Editing Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (section)

==Caliphate==
===Accession===
According to the traditional Muslim sources, when Sulayman was on his deathbed in Dabiq, he was persuaded by Raja to designate Umar as his successor.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}}{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|p=106}}{{sfn|Hawting|2000|p=72}}{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} Sulayman's son Ayyub had been his initial nominee, but predeceased him,{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=264}} while his other sons were either too young or away fighting on the Byzantine front.{{sfn|Hawting|2000|p=72}} The nomination of Umar voided the wishes of Abd al-Malik, who sought to restrict the office to his direct descendants.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} The elevation of Umar, a member of a cadet branch of the dynasty, in preference to the numerous descendants of Abd al-Malik surprised these princes.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} According to Wellhausen, "nobody dreamed of this, himself [Umar] least of all".{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} Raja managed the affair, calling the Umayyad princes into Dabiq's mosque and demanding that they recognize Sulayman's will, which Raja had kept secret.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} Only after the Umayyads accepted did Raja reveal that Umar was the caliph's nominee.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} [[Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik]] voiced his opposition, but relented after being threatened with violence.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=265}} A potential intra-dynastic conflict was averted with the designation of a son of Abd al-Malik, [[Yazid II]], as Umar's successor.{{sfn|Hawting|2000|p=72}}

According to the historian Reinhard Eisener, Raja's role in the affair was likely "exaggerated"; "more reasonable" was that Umar's succession was the result of "traditional patterns, like seniority and well-founded claims" stemming from Caliph Marwan I's original designation of Umar's father, Abd al-Aziz, as Abd al-Malik's successor,{{sfn|Eisener|1997|p=822}} which had not materialized due to Abd al-Aziz predeceasing Abd al-Malik.{{sfn|Hawting|2000|p=59}} Umar acceded without significant opposition on 22 September 717.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}}

===Reforms===
[[File:Dirham of Umar II, 718-719.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Silver [[dirham]] of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz]]

The most significant reform of Umar was effecting the equality of Arabs and ''[[mawla|mawali]]'' (non-Arab Muslims). This was mainly relevant to the non-Arab troops in the Muslim army, who had not been entitled to the same shares in spoils, lands and salaries given to Arab soldiers. The policy also applied to Muslim society at large.{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=31}} Under previous Umayyad rulers, Arab Muslims had certain financial privileges over non-Arab Muslims. Non-Arab converts to Islam were still expected to pay the [[jizya]] (poll tax) that they paid before becoming Muslims. Umar put into practice a new system that exempted all Muslims, regardless of their heritage, from the jizya tax. He also added some safeguards to the system to make sure that mass conversion to Islam would not cause the collapse of the finances of the Umayyad government.{{sfn|Hawting|2000|p=77}} Under the new tax policy, converted ''mawali'' would not pay the jizya (or any other ''[[dhimmi]]'' tax), but upon conversion, their land would become the property of their villages and would thus remain liable to the full rate of the ''[[kharaj]]'' (land tax). This compensated for the loss of income due to the diminished jizya tax base.{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|page=107}}
He issued an edict on taxation stating: 
<blockquote>Whosoever accepts Islam, whether Christian, Jew or Zoroastrian, of those now subject to taxes and who joins himself to the body of the Muslims in their abode, forsaking the abode in which he was before, he shall have the same rights and duties as they have, and they are obliged to associate with him and to treat him as one of themselves.{{sfn|Gibb|1955|p=3}}</blockquote>

Possibly to stave off potential blowback from opponents of the equalization measures, Umar expanded the Islamization drive that had been steadily strengthening under his Marwanid predecessors. The drive included measures to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims and the inauguration of an Islamic [[iconoclasm]].{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=32}} According to [[Khalid Yahya Blankinship]], he put a stop to the ritual cursing of Caliph [[Ali]] ({{reign|656|661}}), the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, in [[Friday prayer]] sermons.{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=32}}

Umar is credited with having ordered the first official collection of [[hadith]] (sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad), fearing that some of it might be lost.

