Assalamo alaikum wa rahmatullah
This is the third part of Night Patrols Of Umar Bin Khattab. To read the second part please visit the following link.
http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74497
During one of his patrols he passes by a house. (Those days’ houses didn’t have a front yard or back yard or a huge garden or sound proof walls. These were very modest mud brick buildings.
The house is basically composed of few rooms and that’s it. Hassan Al basri said, the ceiling of the house of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) could be touched by hand.)
So you could hear what is happening inside these houses.
Umar bin Khattab is walking very late at night and he hears a women. This woman was reciting the lines of poetry.
Basically this woman was a wife of a soldier.
Her husband was away for a very long time and she was feeling very lonely.
She has no children and she was staying at home alone. So she was reciting the lines of poetry.
This night is very very long and I have no companion to be with me
If it wasn’t for Allah I would have been with another man…….
So basically she is saying that if it wasn’t for Allah, I would have committed Haraam.
But then she said but because I fear Allah and because there is an eye that is watching me all the time.
If it wasn’t the case I would have been with another companion.
Umar Bin Khattab said: May Allah have mercy on you.
He wasn’t speaking to her but he was making duaa for her.
He then goes to his daughter Hafsa.
He knocks on the door, seeing him hafsa said “Oh my father why did you come in this late hour. It must be something very urgent.
So he comes and says “For how long can a woman wait for her husband. How long can she stay alone? How long will her patience last.
Hafsa said “one month, two month, three month and then after four months her patience runs out.”
Umar bin Khattab immediately issues an order that no Muslim soldier should stay away from his wife for more than four months. So the rotation is for four months.
But there was a problem; many of those soldiers didn’t want to come back.
You know now, soldiers are crying, they want to go back to mom and dad. I want to go back to my girl friend. They are weeping, they are crying.
But these soldiers who are fighting for fisabillilah some of them didn’t want to go back.
So umar bin khattab had to force them. He sent some orders, he said “You either go back or I can give you an exemption if you agree to give financial independence to your wives;
you have to provide her with sufficient money so that she wouldn’t be in any need. Otherwise you divorce.
These are the teachings that show the care that Umar bin khattab had for the muslim family.
How eager he was to make sure that men are happy, women are happy and children are happy…