‘Umar Al-Fāruq
Bismillāh ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm
The second mirror we hold up is the life of the man whose strength balanced the gentleness of Abū Bakr, whose justice became proverbial across the lands, and whose fear of Allāh never left him even when the treasures of Kisrā and Qayṣar were placed at his feet.
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb
Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ibn Nufayl ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Riyāḥ ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Qurṭ ibn Razāḥ ibn ʿAdī ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī. His mother was Ḥantamah bint Hāshim ibn al-Mughīrah al-Makhzūmiyyah. He was born in Makkah thirteen years after the Year of the Elephant and was martyred in Madīnah at the end of Dhū al-Ḥijjah of the year 23 AH, at the age of sixty-three.
Ibn Saʿd and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr describe him as tall, strongly built, fair-skinned with a reddish tinge, balding at the front, with a thick beard that he dyed with ḥinnāʾ. Adh-Dhahabī in Siyar Aʿlām an-Nubalāʾ calls him “the Amīr al-Muʾminīn, the Fārūq of this Ummah, the one through whom Allāh strengthened Islām, the just, the ascetic, the mujtahid, the one who closed the doors of tribulation.”
In the days of Jāhiliyyah he was among the staunch defenders of the old order. His conversion came after he set out in anger to strike the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, only to be turned by the news that his own sister Fāṭimah and her husband Saʿīd ibn Zayd had entered the Dīn. He went to them, struck his sister, then was softened by the sight of her blood and by the words of Sūrat Ṭā-Hā. He rose, performed ghusl, and went to the house of al-Arqam, where he declared his Islām. The Prophet ﷺ gave him the kunyah Abū Ḥafṣ and later the title al-Fārūq.
From that day his strength was turned entirely to the service of the Dīn. He migrated openly to Madīnah, refusing to hide. He fought at Badr, Uḥud, the Trench, Khaybar, the Conquest of Makkah, and Ḥunayn. At Uḥud he was among those who remained when the lines broke. The books of the Salaf repeatedly describe his personality: a severity toward himself that never relaxed, a justice that made the weak feel safe and the strong feel restrained, a zuhd that left him in patched garments while the wealth of empires flowed into the treasury, and a constant fear of Allāh that caused him to walk the streets of Madīnah at night with a whip upon his shoulder, checking the markets and carrying flour upon his own back to a hungry widow and her children. Ibn Saʿd and Ibn Kathīr preserve these accounts. ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd said: “If the knowledge of ʿUmar were placed in one scale of the balance and the knowledge of all the living upon the earth in the other, the knowledge of ʿUmar would outweigh them.” ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said: “We used to say that the best of this Ummah after its Prophet are Abū Bakr then ʿUmar.”
When Abū Bakr appointed him successor, the Ummah accepted. Lisān ad-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb, continuing the same poem in Raqm al-Ḥulal fī Naẓm ad-Duwal, described the transition and the years that followed:
فَيَا لَهُ بَدْرَ هُدًى قدْ أَفَلا
واستخلفَ الفاروقَ لَمَّا رَحَلا
فَوَشَجَتْ للمِلَّةِ العُرُوقُ
لَمَّا تَوَلَّى أمْرَهَا الفاروقُ
والْتَأَمَتْ بعِزِّهِ الفُتُوقُ
واقْتُضِيَتْ بعَدْلِهِ الحقوقُ
وفُتِحَتْ في عهْدِهِ الفُتُوحُ
في خبرٍ مُجْمَلُهُ مَشْرُوحُ
ودَوَّنَ الدِّيوانَ للجِهَادِ
وقدَّرَ العطاءَ للأجْنَادِ
ثمَّ أَتَتْهُ محنةُ الشَّهَادَهْ
فَأَعْلَقَ الشُّورَى بتلكَ السَّادَهْ
“What a full moon of guidance has set!
He appointed the Fārūq as successor when he departed.
The roots of the millah became firmly intertwined
when the Fārūq took charge of its affairs.
The breaches were mended by his might,
and the rights were exacted by his justice.
The conquests were opened in his time—
a report whose summary has been fully explained.
He established the dīwān for the jihād
and fixed the stipends for the troops.
Then the trial of martyrdom came upon him,
so he entrusted the shūrā to those leaders.”
In the ten years of his Khilāfah, the borders of Islām expanded from the deserts of Arabia to the heart of the Persian Empire and the frontiers of Byzantium. The battles of Qādisiyyah, Yarmūk, and Nihāwand fell under his command or the governors he appointed. He established the dīwān, organised the stipends, fixed the calendar from the Hijrah, and expanded the Masjid an-Nabawī. He was the first to be called Amīr al-Muʾminīn. When the treasures of the Chosroes were brought before him he wept and said, “A people who give this to their leader are not safe from the loss of their Dīn.”
He was stabbed by Abū Luʾluʾah while leading the Fajr prayer. He lingered for some days, appointed a council of six to choose the next successor, and requested permission from ʿĀʾishah to be buried beside his two companions. She granted it. He was buried in the chamber of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ.
Among the most striking of the signs Allāh placed upon him are the instances in which the revelation coincided with his judgement—what the scholars call the Muwāfaqāt of ʿUmar. Al-Bukhārī and Muslim record that he said:
«وَافَقْتُ رَبِّي فِي ثَلَاثٍ: قُلْتُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ لَوِ اتَّخَذْنَا مِنْ مَقَامِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مُصَلًّى، فَنَزَلَتْ: ﴿وَاتَّخِذُوا مِنْ مَقَامِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مُصَلًّى﴾، وَقُلْتُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ يَدْخُلُ عَلَى نِسَائِكَ الْبَرُّ وَالْفَاجِرُ فَلَوْ أَمَرْتَهُنَّ أَنْ يَحْتَجِبْنَ، فَنَزَلَتْ آيَةُ الْحِجَابِ، وَاجْتَمَعَ نِسَاءُ النَّبِيِّ ﷺ فِي الْغَيْرَةِ فَقُلْتُ عَسَى رَبُّهُ إِنْ طَلَّقَكُنَّ أَنْ يُبْدِلَهُ أَزْوَاجًا خَيْرًا مِنْكُنَّ، فَنَزَلَتْ كَذَلِكَ.»
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said: «إِنَّ فِي الْقُرْآنِ لَرَأْيًا مِنْ رَأْيِ عُمَرَ.»
And Ibn ʿUmar reported from the Prophet ﷺ: «مَا قَالَ النَّاسُ فِي شَيْءٍ وَقَالَ فِيهِ عُمَرُ إِلَّا جَاءَ الْقُرْآنُ بِنَحْوِ مَا يَقُولُ عُمَرُ.»
The revelation also coincided with his view concerning the prisoners of Badr, the prohibition of wine after he had prayed, “O Allāh, give us a clear explanation concerning wine,” and other matters that the historians and the muḥaddithūn have gathered. These were not claims of independent legislation; they were signs that Allāh had placed the truth upon his tongue and heart in those moments.
Ibn Kathīr closes his account with the judgement of the Salaf that ʿUmar was a nation walking upon the earth. Adh-Dhahabī adds that he closed the doors of fitnah and opened the doors of justice.
This is the second mirror.
Look into it until your own sense of justice is sharpened, your own fear of Allāh increased, and your own attachment to the world loosened.
وصلى الله على سيدنا محمد وآله وصحبه وسلم
Bārakallāhu Fīkum.
