The Rightly Guided Ones 123power of the former Quraysh aristocracy and strengthened his central
authority by appointing governors, or amirs, to administer the Mus-
lim provinces both near and far. At the same time, he gave his amirs
strict instructions to respect the existing traditions and mores of the
provinces, and not to attempt any radical changes in the way the local
peoples had been previously governed. He reorganized the taxation
system, bringing immense prosperity to the Ummah, and created a
standing army of trained soldiers who were garrisoned away from the
provinces so as to not disturb the local communities.
Umar even tried to heal the rift with Ali by reaching out to the
Banu Hashim. Though he refused to return Ali’s inheritance, he did
hand over Muhammad’s estates in Medina as an endowment to be
administered by the ahl al-bayt. He connected himself to the Banu
Hashim by marrying Ali’s daughter, and encouraged Ali’s participa-
tion in his government by regularly consulting him on important mat-
ters. In fact, Umar rarely did anything without consulting a cadre of
influential Companions that he kept around him at all times. This
may have been because he recognized that his position as Caliph,
though sanctioned by the Ummah, had not been achieved through
traditional means. He was therefore keen to avoid seeming despotic in
his judgments, and was once quoted as saying “If I am [a] king, it is a
fearful thing.”
Despite his attempts to reach out to the Banu Hashim, however,
Umar continued to uphold, as a matter of religious dogma, the con-
tention that prophethood and the Caliphate should not reside in the
same clan. Indeed, acknowledging that contention and accepting
Muhammad’s statement about having no heirs became for Umar part
of the oath of allegiance. Like Abu Bakr, Umar was convinced that
such power in the Banu Hashim would be detrimental to the Muslim
community. Nevertheless, he could not ignore Ali’s rising popularity.
Not wishing to make the same mistake as Abu Bakr and so further
alienate the Banu Hashim, Umar refused to handpick a successor,
choosing instead to gather a traditional shura.
On his deathbed (he had been stabbed by a mad Persian slave
named Firooz), Umar brought together the six leading candidates for
the Caliphate, including, at last, Ali, and gave them three days to
decide among themselves who would lead the community after his