U.
ʿUBĀDAH IBN AṢ-ṢĀMIT (عبادة بن الصامت). One of the Anṣārs of al-Madīnah, who was afterwards employed by Abū Bakr to collect the scattered sentences of the Qurʾān.
ʿUBŪDĪYAH (عبودية). [[SLAVERY].]
AL-UFUQU ʾL-AʿLĀ (الافق الاعلى). Lit. “The Loftiest Tract.” (1) The place in which it is said Gabriel was when he taught Muḥammad, see [Sūrah liii. 7]: “One mighty in power (Shadīdu ʾl-Quwā) taught him, endowed with sound understanding, and appeared, he being in the loftiest tract.”
(2) According to the Ṣūfīs, it is the highest spiritual state a man can attain in the mystic life.
UḤNŪK͟H (احنوخ). The Enoch of the Old Testament, supposed to be the Idrīs of the Qurʾān. A full account of this personage will be found in the article on [IDRIS].
UḤUD (احد). Ohod. A hill about three miles distant from al-Madīnah, and described by Burckhardt as a rugged and almost insulated offshoot of the great mountain range. Celebrated for the battle fought by Muḥammad and the victory gained over the Muslims by the Quraish, A.H. 3. (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, new ed. p. 266 seqq.) [[MUHAMMAD].]
ʿŪJ (عوج). The son of ʿŪq. A giant who is said to have been born in the days of Adam, and lived through the Deluge, as the water only came up to his waist, and to have died in the days of Moses, the great lawgiver having smitten him on the foot with his rod. He lived 3,500 years. (G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco.) The Og of the Bible, concerning whom as-Suyūt̤ī wrote a long book taken chiefly from Rabbinic traditions. (Ewald, Gesch. i. 306.) An apocryphal book of Og was condemned by Pope Gelasius. (Dec. vi. 13.)
UKAIDAR (اكيدر). The Christian chief of Dūmah, who was taken prisoner by K͟hālid, A.H. 9. (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, new ed. p. 458.)
In the Traditions it is said: “K͟hālid took Ukaidar prisoner because the Prophet forbade killing him. And the Prophet did not kill him, but made peace with him, when he paid the poll-tax.” (Mishkāt, book xvii. ch. ix.)
Sir W. Muir says he became a Muslim, but revolted after the death of Muḥammad.
ʿUKĀZ̤ (عكاظ). An annual fair of twenty-one days, which was held between at̤-T̤āʾif and Nak͟hlah, and which was opened on the first day of the month of Ẕū ʾl-Qaʿdah, at the commencement of the three sacred months. It was abolished by Muḥammad.
Mr. Stanley Lane Poole says (Selections from the Ḳur-án):—
“There was one place where, above all others, the Ḳaṣeedehs (Qaṣīdahs) of the ancient Arabs were recited: this was ʾOkádh (ʿUkāz̤), the Olympia of Arabia, where there was held a great annual Fair, to which not merely the merchants of Mekka and the south, but the poet-heroes of all the land resorted. The Fair of ʾOkádh was held during the sacred months,—a sort of ‘God’s Truce,’ when blood could not be shed without a violation of the ancient customs and faiths of the Bedawees. Thither went the poets of rival clans, who had as often locked spears as hurled rhythmical curses. There was little fear of a bloody ending to the poetic contest, for those heroes who might meet there with enemies or blood-avengers are said to have worn masks or veils, and their poems were recited by a public orator at their dictation. That these precautions and the sacredness of the time could not always prevent the ill-feeling evoked by the pointed personalities of rival singers leading to a fray and bloodshed is proved by recorded instances; but such results were uncommon, and as a rule the customs of the time and place were respected. In spite of occasional broils on the spot, and the lasting feuds which these poetic contests must have excited, the Fair of ʾOkádh was a grand institution. It served as a focus for the literature of all Arabia: everyone with any pretensions to poetic power came, and if he could not himself gain the applause of the assembled people, at least he could form one of the critical audience on whose verdict rested the fame or the shame of every poet. The Fair of ʾOkádh was a literary congress, without formal judges, but with unbounded influence. It was here that the polished heroes of the desert determined points of grammar and prosody; here the seven Golden Songs were recited, although (alas for the charming legend!) they were not afterwards ‘suspended’ on the Kaabeh; and here ‘a magical language, the language of the Ḥijáz,’ was built out of the dialects of Arabia, and was made ready to the skilful hand of Moḥammad, that he might conquer the world with his Ḳur-án.
“The Fair of ʾOkádh was not merely a centre of emulation for Arab poets: it was also an annual review of Bedawee virtues. It was there that the Arab nation once-a-year inspected itself, so to say, and brought forth and criticised its ideals of the noble and the beautiful in life and in poetry. For it was in poetry that the Arab—and for that matter each man all the world over—expressed his highest thoughts, and it was at ʾOkádh that these thoughts were measured by the standard of the Bedawee ideal. The Fair not only maintained the highest standard of poetry that the Arabic language has ever reached: it also upheld the noblest idea of life and duty that the Arab nation has yet set forth and obeyed. ʾOkádh was the press, the stage, the pulpit, the Parliament, and the Académie Française of the Arab people; and when, in his fear of the infidel poets (whom Imra-el-Keys was to usher to hell), Moḥammad abolished the Fair, he destroyed the Arab nation, even whilst he created his own new nation of Muslims; and the Muslims cannot sit in the places of the old pagan Arabs.”
ʿUKŪF (عكوف). Lit. “Remaining behind.” A term used to express a life of prayer of one who remains constantly in the mosque.
