Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (Arabic: عمر بن عبد العزيز‎, romanized: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; 2 November 682 – c. 5 February 720), commonly known as Umar II, was the eighth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 22 September 717 until his death in 720. He was also a cousin of the former caliph, being the son of Abd al-Malik's younger brother, Abd al-Aziz. He was also a matrilineal great-grandson of the second caliph, Umar ibn Al-Khattab.

Umar was likely born in Medina around 680.^[1][2] His father, Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan, belonged to the wealthy Banu Umayya clan resident in the city, while his mother, Umm Asim Layla bint Asim, was a granddaughter of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644).^[3] His descent from Caliph Umar would later be much emphasized by Umar II and the traditional Muslim sources to differentiate him from the other Umayyad rulers.^[1] At the time of his birth, another branch of the Umayyads, the Sufyanids, ruled the Caliphate from Damascus. When Caliph Yazid I and his son and successor, Mu'awiya II, died in quick succession in 683 and 684, respectively, Umayyad authority collapsed across the Caliphate and the Umayyads of the Hejaz, including Medina, were expelled by supporters of the rival caliph, the Mecca-based Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. The Umayyad exiles took refuge in Syria, where the dynasty was supported by powerful Arab tribes such as the Banu Kalb. Umar's grandfather, Marwan I, was ultimately recognized by these tribes as caliph and, with their support, reasserted Umayyad rule in Syria.^[4]

In 685, Marwan ousted Ibn al-Zubayr's governor from Egypt and appointed Umar's father to the province.^[4] Umar spent part of his childhood in Egypt, particularly in Hulwan, which had become the seat of his father's governorship between 686 and his death in 705.^[2] He received his education in Medina, however,^[2] which was retaken by the Umayyads under Umar's paternal uncle, Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), in 692.^[4] Having spent much of his youth in Medina, Umar developed ties with the city's pious men and transmitters of the hadith.^[2] Following the death of Umar's father, Abd al-Malik recalled Umar to Damascus, where he married off his daughter, Fatima, to him.^[2]

Shortly after his accession, Abd al-Malik's son and successor, al-Walid I (r. 705–715), appointed Umar governor of Medina.^[2] According to Julius Wellhausen, al-Walid's intention was to use Umar to reconcile the townspeople of Medina to Umayyad rule and "obliterate [sic] the evil memory" of the preceding Umayyad governors, namely Hisham ibn Isma'il al-Makhzumi, whose rule over Medina had been harsh to its inhabitants.^[1] Umar took up the post in February/March 706 and his jurisdiction later extended to Mecca and Ta'if.^[2]

Information about his governorship is scant, but most traditional accounts note that he was a "just governor", according to historian Paul Cobb.^[2] He often led the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca and showed favor toward the Islamic legal scholars of Medina, notably Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab.^[2] Umar tolerated many of these scholars' vocal criticism of the Umayyad government's conduct.^[1] However, other accounts hold that he showed himself to be materialistic during his early career.^[2] On al-Walid's orders, Umar undertook the reconstruction and expansion of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina beginning in 707.^[2] Under Umar's generally lenient rule, the Hejaz became a refuge for Iraqi political and religious exiles fleeing the persecutions of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, al-Walid's powerful viceroy over the eastern half of the Caliphate.^[2] According to Cobb, this ultimately served as Umar's "undoing" as al-Hajjaj pressured the caliph to dismiss Umar in May/June 712.^[2]

Despite his dismissal, Umar remained in al-Walid's favor, being the brother of the caliph's first wife, Umm al-Banin bint Abd al-Aziz.^[5] He remained in al-Walid's court in Damascus until the caliph's death in 715,^[2] and according to the 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi, he performed the funeral prayers for al-Walid.^[6] The latter's brother and successor, Sulayman (r. 715–717), held Umar in high regard.^[5] Alongside Raja ibn Haywa al-Kindi, an influential religious figure in the Umayyads' court, Umar served as a principal adviser of Sulayman.^[2] He accompanied the latter when he led the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 716 and on his return to Jerusalem.^[2] Likewise, he was at the caliph's side at the Muslims' marshaling camp at Dabiq in northern Syria, where Sulayman directed the massive war effort to conquer the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 717.^[2]

