Life at a glance
A literate, tall, strong man who had been the ambassador of Quraysh to the tribes and was feared for his severity, he went out one day with his sword to kill the Prophet ﷺ and came back a Muslim.
The Quran and Umar
Umar's special connection to the Quran is that revelation repeatedly came down agreeing with what he had already said. The scholars call these the muwafaqat of Umar.
Umar said: "My Lord agreed with me in three matters. I said, 'O Messenger of Allah, if only we took the Station of Ibrahim as a place of prayer,' and the verse came down: 'Take the Station of Ibrahim as a place of prayer' (2:125). I said, 'O Messenger of Allah, righteous and unrighteous men enter upon your wives; if only you ordered them to be veiled,' and the verse of hijab came down (33:53). And when the wives of the Prophet ﷺ united in jealousy, I said to them, 'If he divorced you, his Lord might give him wives better than you,' and the verse came down with the same words (66:5)."
Umar prayed: "O Allah, give us a clear and healing ruling on wine." Verse after verse was revealed, each stricter, until "so will you desist?" (5:91) came down. Umar said: "We have desisted, we have desisted." The prohibition of alcohol was, in the words of the narrators, an answer to Umar's prayer.
After Badr, Abu Bakr advised ransom for the captives and Umar advised severity. The Prophet ﷺ inclined to Abu Bakr's mercy; then the verse came: "It is not for a Prophet to have captives until he has subdued the land…" The Prophet ﷺ said the next day, weeping: "The punishment came closer than that tree; had it come, none would have escaped it except Umar."
When the Prophet ﷺ rose to pray over the hypocrite Abdullah ibn Ubayy, Umar took hold of his garment: "Will you pray over him when your Lord has forbidden you?" The Prophet ﷺ replied that he had been given a choice. Then the verse came: "Never pray over any of them who dies." Umar said: "I was astonished at my boldness, and Allah and His Messenger know best."
"Then Allah is his protector, and Jibril, and the righteous of the believers." Commentators including Mujahid, al-Dahhak and Ibn Zayd say "the righteous of the believers" here means Abu Bakr and Umar: the two fathers-in-law of the Prophet ﷺ, named alongside Allah and Jibril as his supporters.
The verse of lowering voices, revealed about Abu Bakr and Umar: "Those are the ones whose hearts Allah has tested for God-fearing; for them is forgiveness and a great reward."
"O Prophet, Allah is sufficient for you, and those who follow you of the believers." Ibn Abbas reports that this verse was revealed at the moment Umar accepted Islam, when the number of believers reached forty.
Umar frequented the Jewish school of Madinah to hear the Torah. When they said Jibril was their enemy, Umar answered from the Torah itself that Jibril and Mika'il could not be enemies. He came to the Prophet ﷺ and found the verse had just come down: "Say: whoever is an enemy of Jibril, it is he who brought it down upon your heart by Allah's leave…" The Prophet ﷺ said: "Your Lord has agreed with you, Umar."
What the Prophet ﷺ said about him
Umar was the answer to a prophetic prayer. Thereafter the Prophet ﷺ described him as inspired, as the possessor of knowledge, as one before whom Satan takes another road, and as the man who would have been a prophet had there been one after him.
"O Allah, strengthen Islam by the more beloved to You of these two men: Abu Jahl or Umar ibn al-Khattab." Ibn Umar adds: "And the more beloved of the two to Allah was Umar." The prayer was made on a Wednesday; Umar believed on Thursday.
"Among the nations before you there were people who were spoken to (by inspiration). If there is one in my nation, it is Umar." Scholars explain "muhaddath" as one whose heart is inspired with the truth without prophethood. The verses that agreed with him are its evidence.
"Were there a prophet after me, it would have been Umar ibn al-Khattab." Narrated by Uqbah ibn Amir. Since there is no prophet after him, the words describe the highest rank a non-prophet can reach.
"While I was sleeping I drank milk until I saw its moisture flowing in my nails; then I handed the rest to Umar." They asked, "How do you interpret it?" He said: "Knowledge."
"I saw people shown to me wearing shirts, some reaching the chest, some shorter; and Umar passed by wearing a shirt that trailed on the ground." "How do you interpret it?" "Religion." Umar's religion, in the Prophet's dream, was longer than everyone's.
"O son of al-Khattab, by Him in whose hand is my soul, Satan never meets you walking down a path except that he takes a path other than yours."
"I entered Paradise and saw a palace of gold. I asked: whose is this? They said: a man of Quraysh… Umar ibn al-Khattab. Nothing stopped me from entering it except my knowledge of your protective jealousy." Umar wept: "Would I be jealous towards you, O Messenger of Allah?"
The dream of the well continues: "Then Ibn al-Khattab took the bucket and it turned into a huge bucket in his hand. I never saw a genius among men draw as Umar drew, until the people had watered their camels and settled." The ten years of conquest and order, seen before they happened.
