The Khilafa Of Umar RA

 

 

2.  THE KHILAFA OF UMAR RA

 

After consulting the leading sahaba the dying Abu Bakr  RA dictated to Uthman RA his political will. What in effect he said was more or less like this: “I am in a state and at a time when absolute sincerity and honesty is the only feasible course to take.  I advise you to elect Umar RA after me for he is strong and pious and his inner is better than his outer. He has been very close to Rasulullah sws who valued him very greatly at all times. Yet I am no prophet and I cannot know the ghaib (the Unseen) and what I am saying is only my opinion and you are the masters of your affairs and are entitled to decide any way you wish. May Allah’s peace be on you”.

 

Umar RA was duly elected then and this time Ali RA took no chances but immediately submitted to the new khalifa.  He became even closer to Umar RA then he had been to Abu Bakr RA and Umar always consulted him in all matters and almost obeyed him in legal matters as he regarded Ali RA as the most competent mufti of the times.  He also valued Ibn Abbas RA despite his youth (20s) for not only his erudition but his political genius. The Jewish convert Ka’b al Ahbar was also kept near but more cautiously.  Selman, Abu Derda, Abu Ubaida RAA were loved more then the other on account of their model piety and what we may call in today’s terms ‘sufi’ humility which Umar RA himself aspired at.  Ali RA was as good as any in his piety and superior in his learning and matchless in his jurisprudence but the relations between him and the khalifa was less warm, because Umar RA always feared that Ali RA could be exploited by his clan and large circle of admirers who regarded him as the natural but cheated successor to the Prophet sws (Ali always protested that he had no claims against either Abu Bakr and Umar RAA) although his clan might well not had been as claimless).   Still their relations had enough sincere mutual respect and caused no problems whatsoever all the time Umar RA was in charge.  For his part Ali Ra suffered from the jealousy of some lesser characters.  The lesson we must take is that we were, are and  shall be fallible men and we better watch out not to do wrong to others by our complacent view of ourselves or be disappointed by others by assuming too naively their perfection or too cynically their meanness.  The hearts’ secrets and the souls’ potentials only Allah knows and can change. 

 

Umar’s more serious reservations was about  Khalid b. Walid RA, among others.  This most daring and brilliant general of the Prophet sws was a pious enough muslim but seemed a bit rough and ready if not unscrupulous in his behavior in war and victory. He was severally accused of wanton acts like killing surrendering enemies after refusing their protests about being believers. In one particularly bad case he was accused of killing one such man in order to appropriate his beautiful wife whom he sure enough married almost immediately.   The Prophet sws heard the complaints and did not turn a blind eye to them;  he explicitly disowned and deplored Khalid’s behavior by praying apologies “O Allah I take exception to what Khalid did….”  but refused to punish him with more than a strong rebuke which was far less than his accusers would like. 

 

In compensation he had blood money paid to his victim’s families. And the Prophet sws was judicially justified;  the accusers could not prove their case to the requirements of legal standards  at a court of law and Khalid  had not confessed to any crime but had defended his conduct as due to an error of judgement.  No capital punishment could be applied and blood money had to be enough. But there is another aspect to the same case. In this behavior of the best of men sws we find a golden rule:  If somebody is too precious to a community’s welfare his errors and even guilts are to be dealth with more carefully and judiciously than others, provided he can be improved by more work on him.  A vital  asset cannot be thrown away in order to satisfy cut and dried principles lest more harm is caused than good to a community in desperate straits (in times of national emergencies it has been the honoured practice of all governments to reprieve even convicts and outlaws at large and instead recruit them to the defence and also reward them handsomely for their services so done). In other words this is another example of the insightful realism (like in and superior to Khidr’s  AS) of the Messenger of Allah sws which is often so lacking in theoretically and romantically inclined leaders of Islam who would like to see things, like idealist and therefore impractical philosophers, in terms of rigid principles, black and white but no greys, full punishment or full reward but nothing in between.

