User:Al Ameer son/Umar II

Early life

Umar was likely born in Medina in circa 680. His father, Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan, belonged to the powerful Umayyad clan resident in the city, while his mother, Umm Asim bint Asim, was a granddaughter of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644). His descent from Caliph Umar would later be much emphasized by Umar II and the traditional Muslim sources to differentiate him from other Umayyad rulers. At the time of his birth, another branch of the Umayyads, the Sufyanids, ruled the caliphate from Damascus. When the Sufyanid caliph Yazid I and his son and successor, Mu'awiya II, died in quick succession in 683 and 684, respectively, Umayyad authority collapsed across the caliphate and the Umayyads of the Hejaz, including Medina, were expelled by supporters of the rival caliph, the Mecca-based Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. The Umayyad exiles took refuge in Syria, where the dynasty continued to be supported by powerful tribes such as the Banu Kalb. Umar's grandfather, Marwan I, was ultimately recognized by these tribes as caliph and with their support, reasserted Umayyad rule in Syria. In 685, he ousted the Zubayrid governor of Egypt and installed Umar's father as governor of the province. Umar spent part of his childhood in Egypt, particularly Hulwan, which had become the seat of his father's governorship between 686 and his death in 705, but was educated in Medina, which was retaken by the Umayyads under Umar's paternal uncle, Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), in 692. It was likely during his time in Medina, where he spent the majority of his youth, that he developed ties with the city's pious men and transmitters of the hadith. Following the death of Umar's father, Abd al-Malik recalled Umar to Damascus, where he married the caliph's daughter, Fatima.

Governor of Medina

Shortly after his accession, Abd al-Malik's son and successor, al-Walid I (r. 705–715), appointed Umar governor of Medina. According to Wellhausen, al-Walid's intention was to use Umar to reconcile the townspeople of Medina to Umayyad rule and "obliterate [sic] the evil memory" of the preceding Umayyad governors, namely Hisham ibn Isma'il al-Makhzumi, whose rule over Medina had been harsh. Umar took up the post in February/March 706 and his jurisdiction later extended to Mecca and Ta'if. Information about his governorship are scant, but most traditional accounts note that he was a "just governor", according to historian Paul Cobb. He often led the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca and showed favor toward the Islamic legal scholars of Medina, notably Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab. Umar tolerated many of these scholars' vocal criticism of the Umayyad government's conduct. However, other accounts hold that he showed himself to be materialistic during his early career. On al-Walid's orders, Umar undertook the reconstruction and expansion of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina beginning in 707. Under Umar's generally lenient rule, the Hejaz became a refuge for Iraqi political and religious exiles fleeing the persecutions of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, al-Walid's powerful viceroy over the eastern half of the caliphate. According to Cobb, this ultimately served as Umar's "undoing" as al-Hajjaj pressured the caliph to dismiss Umar in May/June 712.

Courtier of al-Walid and Sulayman

Despite his dismissal, Umar remained in al-Walid's favor, being the brother of the caliph's first wife, Umm al-Banin bint Abd al-Aziz. He remained in al-Walid's court in Damascus until the caliph's death in 715, and according to 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi, performed the funeral prayers. Al-Walid's brother and successor, Sulayman (r. 715–717) held Umar in high regard. Alongside Raja ibn Haywa al-Kindi, an influential religious figure in the Umayyads' court, Umar served as a principle adviser of Sulayman. He accompanied the latter when he led the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 716 and on his return to Jerusalem. Likewise, he was at the caliph's side at the Muslims' marshaling camp at Dabiq in northern Syria, where Sulayman directed the massive war effort to conquer the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 717.

Caliphate

Accession

According to the traditional Muslim sources, when Sulayman was on his deathbed in Dabiq, he was persuaded by Raja to designate Umar as his successor. Sulayman's son Ayyub had been his initial nominee, but predeceased him, while his other sons were either too young or away fighting on the Byzantine front. The nomination of Umar voided the wishes of Abd al-Malik, who sought to restrict the office to his direct descendants. The elevation of Umar, a member of a cadet branch of the dynasty, in preference to the numerous princes descended from Abd al-Malik surprised these princes. According to Wellhausen, "nobody dreamed of this, himself [Umar] least of all". Raja managed the affair, calling the Umayyad princes present at Dabiq into its mosque and demanding that they recognize Sulayman's will, which Raja had kept secret. Only after the Umayyads accepted, did Raja reveal that Umar was the caliph's nominee. Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik voiced his opposition, but relented after being threatened with the use of force. Potential intra-dynastic conflict was averted with the designation of a son of Abd al-Malik, Yazid II, as Umar's successor. According to historian Reinhart Eisener, Raja's role in the affair was likely "exaggerated"; "more reasonable" was that Umar's succession was the result of "traditional patterns, like seniority and well-founded claims" stemming from Caliph Marwan I's original designation of Umar's father, Abd al-Aziz, as Abd al-Malik's successor, which did not materialize due to Abd al-Aziz predeceasing Abd al-Malik. Umar acceded without significant opposition on 22 September 717.

