Umar ibn al-Khattab: Justice Without Fear

Ten men were named in a single breath by the Prophet ﷺ and promised Paradise. This is the second of them.

Umar ibn al-Khattab fought the truth for six years, then carried it further than anyone. The Prophet ﷺ asked Allah for him by name, called him al-Faruq, the one who separates truth from falsehood, and said that Satan took another road when he saw him coming. He gave the hard opinion at Badr, broke the silence at Uhud, asked the question he regretted at Hudaybiyah and did deeds for it for the rest of his life. For ten years he ruled the lands of Caesar and Chosroes from a mosque floor in a patched cloak, afraid of nothing except his Lord and the account he would give.

This short book walks with him through each of those moments: the day he believed, the Quran agreeing with him, the palace the Prophet ﷺ saw for him in Paradise, the day the Prophet ﷺ died, the Year of Ash, the gates of Jerusalem, and the dawn prayer at which he was struck and still finished the prayer.

Every claim is backed by a verse of the Quran, a hadith with its reference, or a named report from the early historians. Quranic verses appear in Arabic in the Uthmani script of the Madinah Mushaf with their English meanings, and hadith are given with their numbers and gradings. Reports from the books of history are clearly marked as such.

The book ends with the words Umar carried to us, including the hadith of intentions and the hadith of Jibril, seven habits drawn from his life, and a forty-day plan for making them your own.

Book Two of The Ten Promised Paradise, a series of ten short companions, one for each of the men the Prophet ﷺ named. Read it slowly. Then go and do one thing he did.