Revisiting The Letter to the Proponents of Freewill (al-Risālah ilā l-Qadariyyah) attributed to the Umayyad

caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99-101/717-720)*

Sean W. Anthony
(The Ohio State University)

The Umayyad caliph ʿUmar (II) ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān is the earliest caliph to whom
extensive writings on theological debates are attributed. Theological themes abound, of course, all
throughout the other writings attributed to not just ʿUmar II but other Umayyads as well, but only his
epistle on the Qadariyyah (i.e., the Muslim proponents of human free-will) survives as an example of the
caliph weighing in on an internal Muslim theological debate as such. The epistle reaches us more or less in
its entirety via the vast prosopographical history of the saintly figures of Islam, the Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ,
compiled by Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (336–430/948–1038). But the first modern scholar to bring the epistle
to the attention of modern scholarship and highlight its historical importance was the late Josef van Ess,
who offered an annotated translation of the work in his seminal Anfänge muslimischer Theologie in 1977.1 Van
Ess made a strong case for the authenticity of the epistle’s ascription to ʿUmar II as well, and his conclusions
were soon followed and confirmed, albeit somewhat begrudgingly and with key qualifications, by Michael
Cook, who also dedicated a detailed study of its contents and transmission in a monograph published a few
years later.2 Van Ess’ judgment regarding the authenticity of the epistle, thus, attained the status of a
consensus view.3 My principle aim here is to introduce the text briefly and to provide an English translation
thereof. I will, however, revisit the question of the ascription of the epistle to ʿUmar and its authenticity in
my concluding remarks.

Although the caliphate of ʿUmar II was a relatively short one, it was nonetheless momentous. His
caliphate left a profound impact of the communal memory of not just Muslim, but also non-Muslim,
historiography.4 ʿUmar II spearheaded a wide-reaching program of reform that touched upon multiple
religious, societal, and political spheres, all of which he regarded as falling under the prerogatives of the
caliphal office. These initiatives entailed broad administrative reforms, on the one hand, but also religiously
inspired social reforms, such as his prodigious efforts to end the purchase and sale of intoxicating drinks of
dubious legal status.5 The entire corpus of the materials attributed to him, even though it certainly contains

1
*XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
J. van Ess, Anfänge muslimischer Theologie: Zwei antiqadarische Traktate aus dem ersten Jahrhundert der Hiǧrah
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1977), 113-76 (Ger.), 43-54 (Ar.); idem., “ʿUmar II and his Epistle against the Qadarīya,”
Abr-Nahrain 12 (1971–72): 19-26.
2
M. Cook, Eary Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 130-31.
3
E.g., see the recent study by Omer Awass, “Modalities of Argumentation, Scriptural Reasoning, and the Structural
Characteristics of Early Islamic Theological Discourse,” Méthodes 22 (2022); http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/methodos.8943,
last accessed online 4 March 2024.
4
Antoine Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir: L’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyedes et les premiers Abbassides (v. 72-
193/692-809) (Leiden: Brill, 2011), ch. 6.
5
E.g., Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem, “Des amphores rouges et des jarres vertes: Considérations sur la
production et la consummation de boissons fermentées aux deux premiers siècles de l’hégire,” Islamic Law and Society
30 (2023): 1-60; Elon Harvey, “ʿUmar II and the Prohibition of Ṭilāʾ and Nabīdh,” Islamic Law and Society 30 (2023):

1
many spurious materials alongside the authentic, leaves no doubt that his was assiduous mind that harbored
considerable ambitions for the caliphal office.

Although ʿUmar II had his fair share of opponents during his caliphate, their criticisms of him by
and large leave scarce imprint on how later authors portrayed him. The harshest criticisms tend to come
from, or at least be attributed to, the early Abbasids—for all this piety, ʿUmar II is still an Umayyad after all.
Hence, the Abbasid caliph Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr allegedly deigned to call him “a 0ne-eyed man among the
blind (aʿwar bayna ʿumyān),” and mocked his claim to be pious ascetic, citing his murder of Khubayb b.
ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr while serving as the governor of Medina during the caliphate of al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-
Malik.6 All the same, posterity generally remembers him as a caliphal reformer and exemplar, whence his
famous epithet “the fifth rightly guided caliph,”7 even if it is more reluctant to portray him as an intellectual
outright.

