UMAR IN THE PRESENCE OF THE QUR’AN

Umar related his acceptance of Islam in these words:

I was one of the most brutal men towards the Messenger of Allah. As I was walking through the streets of Mecca one day, I came across a member of the Quraysh. He asked, “Where are you going?” I told him where I was heading and he remarked; you consider yourself to be so strong, but this issue has even entered your own home!

I asked: “What are you talking about?”

He replied: “You should put you own family in order first, your sister and her husband are following the religion of Muhammad.”

I returned home in a state of anger. Whenever a person embraced Islam, the Prophet would assign one or two of the believers to teach this person the Islamic faith. There were two people in my sister’s house, they were reciting the Qur’an. I went to her house and knocked on the door. When she asked “Who is it” from behind the door, I replied: “The son of Khattab.”

My sister opened the door, and the other two women hid in another room. I asked her:

They told me that you abandoned you faith, is this true? And I struck her.

Her mouth was bleeding, she replied: “You hit me because we accept religion of truth? Yes we are Muslims, so do whatever you consider fit.”

I noticed some pages in the corner and asked “What are those scripts? Show them to me.” But she would not give them to me until I had purified myself saying the scripts were not to be touched in a state of impurity. So I purified myself and took the pages, it wrote: “Whatever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah…” (al-Hadid 57:1).

I continued to read, and proclaiming the following words “I declare there is no deity but Allah and I declare that Muhammad is the servant and Messenger of Allah” (Ash hadu anla ilaha illallah wa ash hadu anna  Muhammadan abduhu wa Rasuluhu), I became a Muslim. According to re- ports, the surah of the Qur’an recited was Surah Ta-Ha. Indeed, reading a few verses of the Qur’an even softened the heart of a man as stern as Umar, and encouraged him to embrace Islam.

 

Akgul, Muhittin. Tafsir: An Introduction to Qur’anic Exegesis. Tughra Books Press, Inc. 2013