Lessons from the life of Umar Ibn Abdul Azeez

On the topic of Omar, Abdul Aziz and his beloved, because personally, he's a hero of mine. I really

enjoyed studying his biography. I've studied a lot of details, extracted lessons from it. And I find that the life of Omar Abdulaziz serves as a role model for us in many different areas

of life, not just in politics. So let's start with some basic information about who he is and how does he fit in with the whole amin dynasty. He on his father's side he's over even Abdulaziz even Marwan even

though he's the grandson of Marwan even haka, just like Solomon and Walid, right, the his father, Abdul Aziz was the brother of Abdul Malik. And if you remember in a previous lesson, we mentioned that my one had appointed his two sons, Abdul Malik and Abdul Aziz to succeed him. But Aziz passed away during the reign of Abdul Malik, and so he never became Khalifa. But his grandson Omar,

on his father's side is the descendant of kings. On his mother's side. Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz is the great grandson of Omar even alpha.

So he is the descendant of a believer on both sides of the family. And the story about his lineage on his mother's side is very famous. I think most of you know the story that Omar, even Abdulaziz.

his grandparents, and how they met was the owner of the hotel one night when he was doing his nightly rounds. He had a woman arguing with her mother, that this woman's mother wanted her to make smoke and wanted to deceive the people about how much milk they were selling. And this woman told me to do a lot and she did not obey her mother because what her mother was telling her to do was Haram. So Omar heard of this, and he was really impressed by this young woman start work. So he came the next day with his Son House him and he asked for this woman to marry his son acid. He looked for a righteous wife for his son. And so as he got married to this woman, and Omar said, I hope that from

your descendants, there will be a righteous ruler. As him and his wife, they had a daughter.

Their daughter, married Abdul Aziz, the son of the king, and they had a son, Homer, and he grew up to become the great ruler, the woman hope to come from his descendants

had a very different upbringing from the other.

The other Americans, many of them were raised in the palace, under the king and he has a very spoiled upbringing from to say,

but Omar was raised in Medina.

And when he was young, his parents had to leave Medina and go to Egypt because his father had been appointed as the governor of Egypt. And this is when his mother chose to do something very important. His mother chose to leave him behind in Medina, with his grandfather's brother, Abdullah.

And so he was left behind in Medina, and he grew up in Medina and Abdullah he went over who was a Sahabi and who was a scholar, surrounded by the scholars of Medina.

We grew up in an environment of scholarship. And this played a major role in the character and personality of Omar Abdul Aziz, he grew up into a scholar and being a scholar made him very different from the rest of the family, in that he had a much stronger understanding of the religion and he has a much stronger, he attached a lot more importance to the olema. So during the reign of his brother in law, well, he forgot to mention this. But when Omar even Abdul Aziz became of age to get married, he was married to his cousin, Fatima Binti Abdul Malik, I should his wife Fatima is the sister of Waleed and Suleyman, the daughter of Abdul Malik eberman one and so he is now the cousin

and the brother in law of the halifa.

So his cousin and brother in law when he appoints him as the governor of Medina, and as the governor of Medina, he rules very differently from previous governors. He established the old Mr. Bonney to consult him and allow refugees to come and live there. He established a lot of religious practices and study circles. It was a good time for the people of Medina, but eventually because of the interference of Hijazi producer, he had to leave Medina and move to Damascus, where as we mentioned earlier, he became the was the Brazil of the next king who is still a man. And eventually when Solomon passed away, Omar himself became the halifa. Now, I'm mentioning this point because many

people when they think of Omar Abdul Aziz, they only know those two and a half years when he was the Khalifa. They don't know his life before that. Omar even Abdul Aziz did not exist.

In a vacuum, he did not become the alpha overnight. Right? There was the scholarly upbringing, there was the governorship of Medina where he made some mistakes and he learned life lessons from there was the being the overseer of Suleyman. And then at the end came the Philippines. Many people today we look for shortcuts, you know, we want to get to the highest goal immediately, without working our way to the top

is literally worked his way to the top. And when he became the felipa, he already had a lot of experience in politics.

Now, the reign of Omar Abdulaziz is in of itself a vertical that this man ruled the Muslim world for two and a half years, only two and a half years. But he accomplished more in this two and a half years than the average ruler could in a decade or two decades.