But there are some hints at this intellectual aspect of his personality all the same. One indication
comes in from the (perhaps) legendary story of how ʿUmar II, prior to becoming caliph, became a friend to
the head of the school of medicine in Alexandria, Ibn Abjar al-Kinānī, whom he convinced to convert
Islam. After becoming caliph, ʿUmar II allegedly sponsored his physician friend and had him transfer the
instruction in the works of Galen and Hippocrates, the medical curriculum knowns as the Summaria
Alexandrinorum, to Antioch, Ḥarrān, and other locations.8 Presently, of course, ʿUmar II’s theological
preoccupations are of foremost concern, and on this score, one does find that his reputation for writing on
theological topics was early. ʿUmar II and the Roman emperor Leo III allegedly debated sundry topics on
which Muslims and Christians disagree, and their alleged correspondence survives many languages,
including Arabic, Aljamiado, Armenian, and Latin. 9 Some accounts depict ʿUmar as an avid debater of
Muslim sectarians—not just the Qadariyyah but also Khawārij and Shīʿah as well. 10 Most curious of all are
the contradictory accounts of ʿUmar II’s relationship with the heresiarch of the Qadariyyah, the Umayyad
imperial scribe Ghaylān al-Dimashqī, whom the caliph Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik later crucified in ca. 733-35
AD. Accounts variously depict ʿUmar II as either sympathetic, or vehemently opposed, to Ghaylān. 11

329-91.
6
Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ, K. Faḍl Hāshim ʿalā ʿAbd Shams, 89, in Ḥasan al-Sandūbī, ed., Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (Cairo: al-
Maṭbaʿah al-Raḥmāniyyah, 1933). For acounts of the incident, see Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī, Nasab Quraysh, ed. Évariste
Lévi-Pronvençal (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, n.d.), 240; Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, vol. 4(3), ed. Riḍwān
al-Sayyid (Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2019), 280.
7
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Tārīkh al-khulafāʾ (Qatar: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyyah, 2013), 374.
8
Sezgin, GAS, 3: 203-4; Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 21-22; Dimitri Gutas, Greek
Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graecto-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2 nd-4th/8th-10th
centuries) (London: Routledge, 1998), 91-92 (citing Ibn Jumayʿ, d. ca. 594/1198).
9
Sergio La Porta and Alison M. Vacca, An Armenian Futūḥ Narrative: Łewond’s Eighth-Century History of the Caliphate
(Chicago: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, 2024), 182-84; Thomas E. Burnam, Nuria de Castilla,
Seonyoung Kim, Sergio La Porta, Jeremy Pearson, and Alison M. Vacca, A Connecting Polemic in the Medieval
Mediterranean: The Correspondence of Leo III and ʿUmar II (Chicago: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures,
forthcoming).
10
E.g., S.W. Anthony, “A ‘Rediscovered’ Letter of the Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99-101/717-720):
Caliphal Authority and Legal Authority in al-Risāla fī l-fayʾ,” in Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World: Knowledge,
Authority and Legitimacy, ed. Maribel Fierro, Sonja Brentjes, and Tilman Seidensticker (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 59.
11
S.W. Anthony, Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in Its Late Antique Context (New Haven, CT:
The American Oriental Society, 2014), 76-82.

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Nonetheless, at least some of the early Muʿtazilah who inherited the theological agenda of the Qadariyyah
viewed ʿUmar II unfavorably. When asked his opinion of ʿUmar II, the Baṣran theologian ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (c.
80–144/699–761) reportedly grimaced and look away in disapproval. 12

