A Dream of a Cock
In the last weeks of his life, in the month of Dhul-Hijjah of the twenty-third year of the Hijra, ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ dreamed a dream whose meaning he understood at once. He told it without ado to his closest companions ﵃, not in the tone of one who asks for explanation, but in the tone of one who has already received the message. Macdan ibn Abi Talhah transmits what he said:
ʿUmar ﵁: I saw in a dream as though a cock pecked me once or twice, and I can only believe that this means my term has come.
A cock, a red cock in some reports, a Persian cock in still others, a creature from a household with which no Arab had dealings without reason. ʿUmar ﵁ knew what the dream told him, and he shared his presentiment without fear and without protest. He was sixty-five or perhaps sixty-four years old, and in the first week of Dhul-Hijjah, three or four days before the Sunday that would be the first of al-Muharram, the dream would be fulfilled.
What Suyuti ﵀ gathers about the murder of ʿUmar ﵁ covers three full pages of his work and belongs to the most detailed narrative passages in his whole Tarikh al-Khulafa. Several companions ﵃ gave their eyewitness accounts, several ghulam told what they had seen in the masjid, and over the three full days that he still lived after the attack the dying Khalifah left behind a testament that would determine the history of Islam.
A Conflict over a Tax
A few days before the dream, presumably just after the return from the Hajj of which ʿUmar ﵁ did not yet know whether he would complete it, a man came to Medina with a complaint. He was no Arab, no free man, no citizen of Medina, but a Persian slave, in the service of al-Mughirah ibn Shuʿbah ﵁ who in those years had been the governor of Kufa and was staying in Medina. His name was Firuz, but the Muslims knew him by the nickname Abu Luʾluʾah, “Father of the Pearl,” because he was a master craftsman, a millwright, a carpenter, a smith, a man who with his hands could fashion everything that was needed in Medina.
Abu Luʾluʾah was a Magian, an adherent of the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, and he had fallen to al-Mughirah ﵁ as a captive of war after one of the conquests in Iraq. Ibn ʿAbbas ﵁ would later sum up in one sentence what set him apart from the other non-Arab workers in Medina:
Ibn ʿAbbas ﵁: Abu Luʾluʾah was a Magian.
Three words, but in the context of Suyuti’s account they carry weight. Abu Luʾluʾah was no Muslim, he was no mawla who had attached himself to the religion of his masters, but a Persian with a Persian religion, a man who in his heart preserved the old fire of his forefathers and who now lived in a strange city under a strange governance.
He had come to Medina because his master had set him to heavy bodily labour and because the tax that his master withheld from his daily earnings was, to his feeling, too high. Four dirhams a day, the transmitters write, he had to give up to al-Mughirah ﵁; what he earned beyond that he might keep, but the four dirhams was the fixed levy. He came to ʿUmar ﵁ and laid his complaint before him.
ʿUmar ﵁ heard him out. He knew that al-Mughirah ﵁ had a mixed reputation and he was not indifferent to the complaint of a worker, not even when that worker was a slave, but the matter required investigation. ʿUmar ﵁ asked what Abu Luʾluʾah earned in a day, and he asked what he made, and he asked whether the levy stood in proportion to his craftsmanship. Abu Luʾluʾah named his trades: he was a millwright, he was a carpenter, he was a smith. ʿUmar ﵁ reckoned for himself that a man with those skills could well bear the levy, and he judged that the tax was not unreasonable, and he dismissed the complaint. In some reports he added, in a tone that teased but did not mock: “With all those skills, you ought to make me a mill that turns upon the wind.” Or words to that effect, for the reports vary in the exact sentence.
Abu Luʾluʾah left the meeting with a grim face. As he walked out of the Khalifah’s garden, he muttered to himself: “ʿUmar ﵁ has taken everything into account except me.” He spoke that without fear of consequence, for he was resolved that there would be no consequence left for him. He had decided that the Khalifah who would not grant his complaint would be taken away by the man who had brought the complaint.