ʿULAMĀʾ (علماء), pl. of ʿālim. “One who knows; learned; a scholar.” In this plural form the word is used as the title of those bodies of learned doctors in Muḥammadan divinity and law, who, headed by their Shaik͟hu ʾl-Islām, form the theocratic element of the government in Muslim countries, and who by their fatwās or decisions in questions touching private and public matters of importance, regulate the life of the Muḥammadan community. Foremost in influence and authority are naturally reckoned the ʿUlamāʾ of Constantinople, the seat of the K͟halīfah, and of Makkah, the Holy City of Islām. Like the Aṣḥāb or Companions of the Prophet under his immediate successors, they correspond in a certain measure to what we would call the representative system of our modern constitutions, in partially limiting and checking the autocratism of an otherwise absolute Oriental ruler.
ULŪHĪYAH (الوهية). “Divinity; godhead.”
ULŪ ʾL-ʿAZM (اولو العزم). “The Possessors of Constancy.” A title given to certain prophets in the Qurʾān, said by the commentators to have been Noah, Abraham, David, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad. (Vide G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt.) See [Sūrah xlvi. 34]: “Then be thou constant, as the Apostles endowed with a purpose were constant, and hasten not on.”
UMANĀʾ (امناء), pl. of amīn. “Faithful Ones.” A title given by the Ṣūfīs to those pious persons who do not make their religious experiences known. They are known also as the Malāmatīyah, or those who are willing to undergo misrepresentation rather than boast of their piety.
ʿUMAR (عمر) IBN AL-K͟HAT̤T̤ĀB. (Omar) the second K͟halīfah, who succeeded Abū Bakr, A.H. 13 (A.D. 634), and was assassinated by Fīroz, a Persian slave, A.H. 23 (A.D. 644), after a prosperous reign of ten years. His conversion to Islām took place in the sixth year of Muḥammad’s mission, and the Prophet took ʿUmar’s daughter Ḥafṣah as his third wife.
ʿUmar is eminent amongst the early K͟halīfahs for having chiefly contributed to the spread of Islām. Under him the great generals, Abū ʿUbaidah, K͟hālid ibn al-Walīd, Yazīd, drove the Greeks out of Syria and Phœnicia; Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, Qaqāʾah, Nuʿmān, completed the conquest of the two ʿIrāqs and the overthrow of the Persian Empire; ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (commonly called Amru) subdued Egypt and part of the Libyan coast, after having, as commander in Palestine, prepared by his victories and a severe siege, the surrender of Jerusalem [[JERUSALEM]] into the K͟halīfah’s own hands. ʿUmar’s name is, moreover, intimately connected with the history of Islām, by the initiatory and important share which he took in the first collection of the Qurʾān, under Abū Bakr, by the official introduction of the Muḥammadan era of the Hijrah, and by the first organisation of the dīwān, or civil list of the Muḥammadans. The two former subjects have been treated of in this Dictionary in their proper places; the third institution, which laid the foundation to the marvellous successes of the Muslim arms under this and the succeeding Governments, is ably explained in the following extract from Sir W. Muir’s Annals of the Early Caliphate:—
“The Arabian nation was the champion of Islam, and to fight its battles every Arab was jealously reserved. He must be the soldier, and nothing else. He might not settle down in any conquered province as cultivator of the soil; and for merchandise or other labour, a busy warlike life offered but little leisure. Neither was there any need. The Arabs lived on the fat of the conquered land, and captive natives served them. Of the booty taken in war, four parts were distributed to the army in the field; the fifth was reserved for the State; and even that, after discharging public obligations, was shared among the Arabian people. In the reign of Abu Bakr, this was a simple matter. But in the Caliphate of Omar, the spoil of Syria and of Persia began in ever-increasing volume to pour into the treasury of Medîna, where it was distributed almost as soon as received. What was easy in small beginnings, by equal sharing or discretionary preference, became now a heavy task. And there began, also, to arise new sources of revenue in the land assessment, and the poll-tax of subject countries, which, after defraying civil and military charges, had to be accounted for to the Central Government; the surplus being, like the royal fifth, the patrimony of the Arab nation.
“At length, in the second or third year of his Caliphate, Omar determined that the distribution should be regulated on a fixed and systematic scale. The income of the commonwealth was to be divided, as heretofore, amongst the Faithful as their heritage, but upon a rule of precedence befitting the military and theocratic groundwork of Islam. For this end three points only were considered: priority of conversion, affinity to the Prophet, and military service. The widows of Mahomet, ‘Mothers of the Faithful,’ took the precedence with an annual allowance of 10,000 pieces each; and all his kinsmen were with a corresponding liberality provided for. The famous Three Hundred of Bedr had 5,000 each; presence at Hodeibia (Ḥudaibīyah) and the Pledge of the Tree, gave a claim to 4,000; such as took part in quelling the Rebellion (immediately after Muḥammad’s death), had 3,000; and those engaged in the great battles of Syria and Irâc, as well as sons of the men of Bedr, 2,000; those taking the field after the actions of Câdesîya and the Yermûk, 1,000. Warriors of distinction received an extra grant of 500. And so they graduated downwards to 200 pieces for the latest levies. Nor were the households forgotten. Women had, as a rule, one-tenth of a man’s share. Wives, widows, and children had each their proper stipend; and in the register, every infant, as soon as born, had the title to be entered, with a minimum allowance of ten pieces, rising with advancing age to its proper place. Even Arab slaves (so long as any of that race remained) had, strange to say, their portion.
* * *
“The Arabian aristocracy thus created was recognised by the whole Moslem world. The rank and stipend now assigned descended in the direct line of birth. Even rewards given for special gallantry in the field were heritable. By making thus the revenues of Islam the heritage of the nation militant, their martial genius was maintained, and their employment perpetuated as the standing army of the Caliphate.