That ʿUmar II was a staunch proponent of divine determinism (al-jabr) and, moreover, wrote letters
to that effect was already taken as a given by the Abbasid belletrist and theologian al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869), who
dismissed him as inept in theology, a mere dabbler.13 It was obviously in the interest of al-Jāḥiẓ to portray
ʿUmar II in such a light, insofar as al-Jāḥiẓ himself was a Muʿtazilite and, therefore, a proponent of a dogma
directly opposed to the position for ʿUmar II advocates in the epistle translated below. Much later, the
Ashʿarite scholar ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1037), being much more sympathetic to the epistle’s
aims, would cite its arguments as authoritative and praise the caliph as the first theologian of ahl al-sunnah.14

Below, I present the first translation of The Letter to the Proponents of Freewill (Ar. al-Risālah ilā al-
Qadariyyah) into English. I have relied on the Arabic edition and annotated German translation published
by Josef van Ess many decades ago. The position put forward in the epistle attributed to ʿUmar II is that of
an ardent proponent of divine voluntarism who vehemently denies that human beings have any capacity to
act, and thus possess a freewill, independent of God’s divine will. However, one must also keep in mind that
the viewpoint propounded in the epistle essentially a reaction t0 a theological doctrine that he finds deviant
rather than a systematic presentation of his own doctrine. His opponents, who are only called “al-
Qadariyyah” in the title appended to the epistle at a later date, are never actually mentioned by name,
although the letter does imply that they themselves initiated the exchange by addressing a letter to the
caliph.

I. The text of the letter

Our earliest attestation to the text of the letter is the famed Sunni traditionist Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (195–
277/810–890). His son, Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (240–327/854–938), cites excerpts from the letter on his
father’s authority at least four times in the extant portions of his multi-volume tafsīr.15 Abū Ḥātim cites the
Baṣran scholar Abū l-Ashʿath Aḥmad b. Miqdām (d. Baṣrah, 253/867) 16 as his direct source but, thereafter,
provides essentially the same chain of authorities for the letter given a century later by Abū Nuʿaym al-
Iṣfahānī. It is Abū Nuʿaym’s version that I translate here.

12
Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, ed. Hüseyin Hansu, Rājiḥ Kurdī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī (Amman: Dār
al-Fatḥ, 2018), 197; ʿAmr’s taciturn response to the question contrasts sharply with the praise he subsequently heaps
on Yazīd III in this same passage.
13
“He was the most formidable of God’s creatures to confess the doctrine of predestination, even exceeding the
Jahmiyyah …, and he would write letter on that despite is ignorance of theological disputation and rarely consulting
with experts (wa-kāna aʿẓama khalqi ’llāhi qawlan bi-l-jabr ḥattā yatajāwazu l-jahmiyyah … wa-kāna yaṣnaʿu fī dhālika
al-kutuba maʿa jahlihi bi-l-kalām wa-qillati khtilāfihi ilā ahli l-naẓar)” (Jāḥiẓ, Faḍl Hāshim, ed. al-Sandūbī, 90; cited in
Van Ess, Anfänge, 114).
14
Van Ess, Anfänge, 114.
15
Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 13 vols., ed. A.M. al-Ṭayyib (Riyadh: Maktabat Nizār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1997), 2: 504 (no.
3233), 3: 777 (no. 4270), 5: 1698 (no. 9058), 9: 2943-44 (no. 16692).
16
Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/107), Tārīkh Madīnat al-Salām wa-akhbār muḥaddithīhā wa-dhikr quṭṭānihā
al-ʿulamāʾ min ghayr ahlihā wa-wāridīhā, 17 vols., ed. B.ʿA. Maʿrūf (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 2001), 6: 381-85.

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 Abū Ḥāmid b. Jabalah ← Muḥammad b. Isḥāq al-Sarrāj ← Abū l-Ashʿath Aḥmad b. al-Miqdām ←
Muḥammad b. Bakr al-Bursānī17 ← Sulaym b. Nufayʿ al-Qurashī from Khalaf Abū l-Faḍl al-
Qurashī18 from the letter (kitāb) of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz:

1 To the persons who wrote me about matters about which they had no right to speak: concerning
how they deny God’s Scripture (radd kitāb allāh) and repudiate His ineluctable decrees and His
foreknowledge19 – which has no limit save God himself and which nothing can escape – and their
reproach of the religion (dīn) of God the Sunnah of His Messenger as it prevails in his nation.

