in a cloak that concealed a double-bladed dagger whose haft lay in the middle, after which he hid in one of the mosque’s corners during the dim moments before dawn.

ʿAmr ibn Maymūn al-Awdi said: “Abū Luʾluʾah, the slave of al-Mughīrah, stabbed ʿUmar with a dagger that had two points, and with it he also struck twelve other men, six of whom died. A man from Iraq threw a cloak over him; when he found himself trapped beneath it, he took his own life.”

ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr related: “I returned from the market while ʿUmar was leaning on my arm. Abū Luʾluʾah passed by and gave ʿUmar a look that made me think he would have attacked him had I not been there. Later I came to the mosque for the dawn prayer; half-asleep, I suddenly heard ʿUmar cry, ‘The dog has killed me!’ The people surged in confusion for a moment, until the recitation of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf steadied them.”

Thābit al-Bunānī, quoting Abū Rāfiʿ, said: “Abū Luʾluʾah was a slave of al-Mughīrah who manufactured millstones. Al-Mughīrah charged him four dirhams each day. He met ʿUmar and complained, saying, ‘Commander of the Believers, al-Mughīrah is overburdening me—speak to him.’ ʿUmar replied, ‘Treat your master kindly,’ fully intending to intercede for him. Abū Luʾluʾah grew angry and said, ‘Everyone enjoys his justice except me.’ He resolved to kill ʿUmar, procured a dagger, sharpened it, and coated it with poison.

“ʿUmar customarily announced, ‘Straighten your rows,’ before beginning the prayer. Abū Luʾluʾah came, stood opposite him in the row, and struck him on the shoulder and in the side, whereupon ʿUmar fell. He also stabbed thirteen other men, six of whom died. ʿUmar was carried to his house, and the sun was nearly up. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf led the people in prayer, reciting the two shortest sūrahs. They brought ʿUmar some nabīdh; he drank it, but it flowed out of his wound unchanged. They then gave him milk, and it too came out through the wound. The people said, ‘You will be all right,’ but he replied, ‘If being killed counts as harm, then I have been harmed.’

“The people began to praise him—‘You were this, you were that’—and he said, ‘By Allah, I wish I could leave this world with nothing for me and nothing against me, so long as the companionship of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, remains mine.’”