Note 4 — PART II

I have employed the phrase "Islam of Omar" throughout the present work as a means of designating the period of nine-and-twenty years between the death of Mohammed, 12th Rabi I. 11 A.H., June 8th, A.D. 632, and the assassination of Ali, 17th Hamzan, 40 A.H., January 27th, A.D. 661. Even in the lifetime of Mohammed the genius and personality of Omar made themselves distinctly felt. During the caliphate of Abu Bekr the power of Omar was analogous to that of Hildebrand during the two pontificates which immediately precede his own. Omar's is the determining force, the will, and throughout his own, and the caliphates of Osman and Ali which follow, that force and that will impart its distinction and its direction to the course of the political life of Islam. The nature and extent of the sway of this extraordinary mind mark an epoch in world-history not less memorable than the Rome of Sulla or the Athens of Pericles. From the Arab historians a portrait that is fairly convincing can be arranged, and the threat or promise with which he is said to have announced the purpose for which he undertook the caliphate is consonant with the impression of his appearance and manners which tradition has preserved—"He that is weakest among you shall be, in my sight, as the strongest until I have made good his rights unto him; but he that is strongest shall I deal with like the weakest until he submit himself to the Law."