2 To proceed. You wrote me about matters which you had concealed before today: how you deny
God’s [fore]knowledge (radd ʿilm allāh) and how you abandoned [belief in his foreknowledge] to
pursue something that the Messenger of God feared for his nation: the repudiation of [divine]
predestination (al-takdhīb bi-l-qadar).20 3 You know full well that the custodians of the Sunnah (ahl
al-sunnah) are given to saying, “To hold fast to the Sunnah is deliverance, for knowledge diminishes
swiftly (yanquṣu naqṣan sarīʿan).”21 And [you know full well] what ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb said as he
admonished the people, “After the truth is manifest (baʿda l-bayyinah)22 no one may expect God to
pardon him for committing a misguided act he himself considered to be guided or [to pardon him]
for neglecting a guided act he considered to be misguided. What is commanded [of us] is now clear,
the argument [for it] well established, and [the time to obtain] pardon expired.” 23 Whosever loathes
17
A Baṣran scholar who later settled in Baghdad, where he died in 203/818-19; Khaṭīb, Tārīkh, 2: 443-46.
18
Neither of these two authorities are named or identified in the prosopographical literature. The suggested
emendations put forward by Van Ess (Anfänge, 115, 130 n1) are, in my view, indefensible in light of the multiple
attestations to the names in the tafsīr of Ibn Abī Ḥātim (see n# above). Cook (Dogma, 124) adduced the occurrence of
a certain “Abū l-Faḍl” as an authority of a letter from ʿUmar II written to ʿAdī b. ʿArṭāh al-Fazārī, the governor of
Baṣrah. See Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī, al-Jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, 4 vols. (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-
ʿUthmāniyyah, 1952), 4(2): 424 (no. 2092). Although Cook is inclined to understand this as reference to another,
shorter letter of ʿUmar II on the Qadariyyah addressed to ʿAdī (cf. van Ess, Anfänge, 120-21 and below), the sheer
number of ʿUmar II’s extant letters addressed to this particular governor and their diverse topics make this far from
certain; e.g., see Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 4(3):, 332, 338, 340-41, 344-45, 349-50, 352-54, 357-60.
19
Read ‫ علمه‬for ‫معهل‬.
20
A warning also attributed to the Prophet by ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar (d. 73/693) in a letter to a friend residing in Syria;
see Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Musnad, 50 vols., ed. Šuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ e. a. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1998-2001), 9:
456 (5639).
21
v.l., yuqbaḍū qabḍan sarīʿan. This saying is attributed to the Medinan scholar Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) and is
usually transmitted by the Syrian al-Awzāʿī (d. 157/773) from Zuhrī’s student Yūnus b. Yazīd al-Aylī. The full version
reads, “Al-Zuhrī said, ‘The learned of times passed would say: Holding fast to the Sunnah is salvation. Knowledge will
quickly be snatched away (wa-l-ʿilmu yuqbaḍu qabḍan sarīʿan). Reviving knowledge is the guarantor of your spiritual
and worldly prosperity (thabātu l-dīn wa-l-dunyā), and with the loss of knowledge, all else is lost.” See Abū
Muḥammad al-Dārimī (d. 255/869), al-Musnad, 4 vols., Ḥusayn al-Dārānī (Riyadh: Dār al-Mughnī, 2000), 1:230 (no.
90); Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 3: 369.
22
According to other versions, “after the Sunnah (baʿda l-sunnah)”; see note below.
23
The attribution of this saying to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb seems to go back to the Syrian scholar al-Awzāʿī; see ʿUmar b.
Shabbah (d. 262/876), Akhbār al-Madīnah, 7 vols., ed. Ashraf ʿAbd al-Salām (Medina: Maktabat al-Maymanah al-
Madaniyyah, 2022), 4: 239; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 462/1071), K. al-Faqīh wa-l-mutafaqqih, 2 vols., ed. ʿĀdil al-
ʿAzāzī (Riyadh: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 1996), 1: 383. Cf. Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Marwazī (d. 294/906-7), K. al-Sunnah, ed.

