Omar ibn al-Khattab

Omar ibn al-Khattab the second caliph of the Muslims (c. 584-644) and one of the most decisive rulers of the early Islamic state. His decade in office extended the young community from Arabia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia, organised the institutions of government, and established the political order of the early caliphate.

Early Life and Conversion

Umar ibn al-Khattab was born in Mecca around 584 into the clan of Adi of the Quraysh tribe. He was a strong, hot-tempered man, skilled in wrestling and known for his eloquence and his standing in the tribal order. Before his conversion he was among the fiercest opponents of the new religion preached by Muhammad.

His conversion, according to the traditional accounts, came when he set out to attack the Prophet and was turned back by hearing a recitation of the Quran. He embraced Islam in about 616 and immediately made his new faith public, which the small community took as a turning point that strengthened its confidence in Mecca.

He became one of Muhammad's closest companions, took part in the battles of Badr, Uhud and the Trench, and was present at the treaty of Hudaybiyya and the conquest of Mecca. His daughter Hafsa became a wife of the Prophet, binding him still more tightly to the household of the founder of Islam.

The Caliphate and the Great Conquests

Umar became caliph in 634, on the death of Abu Bakr, whose designated successor he was. He inherited a community already engaged in war against the two great empires of the age, and he directed that war with remarkable energy and strategic judgement, coordinating his generals from Medina rather than leading the armies in person.

Under his command the Muslims won the decisive battle of Yarmuk in 636, which broke Byzantine power in Syria, and the battle of al-Qadisiyya, which opened Persia to the Arab armies. Damascus, Jerusalem, Antioch and eventually Egypt and the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon fell within a decade, and the conquered territories were organised into provinces governed by appointed officials.

He was careful to distinguish conquest from conversion: Christians and Jews, as peoples of the book, were granted protection and the right to practise their religion in return for a tax, while the Muslim armies were kept apart from the settled population in garrison towns such as Kufa and Basra. This policy of accommodation preserved the administration, the wealth and much of the culture of the conquered lands.

Institutions of Government

Umar gave the emerging empire its administrative foundations. He established the diwan, a register of soldiers entitled to payment from the treasury, and laid down procedures for the collection and distribution of revenue. He appointed judges, fixed the calendar from the year of the Hijra, and organised the justice of the community on an impersonal basis.

He adopted the title Commander of the Faithful, which became the standard designation of the caliphs, and he ruled with an austere frugality that became legendary. He encouraged the study of the Quran, established schools, and appointed governors and commanders with an eye to ability rather than kinship, though his own family was not spared from his strictness.

His ordinances on land, taxation and the status of the conquered were of lasting importance. They set the pattern for the government of the Muslim empire and were cited by later jurists as precedents, giving the early community a framework of law and administration that outlived him.

Character, Justice and Piety

Tradition remembers Umar as a ruler of severe justice and personal humility, a man who patched his own clothes and walked the streets at night to learn the condition of the people. Numerous anecdotes describe him judging between rich and poor without favour and punishing his own son or officials when they wronged a subject.

He was strict in the observance of religion but pragmatic in government, and he consulted the leading companions on questions of policy. He is credited with a distinctive approach to legal reasoning, using judgement and the public interest where the Quran and the practice of the Prophet did not settle a matter, an approach that influenced the development of Islamic law.

His severity was matched by care for the poor and the weak: he established the treasury as a public trust, provided for widows and orphans, and sought to ensure that the wealth of the conquests reached the whole community rather than a privileged few. This image of a just ruler shaped Muslim political ideals for centuries.

Death and Legacy

Umar was assassinated in 644 at Medina by a Persian captive named Abu Lu'lu'a, who stabbed him while he led the morning prayer. Before he died he appointed a committee of six companions to choose his successor, and their choice fell upon Uthman ibn Affan. He was buried beside the Prophet and Abu Bakr.

His caliphate of ten years transformed a small religious community in western Arabia into a great empire. The conquests he directed changed the map of the Middle East and North Africa, and the institutions he created gave that empire the means to govern the lands it had won.

He is remembered in Islamic tradition as the greatest of the caliphs after Abu Bakr and as the model of the just ruler, an exemplar of piety, austerity and public duty. His life and administration have been studied as the foundation of Islamic political and legal order, and his name remains a byword for justice.

See also

• Rashidun Caliphate
• Battle of Yarmuk
• Umar's covenant
• Diwan