Timeline Explorer · Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz · Stop 1 of 11
640 CE · 20 AH approximate debated before the Hijra
In al-Baladhuri: under Umar the people of Najran took usury and multiplied, so he feared them for Islam and exiled them to al-Najraniyya by Kufa — the settlement named after them — buying up their estates and writing for them that wherever they settled in Syria or Iraq they were…
Umar's Expulsion of the Christians of Najran — 640 CE · 20 AH
In al-Baladhuri: under Umar the people of Najran took usury and multiplied, so he feared them for Islam and exiled them to al-Najraniyya by Kufa — the settlement named after them — buying up their estates and writing for them that wherever they settled in Syria or Iraq they were to be granted arable land in place of their land in Yemen; the Jews of Najran had entered the treaty with the Christians as their followers; in Salim ibn Abi al-Ja'd's report the people of Najran reached forty thousand, quarrelled among themselves, asked Umar 'exile us' — which he did, already fearing them for the Muslims — then regretted it and sought reversal which he refused, and when Ali ibn Abi Talib took office they came to him and he said 'Umar was of sound judgement and I dislike opposing him'; the rulings then ran on: Uthman remitted two hundred hullas by letter to his Kufa governor al-Walid ibn Uqba after Uthman ibn Hunayf told him their exile had harmed the dihqans by driving them off their land; Mu'awiya or Yazid completed them to four hundred hullas; al-Hajjaj restored eighteen hundred after Ibn al-Ash'ath's revolt, accusing them of backing it; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz set them at two hundred hullas worth eight thousand dirhams on finding them at a tithe of their former number — 'I see this treaty is a jizya on their heads, not a treaty on their lands, and the jizya of the dead and the Muslim lapses'; Yusuf ibn Umar restored them under al-Walid ibn Yazid out of solidarity with al-Hajjaj; Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah confirmed two hundred hullas after they scattered basil on his procession at Kufa and Abdullah ibn al-Rabi' al-Harithi interceded for their kinship claim through Banu al-Harith ibn Ka'b his maternal uncles, seconded by al-Hajjaj ibn Arta; and Harun al-Rashid confirmed it by a letter the transmitters saw, ordering them freed from dealing with the tax agents to pay directly to the treasury at the capital.
The Second Raid on Cyprus — c. 653 CE · 33 AH
In al-Baladhuri: in year 32 the people of Cyprus aided the Byzantines against the sea-raiders, giving them vessels, so Mu'awiya raided them in year 33 with five hundred ships, taking Cyprus by force — killing and making captives — then restored them to their treaty, sending there twelve thousand men all of the diwan who built its mosques, and transferring companies from Ba'labakk; he built a city there and they dwelt drawing stipends until Mu'awiya died and his son Yazid succeeded, who disbanded that force and ordered the city demolished — some transmitters place the second raid in year 35, and Muhammad ibn Musaffa was told Yazid was bribed with great wealth to withdraw the Cyprus garrison, whose people then demolished their city and mosques once they had gone; al-Walid ibn Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik exiled a body of them to Syria on a charge which the people disapproved, and Yazid ibn al-Walid returned them to their land; Hayy ibn Ma'yuf al-Hamdani raided them in al-Rashid's caliphate for an offence and took captives, and when they straightened to the Muslims al-Rashid ordered the captives returned; the people of Cyprus remained on Mu'awiya's treaty until Abd al-Malik added a thousand dinars, which ran until Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz remitted it, Hisham restored it, and Abu Ja'far al-Mansur declared 'we are worthier of being just to them and did not profit by wronging them', returning them to Mu'awiya's treaty.
The Building of the Fortress of Masisa — 703 CE · 84 AH
In al-Baladhuri from al-Waqidi and others: in year 84 Abdullah ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan led the summer raid, entering by the pass of Antioch and coming to Masisa, where he built its fortress on the ancient foundation and settled garrison troops among them three hundred picked men of known valour and stoutness — the Muslims had never dwelt there before — and built a mosque atop the fortress hill; Abu al-Khattab al-Azdi says the first to build its fortress in Islam was Abd al-Malik through his son Abdullah in year 84, its building and garrisoning complete in year 85; the fortress held a church called Herya which the summer columns from Antioch would reach and winter at yearly, numbering a thousand five hundred to two thousand; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz went out to Herya-Masisa meaning to demolish it and the forts between it and Antioch, saying 'I hate for the Byzantines to besiege its people', until the people showed him it was populated only to shield Antioch and that razing it would leave the enemy no barrier before it, so he held back and built them a congregational mosque by Kafarbayya with a cistern bearing his name — called the fortress mosque, ruined in al-Mu'tasim's caliphate; then Hisham built the rabad, Marwan ibn Muhammad built the suburb east of the Jayhan with a wall, timber gate and moat, and Abu al-Abbas set four hundred more men at Masisa, granting them estates.