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 the declarations of prophecy and what scripture brings forth has had the means to guidance cut
from his grasp and will find nothing to protect him (ʿiṣmah) or to deliver him from damnation.

4 You mentioned that word reached you that I say that God knows what servants will do and
whither they will go,24 and you rebuke me for that and said: Such a matter does not exist with God
as knowledge until it exists with humans (al-khalq) as action. 5 How can it be as you’ve said? For
God says, «We shall remove the torment for a while, though you are sure to return» (Q. 44:15),
meaning those who return to disbelief. And He said, «And even were they to be brought back, they
would return to the very thing forbidden them. They are such liars!» (6:28).

6 You, in your ignorance, allege concerning what God has said, «Whosoever wills to do so, let him
believe; and whosoever wills do so, let him disbelieve» (18:29), that the willing here regards which
of the two one prefers, misguidance or guidance. 7 But God also says, «And you will nothing lest it
is willed by God, the Lord of all people» (81:29). So it is by God’s will for them that they
themselves will to do so. Were He not to will it so, they would never succeed in obeying Him at all,
whether in word or deed, because God does not grant servants what is only in His power, nor does
He delegate to them what He even withholds from His messengers. Messengers earnestly desire the
guidance of all people, but among them only those whom God wills to guide are guided. Indeed,
Iblīs wished to misguide them all, but none were misguided except those who, in accord with God’s
knowledge, would be misguided (man kāna fī ʿilm allāh ḍāllan).

8 You, in your ignorance, purport that God’s knowledge is neither that which compels servants to
disobey him, nor is it that which prevents them, when they fail to obey him, but rather [His
knowledge] is, as you purport, merely that, just as He knows that they will disobey Him, He
likewise knows that they are capable of abandoning it. 9 You have made a mockery of God’s
knowledge! You say: If a servant wishes, he may act in obedience to God, even if, according to God’s
knowledge, he will not so act. And if he so wills, he may abandon his disobedience, even if,
according to God’s knowledge, he will not abandon it. If you will it, you may accomplish it, and
thus it becomes [an instance of God’s fore]knowledge; and if you will it, you may reject it, and thus
it becomes [an instance of] ignorance. If you will, you may originate on your own accord [an
instance of] knowledge that is outside of God’s knowledge and thereby sever God’s knowledge from
you. Ibn ʿAbbās considered an assertion such as this to be a violation of belief in God’s unrivaled
sovereignty (li-l-tawḥīd naqḍan)25 and would say, “God did not make His favor and His mercy so to
be disregarded, without being apportioned or restricted, nor did He send His messengers to nullify
what was known to Him beforehand.”26 You affirm knowledge in one instance but invalidate it in
another, though God says, «He knows what is before them and what is behind them, but they do
not comprehend any of His knowledge except what He wills» (2:255). Thus people will (eventually)
ʿAbdallāh al-Buṣayrī (Riyadh: Dār al-ʿĀṣimah, 2001), 102, where al-Awzāʿī attributes the maxim, rather, to ʿUmar b.
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.
24
I.e., either to Paradise or Hell.
25
Pace Cook (Dogma, 128), I here take the sense of God’s unity (al-tawḥīd) as focusing on divine monarchía, i.e., on
the fact God does not delegate the management of the creation to other beings, whether a demiurge, angels, or even
human beings. See §17 below and Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leizig: Hegner, 1935).
26
Otherwise unattested.

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 arrive to what God knows (in advance), and so shall they remain. They have no refuge save for Him
nor do they have a means to escape Him. There exists no veil that conceals some (future) thing
from the knowledge of God or that separates the two.27 He is all-knowing and wise.

10 You also say, “Were [a person] to so will, they would not be punished for a deed” 11 — thus
contravening what God recounts in His Scripture about certain persons « theirs are deeds falling
short [of the believers’] that they continue to enact» (23:63), which He permits them to enjoy
«briefly, then painful punishment from Us will befall them» (11:48). Thus He recounts how they
will act before they act, and He recounts how He will punishment them before they are even
created.

