The Madīnan School: Umar bn Al-Khattāb
He is Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ibn Nufayl al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī (radiyallāhu ʿanhu). Born approximately thirteen years after the Year of the Elephant. He accepted Islām in the sixth year of the Prophethood and became one of the strongest supports of the Dīn. He migrated to Madīnah, participated in the major battles, and after the death of Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq was chosen as the second of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. He ruled for ten years and six months, during which the conquests spread, the Dīn was strengthened, and justice was established in a manner that became proverbial.
He sought knowledge directly from the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ and was among the most learned of the Companions in the Book of Allāh and the Sunnah. His understanding of the rulings of the Sharīʿah was profound; the Prophet ﷺ himself testified to his strength in the Dīn. He was known for his intense fear of Allāh, his frequent weeping, his night prayer, and his severe accountability of himself. He would patrol the streets of Madīnah at night to check on the condition of the people.
His major teachers were the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ and the senior Companions. Among those who took knowledge from him were the great Tābiʿīn of Madīnah: Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr, and many others of the Seven Fuqahāʾ and those around them.
He left no compiled books, for the Companions did not author in the later sense, yet his fatāwā, his letters to the governors, and his judicial decisions form a major foundation of the fiqh of Madīnah.
His dedication to the Dīn was total: he would say, “If a sheep were to stumble on the banks of the Euphrates, I would fear that Allāh would ask me about it.”
Among his most notable statements: “Account yourselves before you are accounted, and weigh your deeds before they are weighed for you.” And his famous saying: “We were the most humiliated of people, then Allāh honoured us with Islām; if we seek honour in anything other than what Allāh honoured us with, Allāh will humiliate us.”
He was martyred in Madīnah in Dhū al-Ḥijjah of the year 23 AH, stabbed while leading the Fajr prayer, and was buried beside the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ and Abū Bakr.
May Allah unite us with him in the Firdaws, āmīn
(Named by an-Nasāʾī at the head of the fuqahāʾ of Madīnah from the Companions.)
