The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

374 'OMAR II. [chap, i.iii.
A.H. 99- under the next two Caliphs and tlien became a dead
[ letter, and at a later peritKl a third expedient was adopted,
which still holds good. A difference was declared between
Kharaj and Jizya. The former was said by a legal fiction
to be paid by the land, and so both Muslims and non-
Muslims were liable for it ; but the latter was a poll-tax
payable only by non-Muslims in return for the protection
afforded them by the Muslims. Thus the Muslims were
made to contribute to the revenue, and the State did not
suffer loss.
Death of a ^'^ son of seventeen died before him. Some touching
pious son.
passages are related of 'Omar's conversation with this
youth, who was like-minded with him in high religious
aspiration. He urged his father to enforce reform and
bring back society to the primitive practice of what was
right. 'Omar replied that he had done what he could by
gentle means, but if Muslim rule were to be regenerated
as his son desired, it must be accomplished by force ; and
" there is no good," said he, " in that reform which can be
enforced by the sword alone."
Attractive Though devoid of stirring events, there is much that
character.
jg attractive in the reign of 'Omar. It is a relief, amidst
bloodshed, intrigue, and treachery, to find a Caliph devoted
to what he believed the highest good both for himself and
for his people. The saint might be morbid, over-scrupulous,
and bigoted
;
but there are few, if any, throughout this
history whose life leaves a more pleasing impression on the
reader's mind than that of 'Omar.
Death of It was the middle of loi A.H., after a reign of two
'Omar II.,
vears and a half, that 'Omar sickened. In a few weeks
'
Raiab
loi AH. he died, at the age of thirty-nine, and was buried at Dair
^^^'\ n Sim'an, in the province of Hims.^ He was succeeded,
720 A.D
according to his brother Suleiman's last will, by his cousin
Yezid, son of 'Abd al-Melik, and of 'Atika, daughter of
Yezld I.
'
His tomb was not desecrated l)y tlie 'Abbasids like those of the
other Umeiyad Caliphs. Mas'udi, v. 416.— Le Strange, Palestine iitider
the Moslems, pp. 432 f., 497.