must take it on.” ʿUmar therefore made his preparations until the mounts were made to kneel in the courtyard (1). Then the Companions came and advised al-Ṣiddīq to keep ʿUmar in Madinah and leave Khalid in Syria. When ʿUmar later assumed the caliphate he wrote to Khalid to that effect; Khalid replied in the same vein, whereupon ʿUmar dismissed him, saying, “Allah would never see me order Abū Bakr to do something that I then fail to carry out myself.”

Al-Bukhārī relates in his History (2)—and others as well—through ʿUlay ibn Rabāḥ from Nāshirah ibn Sumayy al-Yazani (3) who said: I heard ʿUmar excusing himself to the people at al-Jābiyah for dismissing Khalid. He said, “I instructed him to hold that money back for the weak among the Emigrants, but he gave it to men of prowess, status, and eloquence; so I appointed Abū ʿUbaydah.”

Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥafṣ ibn al-Mughīrah retorted, “You have offered no excuse, O ʿUmar! You removed an official whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had appointed, lowered a banner the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had raised, sheathed a sword Allah Himself had drawn, severed kinship ties, and envied a cousin.”

ʿUmar replied, “You are a close relative, young in years, and angered on behalf of your cousin.”

Al-Wāqidī (may Allah have mercy on him), Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, and others state that Khalid died in the year 21 AH in a village one mile from Ḥimṣ, and that he appointed ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb as his executor. Duhaym and others said he died in Madinah, but the first report is sounder.

We have already mentioned above how ʿUmar disciplined him when he gave al-Ashʿath ibn Qays ten thousand and how ʿUmar also took twenty thousand from his wealth; and we have cited his reproach for Khalid’s entering the bathhouse and rubbing himself, after depilation, with safflower flour mixed with wine, along with Khalid’s excuse that it had become a cleansing agent.

We have transmitted from Khalid that he divorced one of his wives, saying, “I did not divorce her out of suspicion, but because she never fell ill with me, nor was she ever afflicted in her body, her head, or any part of her person.”

Saif and others narrate that when ʿUmar dismissed Khalid from Syria and al-Muthannā ibn Ḥārithah from Iraq he said, “I removed them only so that people would know that Allah grants victory to the religion not through their support, and that all power belongs entirely to Allah.”

Saif likewise reports that when ʿUmar dismissed Khalid from Qinnasrīn and took from him what he took, he said, “You are noble in my eyes and dear to me, and nothing from me will ever reach you after this that you dislike.”

Al-Aṣmaʿī relates, through Salamah, through Bilāl, through Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbī, that ʿUmar and Khalid wrestled when they were youths—Khalid being ʿUmar’s maternal cousin—and Khalid broke ʿUmar’s leg. It was treated and set, and that was the origin of the enmity between them (4).

Al-Aṣmaʿī also reports, through Ibn ʿAwn from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, that Khalid once entered upon ʿUmar wearing a silk shirt