 

Abu Bakr had the same realism and had also refused to punish Khlaid too harshly as Umar kept asking for.  After pestered and pressed to hard by Umar in one particular case Abu Bakr had to excuse himself by saying to Umar (RAA):  “Umar, I am not prepared to put back into its sheath a sword Allah unsheathed on His enemies”-  exactly as the Prophet sws would have said.  Mind you, today’s some fundamentalists ideal of a ruler is not Rasulullah sws or Abu Bakr but Umar RA, although nobody would dare to admit it openly and in fact nobody is even aware of the contradiction-  it must be an unconscious element in their mentality.  Their own grim and harsh inclinations they think is justified by Umar’s forgetting that Umar’s inner was far better than his outer and he at times acted with tenderest forgiveness and charity. All the same,  a funny example about the slight difference between the Prophet’s attitude towards common human failings and Umar’s may be gleaned from the following  hadith:

 

Reports Aisha RA: One day we were sitting with the Prophet sws. Some noises were heard from outside.  The Prophet sws went out. He saw that an Ethiopian woman was dancing outside and people were watching.  He said “Aisha! Come and watch”.   I went out and putting my cheek on the Prophet’s shoulder (see the display of love between man and wife in public) I began to watch the dancing woman. She danced quite a long while.  At one time the Prophet sws asked “Aisha,  have you watched enough?”.   To measure his love for me I said “No, I haven’t watched enough”.   At last I saw that he was becoming tired and leaning on one foot and then the other.  Then Umar RA arrived at the scene and the people fled for fear of him.  Then the Prophet sws remarked “I have seen devils of men and jinn run away when Umar RA arrived (Taberani). 

 

This very interesting and instructive story is not the only story highlighting the difference between Rasulullah sws (and his closest emulator Abu Bakr on the one hand)  and Umar (RAA).  That Rasulullah sws felt it necessary not to pressurize ordinary people too much as regards their immature and perhaps also slightly impious acts is obvious enough from this hadith. After all he is inviting no less than the mother of believers Aisha RA to indulge herself as well.  In a similar hadith about a troupe of Ethiopian musicians and dancers performing right in the MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET sws we find the Prophet sws similarly inviting Aisha RA to watch as long as she wanted, with himself in attendance! 

 

She comments “Considering how I was treated (by Rasulullah sws) please indulge girls who are young and interested in play and entertainment”  (Bukhari and Muslim).  This measured tolerance of populace’s ‘unweanable from’ desire for some fun thus becomes a ‘ruhsa’ (tolerant permission) and Sunna which Sunna many later harsher Islamists failed to grant and did a lot of damage to public mental health as a result.  See also how the TOP authority od Islam, namely Rasulullah sws not only allowed the his HOLIEST mosque to be utilized as a theatre to peform music and dance BY NON-MUSLIM AND SECULARLY acting entertainers!   In toady’s mosques sometimes perfectly pious muslims can be thrown out violently for not wearing socks or wearing short sleeves!  Music in there let alone dance?  Murder.    

 

Yet despite Umar’s slight difference with the Prophet sws in matters of tolerance his attitude served him well when he subsequently ruled over muslims. Umar RA proved just the right person for the job at the time because rapid expansion of Islam had brought in waves and waves of new and imperfect muslims whose popular impieties could drown Islam. He had to be rather harsh in matters of public morals. Or Allah (and His most enlightened servants the Prophet sws and Abu Bakr RA) modified the qualities of the ruler in anticipation of the modification in  men to follow.  This is a good example of what Sufis call ‘wahdat al wujood’, i.e., the Unity of Being-  It does not mean any of those myriads of arcane neo-Platonic or Vedantic obfuscations;  it simply means, according to Prophet’s Academy’s erudition and insight this: “All individual existents whether tangible objects or flowing events are inevitably united in their ultimate obedience to Allah so much so that they as a whole do nothing but implement and enact Allah’s Will without exception or fail”.  Each object (e.g, person) and event may individually be praised or deplored quite legitimately but the whole is never mistaken or misguided.  That is wahdat al wujood. 

 

Read if you wish:  “Are they seeking a religion other than Allah’s to Whom are submissive and subservient all that are in the heavens and earth, willingly or unwillingly and unto Whom they shall return?” (3: 83). 

 

Add this the hadith: “A jew came to the Prophet sws and asked him about (free)will. The Prophet sws answered “Will is only Allah’s”. “If I will now to stand up shall not this will be mine?” asked the jew. “It is Allah Who willed your getting up” said the Prophet sws.  “OK, I (instead) want to sit (opposing   Allah)”  the jew made another go.  “It is Allah who willed your sitting down” the Prophet” sws rejoined and it dragged on in the same wise (Baihaki and Awzai).  Why? Because whatever the jew or anybody else is doing is unseparable from Allah’s Will Who is running the whole show down to the last particle in universe.  Our good and evil comes not from our acts as such but our intentions behind them, our willingness or unwillingness in serving Allah despite serving Him all the same.       

 

Returning to for Umar’s  rule. He presided over three fantastic developments in Islam. 

