The four khalifas and Mohammed’s close companions who formed the core of the Umma in this period were honestly striving to make the revelations work. Each of them had a handle on some essential aspect of the project, but no one of them was big enough to grasp the whole of it, as Mohammed had done. The Prophet’s immediate successors were like the six blind men trying to discern whether the elephant was more like a rope, a wall, a pillar, or what.
