I sat with Abu Hurayrah for five years and heard him narrate from the Prophet ﷺ that he said, "The children of Israil were governed by the prophets. Whenever a prophet died, another prophet succeeded him. But there will be no prophet after me. There will, however, be caliphs, and they will be many."The companions asked, "What do you order us to do?"He replied, "Fulfill your pledge of allegiance to the first one, then the next, and give them their due rights that Allah has assigned to them. For Allah will question them about what He entrusted to their care."
حدثنا محمد بن جعفر حدثنا شعبة عن فرات سمعت
قاعدت أبا هريرة خمس سنين فسمعته يحدث عن النبي ﷺ أنه قال إن بني إسرائيل كانت تسوسهم الأنبياء كلما هلك نبي خلف نبي وإنه لا نبي بعدي إنه سيكون خلفاء فتكثر قالوا فما تأمرنا قال فوا ببيعة الأول فالأول وأعطوهم حقهم الذي جعل الله لهم فإن الله سائلهم عما استرعاهم
Its chain of transmission is sahih. Furat is Ibn Abu Abdul-Rahman Qazzaz Tamimi, whose reliability was established earlier at 1832. Yazid adds here that Ibn Abu Hatim gave his biography at 3/2/79. Bukhari related the hadith at 6:359, 361 of Fath, from Muhammad bin Bashshar, from Muhammad bin Jafar, the teacher of Ahmad here, with this chain, in similar wording. Muslim likewise related it at 2:87 from Muhammad bin Bashshar, through him. Muslim also related it again at 2:87 but did not give its wording in full. Ibn Majah related it at 2871. Both of these came by way of Abdullah bin Idris, from Hasan bin Furat, from his father, through him, in similar wording. Ibn Kathir mentioned it in Jami al-Masanid wal-Sunan 7:174, and pointed to the narrations of the two sheikhs (Bukhari and Muslim) and Ibn Majah.Regarding his saying "the prophets governed them," Ibn Athir said this means they took charge of their affairs, just as rulers and governors do with their subjects, and that "governance" means managing something in a way that sets it right. The Hafiz said in Fath, this means that whenever corruption appeared among them, Allah would send them a prophet who would set their affairs in order and remove whatever they had altered of the rulings of the Torah. In this there is an indication that a people must have someone in charge of their affairs, who guides them along the good path and gives the wronged justice against the wrongdoer.Regarding his saying "fulfil it," the Hafiz said this is an imperative verb meaning fulfilment. The meaning is that he commanded giving allegiance to one caliph after another, so the pledge to the first is valid and must be fulfilled, while the pledge to the second is void. He then said, Qurtubi said, this hadith rules on the pledge to the first, that it must be fulfilled, but is silent about the pledge to the second. This point is made explicit in the hadith of Arfaja in Sahih Muslim, where he said, "then strike off the neck of the other one."The hadith of Arfaja, to which Qurtubi referred, is found in Sahih Muslim 2:90, but its wording is, "whoever comes to you while your affairs are united under one man, seeking to split your unity or divide your community, kill him." As for the meaning Qurtubi is pointing to, it is found in the hadith of Abu Saeed Khudri, in Muslim at that same place, as a saying of the Prophet, "if allegiance is given to two caliphs, kill the latter of the two."