Beneficence of Umar

Umar further asked,

“What will happen after him?” He replied, “After him, there will be a Caliph who will be killed by a brutal group.” Umar then asked, “What will happen after him?” He said, “There will be a test after him. ” (Tabarani)

 Ubayy bin Ka‟b narrates that Prophet Mohammad once said,

“Angel Gabriel has told me that Islam should cry on the death of Umar.” (Tabarani, Abu Nu’aym)

 Abu Asim says that the grandeur of Abu Bakr and Umar is so high that they were created with the same clay that Allah used to create the sacred self of Prophet Mohammad.  Abu Sufyan relates from Jabir ibn Abdullah that he heard

Prophet Mohammad say, “Hypocrite cannot love Abu Bakr and Umar while a believer can never hold animosity against them.”

 Abdullah ibn Hantab relates that he was with Prophet

Mohammad meanwhile Umar and Abu Bakr arrived. Upon seeing them, Prophet Mohammad said, “They are my eyes and ears.”

Just like the beneficence of Abu Bakr‟s traits i.e. truthfulness and veracity continues in all mystic orders similarly beneficence of Umar‟s traits, justice and self-accountability, is continued in all orders.

In the path of Faqr, the seekers of Allah gain beneficence of Umar by attaining his strength of justice and self-accountability. These strengths are essential to cross the levels of closeness and gnosis of Allah and progress on the way of Faqr. Until any person in general and a seeker of Allah in particular develops the strength of self-accountability, he cannot take even a single step towards Allah. As the greatest veil between Allah and man is the

self. When the seeker of Allah abstains from sins and renounces everything other than Allah with the spiritual attention and sight of Umar, only then he is set on his journey on the path of Faqr. Self-accountability is obligatory on the seeker till the last breath so that he does not stray from the path of Allah by the distracting desires of self. The seeker attains the strength of continuous selfaccountability from the spiritual sight of Umar. Umar was specifically chosen by Allah to spread Islam fastly in the world. This is why he spent most of his time in conquering new lands and spreading Islam there. He provided the great service of spreading Islam worldwide, due to which orders of Faqr and Sufism could not emerge from him. Just the Uwaisi order initiated from him, he passed the trust and succession of this order to Uwais al-Qarani27 , the lover of Prophet Mohammad. From him the trust was passed to Abu Musa Raee from whom

the order continued. (Tawarikh Aina-e-Tasawwuf page 8)

There are two kinds of the Uwaisi way. One, in which the follower does not have to hold the throne of guidance and persuasion but is destined to perform some important responsibility related to the religion or umma. For example, Allama Iqbal got the spiritual beneficence from the soul of Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi through the Uwaisi way. Although Allama Iqbal had taken oath of allegiance in the Qadri order when he was young but he never mentioned the name of his spiritual guide in his poetry. Rather he considers Rumi his actual spiritual guide. Second Uwaisi way is that whereby a seeker is given the preliminary spiritual guidance at the beginning of his journey towards Allah and then he is sent to the spiritual guide for further guidance. The seeker may or may not know it.

27 According to some traditions, Ali ibn Abi Talib also blessed Uwais al-Qarani with succession of one of his orders.