Name: Death of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz
Start: 0720-02

Death of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz

وفاة عمر بن عبد العزيز

February 720 CE · Rajab 101 AH

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz died at Dayr Sim'an in the district of Homs in Rajab year 101, aged thirty-nine and a half, poisoned — the Umayyads having wearied of his strictness against them and his seizure of much they had usurped, while he had let slip all self-protection; asked what people said of him, he told Mujahid they thought him bewitched but he knew the very hour the poison was given, and when his servant confessed to having taken a thousand dinars to administer it, he threw the sum into the treasury and sent him where no one would see him ¹.

Overview

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz died at Dayr Simʿan, in the lands of Homs, in Rajab 101 AH, aged thirty-nine and a half years. The day is disputed between the tenth and the fifth from the end of the month. ²

Death by poison

al-Suyuti says that his death was by poison. The reason, in his account, is that the Umayyads grew hostile to him when he pressed them hard and took from their hands much of what they had seized, and that he neglected to take precautions. ³

In a report that he relates, he asked Mujahid what people were saying of him, and Mujahid said that they said he was bewitched. Umar answered that he was not bewitched, and that he knew the hour in which he had been given the drink. Then he called his servant, who confessed that he had taken a thousand dinars on condition that he give him the drink. Umar put the money into the treasury and let the servant go where no one would see him. ³

Dating

The corresponding Gregorian date (around February 720 CE) is derived from the Hijri date and is not stated in the source. ²

Sources

Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 397-398

Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p.397

Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p.397-398

Muhammad Qabbani, The Umayyad State from Birth to Fall (Damascus: Dar Wahy al-Qalam, 2006)

The Umayyad State — Bakr Muhammad Ibrahim Bakr (1st ed., Markaz al-Raya lil-Nashr wal-I'lam, Cairo 2002)

The Building of the Fortress of Masisa

In al-Baladhuri from al-Waqidi and others: in year 84 Abdullah ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan led the summer raid, entering by the pass of Antioch and coming to Masisa, where he built its fortress on the ancient foundation and settled garrison troops among them three hundred picked men of known valour and stoutness — the Muslims had never dwelt there before — and built a mosque atop the fortress hill; Abu al-Khattab al-Azdi says the first to build its fortress in Islam was Abd al-Malik through his son Abdullah in year 84, its building and garrisoning complete in year 85; the fortress held a church called Herya which the summer columns from Antioch would reach and winter at yearly, numbering a thousand five hundred to two thousand; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz went out to Herya-Masisa meaning to demolish it and the forts between it and Antioch, saying 'I hate for the Byzantines to besiege its people', until the people showed him it was populated only to shield Antioch and that razing it would leave the enemy no barrier before it, so he held back and built them a congregational mosque by Kafarbayya with a cistern bearing his name — called the fortress mosque, ruined in al-Mu'tasim's caliphate; then Hisham built the rabad, Marwan ibn Muhammad built the suburb east of the Jayhan with a wall, timber gate and moat, and Abu al-Abbas set four hundred more men at Masisa, granting them estates.

Death of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz

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Overview

Death by poison

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The Building of the Fortress of Masisa