* * *
“To carry out this vast design, a register had to be drawn and kept up of every man, woman and child, entitled to a stipend from the State—in other words, of the whole Arab race employed in the interests of Islam. This was easy enough for the higher grades, but a herculean task for the hundreds and thousands of ordinary fighting men and their families who kept streaming forth from the Peninsula; and who, by the extravagant indulgence of polygamy, were multiplying rapidly. But the task was simplified by the strictly tribal composition and disposition of the forces. Men of a tribe, or branch of a tribe, fought together; and the several corps and brigades being thus territorially arranged in clans, the Register assumed the same form. Every soul was entered under the stock and tribe and class whose lineage it claimed. And to this exhaustive classification we owe in great measure the elaborate genealogies and tribal traditions of Arabia before Islam. The Register itself, as well as the office for its maintenance and for pensionary account was called the Dewân (Dīwān), or Department of the Exchequer.” (Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, London, 1883, p. 228.)
It was fortunate for Islām, that the reign of Abū Bakr, short in duration, but pregnant with decisive issues, should precede that of ʿUmar. During the critical period, immediately after Muḥammad’s death, when three false prophets and a prophetess gathered increasing numbers round their rebellious standards, when in the north, east, and south of the Peninsula, tribe after tribe, apostatized from the newly-adopted creed, and when al-Madīnah itself was repeatedly threatened by hostile invasions of the neighbouring clans, it needed all the spirit of compromise and conciliation which blended in Abū Bakr’s character with penetrating shrewdness and dauntless courage, to steer the bark of the Muslim commonwealth through the dangers which were surrounding it on every side. ʿUmar’s irrepressible impetuosity would, at that time, probably have caused more harm than good, while, on the other hand, the unprecedented success which crowned Abū Bakr’s wise and temporising politics, taught him to temper his own impulses of bold enterprise with prudence and cautiousness, when, in his turn, the responsibilities of office rested on his shoulders.
The original violent bent of Umar’s nature is forcibly illustrated by the history of his conversion, as it is told in various traditions. In his youth and early manhood, a zealous and devoted adherent of the religion of his forefathers, he hated and persecuted Muḥammad as a dangerous innovator, who had come to lead his people astray, and to sow discord between them. Infuriated at some fresh success of the pretended Prophet, he sallied forth one day to kill him, when he met his kinsman, Nuʿaim ibn ʿAbdi ʾllāh, who, seeing him armed and fiercely excited, asked him: “Whither goest thou, and what is thy intent?” “I seek Muḥammad,” was ʿUmar’s reply, “and I will slay him; he has vilified our gods and dishonoured our ancestors.” “Passion blinds thee,” retorted Nuʿaim; “knowest thou not that, if thou killest Muḥammad, thou wilt draw the vengeance of the Hāshimites and the Banū Mut̤t̤alib upon thy head? Better far it would be for thee, to heed the welfare of thy own family, and to bring back to the right path those members of it who have forsworn their ancestral religion.” “And who are they,” asked ʿUmar. “Thy brother-in-law, Saʿīd ibn Zaid, and Fāt̤imah, thy very own sister,” answered Nuʿaim.
Forthwith the incensed man hurried on to the house of the culprits. Here K͟habbāb ibn al-Aratt, a devoted disciple of Muḥammad, the same who had made them acquainted with his teaching and won them over to Islām unknown to ʿUmar, was reading with them at that moment a new fragment of the Qurʾān. When he heard ʿUmar coming, he concealed himself, and Fāt̤imah tried to hide the manuscript in the bosom of her dress. On entering, ʿUmar asked: “What have you been reading just now? I heard your voices!” “Nothing,” she replied, “thou art mistaken.” “You have been reading something, and I am told that you belong to the sect of Muḥammad.” With these words he threw himself upon his brother-in-law, and struck him. Fāt̤imah rushed in between them. Both husband and wife boldly confessed: “Yes, we are Muslims; we believe that there is no god but God, and that Muḥammad is his sent one; kill us, if thou wilt.”
No sooner had ʿUmar seen the blood flowing from a wound which he had inflicted on his sister, than shame for his own unmanly act, coupled with admiration of their courageous conduct, brought about a powerful revulsion of his feelings. He asked to be shown the manuscript, and when, after his solemn promise not to destroy it, the fragment was handed over to him, he read:—
“Not to sadden thee have We sent down this Qurʾān to thee,
But as a warning for him who feareth;
A missive from Him who hath made the earth and the lofty heavens,
The God of Mercy who sitteth on His throne!
His, whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, and whatsoever is between them both, and whatsoever is beneath the humid soil!
And thou needest not raise thy voice in prayer: He verily knoweth the secret whisper, and the yet more hidden!
God! there is no God but Him! Most excellent His titles!”
“How nobly said and how sublime!” exclaimed ʿUmar, when he had read the passage. Thereupon K͟habbāb came forth from his place of concealment, and summoned him to testify to the teaching of Muḥammad. ʿUmar asked where Muḥammad was, went to him, and made his profession of faith to the Prophet himself.
Henceforth ʿUmar remained attached to the person of Muḥammad with the most devoted friendship, and embraced the cause of Islām with all the energies of his strong nature. We find ʿUmar, immediately after Muḥammad’s death, unable at first to grasp the reality of the fact. When the news was imparted to him, he exclaimed wildly before the assembly of the faithful: “The Prophet is not dead; he has only swooned away.” And, again, when Mug͟hīrah tried to convince him that he was mistaken—“Thou liest!” he cried, “the Prophet of the Lord shall not die, until he have rooted out every hypocrite and unbeliever.” At this point Abū Bakr quoted the verses of the Qurʾān, revealed after the defeat at Uḥud: “Muḥammad is no more than an Apostle; verily the other apostles have gone before him. What then! If he were to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels?” And he added the memorable appeal: “Let him then know, whosoever worshippeth Muḥammad, that Muḥammad indeed is dead; but whoso worshippeth God, let him know that the Lord liveth and doth not die.”
Then, and only then, on hearing those words, spoken by the book, as if he had never heard them before, the truth burst upon ʿUmar with crushing force. “By the Lord,” he would tell in later days, “it was so that when I heard Abū Bakr reciting those verses, I was horror-struck, my limbs trembled, I dropped down, and I knew of a certainty that Muḥammad indeed was dead.”
