September 717 marked a turning point for the Umayyad Caliphate. Caliph Sulaymān lay on his deathbed in a military camp. His elder son was dead, his younger lost amid the chaos of the siege of Constantinople. Fearing to pass the throne to brothers with whom he was at odds, Sulaymān on the advice of his close associates chose a “neutral figure”: his cousin ʿUmar.
ʿUmar had never prepared himself for the role of ruler of the world. A handsome, dark-skinned man with refined features and a full beard, he had stood out since childhood not for a love of luxury but for deep religiosity. It was said that even as a teenager he wept bitterly while reflecting on the Day of Judgment, alarming his mother. Despite his noble birth, he had experienced life from many sides: at twenty-six he successfully governed Medina and Mecca, building roads and wells, and later served as a common soldier in the army, demanding no privileges.
When Sulaymān’s testament was read before a vast crowd, ʿUmar wanted to refuse. He understood that he was assuming command of a realm stretching from the borders of China to the Pyrenees, torn by internal contradictions. Yet the unanimous pledge of allegiance left him no choice.
Before embarking on reforms, ʿUmar summoned three ascetic sages. Their counsel became the manifesto of his rule:
Sālim urged complete abstinence from worldly pleasures, considering death the only true “breaking of the fast” after the fast of life.
Ibn Kaʿb proposed a model of social harmony: to see elders as fathers, equals as brothers, and the young as children.
Rajāʾ reminded him of the golden rule: to love for people what one loves for oneself.
Armed with these principles, ʿUmar II began his “quiet revolution.”
His first move struck at Umayyad grandeur itself. He left the luxurious palace in Damascus, donating his personal wealth to the state treasury. Noisy banquets with poets and talk of delicacies gave way to modest meals of bread and lentils. His wife Fāṭima daughter and sister of caliphs followed his example, surrendering her jewelry to the bayt al-māl (the treasury).
ʿUmar took an unprecedented step and began returning lands unlawfully appropriated by his forebears. Even family estates at Khaybar were restored to their rightful owners. He ended the official practice promoted by the Umayyads for decades of cursing ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, seeking to reconcile the fractured Muslim community.
ʿUmar’s reforms were not only spiritual but rigorously administrative. He ruthlessly dismissed governors implicated in brutality.
Usāma b. Zayd, head of Egypt’s treasury, who had amputated the hands of debtors, was chained and paraded through the prisons of all Syrian districts.
Yazīd b. al-Muhallab, the powerful ruler of the East, was removed through an ingenious ruse on a gallery: lured aboard under the pretext of a meeting, he was presented with a decree and deported to Damascus to recover millions in debts owed to the treasury.
ʿUmar II believed the empire’s prosperity depended not on the height of taxes but on their justice. His edicts reached the smallest details of life: a strict ban was imposed on any new taxes not stipulated in the Qurʾān. Kharāj (the land tax) was henceforth tied to actual fertility rather than an official’s whim. The clergy and the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) received guarantees for their rights and property.
The caliph set a maximum load weight for pack camels and banned beating animals with whips tipped with metal. Even in the chancery he ordered documents to be written in small script without wide margins to economize on costly papyrus.
In military affairs, ʿUmar II favored de-escalation. In the summer of 719 he recalled the exhausted army from the walls of Constantinople, recognizing the futility of further siege. Global expansion gave way to defense and occasional frontier raids.
Yet new threats were brewing within the empire. In Khurāsān, clandestine Abbasid cells began to form under the leadership of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī. Their propaganda—disguised as the grumbling of discontented peasants—laid the groundwork for the future fall of the Umayyads.
At the same time, the Khārijites were active. Although ʿUmar attempted dialogue with them on the basis of the Book of God, talks reached a dead end: the Khārijites could not recognize as caliph any member of the Umayyad house, whom they considered usurpers by definition.
ʿUmar II’s life ended suddenly at around forty years of age. Chronic abdominal pain (possibly cancer or the effects of poisoning by Umayyads threatened by his integrity) rapidly sapped his strength. Anticipating the end, he purchased a plot of land at the Monastery of Simeon Stylites.
On January 17, 720 (1 Rajab 101 AH), ʿUmar II passed away. Just before death his gaze became stern and intent. Asked what he saw, he replied that he beheld those who had come for his soul beings who were neither human nor jinn.
With his death, the Caliphate forever lost the chance for a peaceful return to the ideals of early Islam. The era that followed plunged the empire once more into internecine strife, which, thirty years later, would lead to the final collapse of the Umayyad dynasty.