According to the traditional Muslim sources, when Sulayman was on his deathbed in Dabiq, he was persuaded by Raja to designate Umar as his successor.^[2][7][8][9] Sulayman's son Ayyub had been his initial nominee, but predeceased him,^[10] while his other sons were either too young or away fighting on the Byzantine front.^[8] The nomination of Umar voided the wishes of Abd al-Malik, who sought to restrict the office to his direct descendants.^[2] The elevation of Umar, a member of a cadet branch of the dynasty, in preference to the numerous princes descended from Abd al-Malik surprised these princes.^[9] According to Wellhausen, "nobody dreamed of this, himself [Umar] least of all".^[9] Raja managed the affair, calling the Umayyad princes present at Dabiq into its mosque and demanding that they recognize Sulayman's will, which Raja had kept secret.^[9] Only after the Umayyads accepted did Raja reveal that Umar was the caliph's nominee.^[9] Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik voiced his opposition, but relented after being threatened with the use of force.^[9] Potential intra-dynastic conflict was averted with the designation of a son of Abd al-Malik, Yazid II, as Umar's successor.^[8]

According to historian Reinhard Eisener, Raja's role in the affair was likely "exaggerated"; "more reasonable" was that Umar's succession was the result of "traditional patterns, like seniority and well-founded claims" stemming from Caliph Marwan I's original designation of Umar's father, Abd al-Aziz, as Abd al-Malik's successor,^[11] which had not materialized due to Abd al-Aziz predeceasing Abd al-Malik.^[12] Umar acceded without significant opposition on 22 September 717.^[2]

Shortly after his accession, Umar overhauled the administrations of the provinces.^[2] He split up the vast governorship established over Iraq and the eastern Caliphate during the reign of Abd al-Malik and his viceroy al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf.^[7] Sulayman's appointee to this super-province, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, was dismissed and imprisoned by Umar for failing to forward the spoils from his earlier conquest of Tabaristan along the southern Caspian coast to the caliphal treasury.^[7][13] In place of Ibn al-Muhallab, he assigned Abd al-Hamid ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn al-Khattab, a member of Caliph Umar I's family, to Kufa, Adi ibn Artah al-Fazari to Basra, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami to Khurasan and Amr ibn Muslim al-Bahili, a brother of the accomplished general Qutayba ibn Muslim, to Sindh.^[13] To the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), he appointed Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari, while al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani was appointed to al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula) and Isma'il ibn Abd Allah to Ifriqiya.^[13]

Though many of the appointees in the eastern provinces were pupils of al-Hajjaj or affiliated with the Qays faction, Umar chose them based on their reliability and integrity, rather than opposition to Sulayman's government.^[13] His choice of governors for al-Andalus and Ifriqiya stemmed from his perceptions of their neutrality amid the tribal factionalism of the Qays and Yaman and justice toward the oppressed.^[14] According to Kennedy, Umar seemingly assigned competent men that he could control, indicating his intention "to keep a close eye on provincial administration".^[7] Wellhausen notes that the caliph did not leave the governors to their own devices in return for their forwarding of the provincial revenues; rather, he actively oversaw his governors' administrations and his main interest was "not so much the increase of power as the establishment of right".^[15]

Umar is often deemed a pacifist by the sources, though Cobb attributes the caliph's war-weariness to concerns over the diminishing funds of the Caliphate's treasury.^[2] Wellhausen asserts that Umar was "disinclined to wars of conquest, well-knowing that they were waged, not for God, but for the sake of spoil".^[5] Indeed, shortly after his accession in late 717, he ordered the withdrawal of the Muslim army led by his cousin Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik from their abortive siege against Constantinople to the region of Malatya, closer to the Syrian frontier.^[2] Despite the withdrawal, Umar kept up the annual summer raids against the Byzantine frontier,^[2] out of the obligation to jihad.^[5] Umar remained in northern Syria, often residing at his estate in Khunasira, where he built a fortified headquarters.^[2][16]

At some point in 717, he dispatched a force under Ibn Hatim ibn al-Nu'man al-Bahili to Adharbayjan to disperse a group of Turks who had launched damaging raids against the province.^[2] In 718, he successively deployed Iraqi and Syrian troops to suppress the Kharijite rebellion of Shawdhab al-Yashkuri in Iraq, though some sources say the revolt was settled diplomatically.^[2] Along the Caliphate's northeastern frontiers, in Transoxiana, Islam had already been established in a number of cities, precluding Umar's withdrawal of Arab troops from there.^[17] However, he prevented further eastward expansion.^[13] During his reign, Muslim forces based in al-Andalus conquered and fortified the Mediterranean coastal city of Narbonne in modern-day France.^[18]

