The boy among the veterans

Umar used to bring Ibn Abbas into the gathering of the old men who had fought at Badr. That was the most senior room in the Muslim world, and Ibn Abbas was decades younger than everyone in it.

Some of them objected — not to his face, but to Umar. We have sons the same age as him. Why is he here and they are not?

Umar did not argue. He waited, and then one day he called them in, and Ibn Abbas with them, and put a question to the room.

He asked them what they made of the passage about the help of Allah and the opening coming, and people entering the religion in crowds, and the instruction to praise and seek forgiveness.

Some said it was a command to praise Allah and ask forgiveness when help and victory came. Some said nothing at all.

Then Umar turned to Ibn Abbas and asked whether he said the same.

He said no. He said it was the Prophet's ﷺ term being made known to him — that he had been told his work was completed, and that what follows completion is departure.

Umar said that he knew of it only what Ibn Abbas knew of it.

The report is in Sahih al-Bukhari, and it is doing two things at once. It settles the question of why the boy was in the room. And it shows what Umar was actually selecting for — not information, which the veterans had far more of, but the ability to read a passage and see what it was doing.