12 You yourselves also say: Were they to so will, they could escape from God’s [fore]knowledge of
their punishment into an aspect of His mercy for them that He had not foreseen.” 13 Whosoever
make such claims offers an insolent rejection of God’s scripture. God had named certain men from
the messengers by their names and deeds in His foreknowledge. Their father could not alter those
names, nor could even Iblīs annul the favor that had been granted them with his foreknowledge.
God said, «Remember our servants: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – men possessing strength and
vision. We set them apart for the honor of proclaiming the Hereafter» (38:46). God is too mighty
and too formidable to grant anyone any authority to falsify His knowledge in any such matter – for
He is the one who named them by His revelation which «falsehood may not approach from the
front or from behind» (41:42) – or to make anyone a partner in His creation or to grant access to
His mercy any whom He has excluded from it or to exclude from it any whom He has granted
access thereto. Whosoever claims that knowledge follows creation attributes gross ignorance to
God. To the contrary, God alone remains the one who knows all things and who witnesses all
things before He creates anything; and after He creates [humanity], his knowledge does not
diminish at their origination, nor does it increase after their deeds. It changes not with the
catastrophes whereby He wipes out their wicked conduct. Nor does Iblīs possess dominion over his
own guidance or the misguidance of others. By spreading your doctrine you have aimed to falsify
the knowledge of God over His creation and to neglect obeisance to Him, but God’s Scripture
refutes your innovation (bidʿah) and your extreme slander. You know full well that God sent His
Messenger while the people in those days were polytheists: whosoever God wished to attain
guidance could not remain misguided unless God willed him to be so, and whosever God did not
wish to attain guidance He abandoned to disbelief, misguided – thus was misguidance more suitable
for him than guidance.

14 You all claim that God placed obedience and disobedience in your hearts; that you act under
your own power in obedience to Him and abandon under your own power disobedience to Him;
and that God refrains from setting anyone apart through His mercy or from preventing anyone
from disobeying him. 15 You also claim that the only thing that is predetermined is, according to
your views, a life of ease, prosperity, and wealth, and you exclude deeds therefrom. 16 You deny that
guidance or misguidance might come to someone from God in advance; [rather] you are the ones
who guide yourselves without God, and you are the ones who prevent yourselves from disobeying
without any power from God or permission from him.

27
Cf. Q. 17:45, 41:5.

6
 17 Whosoever claims such things has a doctrine that crosses the line. Were a thing to exist that
God neither had foreknowledge of nor predetermined, then God would have a partner (sharīk) in
His dominion able to exert his will upon the creation without God. But God says, «God has made
faith dear to you and beautiful in your hearts», though they previously despised it; «And He made
disbelief, sinfulness, and disobedience repugnant to you» (49:7), though previously it was dear to
them. They were not able to do any of this for themselves. Then He informs us of the benefaction
and forgiveness given to Muḥammad (ṣ) and his Companions in advance. He said, «Ruthless against
the disbelievers, but merciful among themselves» (48:29), and He said, «God will forgive you for
your former and later sins» (48:2). Out of kindness God forgave him for [those sins] before he had
even committed them. Then He informs us of what they shall do before they do it, saying, «You
will see them bent over in prayer, prostrating while seeking favor from God and His pleasure»
(48:29) – i.e., favor granted to them in advance by God before they were created, and good pleasure
granted them before they believed. 18 You yourselves say that they have been given authority to
reject what God reported about them concerning what they will do and that is for them to persist
in their disbelief despite what He said. Thus, the disbelief they wish for themselves is enacted but
the revelation of God concerning what He had chosen would find no confirmation. 19 To the
contrary! «To God belongs the decisive proof» (6:149), which is in His word, «Were it not for a
decree from God in advance, you would have been sorely punished for what you had taken» (8:68). 28
Clemency was pre0rdained for them by God for what they had taken prior to them being granted
permission.