The paramount ascendency which Muḥammad, during his lifetime, exercised over ʿUmar, could not fail to soften his passionate and vehement nature, and to train him to those habits of self-command, which form one of the most essential elements in the character of a good ruler. If it was an act of wise foresight on the part of Muḥammad to designate, at the approach of death, the older and sedater Abū Bakr as his successor, by appointing him to conduct the public prayers during his last illness, he could at the same time feel assured that ʿUmar, far from contesting the choice of his dying friend, would respect it and make it respected against any defection or rival ambition by his cordial and powerful support. But it was equally natural and wise on the part of Abū Bakr, when the time had come, to fix the choice of his own successor upon ʿUmar. It is related that, feeling his end to be near, and willing to fortify his own conviction by the sense of others, he first consulted ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān, the son of ʿAuf, who praised ʿUmar “as the fittest man, but withal inclined to be severe.” “Which,” responded the dying K͟halīfah, “is because he saw me soft and tender-hearted, when himself the Master, he will forego much of what thou sayest. I have watched him narrowly. If I were angry with one, he would intercede in his behalf; if over-lenient, then he would be severe.” ʿUs̤mān, too, confirmed Abū Bakr’s choice. “What is hidden of ʿUmar,” he said, “is better than that which doth appear. There is not his equal amongst us all.”
And so it was: as in bodily stature ʿUmar towered high above his fellow-men, so he excelled in every quality required in an imposing commander of the Faithful (Amīr al-Muʾminīn), this being the title which he adopted in preference to the more cumbersome of “Successor of the Apostle of God” (K͟halīfatu ʾr-Rasūli ʾllāh). It lies outside the scope of the present work to give a complete biography of ʿUmar, and we must refer the reader who should wish to make himself acquainted with it, to the above-quoted attractive volume of Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate. Our less ambitious object here has merely been to sketch, as it were, in a few salient traits culled from it, the picture of a man, who, as a founder of Islām, was second only to Muḥammad himself. Gifted with a high and penetrating intellect, and possessed of a strong sense of justice, he was impartial, skilful, and fortunate in the choice of his military and civil agents, and had learnt to temper severity with clemency and wise forbearance. While it was he who, in his earlier days, after the battle of Badr, had advised that the prisoners should all be put to death, his later resentment against K͟hālid, with whose name the cruel fate of Mālik ibn Nuwairah and the gory tale of the “River of Blood” are linked in history, on the contrary, took rise in K͟hālid’s unscrupulous and savage treatment of a fallen foe. And the fanatic intolerance of some of the Muslim captains is favourably contrasted with ʿUmar’s treatment of the Christianised Arab tribe of the Banū Tag͟hlib. They had tendered their submission to Walīd ibn ʿUqbah, who, solicitous for the adhesion to Islām of this great and famous race, pressed them with some rigour to abjure their ancient faith. ʿUmar was much displeased at this—“Leave them,” he wrote, “in the profession of the Gospel. It is only within the bounds of the peninsula, where are the Holy Places, that no polytheist tribe is permitted to remain.” Walīd was removed from his command; and it was enjoined on his successor to stipulate only that the usual tribute should be paid, that no member of the tribe should be hindered from embracing Islām, and that the children should not be educated in the Christian faith. The last condition can only have been meant as a nominal indication of the supremacy of Islām, for if it had been enforced, we should not read of the Banū Tag͟hlib continuing in the profession of Christianity under the next two dynasties and even later. The tribe, deeming in its pride the payment of tribute (jazyah) an indignity, sent a deputation to the K͟halīfah, declaring their willingness to pay the tax if only it were levied under the same name as that taken from the Muslims. ʿUmar evinced his liberality by allowing the concession; and so the Banū Tag͟hlib enjoyed the singular privilege of being assessed as Christians at a “double tithe” (ʿushr), instead of paying jazyah, the obnoxious badge of subjugation. (Sir W. Muir, Annals, p. 218.)
As the original asperity of ʿUmar’s character had been mellowed in the school of life and in close communion with Muḥammad and Abū Bakr, so the same influences, together with the responsibilities of his position, tended to blend his natural boldness and impetuosity with prudence and cautiousness. While his captains in Syria and the ʿIrāq were continually urging him to push on his conquests to the north and east, he would not allow any advance to be ventured upon, before the Muslim rule in the occupied provinces was well established and firmly consolidated. In like manner he evinced a singular dread of naval enterprise, ever after an expedition sent to Abyssinia across the Red Sea in the seventh year of his reign had met with a signal disaster; and he was countenanced in this aversion for the treacherous element by a not less daring general than ʿAmr, son of al-ʿĀṣ, who, consulted on the subject, wrote to him:—
“The sea is a boundless expanse, whereon great ships look but tiny specks; there is nought saving the heavens above and the waters beneath. Trust it little, fear it much. Man at sea is an insect floating on a splinter; if the splinter break, the insect perisheth.”
When the wily ʿAmr wished to raise his people in the estimation of the Egyptians, he had a feast prepared of slaughtered camels, after the Bedouin fashion; and the Egyptians looked on with wonder, while the army satisfied themselves with the rude repast. Next day he commanded a sumptuous banquet to be set before them, with all the dainties of the Egyptian table; and here again the warriors fell to with equal zest. On the third day, there was a grand parade of all the troops in battle array, and the people flocked to see it. Then ʿAmr addressed them, saying: “The first day’s entertainment was to let you see the plain and simple manner of our life at home; the second, to show you that we can not the less enjoy the good things of the lands we enter; and yet retain, as ye see in the spectacle here before you, our martial vigour notwithstanding.”