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz was a scholar himself and surrounded himself with great scholars like Muhammed bin Kaab and Maimun bin Mehran. He offered stipends to teachers and encouraged education. Through his personal example, he inculcated piety, steadfastness, business ethics and moral rectitude in the general population. His reforms included strict abolition of drinking, forbidding public nudity, elimination of mixed bathrooms for men and women and fair dispensation of Zakat. He undertook extensive public works in Persia, Khorasan and North Africa, including the construction of canals, roads, rest houses for travellers and medical dispensaries.^[19]

He continued the welfare programs of the last few Umayyad caliphs, expanding them and including special programs for orphans and the destitute. He would also abolish the jizya tax for converts to Islam, who were former dhimmis, who used to be taxed even after they had converted under other Umayyad rulers.

Umar II is credited with having ordered the first official collection of hadith (sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad), fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri are among those who compiled hadiths at Umar II's behest.^[20]

He made other reforms:^[21]

Under previous Umayyad rulers, Arab Muslims had certain financial privileges over non-Arab Muslims. Non-Arab converts to Islam were still expected to pay the jizya poll tax that they paid before becoming Muslims. Umar put into practice a new system that exempted all Muslims, regardless of their heritage, from the jizya tax. He also added some safeguards to the system to make sure that mass conversion to Islam would not cause the collapse of the finances of the Umayyad government.^[22] Under the new tax policy, converted mawali would not pay the jizya, but upon conversion, their land would become the property of the villages and remain liable to the full rate of the kharaj, or land tax. This compensated for the loss of income due to the diminished jizya tax base.^[23]

Following the example of the Prophet, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz sent out emissaries to China and Tibet, inviting their rulers to accept Islam. It was during the time of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz that Islam took roots and was accepted by a large segment of the population of Persia and Egypt. When the officials complained that because of conversions, the jizya revenues of the state had experienced a steep decline, Umar wrote back saying that he had accepted the Caliphate to invite people to Islam and not to become a tax collector. The infusion of non-Arabs in large number into the fold of Islam shifted the center of gravity of the empire from Medina and Damascus to Persia and Egypt.^[19]

His reforms in favor of the people greatly angered the nobility of the Umayyads, and they would eventually bribe a servant into poisoning his food. Umar learned of this on his death bed and pardoned the culprit, collecting the punitive payments he was entitled to under Islamic law but depositing them in the public treasury. On his way back from Damascus to Aleppo or possibly to his Khunasira estate, Umar fell ill.^[24] He died between 5 February and 10 February 720,^[24] at the age of 37,^[25] in the village of Dayr Sim'an (the Monastery of Simeon) near Ma'arrat al-Nu'man.^[24] Umar had purchased a plot there with his own funds and was buried in the village, where the ruins of his tomb, built at an unknown date, are still visible.^[24] He was succeeded by Yazid II.^[26]

The unanimous view in the Muslim traditional sources is that Umar was pious and ruled like a true Muslim in singular opposition to the other Umayyad caliphs, who were generally considered "godless usurpers, tyrants and playboys".^[7] The tradition recognized Umar as an authentic caliph, while the other Umayyads were viewed as kings.^[27] In the view of Hawting, this is partly based on the historical facts and Umar's character and actions, but "it is also clear that much of the traditional writing about him should be regarded as pious and moralistic story-telling in keeping with the needs and outlook of tradition".^[8] As a result of this and his short term in office, it is difficult to assess the achievements of his caliphate and his motives.^[27] Indeed, Kennedy calls Umar "the most puzzling character among the Marwanid rulers".^[7] According to Hawting, Wellhausen's work marked a transition in western studies of Umar from the early tendency to view this caliph as "an impractical idealist" to the more modern view of him as "a pious individual who attempted to solve the problems of his day in a way which would reconcile the needs of his dynasty and state with the demands of Islam".^[27]

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, an 18th century Sunni Islamic scholar, stated:^[28]