Initially, Omar did not want to accept the law, but he didn't look at it as an opportunity. But he looked at it as a burden. He looked at it as you know, and I'm gonna ask him about every single member of the oma as we teach on the field output. So he did not want it. But the people wanted him to take it from me, he accepted it reluctantly. And immediately upon becoming the halifa, Oman began to set about instant reforms for everybody, even for his own self and his wife. Remember, Oman and his wife were raised in the obion family.

They are both from royal backgrounds.

They were both raised with wealth. But when he became the halifa, he told his wife now we are going to live a simple life. Whatever extra wealth we have, we're going to give it back to the base model, and we're going to focus on serving the people. And so he and his wife literally downgraded the lifestyle to a simple life to emulate the early hollyford the bulevar Rashidi, and he began to live like there and he began to rule like demons. Well, we example how he ruled like them, or is The Omen even Abdul Aziz established a circle of scholars to advise him as Abu Bakr had done. In fact, because of this lifestyle and his rulership style, many of the historians refer to Omar Abdulaziz as

the fifth of the rightly guided Coronavirus. Personally I don't like calling him that because, you know, it kind of downgrades Hasson and where are we are, we have also had like Wi Fi fires. And so I wouldn't like to attach a number but definitely he was amongst the right.

Omar Abdullah Aziz is also considered historically, as the first majestic, the first revival of Islam based on the Hadees. That

from pseudo lost love, while he was lm stated, at the end of every century, Allah will send a revival of the religion. And when you look at the reign of Omar Abdulaziz, it was exactly at the turn of the century 99 to one over the edge. And he really revived Islam in so many different ways.

So some of the things that Omar Abdulaziz did, as we said, without really his lifestyle, and he

kind of forced this upon the other obedience as well, that he began to reform the excesses of the other millions, and began to force them to live simpler lifestyles, and to give back a lot of the wealth that they had taken from the big robot. And some of the historians say that he made a mistake here in the sense that he pushed them too hard and too fast. In fact, some of the Obama who were part of his advisory body, they told Omar, don't push them too hard, they will rebel against you. And this is a general gamble is that when somebody is accustomed to a certain lifestyle, don't expect immediate change from them, to try and push them to change too quickly. It may seem

rebellious, it makes them aggressive. And that was a mistake that Omar Abdulaziz made, of course, he's looking at it from the perspective that he is the Khalifa and all of these things and Amanda from Allah, but the other day I explained to him that if he was a bit slower than maybe the omiya, to be able to accept his changes gradually, but he brought about too much changes at one moment, and the kind of snapped and turned against him because of this howdy perhaps being soft on them, perhaps they wouldn't have turned against him. Perhaps he could have lived the longer life Allah knows best with the last government. This is how it happened.

So amongst the things that Omar even Abdul Aziz accomplished, he halted the expansion of the Muslim Empire and focused on reform instead. As you say, during the reigns of Abdul Malik and worried the Muslim Empire expanded greatly, in many different directions, right. But what is expansion, there wasn't any focus on helping the people of the lands that they had conquered.

So because they went on focused on helping these people.

They want focus and taking taxes from them. Omar decided to conquer the world.

Still, more or less, let's stop conquest and let's focus on these lands and develop them and how the people of these areas. So one of the things that he did was he removed the jizya from Congress. Now we know historically, the GCR is a security tax paid by non Muslims to live in safety in the Muslim, non Muslim, protect them from outsiders, and a non Muslim convert to Islam. They don't have to pay the GCI anymore. But the Romanians in the greed for worldly money for taxes, even when the non Muslims of these areas converted to Islam, they still charge them the jizya. So now as Muslims, they have to pay the jizya along with this, along with the other taxes, and it was very burdensome on

them. So many people were actually not converting to Islam. Because of this, they remain in their previous religions, because it actually was a financial burden to convert to Islam in that time. So overall, even Abdulaziz, one of the first policies that he stated was that he when he moved upon the conference, and one of the governors told him that if we do this, we're going to lose a lot of revenue. Or even Abdulaziz gave him a very powerful answer. And he told him, Allah did not send the Prophet Muhammad as a tax collector. He sent him as Ramadan, the army, he sent him as a mercy to the universe. And so he had this tax removed, and he has fallen strain. And he raised this the salaries

of scholars and teachers from what people became involved in Islamic work. And he's he sends scholars to all of these new layers that the Muslims have conquered, like Spain and parts of North Africa, and he sent them to teach the people of that land who had converted to Islam and to do dialogue to the non Muslims as well. As the result. During the reign of Omar even Abdul Aziz, the conversion to Islam dramatically increased. 1000s of people began to flock to Islam.