ʿAmr gained his end, for the Copts retired, saying one to the other, “See ye not that the Arabs have but to raise their heel upon us, and it is enough!” ʿUmar was delighted with his lieutenant’s device, and said of him, “Of a truth it is on wisdom and resolve, as well as on mere force, that the success of warfare doth depend.”
But, at the same time, ʿUmar was much too thoughtful and far-seeing himself not to recognise the danger for the future of Islām, which was lurking in this sudden acquisition of unmeasured riches. On one occasion, when he was about to distribute the fifth of some Persian spoils, he was seen to weep. “What,” it was said to him, “a time of joy and thankfulness, and thou sheddest tears.” “Yea,” replied the simple-minded K͟halīfah, “it is not for this I weep; but I foresee that the wealth which the Lord hath bestowed upon us will become a spring of worldliness and envy, and in the end a calamity to my people.”
Moreover, the luxury and ostentation which was thus engendered in the enriched leaders, was utterly repulsive to his own frugal habits and homely nature. On his first visit to Syria, Abū ʿUbaidah, Yazīd, and K͟hālid, met him in state to welcome him. A brilliant cavalcade, robed in Syrian brocade, and mounted on steeds richly caparisoned, they rode forth as he approached. At the sight of all their finery, ʿUmar’s spirit was stirred within him. He stooped down, and, gathering a handful of gravel, flung it at the astonished chiefs. “Avaunt!” he cried; “is it thus attired that ye come out to meet me? All changed thus in the space of two short years! Verily, had it been after two hundred, ye would have deserved to be degraded.”
This primitive simplicity of the Arab chieftain is another grand and highly captivating feature in ʿUmar’s character. We see in our mind’s eye the mighty mover of armies, at the time when the destinies of Islām were trembling in the balance on the battle-field of Qādisīyah, issuing on foot from the gates of al-Medīnah in the early morning, if perchance he might meet some messenger from the scene of combat. At last a courier arrived outside the city, who to ʿUmar’s question replied shortly, “The Lord has discomfited the Persian host.” Unrecognised, ʿUmar followed the messenger, leading the camel, and with his long strides keeping pace with the high-stepping animal, to glean from him the outline of the great battle. When they entered al-Madīnah, the people crowded round the K͟halīfah, saluting him, and hearing the happy news, wished him joy of the triumph. The courier, abashed, cried out, “O Commander of the Faithful, why didst thou not tell me?” but his mind was instantly set at rest by the K͟halīfah’s kindly answer: “It is well, my brother.”
Or we may fancy him perambulating, whip in hand, the streets and markets of al-Madīnah, ready to punish the offenders on the spot, may be his own son and his boon companions, who had indulged in the use of wine. For on this head ʿUmar did not brook pleasantry. When news of some arch-transgressors on this score was sent from Damascus, and indulgence from the strict enforcement of the law was claimed for them on the plea of their exalted position and military merits, he wrote back: “Gather an assembly and bring them forth. Then ask, Is wine lawful, or is it forbidden? If they say forbidden, lay eighty stripes upon each of them; if they say lawful, then behead them every one.” The punishment, if inflicted by ʿUmar’s own hand, was telling, for it became a proverb: ʿUmar’s whip is more terrible than another’s sword.
Or, again, with the groan of repentance of the well-chastised offender still ringing in our ears, we may watch the same ʿUmar, as journeying in Arabia in the year of famine, he comes upon a poor woman, seated with her hungry and weeping children round a fire, whereon is an empty pot. He hurries to the next village, procures bread and meat, fills the pot, and cooks an ample meal, leaving the little ones laughing and at play.
Such a man was ʿUmar, the great K͟halīfah, brave, wise, pious. No fitter epitaph could adorn his tombstone, than his dying words:—“It had gone hard with my soul, if I had not been a Muslim.” [[DAMASCUS], [JERUSALEM], [JIHAD], [MUHAMMAD].]
(The Editor is indebted to Dr. Steingass, the learned author of the English-Arabic Dictionary, A.D. 1882, and Arabic-English Dictionary, A.D. 1884 (W. H. Allen & Co., London), for this review of ʿUmar’s influence on the Muslim religion.)
UMM (ام), pl. ummāt, ummahāt. “Mother.” Heb. אֵם ēm. A word which frequently occurs in combination with other words, e.g. Ummu ʾl-Qurā, “the mother of villages,” the metropolis Makkah; Ummu ʾl-ʿUlūm, “the mother of sciences,” grammar.
UMMAH (امة). Heb. אֻמָּה ummāh. A people, a nation, a sect. The word occurs about forty times in the Qurʾān.
Ummatu Ibrāhīm, the people of Abraham.
Ummatu ʿĪsā, the people of Jesus.
Ummatu Muḥammad, the people of Muḥammad.
UMMĪ (امى). The title assumed by Muḥammad, and which occurs in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah viii. 156]: “Who shall follow the Apostle, the illiterate Prophet (an-Nabīyu ʾl-ummī)”; and in the 158th verse of the same Sūrah.
Commentators are not agreed as to the derivation of this word, the following are the three most common derivations of it:—
(1) From Umm, “mother,” i.e. one just as he came from his mother’s womb.
(2) From Ummah, “people,” i.e. a gentile, one who was ignorant; alluding to the time of Muḥammad’s ignorance.
(3) From Ummu ʾl-qurā, “the mother of villages,” a name given to Makkah; i.e. a native of Makkah.
Muḥammad appears to have wished to be thought ignorant and illiterate, in order to raise the elegance of the Qurʾān into a miracle.
UMMU ḤABĪBAH (ام حبيبة). One of Muḥammad’s wives. She was the daughter of Abū Ṣufyān, and the widow of ʿUbaidu ʾllāh, one of the “Four Inquirers,” who, after emigrating as a Muslim to Abyssinia, embraced Christianity there, and died in profession of that faith.
