The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

‘Umar b. al-Khattab (ca. 580–644)

A towering personality of nearly unrivaled stature in Sunni Islam, ‘Umar b. al-Khattab influenced the institutions and creation of the early Islamic polity—both as a caliph and a prominent Companion of the Prophet. He is popularly known as al-Fārūq, a title traditionally interpreted to mean “he who distinguishes right from wrong.” Arguably, due to his oversight of the earliest phases of the Islamic conquests outside peninsular Arabia, ‘Umar’s practical influence on the early Islamic polity can be seen to surpass even that of Muhammad himself. For posterity, ‘Umar’s formative role secured him the status of the incarnation of the ideal caliph, causing the many political leaders who succeeded him to associate their own practices with those of ‘Umar.

Virtually no major political institution of the early Islamic polity lacks the mark of ‘Umar’s acute political strategy. This applies equally to the minutiae of Islamic civil and criminal law and the larger features of the Islamic polity, such as the institution of Islamic judiciary and the marking of time by the hijrī calendar, beginning with Muhammad’s emigration (hijra) from Mecca and Medina in 622. Even the idea of the caliphate itself—especially as a linchpin institution uniting the entirety of the Muslim community (umma) and occupied exclusively by a member of the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraysh—emerges out of the united efforts of Abu Bakr (d. 634), Abu ‘Ubayda b. al-Jarrah (d. 639), and ‘Umar to maintain the political unity of Muhammad’s community in the wake of his death. As caliph, a position to which Abu Bakr appointed him before his own death in 634, ‘Umar imparted to the burgeoning Islamic polity its essential features and oversaw the transformation of the Medinan polity from one mainly preoccupied with the challenges of incorporating the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula into a single polity to a state that conquered Byzantine Egypt and Syria in the West and considerable Sasanian territories in the East.

‘Umar organized this enterprise of conquest principally on a meritocratic basis, leaning heavily on the prominent and capable emigrants (muhājirūn) who undertook the hijra from Mecca to Medina in 622. Preferring that the early Muslims not intermingle with the conquered populations, ‘Umar stipulated to the early Qurashi commanders that they establish their own garrison cities (amṣār) so as to avoid diluting the nascent, and thus still vulnerable, ethos of the Islamic conquest polity. From the amṣār, the early Arabian conquerors lived as the collective recipients, rather than the managers, of a massive tax base consisting of land taxes (kharāj) and poll taxes (jizya) culled from the local, conquered populations. ‘Umar, ostensibly basing his policy on earlier Sasanian models, distributed the wealth of these conquered lands through a system of regularized salaried pay (‘aṭā’) distributed according to a registry of warriors known as the dīwān. Within ‘Umar’s polity, the greatest political virtue and merit was that of precedence (sābiqa) in converting to Islam, and accordingly, one’s pay rate ideally corresponded with how early one converted to Islam and participated in the conquests. From these newly settled garrison cities—Kufa and Basra in Iraq in particular, but also Fustat in Egypt, as well as other settlements postdating ‘Umar’s caliphate—there swiftly emerged among the conquerors a new Islamic elite that rivaled in political and religious influence the historically more entrenched tribal elites. It was a dynamic system that propelled the conquests, but it was also one with acute contradictions that would eventually contribute to the undoing of the caliphate of ‘Umar’s successor, ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan (d. 656).

‘Umar’s leadership throughout the entirety of this process emanated from distant Medina, which he allegedly never left, except for one trip to Syria circa 636–38 in order to oversee the conquest of Jerusalem. Although traditions concerning this event are complex and often contradictory, focus often falls on the origins of an important political document known variously as “the Treaty of ‘Umar” (‘ahd ‘Umar) or “the Stipulations of ‘Umar” (al-shurūṭ al-‘umariyya), of which there exist many versions, resulting from ‘Umar’s negotiations with the local Christian inhabitants. This document has often been seen by Muslim legists as distilling the stipulations and restrictions to be placed on Jews, Christians, and other religious communities coexisting with Muslims in an Islamic state.

All of these accomplishments were no mean feat for a figure, even if known for his sternness, incorruptibility, and overpowering will, who began in Mecca as a person of little real political power. Although not among the first converts in Mecca, ‘Umar did join the ranks of the believers in Muhammad’s message at an early date, despite his initially strident and even violent opposition to the early movement. Tradition relates that his conversion transpired thanks in large part to his sister Fatima’s prior conversion and to Muhammad’s own prayers that God should strengthen Islam with ‘Umar’s support. Little evidence exists, however, for ‘Umar’s prominence in the Meccan period prior to the hijra, perhaps due to his lineage from a minor clan of the Quraysh, the ‘Adi b. Ka‘b. Upon his arrival in Medina, ‘Umar was swift to place himself in a good position politically with the city’s inhabitants through marriage alliances with locally prominent families. Sunni tradition highlights instances in which ‘Umar’s opinion on a matter presaged or prompted the revelation of Qur’anic verses—even when his opinions ran contrary to those of the Prophet himself. (Q. 2:125; 33:5; and 66:6 are the most famous, but tradition lists more than 30 other instances known as muwāfaqāt ‘Umar.)

‘Umar was a consummate political tactician without whom much of the success of the early Islamic conquests would probably not have taken place. The process, though not entirely under his control, was marked by his bold direction and his appointment and dismissal of its leaders. This is perhaps most observable in his unilateral discharge of Khalid b. al-Walid from command, indisputably the most effective and successful of all the military commanders of the Islamic polity. However, this can also be seen as his effort to marginalize the role and leadership of the Prophet’s clan, the Banu Hashim, and particularly his son-in-law ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, one of the many reasons for which Shi‘is have historically reviled him and sought to diminish the prominence of his persona.

Glorious as it was, the caliphate of ‘Umar ended bloodily and abruptly at the end of an assassin’s blade. Tradition alleges that ‘Umar foresaw the troubles to arise from the increased visibility and strength of non-Arab clients (mawālī; sing. mawlā) among the ranks of the early Islamic elite, particularly in the caliphal capital, Medina; indeed, his assassin was one such mawlā. He did not appoint his successor as Abu Bakr had done but instead bequeathed to his community one further institution: he transformed the pre-Islamic, Arabian consultative assembly, or shūrā, into a method for choosing the next caliph by appointing a quorum of prominent Qurashi Companions of the Prophet to choose the next caliph from among their own ranks.