Omar Abdulaziz also was responsible for beginning decompile ation of Hades into book form. Before his time, for the first few decades of Islamic history, Hades was passed along from Scala to Scala verbally, and already, there was no hobbies, books or compilation, some people have written it down, but not in book form. So just like his great grandfather had suggested that he could be compiled into English half over and even Aziz was the one to suggest that the Hadees be combined into book form. And then the process began over the next 200 years, people focused on their task.

So

he wanted to reform the Muslim world in every way, economically, politically dour education. And this was one of the best time to the people living in the world. Unfortunately, you're creating enemies in your own family. And that the Romanians, most of whom were very spoiled and accustomed to the beauteous lifestyle, they became unhappy with these reforms, he took away a lot of the luxuries, and as the advisor had predicted, they turned against him. And so the millions they paid while the slaves have to

die for the poisoning just two and a half years after

he accomplished more in the two and a half years that most people do.

If you want to know more about Omar Abdulaziz Al Hamdulillah. his biography by Dr. Alia salami has been translated into English, it's about 700 pages long. Believe it every Muslim should read this history, biography we should teach to our children and our families. He was a role model not just in terms of politics. But even in terms of time management, even in terms of taqwa in terms of many other areas of his life. He was a true role model of Islam to practice.

So with that, we come to the end of this lesson.

Any questions? I'll take your questions now, in the RBD questions, discuss a few more lessons that we can learn from the Bible.

Does anyone have any questions?

The discussion point I put up on the board.

What factors led to Omar Abdulaziz becoming different and better than his cousins? Can you give me an answer to that? Right? He wasn't.

His wife was in Romanian. Why did he end up so different from the other roommates? Anyone can pinpoint a reason to this?

Is the book available on kalangala.com? I am not sure about that. You'll have to check the website yourself. And check about that.

Okay shibutani Elite Mashallah. his upbringing.

his upbringing is really the key factor.

parenting. Don't ever underestimate the power of righteous parenting. Omar Abdulaziz did not exist in a vacuum. He did not pop out of thin air. He was the result of three generations of righteous parenting,

buries his children righteously, and godly son asked him married to a righteous woman. They raised their daughters righteously. And they got their daughter married to Abdul Aziz even Marwan and Abdul Aziz and his wife got their son Omar, raised righteously and married to a righteous woman potty mouth and he became a righteous couple. So righteous rulership doesn't just pop out of thin air. Righteous rulership comes, it begins by raising our children to be righteous leaders. Only even Abdul Aziz was raised to be a leader. His parents believed that one day he will be the ruler and that he would rule with justice. They made him live in Medina separate from them would

no matter how much it hurts appearance to be separate from the children, they made the sacrifice, so he would get a righteous upbringing in Medina, with Abdullah

and so this is the result of pair of good parenting. Sometimes we think that you know, just focusing on our own children is only going to affect their lives, nobody else. But that's not true. When you invest in raising righteous leaders, those children literally have a chance of changing the world, just like Omar Abdulaziz did. So this is really a very important lesson that we take from the life of Omar Abdulaziz, or more so from the life of his parents and their children continued because Omar Abdulaziz, his son, Abdul Aziz even over it is narrated that he was even more pious than his father. And Abdul Aziz even Omar was even more pious and Omar even Abdul Aziz, and many people had hoped

that Abdul Aziz even Omar would become the next Khalifa. Unfortunately, in the year 100. Eh, he died in a horse riding accident. And it was a very sad time for humor. And so the philosopher passed, of course, to his brother in law yazeed, as opposed to the man's world. But the fact is, that with each generation, we see the righteousness getting stronger. So focus on raising children righteously.

Another lesson that I personally learned from the life of Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz is the definition of taqwa.

And we learn this actually from his wife Fatima. Before I do that, let me explain a bit about his wife because she deserves a mention of her own. Fatima Binti Abdul Malik

is known in the history books as

either the queen who had the queen who was attached to the Oscar attached as well,

that she was raised in the most materialistic environment possible. Her grandfather was a king. Her father was a king, for her brothers were kings. She had more money, and more junior than any of us can ever imagine. But still, she grew into a righteous woman. And when her husband Omar decided that they're going to live a simple life, and give up their wealth, and either give all the jewelry back to the people while she obeyed Him, and she listened to him, and she followed. But what's even more powerful than that, is that when Omar Abdulaziz passed away, and Fatima's brother, yes, he became the Khalifa. Yes, he told Fatima that Omar is dead now you can take back all your jewelry, all the

