in the Zuhr and ʿAsr prayers I prolong the recitation in the first two rakʿahs and keep the last two brief (1). I then heard ʿUmar say, “That is exactly what we thought of you, O Abū Isḥāq.”
According to Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (2), ʿUmar sent someone to ask the people of Kūfa about him. They all spoke well of him except for a man called Abū Saʿda, Usāma ibn Qatāda (3), who stood up and said, “Since you have adjured us, Saʿd does not divide shares equally, is not just in judgment, and does not accompany the expeditionary force.”
Saʿd said, “O Allah, if this servant of Yours has stood up merely for ostentation and fame, then lengthen his life, prolong his poverty, and expose him to temptations.” Saʿd’s supplication struck him: he became an old man who had to lift his drooping eyebrows from his eyes. He would waylay maid-servants in the streets and pinch them; when people reproached him he would say, “A bewitched old man—Saʿd’s supplication has reached me.”
In his testament—when he mentioned the six (4)—ʿUmar said, “If authority comes to Saʿd, so be it; otherwise, whoever of you assumes power should seek his assistance, for I did not remove him out of incapacity or treachery.”
He said: In that same year ʿUmar expelled the Jews of Khaybar, sending them to Adhrʿāt and elsewhere.
That year he also expelled the Jews of Najrān, sending them to Kūfa, and he divided Khaybar, Wādī al-Qurā, and Najrān among the Muslims.
He said: In that year ʿUmar established the dīwāns (state registers), though others claim he had done so earlier; Allah knows best.
He said: In that year ʿUmar dispatched ʿAlqamah ibn Mujazziz al-Mudlijī (5) by sea against Abyssinia, but the force was lost, whereupon ʿUmar swore never again to send an army by sea. Abū Maʿshar dissented from al-Wāqidī on this, claiming that the Abyssinian expedition actually took place in 31 AH—during the caliphate of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. Allah knows best.
Al-Wāqidī also said: In that year ʿUmar married Fāṭimah bint al-Walīd, whose husband al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām had died in the plague; she was the sister of Khālid ibn al-Walīd.
He said: And in that same year Hilāl (6) died in Damascus.