Firstly he presided over vastest and fastest ever (and after) as well as wisest and most lasting  conquests by any ruler in Islam.  Syria, Egypt and Persia fell to his victorious armies faster than they had fallen to Alexander and the generals he appointed to command these armies were mostly the most pious of senior sahaba a few like except Amr b. As and Mughira b. Shu’ba, while Khalid he had immediately demoted (RAA).  Among his saintly commanders and governors were Abu Ubaida b. Jarrah, Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas and Selman al Farisi and for his part and to his great credit Khalid showed no sign of taking offence from his demotion but as  valiantly and brilliantly as before served under any commander Umar appointed (RA).  But his first commander-in- chief, namely Abu Ubaida b. Jarrah (“the trustee of my Umma”)  behaved no less graciously towards great Khlaid;  he constantly kept him next to himself and consulted him exhaustively on strategy.  Which provides another lesson in saintliness for us.  True and matured friends of Allah do not take offence from each other and whatever the fluctuations of fortune or choices for each they still keep their cordial and respective relations and cooperate as effectively as before in the way of Allah.  I personally suspect that Khalid RA was grateful to Umar RA for ‘exorcising’ him of his past immaturities and launching on him his path of true sainthood which is selfless piety for Allah.  Miracles began to issue from him as a result. In one case he had an argument with Christian priests who traditionally are very fond of miracles as proofs of faith.  Khalid RA drank the poison from a goblet they handed him saying the basmala and survived intact to the incredulous amazement of his challengers. 

 

He was the hero of the battle of Yarmuk in Jordan where he routed a mighty Roman army against all odds and in the process won to Islam his admiring opposite number, a certain general George who changed sides one night and attained martyrdom the next day (RA).  He and other wise Romans used to say “These are such an army that daytime they are most valiant fighters and night-time most pious monkish worshippers of God. How can we beat such an army?”

 

Another commander of Umar was Amr b. As the son of As b. Wail, one of the bitterest enemies of the Prophet sws.   Amr was one of  the greatest geniuses of Islam  alive and unlike Khalid was talented and proficient in more than one way. He was a wily diplomat and politician, a brilliant general and a far-sighted assessor of situations.  He conquered Egypt and ‘Afriqiyya’ (Middle of North African coast) on behalf of Umar and organized their administration so well that he was made its life-long governor. He both caused the Egyptian people to prosper and taxed them richly yet without hurt.  His wise rule caused many Egyptians to embrace Islam and soon they far outnumbered Christians.  He regulated the Nile far better than before opening large tracts of the desert around it to cultivation.  The Eastern Roman emperors watched the likes of Amr RA with incredulous admiration. Such almost overnight succces in strategy and administration of such novices outdoing millennia-seasoned Greeks and Romans in such arcane areas should really be credited to Islam and to Muhammad sws who brought and applied Islam to man’s development, but it was hard to see such glaring realities on the part of spiritually exhausted Byzantines. 

 

To put it in other words NO LEADER WHATSOEVER IN THE ENTIRETY OF KNOWN HISTORY HAS SUCCEEDED AS FAST AND AS COMPREHENSIVELY AS THE MESSNGER OF ALLAH sws in transforming a society after different society.  This is made even more incredible seeing that the raw material (Arabs) he started with was the rawest of all human materials any reformer could start with.  The time scale itself was dizzying. It took Greeks to learn from and outdo the Babylonians and the Egyptians more than a thousand years. It took the Romans to half attain the Greek level of culture more than five centuries. Yet it took the Prophet’s pupils barely fifty years to match the size of the Roman Empire at its vastest and to match the Greco-Roman culture it took them only  one hundred and fifty years.  Another hundred years and muslims far exceeded all ancient civilizations put together in every academic and industrial department and were being adopted by the Westren Europeans as their new cultural masters.  They mass- transated muslim tracts into Latin and Latinized the names of Muslim savants and held them is perhaps more awe than Plato and Aristotle whom they mainly read from muslim editions anyhow, which expanded and improved on them by groundbreaking new discoveries and brilliant commentary . Our master Umar RA has a big share (after the Prophet sws) in this miraculous outcome.

 

While Abu Ubaida and Amr were winning new territories and communities to Islam in the West Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas was colliding with proud and vast Sassanid Persia.  The Persians did not first take their Arab challengers seriously and could not believe their senses when they were lectured about spirituality and demanded to capitulate to Islam by muslims who were at their borders.  They lectured back contemptuously, offered economic aid and expected from muslims a beggarly thankful withdrawal.  But none came. Instead the two sides came into collision and at one single collision the whole Persian army had to turn back and flee before the barefooted and tattered muslims under the command of Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas RA who was suffering so badly from painful skin eruptions that he could never sit or lie on his back but had to survey the battle field lying on his face in a litter, moving from place to place and issuing commands.  Once the main Persian army was that day put to flight the rest fell like dominoes and within a few years muslims were looking into Central Asia from the Iranian plateau in the East. What is more Iranians embraced Islam even more massively than the conquered Romans and became almost its master race within a century, running the Abbasid court in Bagdad and staffing the Ababsid governorates all over the place.