20 You say: If they so will, they may escape the [fore]knowledge of God concerning His clemency
for them into what He knew not by their leaving aside what they had taken. 21 Whosoever claims
that goes too far and utters falsehood. Indeed, He mentions many people while they are in the loins
of their fathers and the wombs of their mothers. Thus, He said, «And others among them when
they join them» (26:3), and He said «And those who come after them will say, ‘Our Lord, forgive
us and our brothers who had faith before us!’» (59:10). Mercy from God is thus granted them in
advance, before they are yet created, and the prayer that they might be forgiven is in the mouths of
those who came after them in faith before such individuals have even uttered the prayer.

22 Those who know God know full well that God does not will a thing only then to shift His will
to something else without attaining what He willed. When He wills to guide a people, none may
misguide them. But Iblīs wills to misguide a people, they may yet be guided. He said to Moses and
his brother, «Go to Pharoah, for he has transgressed; speak to him gently so perhaps he will take
heed or be fearful» (20:43-44), though He foreknew Moses would be an enemy of Pharoah and a
cause for sorrow. He said, «We will show Pharoah, Haman, and their armies what they feared»
(28:6). But you yourselves say: Were Pharoah to have so willed, he could have been a protector and
an aide to Moses. But God said, «He will be to them an enemy and a cause for sorr0w» (28:8). 23
And you say: Were Pharoah to have so willed, he could have protected himself from drowning. But
God said, «They will be a drowned army» (44:24). God made this certain of His own accord in His
revelation in the accounts of first generations. Just as He said in His foreknowledge 29 of Adam
28
A reference to the spoils and prisoners taken after the Battle of Badr; see Mūsā b. ʿUqbah (d. 141/758), al-Maghāzī,
ed. Muḥammad al-Ṭabarānī (Fez: Manshūrāt al-Bashīr Binʿaṭiyyah, 2023), 2: 62-63.
29
Read ‫ سابق علمه‬for ‫سابق معهل‬.

7
 before He created him, «I shall place upon the earth a vicegerent» (2:30), so it came to pass by
means of the disobedience by which he was tested. Just as Iblīs was in His foreknowledge to become
«accursed, banished» (17:18), so it came to pass when he was tested with prostrating before Adam
and refused. Adam was met with forgiveness and granted mercy, whereas Iblīs was met with
damnation and went astray. Adam was then cast down to part of the Earth created for him, having
been forgiven and shown mercy, whereas Iblīs cast down in His respite (bi-naẓirathi)30 accursed,
banished, and despised.

24 You yourselves say: Iblīs and his minions among the jinn have been given authority to defy the
knowledge of God and to escape from the vow that He swore when He said, «The truth – and I
only speak the truth – is that I will fill Gehenna with you and all those who follow you» (38:84-85),
so that [His] knowledge only goes into effect after they will it. 25 What do you wish to achieve
from damning your souls by denying the [fore]knowledge of God? God Almighty did not even
appoint you as a witness to your own creation, so how can your ignorance encompass His
knowledge? The knowledge of God does not fall short of anything that will be, nor can one defy a
thing that He knows in advance. Even if you were to move at every instant from one thing to the
next thing that shall be, wherever you end up will be known to Him. The angels knew before the
creation of Adam what [mischief] and bloodshed would be wrought by human beings (al-ʿibād) on
earth. They themselves had no knowledge of the unseen. The mischief and bloodshed were in God’s
[fore]knowledge, and they did not say it as a false accusation but rather by virtue of the All-
Knowing and All-Wise One having taught them that. The suspicion about that was theirs, but He
caused them to give voice to it.

26 You deny that God causes a people to go astray before they go astray and that he causes a people
to be misguided before they become misguided. 27 But no one who believes in God doubts this:
God knows before He creates humanity (al-ʿibād) who will be a believer and a disbeliever, pious and
impious. How can a servant whom God deems a believer be a disbeliever, or how can one whom
God deems a disbeliever be a believer? And God says, «Is a person who was dead and whom We
have brought back to life and given light with which to walk among people comparable to someone
trapped in deep darkness who cannot escape? » (6:122). Such a person is misguided and cannot ever
escape it except by the permission of God. 28 Then others «took to worshipping», after having been
guided, «a graven calf» (7:148), and so became misguided thereby. He forgave them so that they
might be grateful. There arose «from the people of Moses a group guided by the truth and who
acted justly in accord with it » (7:159), and thus did they attain what was foreordained for them.
Then Thamūd became misguided after having been guided, but He did not pardon them nor did
He show mercy. They became in His [fore]knowledge via «a single blast extinguished in an instant»
(36:29) and thus were they delivered unto what was foreordained for them because Ṣāliḥ, their
messenger, and the she-camel were «a trial for them» (36:27) and because He wished for them to
die as disbelievers, they hamstrung her. 29 Iblīs was once occupied with praise and worship as were
the angels, but he was tried, disobeyed, and was not granted mercy. Adam was tried, disobeyed, but
was shown mercy. Adam’s heart was set on sinning and forgot (what he was obliged to do), 31 and

