A Persian slave, Feroze, called more familiarly Abu Lulû, had been brought by Moghîra from Irâc. Carried off a prisoner in his youth by the Romans, he had early embraced Christianity; and now, captured from them by the Moslems, his fate was to endure a second captivity as Moghîra’s slave. When the crowd of prisoners was marched into Medîna from the battle of Nehâvend (which is said to have been his birthplace) he gave vent to his grief; the sight opened springs of tenderness long pent up, and stroking the heads of the little ones, he exclaimed: ‘Verily, Omar hath consumed my bowels!’ He practised the trade of a carpenter; and Moghîra, as his owner, shared the profit. Meeting Omar in the market-place,[419] he cried out, ‘Commander of the Faithful! right me of my wrong, for verily Moghîra hath assessed me heavily.’ ‘At how much?’ asked the Caliph. ‘At two dirhems a day.’ ‘And what is thy trade?’ ‘A carpenter, designer, and worker in iron.’ ‘It is not much,’ replied Omar, ‘for a clever artificer like thee. I am told that thou couldst make for me a mill driven by the wind.’ ‘It is true.’ ‘Come then,’ continued the Caliph, ‘and make me such a mill that shall be driven by the wind.’ ‘If spared,’ said the captive in a surly voice, ‘I will make a mill for thee, the fame whereof shall reach from the East even to the far West;’ and he went on his way. Omar remarked, as he passed on, the sullen demeanour of Abu Lulû:—‘That slave,’ he said, ‘spoke threateningly to me just now.’[420]
Omar mortally wounded by Abu Lulû.
Next morning, when the people assembled in the Great Mosque for the early matin prayer, Abu Lulû mingled with the front rank of the worshippers. Omar entered, and, as was customary with the Imâm who led the prayers, took his stand in advance of the congregation, having his back towards them. He had no sooner called out the first words, Allah Akbar, than Abu Lulû rushed upon him, and with a sharp blade inflicted six wounds in different parts of his body. Then he ran wildly about, killing some and wounding others, and at last stabbed himself to death. Omar, who had fallen to the ground, was borne into his house, which adjoined the Mosque, sufficiently composed to desire that Abd al Rahmân should proceed with the service. When it was ended, Omar summoned him to his bedside, and signified his intention of nominating him to the Caliphate. ‘Is this obligatory upon me?’ inquired Abd al Rahmân. ‘Nay, by the Lord!’ said Omar, ‘thou art free.’ ‘That being so,’ he replied, ‘I never will accept the burden.’[421] ‘Then stanch my wound,’ said the dying Caliph (for life was ebbing fast through a great gash below the navel), ‘and stay me while I commit my trust unto a company of men that were faithful unto their Prophet, and with whom their Prophet was well pleased.’ Omar appoints Electors to choose successor.So he named together with Abd al Rahmân, other four, namely Aly, Othmân, Zobeir, and Sád, as the chiefest among the Companions of Mahomet, to be the electors of his successor, and called them to his bedside. When they appeared, he proceeded thus:—‘Wait for your brother Talha (who was absent for the moment from Medîna) three days; if he arrive, take him for the sixth; if not, ye are to decide the matter between you.’ Then, addressing each in turn, he warned them of the grave responsibility attaching to their office as Electors, and the danger to the elected one of favouring unduly his own clan and family. ‘O Aly, if the choice fall upon thee, see that thou exalt not the Beni Hâshim above their fellows. And thou, Othmân, if thou art elected, or Sád, beware that thou set not thy kinsmen over the necks of men. Arise, go forth, deliberate and then decide. Meanwhile Soheib shall lead the public prayers.’[422] When they had departed, he called Abu Talha, a warrior of note, to him:[423] ‘Go, stand,’ he said, ‘before their door, and suffer no man to enter in unto them.’ After a while he proceeded solemnly, addressing those around him:—‘To him who shall succeed, give it as my dying bequest that he be kind to the Men of this city, which gave a home to us and to the Faith; that he make much of their virtues, and pass lightly by their faults. And bid him treat well the Arab tribes, for verily they are the backbone of Islam; the tithe that he taketh from them, let him give it back unto the same for the nourishment of their poor. And the Jews and Christians, let him faithfully fulfil the covenant of the Prophet with them.[424] O Lord, I have finished my course. And now to him that cometh after me I leave the kingdom and the Caliphate firmly stablished and at peace.’ Then he lay down quietly and rested for a time.
Omar desires to be interred beside the Prophet.
After a while he bade his son go forth, and see who it was that had wounded him. Being told that it was Abu Lulû, he exclaimed:—‘Praise be to the Lord that it was not one who had ever bowed down before Him, even once, in prayer! Now, Abdallah, my son, go in unto Ayesha, and ask her leave that I be buried in her chamber by the side of the Prophet, and by the side of Abu Bekr. If she refuse, then bury me by the other Moslems, in the graveyard of Backî.[425] And list thee, Abdallah, if they disagree’ (for he too was to have a voice in the election) ‘then be thou with the majority; or, if the votes be equal, then choose thou that side on which is Abd al Rahmân. Now let the people come in.’ Crowds had assembled at the door; and, permission having been given, they approached to make obeisance. As they passed in and out, Omar asked whether any leading man had joined in conspiring against him. ‘The Lord forbid!’ was the loud response of all, in horror at the very word. . For this burying-ground, see Life of Mahomet, p. 208.
Omar’s death.
Among the rest, Aly came forward to inquire; and as he sat by the bedside, the son of Abbâs came up. Omar, who dreaded the factious spirit of the latter, said: ‘O Ibn Abbâs, art thou with me in this matter?’ He signified assent, whereupon Omar added earnestly: ‘See that thou deceive me not, thou and thy fellows.[426] Now, Abdallah, my son, raise up my head from the pillow, and then lay it gently on the ground:[427] peradventure the Lord may in mercy take me thus, this night, for I fear the horrors of the rising sun.’ A physician gave him to drink of date-water; but it oozed through the wound unchanged; and so also with a draught of milk. Which when the physician saw, he said: ‘I perceive that the wound is mortal: make now thy testament, O Commander of the Faithful.’ ‘That,’ said Omar, ‘have I done already.’ As he lay, his head resting on the bosom of his son, he recited this couplet:—
It had gone hard with my soul, if I had not been a Moslem;
But verily all the appointed prayers have I observed, and fasted.
Nov. 3, A.D. 644.