Rajāʾ ibn Ḥaywah refined and approved the Caliph’s plan, whereupon Sulaymān wrote a deed appointing ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz as his successor, sealed it, and let no one know—neither ʿUmar nor any member of the Marwānid family—save the Caliph himself and the minister Rajāʾ. He then ordered the chief of police to summon the princes and leading men of the Banū Marwān and others; they pledged allegiance to Sulaymān for whatever was contained in the sealed document, and dispersed. When the Caliph died, Rajāʾ ibn Ḥaywah called them back, and they renewed the pledge to whomever was named in the scroll. He opened it and read it aloud: it contained the pledge of allegiance to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. They thereupon took him, seated him upon the minbar, and pledged allegiance to him; thus the caliphate was confirmed.

The scholars have differed over such a procedure—when a man records his bequest in writing, calls witnesses to what it contains without reading it to them, and they later testify to its contents and it is executed. A number of scholars deemed this permissible.

Judge Abū al-Faraj al-Muʿāfā ibn Zakariyyā al-Jarīrī said: The majority of the scholars of the Hijaz approved, ratified, and gave legal judgment on it; this is related from Sālim ibn ʿAbdullāh. It is the school of Mālik, Muḥammad ibn Maslamah al-Makhzūmī, Makḥūl, Namīr ibn Aws, Zurʿah ibn Ibrāhīm, al-Awzāʿī, Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and the Syrian jurists who concur with them. Something similar was reported by Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Abī Mālik from his father and the judges of his district. It is also the view of al-Layth ibn Saʿd and the jurists of Egypt and the Maghrib who agree with him, and the position of the jurists and judges of Basra. It is related as well from Qatādah, Sawwār ibn ʿAbdullāh, ʿUbayd Allah ibn al-Ḥasan, Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh al-ʿAnbarī, and others who followed their path; many hadith scholars adopted it too, among them Abū ʿUbayd and Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh.

I say: al-Bukhārī devoted careful attention to this question in his Ṣaḥīḥ.

Al-Muʿāfā al-Jarīrī continued: A group of the Iraqi jurists—among them Ibrāhīm, Ḥammād, and al-Ḥasan—rejected it. This is also the position of al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Thawr, and the view of our shaykh Abū Jaʿfar, though some of al-Shāfiʿī’s disciples in Iraq held the first opinion.

Al-Jarīrī said: We adopt the first opinion. (1)

It was mentioned earlier (2) that when ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz returned from Sulaymān’s funeral, the caliphal mounts were brought for him to ride; he refused and recited:

Were it not for piety—and prudence born of fear of doom—
In longing for youthful desire I would flout every reproach.

He has decreed what He decreed in days now past;
No second youthful whim shall the passing nights behold.

He then said, “What Allah wills; there is no power except in Allah. Bring my mule.”