just; rather, he was unjust. Yet it is known to the learned and the general public alike that the justice of Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—filled the horizons and became proverbial, as in the expression, “the conduct of the two Umars.” One of them was Umar ibn al-Khattāb. The other, it has been said, was Umar ibn Abd al-Azīz; this was the view of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others [among the scholars of religious learning and hadith] (1). It has also been said that they were Abū Bakr and Umar; this was the view of Abū Ubayda and a group of philologists (2) and grammarians.

It should suffice anyone that the Khawārij, who are the most obstinate of all people (3), approve of the conduct of Abū Bakr and Umar. Likewise, the earliest Shia—the companions of Alī—used to rank Abū Bakr and Umar above him.

Ibn Batta narrated the following report related by al-Hasan ibn Arafa: Kathīr ibn Marwān al-Filastīnī (4) related to me, from Anas ibn Sufyān, from Ghālib ibn Abdillāh al-Uqaylī, who said: When Umar was stabbed, several men came in to see him, among them Ibn Abbās. Umar was breathing his last and weeping. Ibn Abbās asked him, “What makes you weep, Commander of the Faithful?”

Umar replied, “By Allah, I am not weeping in anguish over this world, nor out of longing for it. Rather, I fear the terror of what I am about to face.”

He continued: Ibn Abbās then said to him, “Do not weep, Commander of the Faithful. By Allah, when you embraced Islam, your Islam was a victory, and indeed