Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/217

 188 said the captive in surly voice, "I will make a mill for thee, the fame whereof shall reach from east even to far west"; and he went on his way. ʿOmar remarked, as he passed, the sullen demeanour of Abu Luʾluʾa:—"That slave," he said, 'spoke threateningly to me just now."

Next day, when the people assembled in the Mosque for morning prayer, Abu Luʾluʾa mingled with the front rank of the worshippers. ʿOmar entered, and, as customary, took his stand in front of the congregation, with his back towards them. No sooner had he begun the prayer with the words Allâhu Akbar, than Abu Luʾluʾa rushed upon him, and with a sharp blade inflicted six wounds in different parts of his body. Then he ran wildly about, killing some and wounding others, and at last stabbed himself to death. ʿOmar, who had fallen to the ground, was borne into his house adjoining the court, but was sufficiently composed to desire that ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān should proceed with the service. When it was ended, he summoned him to his bedside, and signified his intention of nominating him to the Caliphate. "Is it obligatory upon me?" inquired ʿAbd ar-Rahmān. "Nay, by the Lord!" said ʿOmar, "thou art free." "That being so," he replied, "I never will accept the burden." "Then stanch my wound," said the dying Caliph (for life was ebbing through a gash below the navel), "and stay me while I commit my trust unto a company that were faithful unto their Prophet, and with whom their Prophet was well pleased." So he named, together with ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, other four,—ʿAlī, ʿOthmān, Az-Zubeir, and Saʿd—as the chiefest among the Companions, to be Electors of his successor, and called them to his bedside. When they appeared, he proceeded:—"Wait for your brother Ṭalḥa" (absent at the moment from Medīna) "three days; if he arrive take him for the sixth; if not, ye are to decide the matter without him." Then, addressing each in turn, he warned them of the responsibility attaching to the duty now imposed upon them, and the danger to the one elected