The day he set out with a drawn sword

Umar bin al-Khattab left his house one morning in the sixth year of the mission with a naked sword and the intention to kill the Prophet. Before nightfall he was in submission on the ground, weeping and asking to accept Islam.

In the sixth year of the Prophet Muhammad's mission in Mecca, Umar ibn al-Khattab was thirty years old and among the most feared and admired men of Quraysh. He was a giant. He was among the pre-Islamic Arabs known for his combination of strength and eloquence. And he was among the fiercest of the Prophet's opponents.

On the morning of the day in question, Umar took up his sword, tightened his belt, and walked out of his house on the way to the small early Muslim gathering to kill Muhammad ﷺ. He met a man on the way, one Nu'aym ibn Abdullah, who was also of Quraysh, but who had secretly accepted Islam. Nu'aym saw the sword and asked: where are you going, Umar? Umar answered: to kill Muhammad, who has broken up the tribes and insulted our gods.

Nu'aym answered him with a question that would change history. He asked: Umar, before you turn your sword on Muhammad, should you not first put your own house in order? Your sister Fatimah and her husband Sa'id have both accepted the religion you now go to destroy.

Umar turned and went to his sister's house. He arrived to hear her and her husband reciting from a small folio: some pages of the newly-revealed Quran that they had been reading together with a companion named Khabbab ibn al-Aratt. Khabbab, hearing footsteps, hid. Umar entered, struck his sister across the face, and drew blood. He turned on her husband. He beat them both. And then he saw the pages they had been reading. He picked them up.

What happened in Umar's chest at that instant is not recorded in the sources; only what came out of it. He looked at his sister with the mark of his own hand on her cheek. He said: take me to Muhammad. His sister said: not while you still have that sword. Umar unbelted his sword and set it down. He was taken to the house of al-Arqam, where the small early Muslim community used to gather. He knocked. A companion looked through the door and saw the giant standing in the street with his hand where a sword would usually be.

Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet's uncle, who had accepted Islam only recently and who was himself feared, said: if Allah wants his good, he will accept Islam. If not, we will kill him now before he kills us. And the door opened. Umar entered. The Prophet ﷺ stood up, took him by the folds of his cloak, and pulled him close and said: what has brought you, ibn al-Khattab? Umar answered: I have come to declare my belief in Allah and His Messenger.

The Prophet ﷺ called out Allahu Akbar, and the gathering with him called it back so loudly that the streets of Mecca heard the takbeer. That was the day the Muslim community stopped meeting in secret. Umar's first act after accepting Islam was to walk out of al-Arqam's house and lead the Muslims to pray at the Kaaba in broad daylight. He said: from this day, the Muslims will pray in front of the Kaaba, and whoever objects, let him step forward.

The Prophet ﷺ named him al-Faruq, "the one who distinguishes truth from falsehood," on the day of his conversion. History has called him that ever since.

What the story teaches

The story of Umar's conversion is remembered by Muslims as one of the most beloved conversions in Islamic history for a reason. It is the story of a man who set out to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and who was disarmed not by an argument or a sword but by three lines of the Quran read aloud from behind the door of a family member he had just struck. It says something about the Quran that no debate about the Quran will settle: that its verses, in the right moment, disarm the very people they should not be able to reach. And it says something about Umar that hardened Meccans had not seen coming: that under all the tribal ethic of vengeance and strength was a man who could still be undone by two verses and the sight of his own hand's mark on his sister's face.