The Commander of the Faithful, Umar ibn al-Khattab, set out for Syria. On the way, he was told that plague had broken out there—a severe plague in which many people had died. Umar had no report from the Prophet ﷺ concerning this matter, but he had sound judgment. It was as though he said, “How can we proceed to a land where this contagious, deadly epidemic is present?”

It was Umar’s practice, when a matter was unclear to him, to gather the Companions and consult them. So he assembled the Companions, and they disagreed. Then he gathered the early Emigrants, and then the Helpers, but they all differed in their views. He then summoned the elderly Qurayshites among the Emigrants who had embraced Islam at the Conquest. The view upon which they settled was that they should return. Thus, acting on the advice of the Companions, he decided to return and ordered the party to depart.

Then Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah came to him. The Messenger ﷺ had said of him, “He is the trustee of this nation” (1). Umar also said of him when he was stabbed, “Had Abu Ubaydah been alive, I would have appointed him caliph” (2), because the Messenger ﷺ had said, “He is the trustee of this nation.” Abu Ubaydah said, “Commander of the Faithful, how can you decide to depart? Are you fleeing from Allah’s decree?!”

It was not apparent to Abu Ubaydah that the decree had not yet occurred for them to flee from it; rather, had they proceeded, they themselves would have gone to meet the decree. Umar said, “If only someone other than you had said that, O Abu Ubaydah!”—meaning, “I wish that …”