, but as for ʿUmar, do not weep for him, for Allah would never combine for him the fear of this world with the fear of the Hereafter.

He then said, “I am not amazed by that monk who worships in his cell and has renounced the world; what truly amazes me is the man to whom the world came submissively until it was in his very hand—yet he cast it aside.”

Ibn Wahb—on the authority of Mālik—reported that Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī, the governor, once asked about the grave of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. No one could direct him to it until he was shown a monk. When he questioned the monk, the latter said, “Are you looking for the grave of the truthful one (al-ṣiddīq)? It lies in that field.”

Ibn Saʿd related: Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar told us—Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn Jammāz narrated to us—from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad, who said:
“At the time of his death ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz gave instructions. He called for a lock of the Prophet’s ﷺ hair and some of his clipped nails and said, ‘Place them in my shroud.’ (1)

Rajāʾ ibn Ḥaywah reported that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said to him, “Be among those who wash my body and who will descend into my grave. When you have placed me in the niche, loosen the knots of the shroud and then look at my face. I have buried three caliphs, and each time, after setting him in his niche and loosening the knots, I looked and his face was blackened and turned away from the qibla.”

Rajāʾ continued, “So I entered the grave, untied the knots, and saw that his face was white like parchment, facing the qibla.”

Its chain of transmission is obscure, and it is recorded in Ibn Saʿd’s al-Ṭabaqāt (2).

Ibn Saʿd and Isḥāq ibn Sayyār also narrated—through ʿAbbād ibn ʿUmar al-Wāshiḥī, the muʾadhdhin—who said: Makhlad ibn Yazīd, a virtuous and upright man, told us, on the authority of Yūsuf ibn Māhak:
“While we were still leveling the earth over the grave of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, a parchment scroll fell upon us from the sky. It read:
In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.
A guarantee from Allah to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz of deliverance from the Fire.”