dependents scattered throughout the earth; I knew that my Lord would call me to account for them, and that the one who would argue their case against me would be Muhammad ﷺ. I feared I would have no plea to present when he litigated with me, so I took pity on my own soul and wept.

Ḥammād ibn al-Naḍr reported—from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, from ʿAṭāʾ, from her—a narration to the same effect, adding: “She told me this after ʿUmar’s death.”

Al-Firyābī said: al-Awzāʿī narrated to us that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was once sitting in his house with the noblemen of the Umayyads present. He asked, “Would you like me to appoint each one of you over a regiment from these armies?” One of them replied, “Why do you offer us what you will not actually give?”

He said, “You see this rug of mine; I know it will one day wear out, yet I would hate for you to soil it with your feet. How, then, could I entrust you with my religion, or put in your hands the honor, lives, and very skin of the Muslims for you to rule over? Far be it—far be it!”

They said, “Why not? Are we not your kinsmen? Do we not have a right?” He answered, “In this affair you and the most distant Muslim are equal in my sight—except for a man whom sheer distance (1) has kept from reaching me.”

Yahyā ibn Abī Ghanīyah transmitted—from Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar ibn Abī al-Zubayr—who said: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote to Abū Bakr ibn Ḥazm: “Sharpen the point of your pen and keep your lines close together, for I dislike spending any of the Muslims’ wealth on what brings them no benefit.”

Maymūn ibn Mihrān said: “I stayed with ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz for six months; I never saw him change his cloak. He would wash it from one Friday to the next and scent it lightly with saffron.”

Al-Thawrī narrated, from ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd ibn Abī Ḥusayn: “There was a muezzin for ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd—”