Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

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found.” In other words, it was very difficulty to find a destitute person in Umar’s short reign.
Reform of Prisons
Before caliph Umar’s reign the prisons were in a deplorable condition. The prisoners suffered numerous hardships. A citizen was arrested on mere pretext or suspicion or because some officer or influential person was his opponent. For ordinary crimes, the convicts were given at least three hundred lashes. No officer or government servant looked after the prisoners. They received neither proper clothing nor necessary meals. Often they went hungry because their rations or food were taken by the men in charge. An ailing prisoner never got medicine and, if he died, his body was left without being attended to. Sometimes the mates of the deceased would make contributions to pay off the labourers who buried the body in a pit, unceremoniously, unwashed, and unshrouded.
The reforms were instituted b> the caliph in favour of a class of human beings which has always been condemned as the lowest and the meanest in the state’s population. The concessions granted by Umar may appear incredible to reformers of this century. But we know it to be a fact that even the most civilized and democratic of modern states have not allowed so many amenities to criminals or convicted persons.
Regarded by learned men as one of the righteous caliphs Umar bin Adbul Aziz, to this day, reminds us of the Holy Prophet’s blessed time and the most benign of his immediate spiritual-cumtemporal successors. ”Unaffected piety,” says Ameer Ali, ”a keen sense of justice, unswerving uprightness, moderation, and an almost primitive simplicity of life formed the chief traits in his character.” From the beginning of his public career, the institution of Caliphate was not beyond the comprehension of Umar II. To him the duty towards the Creator and the duty with regard to his creatures and to Islam, was one indivisible whole. As the head of the Muslim community and the commonwealth, he had a remarkable sense of responsibility and was quite determined that his notions and feelings should be translated into action by his subordinates and the members of his family.
Like Umar the Great, blessed be his soul, Umar bin Adbul Aziz never sat idle. He was always found settling disputes, supervizing administration, hearing and pursuing reports from the provinces, reforming social life and going many other things of
public good. If a dispassionate stud> were undertaken of his routine activities, of his deep concern for the people’s welfare, the degree of his devotion to the Lord and His Messenger and his urge to reform the society, he would be acknowledged as one of the greatest democrats ever known in history after caliph Umar Farooq. Again, like him, the keystone of his democracy was the spiritualism of Islam. Moreover, justice flowed from his pen, hand and tongue like an unending stream.
In leniency and forbearance, Umar II set astonishing examples. The Kharijites held him in great esteem. Yet they created trouble. The caliph avoided fighting untill the time he could. However, when the use offeree became necessary, he tolerated.
Umar bin Adbul Aziz stood for equality and justice and abhorred the very idea of monopolizing power. Once when he was troubled by his kith and kin for granting them more concessions and privileges, he threatened them that he would transfer the Caliphate into the Muslim hands (thai is other than his own dynasty). He informed them that there was among others, one qualified and worthy man who deserved to be the head of state and he was Qasim bin Muhammad bin Abu Bakr.
According to Umar II, the system of government envisaged by Islam explicitly favoured social justice. His rule was free from vindictive terror. He simultaneously led the Muslims and protected the non-Muslims. He was indiscriminate in his administration. Ibn Sad mentions that Umar ”ordered during his Caliphate that a nonMuslim subject, taken prisoner by an enemy, should as much be ransomed and liberated on government expenses as any Muslim subject In the same spirit he commanded that all Muslims - Arabs
and non-Arabs who took part in the wars should receive pensions.
The non-Arabs included tens of thousands of new Muslims called al-Mawali, upon whom the Holy Prophet had conferred equal rights. Before Umar, the Uinayyads had unavoidably encouraged the obnoxious system of importing slaves from al-Maghrib. ”They levied a child-tax on the prolific Berbers.” The saintly caliph did away with these inhuman innovations.
The caliph’s resolve to establish a fair economy led him to fight feudalism. This involved him in a fierce contest with his own kinsmen who, thought very powerful, could not intimidate him. Umar told them at their faces, ”O descendants of Marwan, you have a very big portion of honour and wealth in your hands. I feel that