The Founding of al-Ramla — c. 715 CE · c. 96 AH
In al-Baladhuri: al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik gave his brother Sulayman command of the Filastin jund, and he settled at Lydda then founded the city of al-Ramla and made it an amsar — the first thing he built being his palace and the house known as Dar al-Sabbaghin with a central cistern, then he laid out the mosque's plan and built it, taking the caliphate before completing it and finishing it in his reign, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz completing it while reducing the plan, saying 'the people of al-Ramla are content with this measure'; when Sulayman built for himself he gave people leave to build and they did, digging the canal called Barada and wells for them, a Christian clerk of Lydda named al-Batriq ibn al-Nakka overseeing the expenditure on the works and the congregational mosque; the city of al-Ramla did not exist before Sulayman, its site being a sandy tract; the Umayyads spent on its wells and canal after him, then the Abbasids did likewise, the charge issuing yearly from caliph to caliph until al-Mu'tasim entered it in the register, whence it became a standing annuity reckoned to the claimants.
Isma'il ibn Abdallah and Umar II's Mission to the Berbers — between 717 and 720 CE
In al-Baladhuri: in Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's caliphate he gave the Maghreb to Isma'il ibn Abdallah ibn Abi al-Muhajir, mawla of Banu Makhzum, who walked the best of paths and called the Berbers to Islam — and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz wrote them letters summoning them to it besides, which Isma'il read out to them through the districts, until Islam mastered the Maghreb.
Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah's Governorship of Armenia — between 717 and 730 CE · c. 99 AH
In al-Baladhuri: Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik gave Armenia to Adi ibn Adi ibn Amira al-Kindi — Adi ibn Amira being one of those who settled al-Raqqa having parted with Ali ibn Abi Talib — then Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz appointed him, he being the owner of the Nahr Adi at al-Baylaqan, though some say Umar's governor was Hatim ibn al-Nu'man, which is unsound; then Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik appointed Mi'laq ibn Saffar al-Bahrani, removed him for al-Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i, who raided the Lakz and took Rustaq Hamsadan; and al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami of Mudhhij governed Armenia, settling at Bardha'a, where its conflicting measures and weights were laid before him and he set them on justice and fulness, making a measure called al-Jarrahi which its people deal by to this day; then he crossed the Kurr and marched until he passed the river called al-Samur, reaching the Khazars and killing them in a great slaughter, and fought the people of Bilad Hamzin, then compounded with them to transfer them to a rustaq.
The letter of al-Jarrah and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's reply — between 717 and 720 CE · c. 99 AH
Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah wrote to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz that the people of Khurasan were unruly subjects whom only the sword and the whip would set right, asking permission to apply them; Umar wrote back: 'Your letter reached me saying Khurasan's people are unruly and only sword and whip will mend them — you lie; justice and truth will mend them. Spread those among them, and peace' .
Abolition of Cursing Ali in the Sermon — c. 717 CE · 99 AH
The Umayyads had cursed Ali ibn Abi Talib in the sermon; when Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz took power he abolished it, wrote to his deputies ordering its abolition, and recited in its place the verse of justice and beneficence — its recitation in the sermon has continued ever since .
Returning Fadak to Its Condition in the Prophet's Time — c. 717 CE · 99 AH
On his accession Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz gathered the Banu Marwan and declared: the Prophet held Fadak, spending from it, providing for the young Banu Hashim and marrying off their widows; Fatima asked him for it and he refused, and it remained so through Abu Bakr and Umar, then Marwan granted it as iqta' until it reached Umar himself — 'I saw a thing the Prophet withheld from Fatima and it is not lawful for me; I bear you witness that I have returned it to what it was in the Prophet's time.' He began with his own kin, confiscating their holdings and naming them mazalim .
Yazid's Departure from Umar's Way After Forty Days — c. 720 CE · 101 AH
On accession Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik proclaimed 'follow the sira of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz' and forty elders testified for him that there is no reckoning or torment upon caliphs; per Ibn al-Majishun he held to Umar's ways forty days, then turned aside .
Death of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz — February 720 CE · Rajab 101 AH
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz died at Dayr Sim'an in the district of Homs in Rajab year 101, aged thirty-nine and a half, poisoned — the Umayyads having wearied of his strictness against them and his seizure of much they had usurped, while he had let slip all self-protection; asked what people said of him, he told Mujahid they thought him bewitched but he knew the very hour the poison was given, and when his servant confessed to having taken a thousand dinars to administer it, he threw the sum into the treasury and sent him where no one would see him .
