Saturday 22 February 2014

#8 Umar ibn al-Khattab from The History of the Khalifahs by Jalal ad- Din as-Suyuti

His description
Ibn Sa‘d and al-Hakim narrated that Zirr said:
I went out with the people of Madinah on the
day of ‘Eid and I saw ‘Umar walking barefoot,
an old man, balding, of a tawny colour, left-
handed, tall, towering over people as if he
were on a riding beast. Al-Waqidi said: It is
not known among us that ‘Umar was tawny,
unless he saw him in the year of the drought,
because his colour changed when he ate olive
oil.
Ibn Sa‘d narrated that Ibn ‘Umar described
‘Umar and said: A man of fair complexion,
with a ruddy tint prevailing, tall, balding and
grey-haired.
He narrated that ‘Ubaydah ibn ‘Umayr said:
‘Umar used to overtop people in height.
He narrated that Salamah ibn al-Akwa‘ said:
‘Umar was left and right-handed, meaning
that he used both hands together.
Ibn ‘Asakir narrated that Abu Raja’ al-‘Utaridi
said: ‘Umar was a tall stout man, extremely
bald, fair but extremely ruddy, in the two sides
of his beard a lightness, his moustache was
large and at its extremities there was a
redness at the roots of which there was black.
In the Tarikh of Ibn ‘Asakir by various routes
there is that the mother of ‘Umar ibn al-
Khattab was Hantamah the daughter of
Hisham ibn al-Mughirah and she was the
sister of Abu Jahl ibn Hisham, so that Abu
Jahl was his maternal uncle.

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