Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/405

 374 under the next two Caliphs and then became a dead letter, and at a later period a third expedient was adopted, which still holds good. A difference was declared between Kharāj and Jizya. The former was said by a legal fiction to be paid by the land, and so both Muslims and non-Muslims were liable for it; but the latter was a poll-tax payable only by non-Muslims in return for the protection afforded them by the Muslims. Thus the Muslims were made to contribute to the revenue, and the State did not suffer loss.

A son of seventeen died before him. Some touching passages are related of ʿOmar's conversation with this youth, who was like-minded with him in high religious aspiration. He urged his father to enforce reform and bring back society to the primitive practice of what was right. ʿOmar replied that he had done what he could by gentle means, but if Muslim rule were to be regenerated as his son desired, it must be accomplished by force; and "there is no good," said he, "in that reform which can be enforced by the sword alone."

Though devoid of stirring events, there is much that is attractive in the reign of ʿOmar. It is a relief, amidst bloodshed, intrigue, and treachery, to find a Caliph devoted to what he believed the highest good both for himself and for his people. The saint might be morbid, over-scrupulous, and bigoted; but there are few, if any, throughout this history whose life leaves a more pleasing impression on the reader's mind than that of ʿOmar.

It was the middle of 101, after a reign of two vears and a half, that ʿOmar sickened. In a few weeks he died, at the age of thirty-nine, and was buried at Dair Simʿān, in the province of Ḥimṣ. He was succeeded, according to his brother Suleimān's last will, by his cousin Yezīd, son of ʿAbd al-Melik, and of ʿĀtika, daughter of Yezīd I.