A Dagger with Two Blades
What happened in the week after the conversation, three different companions ﵃ later described with a detail that shows how great the shock of what followed was. The first, Abu Rafic ﵁, mawla of the Prophet ﷺ, told how Abu Luʾluʾah chose his weapon.
Abu Rafic ﵁: He took a dagger, sharpened it and applied poison to it. ʿUmar ﵁ used to say before the Takbir: “Make your rows straight.” He came and stood opposite him in the row, stabbed him in his shoulder and in his side, and ʿUmar ﵁ fell.
A dagger with two blades, Ibn Saʿd ﵀ writes in another report that Suyuti ﵀ takes up, a weapon that appeared like no other weapon in Arab arms-lore. Two curved blades that issued from a single handle, one from above and one from below, so that a single thrust caused two wounds. He sharpened both blades keen until they cut through a finger like wool, he applied poison to them, and he hid the weapon under his garment. He had planned the attack down to the details, for he had learned that ʿUmar ﵁ led the Fajr prayer in the Masjid an-Nabawi every morning, that he went straightening the rows, that he walked along the first row to see whether the shoulders touched one another and the feet stood level. He had studied the geography of that morning route, and he knew exactly where he had to stand.
The Morning of Wednesday
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On the Wednesday, four days before the end of Dhul-Hijjah, ʿUmar ﵁ went as every morning to the masjid to lead the Fajr prayer. The moon still stood low, the Medina air had the cool blue tint of the hours before the morning light, and the Sahabah ﵃ gathered behind the curtains and upon the mats. ʿUmar ﵁ began as always with the straightening of the rows, walking along, touching a shoulder, tapping a foot when someone did not stand level. Abu Luʾluʾah stood in the first row, he had placed himself among the Sahabah ﵃ as though he were a believer, and at the moment the Khalifah passed him, he drew the weapon, and stabbed.
Ibn Saʿd ﵀ transmits what followed:
Ibn Saʿd ﵀: Abu Luʾluʾah, the slave of al-Mughirah, stabbed ʿUmar ﵁ with a dagger that had two blades, and he stabbed, together with him, twelve other men, of whom six died. Then a man from Iraq threw a cloak over him. When he became entangled in it, he killed himself.
Twelve men. ʿUmar ﵁ was the first, but Abu Luʾluʾah, in his flight through the masjid, struck out at everyone who tried to block his path. He stabbed to the left and to the right until six other of the Sahabah ﵃ fell dead and six were wounded, and it was no single murder, but a slaughter in the first row of the Masjid an-Nabawi, at the moment when the Fajr prayer had not even begun.
A man from Iraq, whose name Suyuti ﵀ does not give, was the only one who thought quickly enough to stop Abu Luʾluʾah. He threw his cloak over the murderer, and in the entangling of the weapon and the cloth Abu Luʾluʾah lost his room to manoeuvre. He was surrounded, he knew that he would be taken captive, that he would be put on trial, that he would be tortured until he gave up the names of his accomplices, if there were any, and he turned the dagger around and stabbed himself in the heart.
Whoever found him again under that cloak found a man who lay in his own blood, with his eyes open, with the expression on his face of one who had achieved what he had wished to achieve. Abu Luʾluʾah had not died by the hand of a Muslim, for he had killed himself to keep the victory of his deed for himself.
“Thanks be to Allah ﷻ”
ʿUmar ﵁ lay on the ground of the masjid, wounded in shoulder and side, and the poison of the dagger had already spread through his veins. ʿAbd ar-Rahman ibn ʿAwf ﵁ led the prayer in his place, the wounded were carried home, and the Sahabah ﵃ gathered around the Khalifah to see whether he still lived and who had attacked him. When ʿUmar ﵁ came to consciousness and was told who the perpetrator was, he gave thanks to Allah ﷻ.
ʿAmr ibn Maymun ﵀ transmits what he heard:
ʿUmar ﵁: Praise be to Allah ﷻ Who did not let my death be decreed at the hand of a man who laid claim to Islam.
