Before The Grand Event
1
Our man is `Omar ibnul-Khattab, of a tribe 2
called Bani `Adiy. His father, Al-Khattab ibn Nufail, was not well-off,
3 though he was well-known
for his violence 4
and brutal 5
nature. There is no doubt that `Omar inherited
6 the severity 7
and violence of his father, and that had it not been for his adoption
8 of Islam, he might
have lived among the people of his tribe, as his father had done before,
a man with a ruthless 9
heart and a violence of character that could never have been suppressed
10
Yet
`Omar's life, in his Pre-Islamic days was more or less the same as the
lives of the youth about whom we read in the Pre-Islamic
11 poetry. He was
fond of drinking, wrestling 12
with his mates 13
in the market places and courting 14
the pretty young ladies. He used to attend the annual 15
poetic contests 16
at `Okaz market, listen to the recitals 17
of their poets and repeat the verses of the Pre-Islamic poets. As all the
other idolaters of his time, `Omar had made his own idol of soft dates.
18
But one day, as he was worshipping 19
his idol, he felt hungry, and found no harm in devouring 20
his god at once, which thing gives a true picture of the silly and trivial
21
mentality 22
of the idol-worshippers in the Pre-Islamic days.
`Omar was one of the very few who were instructed in reading and writing
in his childhood. This is why he was frequently chosen by his tribe to
represent them whenever there were any disputes 23
between them and other tribes. Whatever those disputes the mere presence
of `Omar was a very influential
24 element in eliminating 25
any difficulty and solving any problem.
That was `Omar ibnul-Khattab, the man of extraordinary strenght, height,
broad- shoulderedness 26
thickness of hands and feet; the man who forced the people to listen when
he spoke, who always hastened away when he walked, and who usually caused
much pain when he struck. That was `Omar who never felt scared 27
of anything or anybody throughout his life. It was not strange to see him
facing the first Muslims with all the violence and ruthlessness he had.
There was a strong enmity between him and Islam; the reason for this was
that, among his people, he had been a man full of power prudence 28
zeal 29
and dignity 30
power to defend his people and their beliefs; prudence to be always having
watchful care of their interests; zeal to spend his time and effort to
keep them in union 31;
and dignity to provide full respect and prestige 32
for himself and his people always and everywhere. With all these honourable
qualities, 'Omar had had to face any call that might have caused disunion
among his people, dispersing 33
them, nullifying 34
their aspirations 35
condemning 36
their beliefs and satirizing 37
their gods. No wonder, then, that `Omar's violence inflicted 38
the severest persecution and torture 39
upon the first Muslims. We have seen how he had inherited so much of his
father's brutal and violent nature. If we bear in mind that the most brutal
and merciless enemy of Islam, its Prophet and its first adherents, was
`Amr ibn-Hisham, after wards named "Abu-Jahl" by the Prophet and his companions,
was `Omar's uncle (his mother's brother), we can easily discern 40
that `Omar's violence was the outcome
41 of what he had inherited from his father, and of the hideous
42 ruthlessness
his uncle used to inflict upon the poor and weak Muslims of his time.
And it was not strange that `Omar's brutality and audacity
43 had gone so far as to make him think of killing the
Prophet and establishing reunion among his people once more. But such a
daring idea had had to be checked 44
a thousand times before it rose up to the region of his conscious mind
45
this had happened to `Omar. It had never occurred 46
to his mind that a grand event would take place very soon; and it would
take place as a flash of light at one of the brightest moments the history
of humanity has ever recorded. 47
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