Umar bin Abdul Aziz” an ideal figure

He is a son of abdul aziz grandson of marwan and the son of Ummi Asim (grand daughter of Umar ibnulkhatab), Umara bin abdul aziz was born in 61 H at Madinah under caring father Abdullah bin Umar. The unique feature of Umar bin Abdul aziz as compared to other Umayad rulers is that he is the one who is acknowledged as a true chalip in sense of true word. He was the 8th ruler in the Umayad line of Muslim sovereign. He is quietly different from his predecessor in treating public wealth, in his concern of the spiritual matters of his people. He had strong believed no reform could be effective unless started from his own personal life.
As there are so many political maneuvering, intrigue and conflict happened by the end of khulafau-rasyidin the spiritual concern had left aside and not becomes the main focus and priority anymore. He even regarded as the 5th and the last of the rightly guided caliphs.
He discarded luxury living style as practiced by the chalips prior to him and He returned the public wealth (baitul-mal) to the public. We can see this character is rooted from his youth education by pious, piety family and that’s character leave with him till his very mature.
As he is caring so much for the religious affair, he instructs his entire assistant to observe well conduct of Islamic attitude and he demand to the Islamic scholar and traditionist to collect the prophetic saying of the prophet.

Regarding this concern he adopted the following method[1]
He directed all his energies to rebuilding the true Islamic ideology and religion. He strove to cut at the very root of thought and prohibited any discussion of points which led to futile controversies. In actual life he would ask the community to adhere to the precise fundamental and recommended that there should be no arguing on mutashabihat.
The chalip understood very well that without the promotion of education, no plan of reconstruction and reform could bear fruit.
Umar bin abdul aziz sincerely believed that the company of the pious, the noble and the most civilized, was a sure key to the self improvement of an man and enhancement of his knowledge, he encouraged pious and scholarly meeting and exchanges and maintained contact himself with some of the great savant to seek their counsel.
Umar bin Abdul Aziz realized that all his effort toward reform and resurgence would be useless if he himself lacked piety and Islamic attitude in regard to thing and matter.
He was not an expansionist but he was a great administrator. In his time the prosperity comes to its peak to the all level of society. in his time even no one have rights to receive ’zakat’ as no one entitled to be in state of poverty. ironically with what happening in this era the gap between rich and poor are rising sharply and the thing that we should now is that is was not because of lack of resources but it was because unjust distribution mechanism. He took care for the prisoner, he fights feudalism, he protected non-Muslim, after all ideal personality which he had, in facts, when he die he left with no property. This thing really shows how a piety ruler he was. He was great in personality as well as a chalip. That’s why no more wonder that he have distinct place in Islamic history as an ideal Figure.





[1] Bhatti, Muhammad Sohail, Political and Cultural History of islam, Bhatti Sons Publisher, Lahore, 2003, p. 415-416.