desperation.
The story has it that the slave’s owner had promised to
free him but reneged on that promise. The slave had
then appealed to Omar for justice, only to be rebuʃed,
and so bore an intense personal grudge against the
Caliph. The story made sense, and people were glad to
accept it. Even as Omar lay mortally wounded, even as
they faced the death of their third leader in twelve years,
there was nonetheless a palpable undercurrent of relief
that the assassin was not one of theirs. He was Persian,
not Arab; a Christian, not a Muslim. The assassination,
terrible as it was, was the act of a madman, an outsider.
Muslims did not kill Muslims. That was still haram,
taboo—still the ultimate horror.
Again, the problem of succession faced a dying Caliph,
and again, in the absence of an established process, the
solution would be controversial, open to challenge for
centuries to come. In the hours left before he died of his
wounds, Omar decided on a middle course between the
open consensus of a shura and the power to appoint his
successor. As expected, he named Ali, but what nobody
expected was that he also named ɹve others—not one
man, but six. These six, he decreed, were to be both the
candidates and the electors. One of them would be his
successor, but which one was up to them. They were to
meet in closed caucus after his death and make their
decision within three days.