 

His second major service to Islam is his organizing the political Medina into a very efficient imperial capital more effective than any other of his times.  He employed state officials strictly on meritocratic grounds and he proved an almost infallible judge of men’s characters and aptitudes.  He also kept a very close watch on them and did not hesitate to punish or remove any unsatisfactory ones. He employed also non-muslims in technical capacities like accountancy and women if he thought they were the best for the jobs on offer. For example his market inspector was a woman while his accountant was a Christian Greek.  He organized the army on a professional permanent basis and lodged permanent contingents in purpose-built barrack towns among which were Fustat (later Cairo) in Egypt and Kufa and Basra in Iraq.  He instituted postal service spanning the breadth and width of his growing empire and also became the architect of the first welfare state aiming at defeating poverty  across the board in society and irrespective of faith.  He was the first leader to introduce what is called today ‘Child Benefit’ and assessed and paid stipends to all deserving classes of citizens beginning with the Prophet’s family and widows, the veterans and orphans of the epic wars like the Badr and Uhud and all poor and disabled in general.  He paid regular benefits to the poor and pensions to the old and poor.  A particular case is instructive. During his inspections in a Syrian town he noticed an old Christian begging near  a mosque.  His enquiries showed that he was both lonely and infirm and therefore poor.  He remarked to those in attendance “We milked this man for his jizya (poll tax) when he was young and productive. We cannot now abandon him when he is old and unable to earn a living.  Let’s issue him a pension to live on”.

 

His third great service was to Islam as religion. He  warned about the danger of losing the Qur’an and had already instigated Abu Bakr RA to secure an authentic copy.  This was done and was deposited with Umar’s  daughter Hafsa RA the widow of the Prophet sws. The subsequent collection and verification of the Qur’an owed almost everything to this single wise act of Umar.

 

He appointed  police forces and courts of law with state- licenced judges all over Islamdom.  This made the Sharia applicable by state power and uniformly and not in a more or less arbitrary local ways. All legal services was free and accessible to all.

 

He defined and implemented most of the Sunna like the imposition of the tarawih prayers.  He curbed and cut in the bud  monastic innovations trying to spill over into Islam from conquered cultures.  In one case he found several men staying in the mosque as if it was a monastery and working at no jobs or trades at all but just spending their times with religious devotions.  Some people were naturally impressed and began to bring these self-styled men of God (monks) food and drink.  Umar RA confronted them head-on asking “May I ask why every time I come here I find you here?  Haven’t you got any work to do for your livelihood?”  “No o prince of the faithful, we are just worshipping Allah full time and our provision we are entrusting (tawakkul) to Allah” they said. Umar whipped them away shouting indignantly: “You know that neither gold nor silver rain from the sky and you have no right to live like parasites on the rest of the community”. 

 

The Prophet’s time’s scarcities had long been a thing of the past and Umar’s land was prosperous enough for any normal person to earn an adequate living.  No ‘ashab al suffa’ was necessary.  In the worst case his welfare state was prepared to pay a basic salary to each and every claimant.  All in all his services to Islam were only excelled by the Prophet sws and when Ali came to know better having burnt his fingers with his own khilafa experience he became terribly impatient with his rowdy and dreamy partisans who frequently insulted Abu Bakr and Umar.  He would climb his pulpit in Kufa mosque and shout loud invectives and threats to such hotheads.  In one instance he said “I hear that some among the people are saying that I am better than Abu Bakr and Umar and that they had usurped my rights and did this impiety or that. I swear by Allah that I do not concur with them; that Abu Bakr and Umar are the fathers of this umma and Rasulullah’s sws two worthiest friends and   confidants.  I shall regard anybody criticizing them as they are doing as slanderers and inflict on them the eighty lashes which is a slanderer’s punishment”.  Once he was stung by the criticism of his professed admirers “How come o Ali you are increasingly a failure while your predecessors were so successful?”.  He replied “Because they had advisers and helpers like me and I have advisers and helpers like you”. 

 

Umar  met his end as a martyr,  stabbed by a Persian slave called Abu Lu’lu who had an unjust grievance aginst him.  Umar had refused to reduce his contribution from his personal earnings to his master which contributions were the legally recognized level.  He sneaked on to him while he was leading a prayer and stabbed him.  It took Umar a few days to expire. He did not complain but took his fate almost cheerfully and spent his brief remaining time in tying any loose ends and arranging for his succession.

