The Conversion
Umar was actively persecuting Muslims when he heard that his sister Fatima and her husband had converted. He went to her home in anger, struck her when she tried to hide the Quran, then felt remorse when he saw her bleeding. He asked to read the page she had been reciting — from Surah Ta-Ha (20:1-14): “Ta Ha — We have not sent down to you the Quran that you be distressed… I am Allah; there is no deity except Me, so worship Me and establish prayer for My remembrance.”
Umar said: “How beautiful and noble is this speech.” He went to the Prophet, declared his Islam, and the Muslims — who had been 39 in number in secrecy — prayed openly at the Ka’ba for the first time.
His Caliphate and Justice
Umar’s 10-year caliphate expanded the Islamic state to include Persia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Yet his personal practices were opposite to imperial display:
- He wore a single garment, often patched
- He was seen carrying a water skin on his back delivering water personally to a woman of Medina
- He slept on the mosque’s floor when traveling
- He walked at night incognito to check on his people’s welfare
His justice was legendary: he once wrote to his governor in Egypt — when a poor Coptic man complained that the governor’s son had beaten him — “O Amr, since when have you enslaved people whose mothers gave birth to them free?”
His Death (644 CE)
He was stabbed by Abu Lu’lu’a al-Farisi during Fajr prayer in the mosque of the Prophet — struck six times while leading the prayer. He died from his wounds two days later. On his deathbed, he instructed his son to seek forgiveness from Ali for any injustice, and said: “I do not know anyone more deserving of this matter [caliphate] than the people of the consultative assembly.”
See also: Khilafa Rashida, Seerah Abu Bakr, Sahaba, Fitna Islamiyya, Seerah Uthman, Quran Sciences