UMMU KULS̤ŪM (ام كلثوم). The youngest daughter of Muḥammad by his wife K͟hadījah. She had been married to her cousin ʿUtaibah, son of Abū Lahab, but separated from him and became, after the death of her sister Ruqaiyah, the second wife of ʿUs̤mān, the later K͟halīfah. She died a year or two before Muḥammad, who used, after her death, to say he so dearly loved ʿUs̤mān, that had there been a third daughter, he would have given her also in marriage to him.
UMMU ʾL-KITĀB (ام الكتاب). Lit. “The Mother of the Book.”
(1) A title given in the Ḥadīs̤ to the first Sūrah of the Qurʾān.
(2) In the Sūratu Ahli ʿImrān [(iii.) 5], it is used for the Qurʾān itself.
(3) In the Sūratu ʾr-Raʿd [(xiii.) 39], it seems to be applied to the preserved tablet, on which were written the decrees of God and the fate of every human being.
UMMU ʾL-MUʾMINĪN (ام المومنين). “A mother of the Faithful.” A title which English authors restrict either to the Prophet’s wife K͟hadījah, or to ʿĀyishah; but it is a title applied to each of the wives of Muḥammad. Qurʾān, [Sūrah xxxiii. 6]: “His wives are their mothers.”
UMMU ʾL-QURA (ام القرى). Lit. “Mother of Villages.” A name given to Makkah. The Metropolis.
UMMU ʾL-WALAD (ام الولد). A term used in Muḥammadan law for a female slave who has borne a child to her master, and who is consequently free at his death. [[SLAVERY].]
UMMU SALMAH (ام سلمة). One of the wives of the Prophet. The widow of Abū Salmah, to whom she had borne several children. Abū Salmah was killed at Uḥud, and Muḥammad married his widow four months afterwards.
ʿUMRĀ (عمرى). A life grant, or interest in anything, e.g. if the proprietor of a house says to another, “This is yours as long as you live.”
ʿUMRAH (عمرة). A Lesser Pilgrimage, or a visitation to the sacred mosque at Makkah, with the ceremonies of encompassing the Kaʿbah and running between al-Marwah and aṣ-Ṣafā, but omitting the sacrifices, &c. It is a meritorious act, but it has not the supposed merit of the Ḥajj or Pilgrimage. It can be performed at any time except the eighth, ninth, and tenth days of the month Ẕū ʾl-Ḥijjah, these being the days of the Ḥajj or Greater Pilgrimage. [[HAJJ].]
UMŪMĪYAH (امومية). “Maternity.” A term used in Muslim law. (Hidāyah, vol. iii. p. 417.)
UNBELIEVERS. There are several terms used in Islām for those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muḥammad, e.g.:—
Kāfir (كافر), One who hides the truth. A term generally applied to idolaters, and not to Jews or Christians.
Mushrik (مشرك), One who gives companions to God. Believers in the Blessed Trinity are so called. The term is also applied by the Wahhābīs to any Muslim who observes ceremonies which are not clearly enjoined in the precepts of the Muslim religion, as visiting shrines, &c.
Mulḥid (ملحد), One who has deviated from the truth.
Murtadd (مرتد), An apostate from Islām.
Dahrī (دهرى), An Atheist.
(For further explanations, refer to the words in their places.)
UNCLEAN MEATS. [[FOOD].]
UNCLEANNESS. [[PURIFICATION].]
UNITY OF GOD. [[TAUHID].]
UNLAWFUL. Arabic ḥarām (حرام). [[LAW].]
ʿUQĀB (عقاب). A black eagle. A celebrated standard belonging to Muḥammad. (See Ḥayātu ʾl-Qulūb, p. 88, Merrick’s edition.) [[STANDARDS].]
ʿUQBĀ (عقبى). Lit. “End.” A reward or punishment. Hence used to express the life to come either of good or evil. [[PARADISE], [HELL].]
ʿUQBAH (عقبة) IBN ʿĀMIR AL-JUHANĪ. A Companion of great celebrity. He was afterwards Governor of Egypt, where he died, A.H. 58.
UQNŪM (اقنوم), pl. aqānīm. According to Muslim lexicographers, it is “a word which means the root or principle of a thing, and, according to the Naṣārā (Nazarenes), there are three Aqānīm, namely, wujūd (entity or substance), ḥayāt (life), and ʿilm (knowledge); and also, Ab (Father), Ibn (Son), and Rūḥu ʾ-Quds (Holy Spirit); and it is also the name of a book amongst the Nazarenes which treats of these three. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco.) [[TRINITY].]
ʿUQŪBAH (عقوبة). “Punishment; chastisement.” A legal term for punishment inflicted at the discretion of the magistrate. ʿUqūbah shadīdah is severe punishment extending to death. [[TAZIR].]
AL-ʿUQŪLU ʾL-ʿASHARAH (العقول العشرة). Lit. “The Ten Intelligences.” Ten angels who, according to the philosophers, were created by God in the following manner: First, He created one angel; who then created one heaven and one angel, this second angel then created a second heaven and a third angel; and so on until there were created nine heavens and ten angels. The tenth angel then, by the order of God, created the whole world. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco.)
ʿURS (عرس). (1) Marriage festivities, as distinguished from nikāḥ, “the marriage ceremony.” [[MARRIAGE].]
(2) A term also used for the ceremonies observed at the anniversary of the death of any celebrated saint or murshid.
ʿUSHR (عشر), pl. aʿshār and ʿushūr. A tenth or tithe given to the Muslim State or Baitu ʾl-Māl. [[BAITU ʾL-MAL].]
ʿUS̤MĀN (عثمان) IBN ʿAFFĀN. The third K͟halīfah, who succeeded ʿUmar A.H. 23 (A.D. 643), and was slain by Muḥammad, son of Abū Bakr and other conspirators on the 18th of Ẕū ʾl-Ḥijjah, A.H. 35 (June 17th, A.D. 656), aged eighty-two, and having reigned twelve years. He is known amongst Muslims as Ẕū ʾn-Nūrain, “The Possessor of the Two Lights,” because he married two of the Prophet’s daughters, Ruqaiyah and Ummu Kuls̤ūm. His chief merit with regard to the cause of Islām was the second and final revision of the sacred book, which he caused to be made, and of which an exhaustive account has been given in our article on the Qurʾān.
