although this way of sainthood is very short, it is extremely elevated. Its wonders are few, but its virtues are many. Illuminations and wonderworkings are to be encountered on it only infrequently.
Moreover, the wonderworking of the saints is mostly involuntary; wonders appear from them unexpectedly as a divine bestowal. And the majority of such illuminations and wonderworkings occur during their spiritual journeying, as they traverse the intermediate realm of the Sufi path; they manifest those extra‑ordinary states because they have withdrawn to a degree from ordinary humanity.
As for the Companions, due to the reflection, attraction, and elixir of the company of prophethood, they were not obliged to traverse the vast sphere of spiritual journeying of the Sufi way. They were able to pass from the apparent to reality in one step, through one conversation with the Prophet (UWBP).
For instance, there are two ways of reaching the Night of Power, if it was last night:
One is to travel and wander for a year to reach it. One has to traverse a year’s distance to gain proximity to it. This is the method of those who embark on spiritual journeying, the way taken by most of those who follow the Sufi path.
The Second is to slip free of and be divested of the sheath of corporeality, which is restricted by time, to rise in the spirit and see the Night of Power, which was last night, together with the night of the ‘Id, which is the day after tomorrow, as being present like today. For the spirit is not restricted by time. When the human emotions rise to the level of the spirit, present time expands. Time, which for others consists of the past and the future, is as though the present for such a person.
According to this comparison, to reach the Night of Power one has to rise to the level of the spirit and see the past as though it were the present. Essentially, this obscure mystery is the unfolding of divine immediacy.
For example, the sun is near to us, for its light and heat are present in the mirror we are holding. But we are far from it. If we perceive its immediacy from the point of view of luminosity, and understand our relation to its reflection in our mirror, which is a similitude; if we come to know it by that means and know what its light, heat, and totality are, its immediacy is unfolded to us and we recognize it as close to us and we become connected to it.
If we want to draw near to it and get to know it in respect of our distance from it, we are compelled to embark on an extensive journeying in the mind, so that by means of thought and the laws of science we can rise to the skies in the mind and conceive of the sun there, and through lengthy scientific investigation understand its light and heat and the seven colours in its light. Only then may we attain to the non‑physical proximity the first man attained with little thought through his mirror.
Thus, like this comparison, the sainthood of prophethood and of the legacy of prophethood looks to the mystery of the unfolding of divine immediacy. The other sainthood proceeds mostly on the basis of proximity, and is compelled to traverse numerous degrees in spiritual journeying.
Second Station
The persons who were the cause of those events and instigated the trouble did not consist of a few Jews so that having discovered them the trouble could have been averted. For with numerous different peoples entering Islam, many mutually conflicting currents and ideas had confused the situation. Particularly since the national pride of some of them had been terribly wounded by ‘Umar’s (May Allah be pleased with him) blows; they were waiting to take their revenge. For both their old religions had been rendered null and void and their old rule and sovereignty, the source of their pride, been swept away. Knowingly or unknowingly, they were emotionally in favour of seeking vengeance on Islamic rule. It was therefore said that some clever, scheming dissemblers like the Jews took advantage of that state of society.
That is to say, it could have been averted by reforming the society and the various ideas of the time, not by discovering one or two troublemakers.
If It Is Asked: Why, with that piercing eye of sainthood of his, didn’t ‘Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) see his murderer, Firuz, who was with him, although while in the pulpit he said to one of his commanders called Sariya who was a month’s distance away, Sariya! The mountain, the mountain!, making Sariya hear it and in wondrous fashion causing a strategic victory – showing how penetrating his sight was?
The Answer: Our answer is that of the Prophet Jacob (UWP). That is, Jacob was asked: “How did you perceive the odour of Joseph’s shirt from Egypt when you did not see him in the well at Cana’an close by?” He replied: “This ability is like lightning; sometimes it appears and sometimes it is hidden. Sometimes we are as though seated on the highest spot and can see everwhere, and sometimes we can’t see even the arch of our foot.”
In Short: Man is free to act as he wills, still, in accordance with the verse, You do not will it except as Allah wills, divine will is fundamental, divine determining (kader) is dominant. Divine will restores man’s will. It confirms the statement, The eye no longer sees when divine determining acts; that is, when divine determining speaks, it is beyond human power to speak; man’s will falls silent.