Domestic politics

Like his predecessors, Umar overhauled the administrations of the provinces shortly after his accession. He split up the vast governorship established over Iraq and the eastern caliphate during the reign of Abd al-Malik and his viceroy al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. The preceding governor of this super-province, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, was dismissed and imprisoned by Umar for failing to forward the spoils from his conquest of Tabaristan, along the southern Caspian coast, to the caliphal treasury. In place of Ibn al-Muhallab, he assigned Abd al-Hamid ibn Abd al-Rahman, a descendant of Caliph Umar I, to Kufa, Adi ibn Artah al-Fazari to Basra, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami to Khurasan and Amr ibn Muslim al-Bahili, a brother of the accomplished general Qutayba ibn Muslim, to Sindh. To the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), he appointed Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari, while al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani was appointed to al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula) and Isma'il ibn Abd Allah to Ifriqiya. Though many of the appointees in the eastern provinces were pupils of al-Hajjaj or affiliated with the Qays faction, Umar appointed them based on their reliability and integrity, rather than apparent opposition to Sulayman's governors. Likewise, his choice of governors for al-Andalus and Ifriqiya stemmed from his perceptions of their neutrality amid the tribal factionalism of the Qays and Yaman and leniency toward the oppressed subjects of these provinces. According to Kennedy, Umar seemingly assigned competent men that he could control, indicating his intention "to keep a close eye on provincial administration". Indeed, Wellhausen notes that the caliph did not leave the governors to their own devices in return for their forwarding of the provincial revenues; rather, he actively oversaw his governors' administrations and his main interest was "not so much the increase of power as the establishment of right".

Military efforts

Umar is often deemed a pacifist by the sources, though Cobb attributes the caliph's war-weariness to concerns over the diminishing funds of the caliphate's treasury. Wellhausen asserts that Umar was "disinclined to wars of conquest, well-knowing that they were waged, not for God, but for the sake of spoil". Indeed, shortly after his accession in late 717, he ordered the withdrawal of the Muslim army led by his cousin Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik from their abortive siege against Constantinople to the region of Malatya, closer to the Syrian frontier. Despite the withdrawal, Umar kept up the annual summer raids against the Byzantine frontier, out of the obligation to jihad. Umar remained in northern Syria, often residing at his estate Khunasira, where he built a fortified headquarters.

At some point in 717, he dispatched a force under Ibn Hatim ibn al-Nu'man al-Bahili to Adharbayjan to disperse a group of Turks who had launched damaging raids against the province. In 718, he successively deployed Iraqi and Syrian troops to suppress the Kharijite rebellion of Shawdhab al-Yashkuri in Iraq, though some sources say the revolt was settled diplomatically. Along the caliphate's northeastern frontiers, in Transoxiana, Islam had already been established in a number of cities, precluding Umar's withdrawal of Arab troops from there. However, he prevented further eastward expansion. During his reign, Muslim forces based in al-Andalus conquered and fortified the Mediterranean coastal city of Narbonne in modern-day France.

Assessment

According to historian Hugh N. Kennedy, Umar "is the most puzzling character among the Marwanid rulers". The unanimous view in the Muslim traditional sources is that Umar was pious and ruled like a true Muslim in singular opposition to the other Umayyad caliphs, who were generally considered "godless usurpers, tyrants and playboys". The tradition recognized Umar as an authentic caliph, while the other Umayyads were viewed as kings. In the view of Hawting, this is partly based on the historical facts and Umar's character and actions, but "it is also clear that much of the traditional writing about him should be regarded as pious and moralistic story-telling in keeping with the needs and outlook of tradition". As a result of this and his short term in office, it is difficult to assess the achievements of his caliphate and his motives. According to Hawting, the work of German historian Julius Wellhausen marked a transition from the early Western scholastic tendency to view Umar as "an impractical idealist" into "a pious individual who attempted to solve the problems of his day in a way which would reconcile the needs of his dynasty and state with the demands of Islam".

Bibliography

• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany: SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-1827-8.
• Kennedy, Hugh N. (2004). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Second ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 0-582-40525-4.
• Mourad, Suleiman Ali (2006). Early Islam Between Myth and History: Al-Ḥaṣan Al-Baṣrī (d. 110H/728CE) and the Formation of His Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-14829-9.
• Shaban
• Shaban 2
• Hodgson
• Wellhausen, J. (1927). Weir, Margaret Graham (ed.). The Arab Kingdom and its Fall. University of Calcutta. ISBN 9780415209045.