"Allah has placed the truth on the tongue of Umar and in his heart." Narrated by Ibn Umar and Abu Dhar. Ibn Umar adds: "No matter befell the people about which they and Umar held different opinions, except that the Quran came down as Umar had said."
"Follow the two who come after me: Abu Bakr and Umar."
"I see the devils of jinn and men fleeing from Umar." And: "There is an angel who speaks on the tongue of Umar" (Musnad Ahmad). His severity was the severity of truth.
When Umar came to the garden where the Prophet ﷺ sat by the well, Abu Musa was told: "Open the door for him and give him glad tidings of Paradise." The same was said for Abu Bakr before him and for Uthman after him "with a trial that will befall him."
The Companions on Umar
Ali ibn Abi Talib
Standing over Umar's shrouded body, Ali said: "You have left behind no one whom I would rather meet Allah with the like of his deeds than you. By Allah, I always thought Allah would place you with your two companions, for I often heard the Prophet ﷺ say: 'I went, and Abu Bakr and Umar; I entered, and Abu Bakr and Umar; I went out, and Abu Bakr and Umar.'" (Bukhari 3685; Muslim 2389). Ali named the order of virtue: Abu Bakr, then Umar (Bukhari 3671), and gave his daughter Umm Kulthum to Umar in marriage.
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
"If the knowledge of Umar were placed in one pan of a scale and the knowledge of the people of the earth in the other, Umar's knowledge would outweigh it." He also said: "I reckon that nine-tenths of knowledge went with Umar" (al-Hakim 3/86; al-Tabarani).
Aishah, Mother of the Believers
"Whoever mentions Umar mentions a dignified man, and by Allah he was skilful and complete in his affairs, one of a kind." When asked to allow his burial beside the Prophet ﷺ and her father she said: "I had wanted it for myself, but today I will prefer him over myself" (Bukhari 1392).
Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman
Keeper of the Prophet's secrets about the hypocrites: "Islam was like a man walking forward; when Umar was killed, it turned to walking backward." Ibn Abbas: "The day Umar died, it was as if the sun had been extinguished." Sa'id ibn Zayd: "By Allah, Umar's Islam was a conquest for all Muslims."
Talhah and Zubayr
When he was struck down and the council was named, the men of the Shura wept and each of them refused to be preferred over him. Talhah: "We would not have wanted anything after the Prophet ﷺ except what Umar ordered." Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf: "The most sound of people in judgment after the Prophet ﷺ was Umar."
A voice from outside
The Byzantine envoy who came to Madinah asked for the palace of the king who had defeated Rome and Persia, and was shown Umar asleep on the ground under a tree with no guard. He said the words that have been repeated ever since: "You ruled, so you were just; so you were safe; so you slept." (al-Tabari; Ibn al-Jawzi, Manaqib Umar)
Ten years that built the Islamic Empire
Historians count more than thirty institutions that Umar founded for the Islamic Empire and which Muslims still use today.
The Hijri calendar
In 16 AH, at Ali's suggestion, he fixed the Hijrah as year one of the Muslim era and Muharram as its first month. Every Islamic date since carries his decision.
The register and the treasury
He established the Diwan: a census of every Muslim with a fixed stipend, beginning with the wives of the Prophet ﷺ and the veterans of Badr. The Bayt al-Mal became a public treasury with accounts. He allotted stipends to newborn infants, and to non-Muslim elderly who could no longer work.
Judges, police, prisons, cities
He appointed independent judges (Shurayh in Kufa, Ka'b ibn Sur in Basra), created a night patrol, built the first prison, founded the garrison cities of Kufa, Basra and Fustat, and set the rules that governed the conquered lands: the farmers kept their land and paid a tax, and the army did not take estates.
Tarawih in congregation
He gathered the people behind one reciter, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, for the night prayers of Ramadan, and looking at them said: "What an excellent innovation this is," meaning a good practice revived from the Prophet's own three nights of leading it (Bukhari 2010).
The two mosques and the Hajj
He expanded the Prophet's mosque and the Sacred Mosque in Makkah, moved the Maqam Ibrahim to its present place to ease tawaf, built rest-houses along the Hajj route, and dug canals. He led the Hajj every year of his caliphate.
Jerusalem and the Covenant
Patriarch Sophronius would surrender only to the caliph himself. Umar came with one servant and one camel, taking turns to ride, and entered the city on foot with the servant mounted. He refused to pray inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so that Muslims would not later claim it. He cleared the Temple Mount with his own hands and prayed where the Aqsa mosque now stands. His written covenant guaranteed the people "security for their persons, their property, their churches and their crosses."
Persia and Rome
Yarmuk (15 AH), Qadisiyyah (15 AH), Damascus, Homs, Jerusalem, Mada'in, Jalula, Egypt, Alexandria, Nahavand (21 AH). At his death the Muslims ruled from Libya to Khorasan. He forbade his commanders to advance further, saying: "I wish there were a mountain of fire between us and Persia."
