Muhammad died in Medina in 632 without having named an unambiguous successor, and the community he left behind had no established procedure for choosing one. Word of his death had not even fully settled before a group of the Ansar, the Medinan converts who had sheltered the Muslim community after its emigration from Mecca, gathered at the meeting hall of the Banu Sa'ida clan to discuss choosing a leader from among themselves. Sa'd ibn Ubadah, a senior figure among the Khazraj tribe, put himself forward, arguing the Ansar had earned the right to lead the community they had protected.
Abu Bakr and Umar, both close companions of Muhammad from the Muhajirun who had emigrated with him from Mecca, learned of the gathering and hurried to it rather than let the Ansar settle the question alone. Abu Bakr's argument was blunt: the wider Arab tribes would never accept the rule of anyone outside Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh, however deserving the Ansar's claim on grounds of service. Tempers ran high enough that a scuffle broke out around Sa'd ibn Ubadah himself. The turning point came when the Banu Aws, a rival Medinan tribe to the Khazraj, threw their support behind Abu Bakr rather than see a Khazraj leader installed, and Umar's pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr, followed by others gathering in the hall, settled the question before most of the wider community, including Muhammad's own household, had learned a meeting was taking place at all.