Abd Allah, from Ibn Abbas, who said:

Umar said to me, “By Allah, Ibn Abbas, no one is fit for this office except one who is strong without harshness, gentle without weakness, generous without(1) extravagance, and restrained without miserliness.”

He said: Ibn Abbas would say, “By Allah, I know no one fitting this description except Umar.”

It is also related from Sālih ibn Kaysān, from Ibn Shihāb, from Sālim, from his father, that whenever Umar was mentioned, he would say:

“How excellent Umar was! Seldom did I ever hear him voice any fear without it proving true.”

[Chapter: The Rāfidī’s claim that Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—forbade excessive dowries]

Chapter(2)

The Rāfidī said(3):

“In one of his sermons he said, ‘If anyone gives a woman an excessive dowry, I shall place it in the public treasury.’

“A woman said to him, ‘How can you withhold from us what Allah has granted us in His Book, when He says, “and you have given one of them a great sum” [Surah al-Nisā’: 20]?’

“He replied, ‘Everyone(4) has greater understanding than Umar, even women in seclusion.’”

The answer is that this story is evidence of Umar’s consummate virtue, religious commitment, and piety; of his returning to the truth whenever it became clear to him; of his accepting the truth even from a woman and humbling himself before it; and of his acknowledging another person’s superiority to him, even in the most minor matter. Nor is it a condition of