Although Muḥammadan historians distinguish the reigns of the first four K͟halīfahs as founded on faith (dīnī), from those of the later ones, as based on the world and its passions and vanities (dunyawī), it must be admitted that worldly motives entered already largely into the politics of ʿUs̤mān and ʿAlī, as contrasted with Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. ʿUs̤mān, by his weakness and nepotism, ʿAlī by holding aloof with culpable indifference, during the protracted death-struggle of his predecessor, by abetting his murderers in the open field, and by his vacillating spirit, where firmness of purpose was needed, gave rise to those fierce dissensions between rival religious and political parties, which led, for the time being, to the establishment of the Umaiyah dynasty, and eventually caused the division of Islām into the two great sects of the Sunnīs and Shīʿahs.
UṢŪL (اصول), pl. of aṣl. Lit. “Roots.” The roots or fundamentals of the Muḥammadan religion, as opposed to furūʿ (فروع), “branches,” a term used for Muḥammadan law, civil, ceremonial, and religious. The uṣūl of Islām are universally held to be four: (1) The Qurʾān, (2) The Ḥadīs̤, (3) Ijmāʿ, and (4) Qiyās, terms which will be found explained under their respective titles.
ʿIlmu ʾl-Uṣūl is the science of interpretation or exegesis of these four fundamentals.
USURY. Arabic ribā (ربا). A word which, like the Hebrew נֶשֶׁךְ neshek, includes all gain upon loans, whether from the loan of money, or goods, or property of any kind. In the Mosaic law, conditions of gain for the loan of money or goods, were rigorously prohibited: “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.” ([Exodus xxii. 25].) “If thy brother be waxen poor … take no usury of him or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.” ([Leviticus xxv. 35–37].)
(1) The teaching of the Qurʾān on the subject is given in [Sūrah ii. 276]: “They who swallow down usury, shall arise in the Last Day only as he ariseth, whom Satan has infected by his touch. This for that they say, ‘Selling is only the like of usury,’ and yet God hath allowed selling and forbidden usury; and whosoever receiveth this admonition from his Lord, and abstaineth from it, shall have pardon for the past and his lot shall be with God. But they who return to usury, shall be given over to the Fire,—therein to abide for ever.”
(2) In the Traditions, Muḥammad is related to have said:—
“Cursed be the taker of usury, the giver of usury, the writer of usury, and the witness of usury, for they are all equal.”
“Verily the wealth that is gained in usury, although it be great, is of small advantage.” (Ṣaḥīḥu Muslim, Bābu ʾr-Ribaʾ).
(3) Ribaʾ, in the language of the law, signifies “an excess,” according to a legal standard of measurement or weight, in one of two homogeneous articles (of weight or measurement of capacity) opposed to each other in a contract of exchange, and in which such excess is stipulated as an obligatory condition on one of the parties, without any return, that is, without anything being opposed to it. The sale, therefore, of two loads of barley, for instance, in exchange for one load of wheat, does not constitute usury, since these articles are not homogeneous; and, on the other hand, the sale of ten yards of cloth in exchange for five yards of cloth, is not usury, since although these articles be homogeneous, still they are not estimable by weight or measurement of capacity.
Usury, then, as an illegal transaction, is occasioned (according to most Muḥammadan doctors) by rate, united with species, where, however, it must be observed, that rate, amongst the Musalmāns, applies only to articles of weight or measurement of capacity, and not to articles of longitudinal measurement, such as cloth, &c., or of tale, such as eggs, dates, walnuts, &c., when exchanged from hand to hand. Ash-Shāfiʿī maintains that usury takes place only in things of an esculent nature, or in money, and according to him, therefore, articles of the last-mentioned description would give occasion to usury. It is, furthermore, to be observed, that superiority or inferiority in the quality has no effect in the establishment of the usury; and hence it is lawful to sell a quantity of the better sort of any article in exchange for an equal quantity of an inferior sort. Nor does usury exist where the qualities of an article of weight or measurement by capacity are not ascertained by some known standard of measurement. Thus it is lawful to sell one handful of wheat in exchange for two handfuls, or two handfuls for four, because, in such case, the measurement not having been made according to a legal standard, the superiority of measurement, establishing usury, has not taken place, and, since the law has fixed no standard of measure beneath half a ṣāʿ, any quantity less than such is considered equivalent to a handful.
Where the quality of being weighable or measureable by capacity, and correspondence of species (being the causes of usury) both exist, the stipulation of inequality or of suspension of payment to a future period, are both usurious. Thus it is usurious to sell either one measure of wheat in exchange for two measures,—or one measure of wheat for one measure deliverable at a future period. If, on the contrary, neither of these circumstances exist (as in the sale of wheat for money), it is lawful, either to stipulate a superiority of rate, or the payment at a future period. If, on the other hand, one of these circumstances only exist (as in the sale of wheat for barley, or the sale of one slave for another), then a superiority in the rate may legally be stipulated, but not a suspension in the payment. Thus one measure of wheat may lawfully be sold for two measures of barley, or one slave for two slaves: but it is not lawful to sell one measure of wheat for one measure of barley, payable at a future period; nor one slave for another, deliverable at a future period.
According to the majority of doctors, everything in which the usuriousness of an excess has been established by the Prophet on the ground of measurement of capacity (such as wheat, barley, dates and salt), or on the ground of weight (like gold or silver), is for ever to be considered as of that nature, although mankind should forsake this mode of estimation; because the custom of mankind, which regulates the measurement, is of inferior force to the declaration of the Prophet; and a superior court cannot yield to an inferior. Abū Yūsuf, however, is of opinion that in all things practice or custom ought to prevail, although in opposition to the ordinances of the Prophet; for the ordinance of the Prophet was founded on usage and practice of his own time. In ordinances, therefore, the prevalent customs among mankind are to be regarded; and as these are liable to alter, they must be attended to rather than the letter of an ordinance.
