for him. When he entered Umar’s presence, he said, ‘Come now, son of al-Khattāb! By Allah, you do not give us generously, nor do you judge between us justly.’ Umar became so angry that he was about to punish him (1).
Al-Hurr said to him, ‘O Commander of the Believers, Allah Most High said to His Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace:
“Show forgiveness, enjoin what is right, and turn away from the ignorant.”
[Surah al-Araf: 199]
This man is surely one of the ignorant.’ By Allah, Umar did not go beyond the verse when al-Hurr recited it to him. Umar was one who always stopped at the Book of Allah.”
It is established through mass-transmitted reports that Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—feared no one’s reproach in matters concerning Allah. Indeed, he administered the prescribed punishment to his son when he drank (2) in Egypt, even though Amr ibn al-Ās had already administered it to him. [But] (3) he had (4) flogged him privately inside the house, whereas others were flogged publicly. Umar therefore sent word to Amr, rebuking and threatening him (5) for having shown favoritism to Umar’s son. He then summoned his son and flogged him a second time.
Abd al-Rahmān said to him, ‘Why are you doing this?’ But Umar rebuked Abd al-Rahmān. As for the report that he flogged him after he had died, it is a lie against Umar, for it is not permissible to flog a dead person (6).
The mass-transmitted reports concerning Umar’s enforcement of the prescribed punishments and his refusal to fear anyone’s reproach in matters concerning Allah are too numerous to recount here.
(1) Al-Bukhārī reads: “he was about to attack him.” One reading has: “he was about to punish him,” and another: “he was about to set upon him.”
(2) (H), (R), and (Y) read: “when he had drunk.”
(3) “But” is absent from (N) and (M).
(4) “Had” is absent from (H).
(5) (N) and (M) read: “and threatening him.”
(6) (N) and (M) read: “is not lawful.” See this report in Ibn al-Jawzī’s *Tārīkh Umar ibn al-Khattāb*, pp. 207–209. See also Ibn al-Jawzī’s statement on p. 209: “When Umar ibn al-Khattāb—may Allah be pleased with him—heard of this, he wrote to Amr ibn al-Ās: ‘Send Abd al-Rahmān ibn Umar to me riding on a simple camel saddle.’ Amr did so. When Abd al-Rahmān arrived, Umar flogged and punished him because of his close relationship to him, and then released him. He remained in good health for a month, after which his appointed fate overtook him. Most people therefore supposed that he had died from Umar’s flogging, but he did not die from it. I say: It should not be thought that Abd al-Rahmān ibn Umar drank wine. Rather, he drank *nabīdh* (a steeped drink), acting on an interpretation and believing that drinking it would not cause intoxication. The same was true of Abū Sarwa'a, who was one of those who fought at Badr. When the drink ultimately intoxicated them, they sought purification through the prescribed punishment. Mere remorse for their lapse would have sufficed, but their anger for Allah’s sake turned against their own remiss selves, and so they surrendered themselves for the prescribed punishment to be carried out. As for Umar’s administering the prescribed punishment to his son, it was not in fact a second prescribed punishment; he struck him only out of anger and as discipline, for a prescribed punishment is not administered twice. Some storytellers seized upon this report and repeated it over and over. At times they frame this suspicion as one of drinking wine and at others as one of fornication, recounting fabricated material that makes the common people weep.” See also *Akhbār Umar* by Alī and Nājī Tantāwī, pp. 382–383.