The Prophet said, “If there were to be a prophet after me, indeed he would be ‘Umar, son of Khattab.” [Sunan Tirmidhi: 3686]
History does not produce men like ‘Umar often. He was a person from whom truth flowed naturally; a man of intuition, he was on his way to kill the Prophet (peace be upon him) and ended up accepting Islam! His love for Allah and his deen was so great, while all the other Muslims were hiding their Islam, he was ready to proclaim it. The Prophet (peace be upon him) called him, Al-Farooq, the one who clearly distinguishes the truth from falsehood.
Satan had given up on ‘Umar (radhiAllahu anhu). The Prophet said, “O son of Khattab, by the one in whose hand is my soul, whenever Satan sees you taking a path, then he will take another path.” [Sahih Bukhari: 5735]
When the enemies of Allah would hear about ‘Umar (radhiAllahu anhu), their knees would weaken and their hearts would tremble.
One of the key qualities of ‘Umar ibn al Khattab which exemplified his character was social justice. For him, social justice meant redistribution of power and income in such a way that, when introduced at the lowest level, it spreads upward to all the reaches of society. He established the pillars of justice, Al Adl, The first social policy infrastructure is found in all of history to be set up by
‘Umar (radhiAllahu anhu). The concept of Bait ul maal was established by him (radhiAllahu anhu). He would roam the streets of medina at night to help his people. The foundation of child benefit or children allowance, meaning every child gets benefit every week to keep them afloat, followed by the west today was initially set by him.
One night ‘Umar went on his rounds as usual when he heard the voice of a baby crying. ‘Umar stood outside the house for some time, but when the baby did not stop crying he knocked at the door and was admitted inside the house. He saw that a woman held a small baby in her lap and the baby continued to cry. ‘Umar turned to the lady and said, “What sort of mother are you? The baby is crying, and you do not feed it with your milk!”
The woman said, “Go and ask ‘Umar as to what sort of Caliph he is! He has ordained that a child would not get a stipend until it was weaned. In order to secure the stipend for our child we are trying to wean it.”
