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Companions · Al-Faruq · Second caliph

عمر بن الخطاب

Umar ibn al-Khattab

His Islam was a conquest, his justice a proverb, and shaytan took the other road when he walked.

The whole account

The account

Umar ibn al-Khattab set out one day to kill the Prophet ﷺ and arrived instead at his sister's house, where Surah Ta-Ha was being recited in the home of Sa'id ibn Zayd. He read, trembled, and walked to the house of al-Arqam to pledge. The Muslims prayed openly at the Kaaba for the first time behind his shoulders. The Prophet named him al-Faruq, the one who splits truth from falsehood, and said: "By the One in whose hand is my soul, shaytan never meets you traveling on a road but he takes a road other than yours."

At the Farewell Hajj he understood the verse of completion and wept. After the Passing he drew his sword in grief, until steadied by Abu Bakr, whom he served, then succeeded. His ten years opened al-Quds, Persia, Egypt and Sham; he took the title Amir al-Mu'minin, established the diwan and the Hijri calendar, patrolled Madinah at night carrying flour on his own back, and fixed the Hijrah as year one. He asked Allah for martyrdom in the Prophet's city and received both: struck at Fajr in his own mihrab, buried beside the two he loved.

The facts

The narrations

Shaytan never meets you traveling on a road but he takes a road other than yours.

Bukhari 3683 · Muslim 2396

In the nations before you there were inspired men (muhaddathun); if there is one in my ummah, it is Umar.

Bukhari 3689 · Muslim 2398

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