 

During the last years of his life one problem had began to give him sleepless nights.  Who could he offer as his successor?  He had twice saved Islam exploding into civil anarchy before.  He had ensured AbU Bakr’s unopposed succession and had proven himself in the eyes of all  worthy to succeed Abu Bakr.  Now he had to repeat the feat once more and ensure a smooth succession.  But where was that unanimously eligible candidate?  His friends the senior sahaba tried to help him by their various ideas but Umar could not decide on any one of them, all the time deploring the demise of Abu Ubaida b. Jarrah RA.  “Had he been around I would have no doubts but put him forward straightaway” he used to say.  At last he was forced to disclose his reservations on the few most eligible candidates.  “You are suggesting my son Abdullah” he once mused “But one martyr from one family is one too many”.  What is more Abdullah was  totally uninterested in ruling for he was very wise like his father and saw that only trouble laid ahead.  “As for Abdurrahman (b. Awf) he is a merchant with his mind at markets and fairs and has no interest in state affairs”.  And Abdurrahman agreed emphatically. He was a millionaire of the times all made from halal by great commercial acumen. “As for Uthman he is very pious and beloved to all (popular) but his inclination to his relatives is so inordinate that I am afraid his generally impious clan members will prevail over him and carry away everything to the consternation of the rest”.   “As for Ali, who can be more pious and learned than Ali, but he likes humor and joking too much (he is too humble for his own good) and I am afraid he will forfeit the dignity of the khilafa and fail to inspire the necessary respect and obedience with the result that factionalism and infighting will flare and proliferate and a lot of blood will be shed”-  all of which sadly came to pass as exactly prophesied.

 

“So” he said the only option that remains for me is to appoint a council of eligible sahaba.  I am appointing then Abdurrahman, Talha, Zubair,  Sa’d,  Uthman and Ali with all of whom the Prophet died pleased to choose one of their number to succeed me.  When I die arrest and put them together to work until they emerge with one of them as the new ruler for all the rest to submit”.

 

He then passed away peacefully having also obtained the permission of Aisha RA to be buried at the feet of Abu Bakr who was buried two years earlier at the feet of the Messenger of Allah sws. Umar had added “If Aisha does not grant this wish then bury me at the general cemetery of muslims the Baqy”.   Radiyallahu anhu wa ardahu (May Allah be pleased with him as I am pleased with him).

 

Brief description of Umar RA.  He was tall and strong-built with an imposing and intimidating aspect yet as tender and accommodating as a pussycat when his readily arousable compassion was played upon.

 

His temper was unstable and explosive but often very well controlled by his great piety and well-concealed inner softness.  Perhaps his most unmatchable ability was his almost instant insight into the reality of a situation or person.  He could immediately go to the very heart of a problem and would then act rapidly and execute the task necessary perfectly.  All this was secured by his extremely high intelligence (today’s IQ) yet he was never arrogant and argumentative but would defer to any better opinion opposing his with alacrity, thanking to and praying for the good adviser.  Which showed his through and through sincerity. He had so impressed the whole community in the ten years of his rule that when his expected death materialized the whole Medina descended into intense scock and broke into sobbing,  making observers say “No darker day descended on Medina after the Prophet’s own death than when Umar died”. 

 

Unlike Abu Bakr however, Umar is known to oppose or near-oppose the Prophet sws on a few occasions but all was forgiven on account of his underlying faith and loyalty. What is more in some other few cases his opinion proved better than the Prophet’s by Prophet’s unreserved admission as well as Allah’s subsequent confirmation.  His some wishes and suggestions soon afterwards materialized as Revealed legislation from Allah, the most notable case being the banning of alcoholic drink. He made so many hits that he caused the Prophet sws say “In every age there is a man in whose mouth Allah puts the word of truth, despite the man not being a prophet.  In our age Umar is that man”.  He sws also said “Was there to be a prophet after me he could well be Umar”.

 

Some theoretical thinkers may object that it is diminishing of the Prophet sws for us to believe that his opinion could be inferior to Umar’s however rarely. This is missing the magnificent point entirely.  The point is that Allah does not need any of us, none is indispensable to Him and the Prophet sws is the humblest person ever created as well as the greatest and he is mature enough to enjoy every bit Allah’s occasional show of independence from His creatures no matter whom, by making some excelling some at some time or other no matter who is excelling who in what.  This wonderful Prophetic trait we also should cultivate and acquire as all other Prophetic traits because that is what the Prophet’s Academy is founded for.