"[22] Nu'aym then told him to inquire about his own house, where his sister, Fatima bint Al-Khattab, and his brother-in-law had converted to Islam and were taking lessons from Khabbab ibn Al-Aratt.

Most Muslims migrated at night fearing Quraish resistance, but Umar is reported to have left openly during the day saying:[30][31] "Any one who wants to make his wife a widow and his children orphans should come and meet me there behind that cliff.

He apologized, moreover, that the Muhajirun present were forced to press for an immediate oath of allegiance since the Ansar could not have been trusted to wait for a legitimate consultation and might have proceeded to elect one of their own after the departure of the Mekkans.

Another reason for Umar to censure the Saqifa meeting as a falta was no doubt its turbulent and undignified end, as he and his followers jumped upon the sick Khazraji leader Sa'd bin Ubada in order to teach him a lesson, if not to kill him, for daring to challenge the sole right of Quraysh to rule.

This violent break-up of the meeting indicates, moreover, that the Ansar cannot all have been swayed by the wisdom and eloquence of Abu Bakr's speech and have accepted him as the best choice for the succession, as suggested by Caetani.

But then other Sunni and Shia sources say that Ali did not swear allegiance to Abu Bakr after his election but six months later after the death of his wife Fatimah putting into question al-Tabari's account.

Abu Bakr no doubt was wise enough to restrain Umar from any violence against them, well realizing that this would inevitably provoke the sense of solidarity of the majority of Abdul Mannaf whose acquiescence he needed.

[46] An Armenian bishop writing a decade or so after Qadisiyya describes Umar as a "mighty potentate coordinating the advance of the sons of Ismael from the depths of the desert".

Umar's threadbare robes, his diet of bread, salt and water, and his rejection of worldly riches would have reminded anyone from the desert reaches beyond Palestine of a very particular kind of person.

"[46] Due to the delicate political situation in Arabia[vague], Umar initially opposed military operations against the rebel tribes there,[citation needed] hoping to gain their support in the event of an invasion by the Romans or the Persians.

[citation needed] Provincial governors received as much as five to seven thousand dirham annually besides their shares of the spoils of war (if they were also the commander in chief of the army of their sector).

This policy continued during the Umayyad period and resulted in the cultivation of large areas of barren lands through the construction of irrigation canals by the state and by individuals.

A recently discovered Judeo-Arabic text has disclosed the following anecdote:[69] "Umar ordered Gentiles and a group of Jews to sweep the area of the Temple Mount.

It is also reported in the name of the Alexandrian Bishop Eutychius (932–940 CE) that the rock known as the Temple Mount had been a place of ruins as far back as the time of the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who built churches in Jerusalem.

[73] The Jews, Kaab explained, had briefly won back their old capital a quarter of a century before (when Persians overran Syria and Palestine), but they had not had time to clear the site of the Temple, for the Rums (Byzantines) had recaptured the city.

According to lexicographer David ben Abraham al-Fasi (died before 1026 CE), the Muslim conquest of Palestine brought relief to the country's Jewish citizens, who had previously been barred by the Byzantines from praying on the Temple Mount.

During his reign the Levant, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Fezzan, Eastern Anatolia, almost the whole of the Sassanid Persian Empire including Bactria, Persia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Caucasus and Makran were annexed to the Rashidun Caliphate.

[83][84][85][86] Local populations of Jews and Christians, persecuted as religious minorities and taxed heavily to finance the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars, often aided Muslims to take over their lands from the Byzantines and Persians, resulting in exceptionally speedy conquests.

[95] A highly skilled joiner and blacksmith,[96] Abu Lu'lu'a was probably taken captive by his master al-Mughira in the Battle of Nahavand (642) and subsequently brought to Arabia, where he may also have converted to Islam.

Acting upon the claim of one man (either Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf or Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr) that they had been seen conspiring with Abu Lu'lu'a while he was holding the double-bladed dagger, Ubayd Allah also killed Hurmuzān (Umar's Persian military adviser), and Jufayna, a Christian man from al-Hira (Iraq) who had been taken to Medina to serve as a private tutor to a family in Medina.

Although Ubayd Allah may have been encouraged by his sister Hafsa bint Umar to avenge their father's death, his murder of Hurmuzān and Jufayna was likely the result of a mental breakdown rather than of a true conspiracy.

[122] Moreover, it is also narrated that he was initially white but his color turned dark during the Year of Ashes (18 A.H) where a Famine caused him to exert considerable effort in running the caliphate whilst there was a widespread lack of food.

[122][125] The early Muslim historians Ibn Saad and al-Hakim mention that Abu Miriam Zir, a native of Kufa, described Umar as being "advanced in years, bald, of a tawny colour – a left handed man, tall and towering above the people".

On the authority of Abu Raja al-U'taridi, Ibn Asakir records that "Umar was a man tall, stout, very bald, very ruddy with scanty hair on the cheeks, his moustaches large, and the ends thereof reddish".

"[135] Under Umar's rule, in order to promote strict discipline, Arab soldiers were settled outside of cities, between the desert and cultivated lands in special garrison towns known as "amsar".

For example, to ensure that nobody sleeps hungry in his empire, he used to walk through the streets almost every night to see if there is any one needy or ill.In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon refers to Umar in the following terms: "Yet the abstinence and humility of Umar were not inferior to the virtues of Abubeker; his food consisted of barley bread or dates; his drink was water; he preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places; and a Persian satrap who paid his homage to the conqueror, found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosque of Medina.

To further pressure the Christian Arab armies, Umar instructed Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, commander of Muslim forces in Iraq, to send reinforcements to Emesa.

The final expedition was launched against Khurasan, where, after the Battle of Oxus River, the Persian empire ceased to exist, and Yazdegerd III fled to Central Asia.

[citation needed] Umar is remembered by Sunnis as a rigid Muslim of a sound and just disposition in matters of religion; a man they title Fārūq, meaning "leader, jurist and statesman", and the second of the rightly guided caliphs.

[148] According to the majority of Twelver scholar writings, Fatimah was physically assaulted by Umar, that this caused her to miscarry her child, Muhsin ibn Ali, and led to her death soon after.