Usury cannot take place between a master and his slave, because whatever is in the possession of the slave is the property of the master, so that no sale can possibly take place between them, and hence the possibility of usury is excluded à fortiori. Nor can it take place between a Muslim and a hostile infidel in a hostile country, in accordance with the saying of the Prophet: “There is no usury between a Muslim and a hostile infidel in a foreign land,” and on the further ground, that the property of a hostile infidel being free to the Muslim, it follows that it is lawful to take it by whatever mode may be possible, provided there be no deceit used. It is otherwise with respect to a ẕimmī, or protected alien, as his property is not of a neutral nature, because of the protection that has been accorded to him, and, therefore, usury is as unlawful in his case as in that of a Muslim. Abū Yūsuf and ash-Shāfiʿī conceive an analogy between the case of a hostile infidel, in a hostile country, and that of a ẕimmī, and hence they hold, contrary to the other Muslim doctors, that usury can take place also between a Muslim and a hostile infidel in a foreign land.
The testimony of a person who receives usury is inadmissible in a court of law. It is recorded in the Mabsūt̤, however, that the evidence of a usurer is inadmissible only in case of his being so in a notorious degree; because mankind often make invalid contracts, and these are in some degree usurious. (Hidāyah, Grady’s edition, p. 362.)
For further information on the subject of usury and for cases, illustrative of the above-stated principles, see Hidāyah, Hamilton’s translation, vol. ii., p. 489 seqq.; Grady’s edition, p. 289 seqq.; the Durru ʾl-Muk͟htār; the Fatāwā-i-ʿĀlamgīrī, in loco.
USWAH, also ISWAH (اسوة). “An example.” The word occurs in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah xxxiii. 21]: “Ye had in the Apostle of God a good example” (uṣwatun ḥasanatun). Ar-Rāg͟hib says it is the condition in which a man is in respect of another’s imitating him.
UTERINE RELATIONS. Arabic ẕawū ʾl-arḥām (ذوو الارحام), called by the English lawyers “distant kindred.”
They are divided into four classes:—
(1) Persons descended from the deceased, how low soever, i.e. the children of daughters or of son’s daughters.
(2) Those from whom the deceased is descended, how high soever, i.e. False grand-parents, in contradistinction from the True, a true grandfather being one between whom and the deceased no female intervenes; a true grandmother, one between whom and the deceased no false grandfather intervenes.
(3) Those descended from the parents of the deceased, how low soever, i.e. the daughters of full-brothers and of half-brothers (by the same father only), the children of half-brothers (by the same mother only), and the children of sisters.
(4) The children of the two grandfathers and two grandmothers of the deceased, i.e. father’s half-brothers and sisters by the same mother only and their children; the deceased’s paternal aunts and their children; maternal uncles and aunts and their children; the daughters of full paternal uncles and half-paternal uncles by the same father only.
This classification, however, does not exhaust the distant kindred, which, in the language of the law, are defined as those relations of a deceased person who are neither sharers nor residuaries. [[INHERITANCE].] Thus, cousins who are children of residuaries, but are not residuaries themselves (e.g. paternal uncles’ daughters) are distant kindred, though not members of any of the foregoing classes, or related through any member of such a class.
When the distant kindred succeed, in consequence of the absence of sharers and residuaries, they are admitted according to the order of their classes. Within the limits of each particular class, it is a general rule that a person nearer in degree succeeds in preference to one more remote; and in all classes, if there be several of an equal degree, the property goes equally among them if they are of the same sex. There is, however, some disagreement as to cases in which persons through whom they are related to the deceased are of different sexes or of different blood; and it is maintained by Muḥammad, against Abū Yūsuf, that regard must be had partly to the “roots” or intermediate relations, and not only to the “branches,” or actual claimants. Thus all are agreed that if a man leave a daughter’s son and a daughter’s daughter, the male will have a double portion, for there is no difference of sex in the intermediate relations; but if there be a daughter’s son’s daughter and a daughter’s daughter’s son, it is said by Abū Yūsuf that the male will have a double portion, on account of his sex; but by Muḥammad, that the female, instead of the male, will take the double portion, by reason of her father’s sex. And on the other hand, all are agreed that if there be two daughters of different brothers, they will take equally between them; but if there be a daughter of a brother and a daughter of a half-brother by the father only, Muḥammad rules that the latter will take nothing; for having regard to the circumstances that a brother excludes a half-brother by the father only, he considers that there is nothing to be handed down to the descendant of the latter, and that the whole will go to the descendant of the former.
This rule of Muḥammad, which in its application to the different classes of the distant kindred, leads to curious results of a complex character, seems to deserve a particular notice, as resting to a large extent on the principle of representation, which otherwise is all but foreign to the Muḥammadan law of inheritance. (A. Rumsey, Moohummudan Law of Inheritance, p. 56; Syed Ameer Ali, Personal Law, p. 52; Durru ʾl-Muk͟htār, p. 873.)
ʿUZAIR (عزير). [[EZRA].]
UẒḤĪYAH (اضحية). [[SACRIFICE].]
ʿUZLAH (عزلة). “Retirement.” A term used by the Ṣūfīs for a religious life of retirement from the world.
ʿUẔR (عذر). “An excuse.” A legal term for a claim or an objection.
AL-ʿUZZĀ (العزى). An idol mentioned in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah liii. 19]: “What think ye then of al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, and Manāt, the third idol besides.” According to Ḥusain, it was an idol of the tribe of G͟hat̤afān. For a discussion on the subject, see the article on [LAT].