Ibn Abī al-Dunyā relates in his work al-Riqqa wa-l-Bukā’ (“Tenderness and Weeping”) that a freedman of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz reported the following. The caliph said to him, “My son, true goodness does not lie in people hearing you and obeying you; it lies in having neglected your Lord and then obeyed Him. Today do not allow anyone to come to me before morning, before the day fully breaks, for I fear I will lose control of myself before people, and they will misunderstand me.” His freedman replied, “Last night I saw you weep in a way I had never seen.” ʿUmar wept again and said, “By God, my son, I remembered standing before Allah alone.” Then he fainted and did not regain consciousness until daylight. “From that time until his death,” the freedman concluded, “I never saw him smiling.” On another occasion, ʿUmar recited the verse, “And you are never engaged in any matter, nor do you recite any of the Qur’ān, nor perform any deed, but We are witnesses over you” (Quran 10:61). He wept so uncontrollably that everyone in the house heard him. Fāṭima came in, sat down, and wept with him; thereafter the entire household wept. His son ʿAbd al-Malik entered to find them in tears and asked, “Father, why are you weeping?” He answered, “My son, it is for the best. May your father never have known this world, and may it never have known him. By God, I feared that I might be among the people of the Fire.” Ibn Abī al-Dunyā also records from ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAnbarī that he once saw ʿUmar II go out on a Friday wearing a heavy robe; a black Ethiopian servant walked behind him. When he reached his audience, the servant stepped back, and ʿUmar would say to each of the first two men, “May God have mercy on you,” before ascending the pulpit. From the pulpit he recited, “When the sun is wrapped up” (Quran 81:1) and “And when Hellfire is set ablaze, and Paradise is brought near” (Quran 81:12–13). He wept, and the congregation wept with him; so intense was the sorrow that even the walls of the mosque seemed to weep. An Arab Bedouin once approached him saying, “O Commander of the Faithful, I have come to you at my greatest need. By God, the day I meet my Lord I will have no excuse, neither any good deeds to rely on nor any hope of exemption from sin.” ʿUmar wept and asked, “How many dependents do you have?” The man replied, “Myself and three daughters.” ʿUmar assigned him a pension of three hundred dirhams, a hundred for each daughter, and gave him an additional one hundred dirhams from his private funds. “Go,” he said, “and spend it in charity until the community stipends are distributed, then join them.” A man from Azarbayjān stood before him and said, “O Commander of the Faithful, remind me of how little my standing here will compare with your standing before Allah tomorrow, when God will not be distracted by the number of those who dispute. The day you meet Him you will have no security in your deeds, no vindication from sin.” ʿUmar wept convulsively and then said, “What is your grievance?” The man replied, “Your governor in Azarbayjān, ʿAdā, wrongfully took twelve thousand dirhams from me and deposited it in the public treasury.” ʿUmar ordered, “Write immediately to the governor; return his money to him,” and dispatched the letter by courier. Ziyād, the freedman of Ibn ʿIyāsh, reports that he once spent a bitterly cold night by a brazier when ʿUmar II arrived and joined him. The ruler spoke, “O Ziyād.” “Yes, Commander of the Faithful,” he replied. ʿUmar said, “Tell me something.” Ziyād answered, “Nothing can benefit one who enters Paradise if he has passed through Hell, nor harm one who enters Hell if he has been in Paradise.” “You have spoken truth,” ʿUmar said, and wept until the brazier’s coals were extinguished. Ziyād al-ʿAbdī also advised him: “O Commander of the Faithful, do not occupy yourself with praise but with finding a way out of the predicament you face. Even if every hair on your head praised and thanked God, it would not reach the reality of your state.” Then Ziyād asked about someone beset by the harshest of opponents. ʿUmar replied, “He is in a bad state.” Ziyād pressed, “If there are two such opponents?” ʿUmar answered, “He is in a worse state.” Ziyād asked, “If there are three?” ʿUmar said, “Then he has no comfort in life.” Ziyād declared, “By God, O Commander of the Faithful, there is no one in the community of Muḥammad ﷺ except that you have three adversaries.” ʿUmar wept until Ziyād regretted having told him that. Finally, ʿUmar II wrote to ʿAdī ibn Artāh and the people of Basra: “Among the people are those whose desires mature in these passions; when reason departs and desire runs wild, they perpetrate forbidden bloodshed, violate the forbidden chastity of others, and usurp unlawful wealth. Allah has provided them lawful drink as an expiation. Whoever must drink, let him do so only from water drawn by the hand.”