Omar Ebn Al Khattab (22)

We have been talking about the Caliph Omar Ebn Al Khattab and his virtues, and I still have the feeling that there is more to be said about him to describe his greatness. Al Hassan AL Basry “one of the greatest Imams in the Islamic history” said “I can imagine Islam is checking people’s faces in the judgment day and saying to Allah, this man supported me or this man failed me, till he reach Sayedna Omar, so Islam takes Omar’s hand and say: I was a stranger till that man converted to Islam”. The Muslim culture was enriched when Omar Ebn Al Khattab became the Caliph and he added a lot to the value of the Islamic empire in his time.

Such situation is only from Al Hasan Al Basry’s imagination, but it is completely true that Muslims were strangers till Omar Ebn Al Khattab entered Islam and added more power to Muslims, so they went out, saying “Allah Akbar” loudly. We can never forget that Muslims never prayed in front of the Kaaba until Omar Ebn Al Khattab converted to Islam.

I read a simple situation between Omar Ebn Al Khattab, Amr Ebn Alas and a Christian man. After the Islamic army opened Egypt, Omar Ebn Al Khattab appointed Amr Abn Alas as the governor of Egypt. A race was arranged in Egypt for horse riding and there were two horse riders remaining and competing to win the first rank, one of them was Amr Abn Alas’s son, while the other was a Christian man.

Both men raced and it was hard for both of them, but the Christian man won, so Amr Abn Alas’s son became very angry. He took his stick and hit the Christian man on his head saying “how dare you beat me and I’m the son of honored men?” The Christian man knew that someone can bring him back his right, so he traveled to Al Madina and asked to meet Sayedna Omar. Sayedna Omar met the man and listened to the story and then he sent a letter to Amr Ebn Alas asking him to come to Al Madina with his son. When the governor of Egypt arrived with his son, Sayedna Omar took a stick and gave it to the Christian man and asked him to hit the son of Amr Abn Alas, so the man did, and then Sayedna Omar asked the Christian man to hit Amr Ebn Alas himself, so the man said “only his son hit me”, but Sayenda Omar said “he hit you because of the position of his father”.

Now we can see that justice was the most important law in the Muslim world and justice was a core value in the Muslim culture, when Omar Ebn Al Khattab ruled. He could not consider Muslims are above laws in case of having conflicts with Christians, but he believed that Allah ordered us to give justice to Muslims and non Muslims, even if the conflict is with the son of one of the Sahaba.

To be continued…

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