After the death of Prophet Muhammad, may God praise him, the rapidly expanding Islamic nation was led by a series of men known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs. They were men who had learned their faith directly from the Prophet himself and governed strictly according to the Quran and authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad. By 644CE both the Persian and Byzantium empires had fallen to the Muslim armies. Slowly over the next decades, the people of the conquered empires adapted both the language and religion of the conquerors. At the same time, the character of the Muslim leaders was changing. The men who had ruled strictly by the word of God had been replaced by others. The caliphate that was to have been an elected position was replaced by hereditary succession. The Umayyad dynasty was established.
Although they did not strictly follow the ways of their predecessors they were historically considered to be an extremely successful dynasty. The Umayyads managed to maintain the political and religious unity of the Islamic nation and greatly expanded its borders. However, they have gone down in history as particularly autocratic. When Omayyad Caliph Sulaiman (714-717) lay on his deathbed, he attempted to earn the pleasure of God by following the example of the early Caliphs and nominating someone other than one of his own sons as the next Caliph. He, therefore, appointed his distant cousin Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz, his successor. Omar was then faced with the seemingly impossible task of returning the Islamic nation back into a nation of people who obeyed the laws of God above all else.
Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz had served as the governor of Egypt and Medina for more than twenty-two years. He had been educated and trained by a well-known scholar by the name of Salah Ibn Kaisan. Before his accession to the Caliphate, Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz was a young man, fond of fashion and fragrance, however, when he accepted the responsibility of leading the Islamic nation he proved to be the most pious, able, far-sighted and responsible of all the Omayyad Caliphs.
He tried to rule in a way similar to how the Islamic state was governed in its infancy. He immediately began by adhering to Islamic principles. When news reached him of his nomination to the Caliphate, he addressed the people saying, ยO people! The responsibilities of the Caliphate have been thrust upon me without my desire or your consent. If you choose to select someone else as the Caliph, I will immediately step aside and will support your decisionย. This was a breath of fresh air to the people who were longing for a return to the days of Prophet Muhammad, may God praise him, and the Rightly Guided Caliphs. Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz was unanimously elected.
Omar immediately discarded his extravagant lifestyle and tried to emulate Prophet Muhammad and his closest companions. One of his first actions was to return the lavish estates and palaces owned by members of the Umayyad dynasty to the public estate. When previously there was no answerability to the people, Omar re-established accountability and abolished the corrupt practices by which the government officials had become rich, powerful and abusive. The people responded with enthusiastic support and overall productivity throughout the Islamic State increased. Renowned Islamic scholar, Ibn Kathir, records that because of the reforms were undertaken by Omar, the annual revenue from Persia alone increased from 28 million dirhams to 124 million dirhams.
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Writer Abdi Awiye
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