It is a sentence that sums up the whole righteousness of the second Khalifah. He was dying, and his first reaction to that knowledge was not anger against the perpetrator, not fear of the meeting with the Lord ﷻ, not concern over who would succeed, but gratitude that his blood had not been shed by a Muslim. That he might die at the hand of an unbeliever was for him a favour, a last form of protection over the unity of the community that he had governed for ten years, for had a Muslim killed him, then the Khilafah would have been extinguished in internal strife; now he had fallen to an enemy from without and his successor could inherit the whole Ummah undivided.
He was carried to his house, laid upon his mattress, and the Sahabah ﵃ stationed themselves around him. The scholars ﵀ of the medical art, as far as Medina knew them, came to examine him, and their judgement was unanimous: the poison had penetrated too deep; there was no remedy that could yet save him. ʿUmar ﵁ asked for milk to see what the wound in his side had done, and when they gave him milk and he drank, the milk came out undigested through the wound. He understood that the medical art could offer him nothing more, and he asked the Sahabah ﵃ to leave him alone with his thoughts and with his preparations.
A Testament for ʿAʾishah ﵂
The first thing he asked for, before he would utter so much as a word about his succession, was something personal. He called his son ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar ﵁, and he sent him on an errand whose outcome was not certain. He asked him to go to the house of ʿAʾishah ﵂, the Mother of the Believers, and to lay before her a question that ʿUmar ﵁ himself did not dare ask because he feared that out of courtesy she would say yes where her heart whispered no. He wished the question to be asked in her own house, that she should have time to reflect, and that she should be free to answer either yes or no.
The question was:
ʿUmar ﵁ (through ʿAbdullah ﵁): Go to the Mother of the Believers, ʿAʾishah ﵂, and say: ʿUmar ﵁ asks permission to be buried beside his two companions.
ʿAʾishah ﵂: I wished that (place) for myself, but today I shall surely prefer him above myself.
The two companions were the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr ﵁. Their graves lay side by side beneath the floor of the house of ʿAʾishah ﵂, in the room in which the Prophet ﷺ had breathed his last and in which Abu Bakr ﵁ had been buried after him. There was exactly one place left, one narrow piece of ground beside Abu Bakr ﵁, and that place ʿAʾishah ﵂ had reserved for herself, for she wished to lie beside her husband when her time came. But when the request of ʿUmar ﵁ reached her, she gave up that place. She gave it up for herself and gave it to the Khalifah who lay upon his deathbed and who in his own eyes would only be worthy to lie beside his two companions if she actually granted him that worthiness.
ʿAbdullah ﵁ returned to his father with the answer. ʿUmar ﵁ heard it and wept, and when he had recovered himself, he gave his son a further instruction: “When I am dead, carry me upon a bier and bring me to the door of her house. Give the greeting and say: ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ asks permission to enter. If she consents, bring me in. If she refuses, bring me back to the burial ground of the Muslims. For I fear that she says yes today out of compassion and thinks otherwise tomorrow, when she is free of my presence.” The caution of a man who even in his death did not wish a woman to make, under the pressure of his presence, a promise that her heart did not fully bear.
The Shura and the Last Counsels
Only after the question about his burial had been answered did ʿUmar ﵁ pass to the matter of his succession. He gathered the six men whom he held fit to succeed him and gave them the charge to choose a Khalifah from among themselves within three days. What he said to them and how they came to their choice belongs in its own account and will be told in the next article. It is enough to say here that ʿUmar ﵁ kept his full clarity in the three full days between the attack and his death, that he reflected upon the community as though he were not dying, and that he took every decision with the care of one who knew that his words would shortly be the last.
He called his son ʿAbdullah ﵁ not only for the message to ʿAʾishah ﵂. He also made it clear that his son was no candidate for the Khilafah. “It would be enough for the family of al-Khattab,” he said in a variant of what Suyuti ﵀ transmits, “that one of us should give account on the Day of Judgement for the community of Muhammad ﷺ.” He refused to found a dynasty where no dynasty ought to arise, for he knew that the Khilafah was no heritage; it was a service that was assigned according to fitness, not according to blood.
