Turning Foes into Friends

Then Umar(R) went to him and said the shahadah.

Now let me share another common version of his conversion story. He took his sword and set out to kill Rasulullah(S). When he was told that his sister has accepted Islam. He changed his direction and went to his sister’s house where he heard her reciting something with her husband. He came in and commanded to know what was going on. His sister told him that she was a Muslim so Umar(R) struck her in anger and she started bleeding. He softened up at the sight of blood and asked to see the book they were reading and was told that he would have to purify himself with water before reading the Quran. After purifying himself, he read Surah Taha. His heart completely changed after reading the verses. Then he went to Rasulullah (S) and said the shahadah.

Umar(R) then became a great Muslim and was told by Rasulullah (S) that if there had been a prophet after him, it would have been Umar(R). Umar(R) became the second khalifah after Abu Bakr (R). During his caliphate, he conquered the Roman and Persian empires; the two superpowers of the day. Yet when Muslims conquered Jerusalem he was humbled by this victory.

Umar(R) died in 644AD. Many years before his death, Aisha (R) had a dream that three moons fell on her house. Abu Bakr(R) had interpreted the dream and had said that three best people would be buried there. When Umar (R) got assassinated, he was buried alongside Rasulullah (S) and Abu Bakr (R) with Aisha (R)‘s permission.

By Khadijah Zaheer,Age 9

I think it would have been difficult to do anything if I did not have hands. The hands help us to write and eat. We also can’t clean the house, shop and perform complete wudu without using our hands. We must be careful with what we do with this part of our body. If we didn’t have our hands, we couldn’t have opened the book of Allah, the Quran. Our hands are very important because we can do dhikr on them. We can help our parents in daily chores and do so many good actions to help our teachers, siblings, and friends with our hands. We are always doing things with our hands every day and we don’t realize how people without hands live. They use their feet to do things that the people with hands do every day. How do you use your hands?