Umar ibn al-Khattab

c. 584 - 644 CE

The second Rashidun caliph. Set out with a drawn sword to kill the Prophet and returned that same day as a Muslim. Ruled an empire from Egypt to Persia and mended his own sandals. Killed at fajr prayer in the mosque.

Life

Umar ibn al-Khattab was among the most feared men of Quraysh, a giant of a Meccan raised in the pre-Islamic tribal ethic of strength and vengeance. He opposed Muhammad ﷺ violently in the early years of Islam, and set out one day with a drawn sword to end the Prophet's life. On the way he learned that his own sister and her husband had accepted Islam. He went to their house, struck his sister across the face, saw the blood on her cheek, and then asked to read the pages of the Quran she had been reciting. He read the opening of Surah Ta-Ha and never went back.

He became the second Rashidun caliph after Abu Bakr's death in 634 CE. Under his ten-year rule, Islam expanded from the Arabian peninsula to encompass Egypt, the Levant, Iraq, and Persia. He established the Islamic calendar. He instituted the Diwan (state register), the fixed monthly stipends for the community, the systematic taxation of the conquered lands, and the office of the qadi (judge). He walked the streets of Medina at night to check on the state of the poor. In the year of the famine (18 AH) he refused to eat meat or butter and swore he would not until the last citizen of Medina ate first.

He was killed at fajr prayer in 644 CE by Abu Lu'lu'ah, a Persian slave. He died in the mihrab of the Prophet's mosque, asking for the Prophet's forgiveness with his last breath.

Stories

Each story below is drawn from the classical Islamic sources and is told in longer form on its own page.