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one-half, any, two-thirds of the wealth of the people (Ummat) is in your hand.” And when they refused to return the extorted wealth and the ill-gotten lands, he said: ”By God, if you do not help me to restore this right (of the real owners), I shall humiliate and disgrace you.” It was a really big task which the caliph had undertaken so that he heroically fought the feudal aristocracy of the Umayyads.7
In his attitude to the creatures of God, Umar bin Adbul Aziz was sweeter than the delicious and sweet honey of the Lebanon which he liked most in life. He made real history in a little over two years by leaving behind his own legacies in all the spheres of government and society. He stood against all kinds of corruption and laid the firm foundations of revivalism in Islam for all time to come. He alone among the Umayyads remedied the ills of half a century’s misrule. It was due to him that all over the commonwealth, the people noticed the first century Hijrah Era terminating with the supremacy of Islamic law re-established (even though temporarily), and the second century of the same era beginning with a great hope of socio-religious solidarity. His main plan was to revitalise the Muslim body so much weakened by rude politics and the rough influences of the preceding reigns.
His efforts were directed against the deviations of the Umayyads and the innovations of their court. His cardinal aim was to forcefully counteract the challenges facing Islam at the hands of internal culprits and external enemies. His conscience told him that he should be the last man to accept the fissiparous tendencies strengthened by his own to dynasty and the strayed Syrians. His supreme mission was not only to revive early Islamic institutions but also to purify the veins of his co-religionists and infuse new blood into their arteries. Most significant was the fact that by a single stroke of the pen, he deprived himself, his kinsmen and the then demagogues, of all property and possessions they had acquired by questionable means. He knocked the bottom out of the symbols of royalty and royalist aberrations, obliging the members of his dynasty to think and act in purely Islamic terms. But would they continue to do so?
Such a ruler and leader of men was surely to create enemies. ”The reign of strict and impartial justice initiated by Umar went against the grain of the Umayyads. They saw power and influence
7 Abdul Islam Nadvi, P 69
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fast slipping out of their hands.” The villains of the day, therefore, planned to rid themselves of this most virtuous member of their dynasty. They hired a slave of the caliph to administer poison to him. It had a fatal effect. Umar expired at Dair Siman (Simeon) in Rajab

101 A.H., corresponding to January 720 A.D.

It is fact of history that when this wonderful caliph died he left no property, no deposits and no assets for the bereaved. When his only box was opened in the presence of his successor, Yazid bin Abdul Malik, there was nothing in it except a blanket of ordinary use. A contemporary, Abdur Rahman bin Qasim. told his friends that the cash which the caliph left behind was distributed among his children and their mother, and every one of them got two dirhams. Even during the last moments of his life, the caliph was not unjust. The piece of land in which he wanted his body to be laid to rest, belonged to the Christian monastery of the place concerned. The bishop was called for and the caliph expressed his desire to him. The bishop insisted that he could have the graveyard as a gift from the Christian community. The caliph refused and the site was a purchased with ready money. When this saviour of the Islamic spirit was about to breathe his last, he was heard by a servant reciting the following verse of the Quran as if to give good tidings to the men of piety and a lesson to the pitiless politicians for all ages to come:
”The Abode of the Hereafter is meant for those who do not aspire for eminence on earth, nor do they (encourage) disruption, and the Reward (on the Day of judegment) will be for the pious only.”
His reign enjoys a special distinction in the history of Islam because of the fact that he re-established the system of government that had prevailed during the period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and revived many features of the Companions’ time. ”Umar bin Abdul Aziz,” says Ibn Khaldun, ”who came in the middle of the Marywani line, devoted all his efforts to restoring the ways of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the Companions.” Umar b. Adbul Aziz was fortunate in ruling over a vast realm, so that the benefits of his benign and large-hearted policies had ample territory to spread Over.8
’ Abdul Islam Nadvi, P 3

Yazid II