jewelry you put in a tumor, you can take back whatever you want, and fight him I said that I did not disobey my husband while he was alive. I'm not going to disobey him after he died. And she continued to live a simple life until she died. Even though she was the sister of the kings. The next two kings were her brothers. She was the sister of the kings. She had access to anything in the junior that she wanted. She chose a simple life, and she died living a simple life. And so this is a true role model of Zoho, someone who Allah gave the keys to the dounia. She was given anything in this dunya that she wanted. But she chose to live a simple and righteous life rather than focus on the

dunya. And so she is known as Amelia to Zaha the queen who has triggered

Fatima Abdul Malik. The point I was going to make is that she narrates about her husband Omar. She says that Omar even Abdul Aziz was not known for fasting in the extra fasts or bring in the extra dollar. He wasn't known for paying 200 all night or passing every second day on these acts of worship. She said he wasn't known for any of these things, but I have never met him.

With more taqwa Did you

know when I first came across this narration, it really blew my mind it changed my entire perspective of what is that one.

Because for many of us, when we think about taqwa, we think about only fasting, the actual provider.

As he showed his differences in the fact that he constantly feel awkward and Amanda from Allah, in the fact that he was conscious of online, how he ruled in how he treated his family, in how he spent his wealth in how he earned his wealth.

The fact that he forced himself to be just in every situation that he could.

And so

taqwa is not necessarily it does not necessarily mean that someone prays extra for Allah, or someone fasts extra fast. That's one type of taqwa. Another manifestation of taqwa is treating people well, being just regard realizing that your wealth and authority Allah has given you over others is the amount from Allah. And so taqwa is not just limited to the act of worship, it's a much more broad and encompassing idea.

Another lesson that I personally learned from the life of oma even abdulazeez

is time management. Right? And as you all should know, I've written a book on time management recently called Getting the Baraka

and quite a few of the time management lessons that I've learned, you can actually link it back to the life of Omar Abdulaziz, how did he accomplish so much in two and a half years? We see, for example, even abdulazeez, set very specific goals. He had very specific goals for himself and his team of governors and, and scholars. For each person. what they needed to do was very specific, it wasn't just going through the years and going through the days and taking each day as it came. No, he had goals, he told people you to go into this, and this is what I want you to do. For example, some are even married to the governor of Spain, the type of woman named Abdulaziz, we know that

Spain had just become a Muslim land a few years before this. So the Muslims are not familiar with the territory of Spain, it was a new place to them is the first time that the entering into Europe. So even Abdul Aziz gave some even Malik the task of doing a census of Spain for documenting how many rivers how many mountains, how many cities, how many villages, the demographics, to do a documentation of exactly what spring is like. So they could have the plan on the development of Spain. And so this entire process took place in the two and a half year reign of Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz, we talking about a time when they had no computers. All of this was done manually by traveling

to each city and having people to go and having people to do this physically. So we see he sets clear goals. And people knew exactly what he needed to get done and that we walk are done. So when we want to get things done, it begins by setting clear goals. When you have clear goals, you get things done faster, because you know what you're working towards. Another important time management tip we learned from Oman, even Abdul Aziz is to delegate, but not to delegate to just anyone to delegate to those people who are going to get the job done to the experts. So he didn't do everything himself. He said the old Mr. To do down. He said, Good administrators to be governance,

he delegated each golden task to someone who had the skills and the ductwork to get that job done.

And in that way, he was able to accomplish a lot in his reign, because he didn't do it himself. He had a team of people doing it for him.

Another

thing we learned from Omar Abdulaziz related to Time management

is that he didn't waste time.

He didn't waste time at all, that he was concerned all the time about the development of the oma. And so he did not do things that wasted time and this is where many of us fall short. A lot of our time goes in doing things that really don't benefit anyone. I mean, okay to take an hour to a day to have fun. This is part of growth and development is part of, you know, our bodies, right? It's upon us. But when people are spending six to eight to 10 hours a day just having fun. This is wasting life for me, Omar even Abdul Aziz did not do that. He focused on his goals. And because he did not waste time, he accomplished more in his reign than most people do in their entire lives.

So these are some of the lessons

that we learn from the life of woman even Abdul Aziz, I highly recommend to all of you to study his biography. To learn more about him and to

analyze his life. Don't just read it, but analyze it to extract lessons from it.