Al Farooq was one of the ascetics and was well-known for his justice and strength in the right as he was not afraid of anyone but Allah. He was killed by the slave Piruz Nahavandi in 23 A. He celebrated a lot of achievements. For example, he was the first to apply the system of public ministry, where the records of the officials and soldiers were reserved.
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Oxford Reference. Publications Pages Publications Pages. From this perspective, any social or political system that imposed subservience to a despotic ruler or an oppressive empire detracted from this transcendence and deserved to be challenged. When Omar r became the Caliph, the campaigns in Syria were ongoing.
The Battle of Yarmuk had broken Byzantine resistance but Palestine was not yet subdued. Omar r commanded Amr bin al As to proceed from Yarmuk to Jerusalem. Since resistance was hopeless, the Patriarch of Jerusalem offered the keys to the city provided the Caliph himself came up to accept them. Omar ibn al Khattab r was now the Caliph of all of Arabia and of surrounding territories. He could have traveled as a conqueror in pomp and luxury.
But he, like the other Companions, had received his training from the Prophet Muhammed p. Theirs was the kingdom of heaven and not of this earth. They held the key to the treasures of the earth but only as a Divine Trust as servants of the Lord. Omar r traveled north on one camel with a single attendant, taking turns with him for the ride. As he approached Jerusalem, it so happened, the attendant was on the camel and the Caliph was walking alongside.
The potentates of Jerusalem thought that the rider was the Caliph and the man on foot, in his patched clothes, was the servant. They offered abeyance to the rider. When the Muslim commanders greeted the real Caliph, the potentates of Jerusalem were astonished and bowed down in awe. Omar r treated the conquered people with unsurpassed magnanimity. The capitulation document signed with the Christians upon the fall of Jerusalem provides an example:.
This safety is for their life, property, church and cross, for the healthy and the sick and for all their co-religionists. Their churches shall neither be used as residence nor shall they be demolished.
No harm shall be done to their churches or their boundaries. There shall be no decrease in their crosses or riches. There shall neither be any compulsion in religion nor shall they be harmed. The document speaks for itself. The Muslim armies were fighting for the freedom of worship, not for religious conversion. They considered it their mission on earth to free humankind from the yoke of exploitation and abuse. The conquered people were regarded as dhimmis from the word dhimana , meaning trust or responsibility.
They were considered a trust not to be violated as has happened time and again in history. Omar r stayed for a few days in Jerusalem and after inspecting the army positions in Syria, returned to Madina. The Byzantines tried to regroup in Egypt and use it as a base to recover Syria. In , Omar r sent an expedition under Amr bin al As to Alexandria.
The Copts were neutral in this test of strength between the Byzantines and the Muslims. Alexandria fell and the Muslim armies continued their advance as far as Tripoli in Libya. Meanwhile, the eastern front with Persia was active.
The Persians did not take lightly their losses in the border areas west of the Euphrates River. They reorganized, put their western defenses under the famous Khorasani General Rustam and reinforced him with the services of two able officers, Narsi and Jaban.
So, Al Muthannah went to Madina and sought additional troops. Caliph Omar r permitted him to raise a new army, allowing for the first time the recruitment of men from the Arab tribes that had at one time become apostates. Abu Obaid Saqafi was selected to lead this new army. Skirmishes started immediately between the opposing forces.
He followed it up with a victory over Narsi at the Battle of Maqatia. Undaunted, the Persian commander Rustam sent a new army under Mardan Shah and reinforced it with a hundred war elephants. The Arabs had no experience fighting elephant-mounted troops. In the ensuing battle, Abu Obaid was trampled under one of the elephants and the Arab forces were sent reeling back across the Euphrates. It was now obvious that what had started as a border war had become a test of strength between the Muslims and the Persian Empire.
Omar r called a meeting of all the Arab nobles for consultation and offered to personally lead a campaign to Persia. Among those embarking on the mission were seventy Companions of the Prophet who had fought at the Battle of Badr. The inclusion of Badri Companions increased the fervor of Muslims to a feverish pitch.
Even some of the Christian tribes in the border areas offered to support the Muslim army. On the opposing side, the Persian General Rustam was at the head of 50, seasoned soldiers. Once the conquest of Syria had been achieved, the Syrian army was free to attack upper Mesopotamia from the west, and it came under the control of the caliphate in The conquest of such a vast area in such a relatively short time soon created formidable administrative problems for Omar.
Since the Arabs had no experience as rulers of an empire, they were forced to rely to a great extent on the bureaucracies created by the Byzantine and Sassanian governments. Nevertheless, Omar is credited with introducing several new administrative practices and institutions which, in conjunction with the customary practice of the conquered lands, gave stability to the Arab occupation and allowed the conquests to maintain their momentum.
Tradition would have it that Omar announced his innovations in a speech made to the Arab military leaders during a lull in the fighting between the battle of Yarmuk and the occupation of Jerusalem. Though this tradition may well be a reconstruction of the gradual evolution of early Moslem policy, it is probable that Omar did lay down guidelines, at least for the solution of pressing problems.
Almost all these were related to finances: how to pay the troops and support the Moslem community on a long-term basis without disrupting the economy of the conquered lands. In general, Omar's solution was to leave the conquered peoples in possession of their lands and their own religion in exchange for the payment of tribute which was to be disbursed in turn by the Moslem government to its armies and citizens.
To institutionalize this policy, a divan, or register, was drawn up which regularized the stipends which Moslems were to be paid according to religious and tribal principles. Relations between Moslems and non-Moslems were further stabilized by exempting the latter from military service and guaranteeing them protection in return for the taxes which they paid.
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