The Wednesday on Which He Fell, the Sunday on Which He Was Buried
For three full days ʿUmar ﵁ lay between life and death. He held his conversations, dictated his instructions, received the visitors he wished to receive, refused the visitors he did not wish to see. On the Saturday evening, in the last hours of Dhul-Hijjah of the twenty-third year, he weakened visibly. The Sahabah ﵃ who stood around him heard him repeat the Shahadah, heard him ask for forgiveness, heard him say that he had wished to die without leaving much behind and without falling much short. In the first hours of Sunday, on the day of the new moon of al-Muharram, he breathed his last.
Suyuti ﵀ sums up the whole chronology in one concise sentence:
ʿUmar ﵁ was struck on the Wednesday, four days before the end of Dhul-Hijjah, and he was buried on Sunday, on the day of the new moon of al-Muharram, the Sacred Month. He was sixty-three years old.
Three days between the thrust and the breath, three days in which the second Khalifah of Islam ordered his community, organized his succession, confirmed his grave and set in order his account with Allah ﷻ. Three days in which he asked not one favour for himself except the favour of lying beside the two men whose nearness he had loved most in this life. Sixty-three years, the same age as that at which the Prophet ﷺ had given back his soul and as that at which Abu Bakr ﵁ had followed him into the same rest. Three lives of precisely the same length, three lives that in the administrative succession followed one another without interruption.
Beside His Two Companions
On the Sunday morning ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar ﵁, together with the men who shared the burden of the bier, carried the body of his father to the door of the house of ʿAʾishah ﵂. He greeted at the door and spoke the words his father had prescribed for him: “ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ asks permission to enter.” From within came the voice of ʿAʾishah ﵂, clear and without hesitation, so that the awe of his presence could no longer sway her: “Bring him in.”
She was set aside by a curtain, for she was now in the presence of strangers, and the men carried the Khalifah into the room in which his two companions slept. ʿAli ﵁ led the janazah prayer. The earth was opened beside Abu Bakr ﵁, in the narrow strip that ʿAʾishah ﵂ had cleared, and ʿUmar ﵁ was laid into it. So he lay: the Prophet ﷺ at the head, Abu Bakr ﵁ in the middle, ʿUmar ﵁ at the side. Three graves side by side in one room in one house in Medina, three lives that in the history of Islam had been lived as one line and that in the earth were given back to one another.
ʿAʾishah ﵂ lived for thirty more years after the burial of her father and after that of ʿUmar ﵁. From the day that ʿUmar ﵁ was buried in her room, she wore her garment closed even within her own house, for she felt the presence of a stranger near her, and that presence of reverence forever changed how she dwelt in her own home. She gave up the place that she had intended for herself without giving up her bond with that place, and so the three graves became the honour of her house, and her house became the honour of the three graves.
What He Had Feared
ʿUmar ﵁ had many years earlier, on one of the moments when he spoke in full health, said that he feared he would not die as a martyr. He had heard the Prophet ﷺ foretell that some of his Sahabah ﵃ would receive the death of the martyr and some the death of natural exhaustion, and he had wished for himself to belong to the first. He had prayed that he might die in Medina, yes, for the Prophet ﷺ had uttered his intercession for the city of his grave, but he had prayed that his death might be one of the kind over which the Sahabah ﵃ rejoice when they meet one another in the Garden of Allah ﷻ.
Allah ﷻ answered him in both. He died in Medina, on the threshold of his masjid whose first row he straightened every morning, and he died by a thrust into his body, not by a gradual weakening, not by age, not by fever. The Sahabah ﵃ who knew him have agreed that his death was that of a shahid, that the second Khalifah of Islam is counted among the martyrs, that his name is named in the litanies of honour beside the names of Hamzah ﵁, of Saʿd ibn Muʿadh ﵁, of the fallen of Uhud and of Badr.
In the next article we follow the three full days that ʿUmar ﵁ devoted, between the thrust and his death, to the most delicate administrative decision of his whole Khilafah. He left behind no testament that named a person; he left behind a procedure of which he hoped that it would of itself bring forth the right man. Six men, three days, one Khilafah to decide. The Shura of Six, and the voice of ʿAbd ar-Rahman ibn ʿAwf ﵁ that in the end let the scales tip.