Accountability
He forbade his governors fine clothes, gates or barriers between them and the people, took inventories of their wealth on appointment and dismissal, and confiscated any increase. He said: "If a mule stumbled in Iraq, I fear Allah would ask me why I did not pave the road for it."
The night patrols
He walked Madinah at night in disguise. He carried flour on his own back to a woman whose children were crying with hunger, and cooked it for them himself. He found a Bedouin woman in labour in a tent and sent his wife Umm Kulthum, the daughter of Ali, to deliver the child. He heard a girl refuse to mix water into milk because "the Amir al-Mu'minin cannot see us but his Lord can" and married her to his son; their descendant was Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz.
Hafsah and the Quran
The single collected copy of the Quran made under Abu Bakr passed to Umar and then to his daughter Hafsah, from whom Uthman later took it to make the standard copies. The Book was in his house for the whole of his caliphate.
Character and sayings
Two lines on his face from weeping. A cloak with twelve patches. A whip more feared than a sword. A heart that was softened by the Quran.
His fear of Allah
He would hold a straw and say: "Would that I were this straw; would that I were nothing." He passed a verse of punishment in the night prayer and fell ill for days from weeping. He said: "By Allah, if I had the earth full of gold, I would ransom myself with it from the terror of what lies ahead, before I see it."
His family
Wives included Zaynab bint Maz'un (mother of Abdullah and Hafsah), Umm Kulthum bint Ali, and Atikah bint Zayd. Children: Abdullah, the great jurist and hadith narrator; Hafsah, Mother of the Believers; Asim; Ubaydullah; Zayd; and others. His descendant Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz is called the fifth Rightly Guided Caliph.
Scholars through the ages
Imam Abu Hanifah
"The best of people after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is Abu Bakr, then Umar." His own school of law took its foundations from the rulings of Umar, Ali and Ibn Mas'ud as preserved in Kufa, the city Umar founded.
Imam Malik
The Muwatta records Umar's rulings on more issues than any other caliph's; Malik said: "The practice of Madinah was the practice of Umar."
Imam al-Shafi'i
"The truth rested on the tongue of Umar, and the Muslim nation agreed upon his caliphate as they agreed upon Abu Bakr's."
Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH)
Wrote an entire book, Manaqib Amir al-Mu'minin Umar ibn al-Khattab, collecting hundreds of reports of his rulings, his night patrols, his weeping and his justice.
Al-Dhahabi
In the Siyar: "He was the Faruq, the one who separated truth from falsehood, the greatest of the Muslim nation after the Siddiq, the most God-fearing of caliphs and the most just; the verses agreed with him and the Prophet ﷺ testified for him."
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
In Fath al-Bari: "The reports of the Quran agreeing with Umar reach twenty or more; this is a distinction shared by no other Companion."
Imam Ahmad Raza Khan
Matla' al-Qamarayn, "The Rising of the Two Moons", is his treatise on the precedence of Abu Bakr and Umar over the rest of the Muslim nation, presented as the agreed view of the Companions and of the four Imams. He calls Umar "Faruq-e-A'zam", the Greatest Discerner, and cites the hadith "Allah placed truth on Umar's tongue and heart" as its explanation.
In Kanz al-Iman the verses that came down in agreement with Umar are noted in Khaza'in al-Irfan with the words: "This was among the agreements of Umar with his Lord." He also insisted that love of Umar and love of Ali are one love, pointing out that Ali gave Umar his daughter in marriage and called him the best after Abu Bakr.
Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi (d. 1176 AH)
In Izalat al-Khafa 'an Khilafat al-Khulafa he devotes a large section to Umar as the caliph who fulfilled the aims of the caliphate most completely: spreading the religion, establishing justice, and organising the Islamic Empire.
Sources for this page
Hadith collections
- Sahih al-Bukhari: 23, 82, 402, 1392, 2010, 3664, 3671, 3679–3689, 3700, 4670, 4845
- Sahih Muslim: 1763, 2389–2399
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi: 2459, 3049, 3662, 3681, 3682, 3686, 3687; Abu Dawud 2962, 3670; Ibn Majah 106, 108; Nasa'i 5540; Musnad Ahmad; al-Hakim vol. 3
Tafsir
- Al-Tabari and al-Suyuti (al-Durr al-Manthur) on 2:97, 2:125, 5:90–91, 8:64, 8:67–68, 9:84, 33:53, 66:4–5
- Al-Wahidi, Asbab al-Nuzul; Kanz al-Iman with Khaza'in al-Irfan
Biography and scholarship
- Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat vol. 3; al-Tabari, Tarikh; Ibn Abd al-Hakam, Futuh Misr
- Ibn al-Jawzi, Manaqib Umar; al-Suyuti, Tarikh al-Khulafa; al-Dhahabi, Siyar; Ibn Hajar, al-Isabah and Fath al-Bari; Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-Awliya vol. 1
- Shah Wali Allah, Izalat al-Khafa; Ahmad Raza Khan, Matla' al-Qamarayn; Fatawa Ridawiyyah