Ziyād al-Bakkāʾī related: Miʿsar ibn Kidām told me, on the authority of Saʿd ibn Ibrāhīm, who said: Ibn Masʿūd declared, “ʿUmar’s acceptance of Islam was a conquest, his migration a victory, and his caliphate a mercy. We could not pray at the Kaʿbah until ʿUmar embraced Islam; once he did, he fought Quraysh until he prayed there, and we prayed beside him.”

Ibn Isḥāq said: ʿUmar became Muslim after those Companions of the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—had departed for Abyssinia.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAyyāsh ibn Abī Rabīʿah narrated to me, from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir ibn Rabīʿah, from his mother, Umm ʿAbd Allāh bint Abī Ḥathmah, who said:

“By God, we were loading our mounts for the journey to Abyssinia—ʿĀmir having gone out to attend to some of our needs—when ʿUmar approached and stopped over me while he was still upon his idolatry. We had suffered harm and hardship at his hands. He said, ‘So you are setting out, Umm ʿAbd Allāh?’

“I replied, ‘Yes, by God. We are leaving for some land of God because you have persecuted and oppressed us, until God provides us a way out.’

“He said, ‘May God accompany you.’ I noticed in him a gentleness I had never seen before; then he turned away, and—so it seemed—our departure weighed on him.

“When ʿĀmir returned with our provisions I told him, ‘O Abū ʿAbd Allāh, if only you had seen ʿUmar just now—how soft-hearted and saddened he was for us!’

“He asked, ‘Have you begun to hope for his Islam?’

“I answered, ‘Yes, indeed.’

“He said, ‘The man you saw will not become Muslim until al-Khaṭṭāb’s donkey does.’

“She added: He said this out of despair, knowing ʿUmar’s harshness and severity toward Islam.

I say: This disproves the assertion of those who claim that he was the fortieth Muslim, for the emigrants to Abyssinia exceeded eighty. One could only say he completed the forty after the emigrants had already left. This is supported by what Ibn Isḥāq relates here in the narrative of ʿUmar’s conversion alone—may God be pleased with him. He said:

“According to what has reached me, ʿUmar’s sister Fāṭimah bint al-Khaṭṭāb—who was married to Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl—had accepted Islam, as had her husband Saʿīd, all of them concealing their faith from ʿUmar. Nuʿaym ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Naḥḥām, a man of Banū ʿAdiyy, had also embraced Islam, likewise hiding it from his people. Khabbāb ibn al-Arrat used to visit Fāṭimah bint al-Khaṭṭāb to teach her the Qur’an.

“One day ʿUmar, with his sword slung across him, set out in search of the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—and a group of his Companions. He was told that they were gathered in a house near al-Ṣafā, numbering about forty, men and women together, with the Messenger of God accompanied by his uncle Ḥamzah, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Quḥāfah al-Ṣiddīq, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and other Muslims who had remained in Mecca and had not left for Abyssinia.

“Nuʿaym ibn ʿAbd Allāh met him and asked, ‘Where are you going, O ʿUmar?’

“He replied, ‘I am going to Muhammad—the renegade who has split Quraysh, belittled their intellects, slandered their religion, and cursed their idols—and I will kill him.’

“Nuʿaym said to him, ‘By God, your own soul has deceived you, O ʿUmar! Do you think the sons of ʿAbd Manāf would let you walk …’