===Provincial administrations===
Shortly after his accession, Umar overhauled the administrations of the provinces.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} He appointed competent men that he could control, indicating his intention "to keep a close eye on provincial administration".{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|p=106}} Wellhausen noted that the caliph did not leave the governors to their own devices in return for their forwarding of the provincial revenues; rather, he actively oversaw his governors' administrations and his main interest was "not so much the increase of power as the establishment of right".{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=270}}

He subdivided the vast governorship established over Iraq and the eastern Caliphate under Abd al-Malik's viceroy al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf.{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|p=106}} Sulayman's appointee to this super-province, [[Yazid ibn al-Muhallab]], was dismissed and imprisoned by Umar for failing to forward the spoils from his earlier conquest of [[Tabaristan]] along the southern [[Caspian Sea|Caspian]] coast to the caliphal treasury.{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|p=106}}{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=269}} In place of Ibn al-Muhallab, he appointed Abd al-Hamid ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn al-Khattab, a member of Caliph Umar I's family, to [[Kufa]], [[Adi ibn Artah al-Fazari]] to [[Basra]], [[al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah|al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami]] to [[Greater Khorasan|Khurasan]] and [[Amr ibn Muslim al-Bahili]], a brother of the conqueror [[Qutayba ibn Muslim]], to [[Arab Sind|Sind]]. He appointed [[Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari]] to the [[Al-Jazira (caliphal province)|Jazira]] (Upper Mesopotamia). Although many of these appointees were pupils of al-Hajjaj or affiliated with the [[Qays]] faction, Umar chose them based on their reliability and integrity, rather than opposition to Sulayman's government.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=269}}

Umar appointed [[al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani]] to [[al-Andalus]] (Iberian Peninsula) and [[Ismail ibn Abd Allah ibn Abi al-Muhajir|Isma'il ibn Abd Allah]] to [[Ifriqiya]]. He chose these governors because of their perceived neutrality in the [[Qays–Yaman rivalry|tribal factionalism between the Qays and Yaman]] and justice toward the oppressed.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|pp=269–270}}

===Military policy===
[[File:47-cropped-manasses-chronicle.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=Medieval miniature showing cavalry sallying from a city and routing an enemy army|The [[Second Arab Siege of Constantinople]], as depicted in the 14th-century [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] translation of the ''[[Constantine Manasses|Manasses Chronicle]]''.]]

After his accession in late 717, Umar ordered the withdrawal of the Muslim army led by his cousin [[Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik]] from their abortive siege against Constantinople to the regions of [[Antioch]] and [[Malatya]], closer to the Syrian frontier.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} He commissioned an expedition in the summer of 718 to facilitate their withdrawal.{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=34}} Umar kept up the annual summer raids against the Byzantine frontier,{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} out of the obligation to [[jihad]].{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=268}} He remained in northern Syria, often residing at his estate in [[Khanasir|Khunasira]], where he built a fortified headquarters.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}}{{sfn|Powers|1989|p=75, note 263}}

At some point in 717, he dispatched a force under Ibn Hatim ibn al-Nu'man al-Bahili to [[Adharbayjan]] to disperse a group of Turks who had launched damaging raids against the province.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} In 718, he successively deployed Iraqi and Syrian troops to suppress the [[Khawarij|Kharijite]] rebellion of [[Shawdhab al-Yashkuri]] in Iraq, though some sources say the revolt was settled diplomatically.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}}

Umar is often deemed a pacifist by the sources and Cobb attributes the caliph's war-weariness to concerns over the diminishing funds of the caliphal treasury.{{sfn|Cobb|2000|p=821}} Wellhausen asserts that Umar was "disinclined to wars of conquest, well-knowing that they were waged, not for God, but for the sake of spoil".{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=268}} Blankinship considers this reasoning to be "insufficient".{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=33}} He proposed it was the massive losses faced by the Arabs in their abortive siege against Constantinople, including the destruction of their navy, that caused Umar to view his positions in al-Andalus, separated by the rest of the Caliphate by sea, and [[Cilicia]] as acutely vulnerable to Byzantine attack. Thus he favored withdrawing Muslim forces from these two regions. This same calculus led to him to consider withdrawing Muslim forces from Transoxiana so as to shore up the defenses of Syria.{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|pp=33–34}} Shaban views Umar's efforts to curb offensives as linked to the resentment of the Yamani elements of the army, who Shaban views to have been politically dominant under Umar, at excessive deployments in the field.{{sfn|Blankinship|1994|p=33}}
  
Although he halted further eastward expansion, the establishment of Islam in a number of cities in Transoxiana precluded Umar's withdrawal of Arab troops from there.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|pp=268–269}}{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=269}} During his reign, the Muslim forces in al-Andalus conquered and fortified the Mediterranean coastal city of [[Narbonne]] in modern-day France.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=269, note 1}}