30
Cf. Q. 7:14, 15:36, 38:79.
31
Q. 20:115.

8
 Joseph’s heart was set on transgression and was preserved (from sin). 32 Where was the capacity to
act on one’s own (al-istiṭāʿah) at that moment? Was it of any use for making what transpired not to
transpire? Or was it of any use to make what did not transpire actually transpire? Do we recognize
this as a proof in your favor? No, God is mightier than you describe and more powerful.

30 You deny that God determines whether someone will be misguided or guided beforehand. His
knowledge, you claim, merely records. The will animating deeds belong to you: if you prefer to
believe, then you will be one of the inhabitants of Paradise. Then in your ignorance you appeal to
the saying of the Messenger of God (ṣ), which the custodians of the Sunnah (ahl al-sunnah)
transmit, and which attests to the truth of revealed scripture (muṣaddiqun li-l-kitāb al-munazzal),
concerning a sin equivalent to a grave sin33 and what the Prophet (ṣ) replies when ʿUmar asked him,
“What do you think concerning what we shall do? Is it a thing already decided or something that
we anticipate shall be?” He replied, “It is already decided.” 34 You impugn him for falsehood and
shun God for His foreknowledge since you say, “Were we not able to escape it, then it is coercion
(al-jabr)!” And you judge coercion to be injustice (wa-l-jabr ʿindakum al-ḥayf), 31 and thus do you
call the determination of God’s [foreknowledge] with regards to humanity (fi l-khalq) an injustice.

32 The report has been passed down that God created Adam and spread his offspring across the
palm of His hand. He recorded the inhabitants of Paradise and their deeds, and He recorded the
inhabitants of Hell and their deeds. And Sahl b. Ḥunayf35 said on the Day of Ṣiffīn,36 “People, place
the blame on following your personal opinions about your religion! By the one in whose hand my
soul resides! In the days of Abū Jandal,37 I was once of the view that, if we could defy the command
of the Messenger of God (ṣ), then we would defy it. But, I swear by God, whenever we shouldered
our swords we found the task easy to fulfill – such was our experience before this action of yours.” 38

33 In your ignorance you made a public a summons to a certain truth, but according to an
erroneous interpretation, and thus summoned the people to reject the [fore]knowledge of God. You
say, “The good deed is from God, but the evil is from ourselves.” But your imams, who are the
custodians of the Sunnah, say, “The good deed is from God as decreed beforehand, and the evil

32
Q. 12:24.
33
A conjectural reading of: ‫ ;أّنه عن ذنٍب ُم ضاٍه ذنًبا خبيًثا‬see Van Ess, Anfänge, 162
34
A tradition also transmitted on the authority of the Medinan scholar al-Zuhrī (see n# above) and recorded in a work
by a prominent student of al-Zuhrī: see Maʿmar b. Rāshid (d. 153/770), al-Jāmiʿ, Ankara Üniversitesi, MS İsmail Saib
2164 (AH 364), fol. 21a (k. al-qadar) = ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Muṣannaf, 11 vols., ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-
Aʿẓamī (Beirut: ), 11: 111 (no. 2063). The tradition is attributed to numerous Companions, but for the versions
attributed to ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, see B.A. Marouf, M.M. Al-Musallami, Ayman I. Al-Zamili, Said A. Al-Nuri,
Ahmad A. Eid, and Mahmoud M. Khalil, al-Musnad al-muṣannaf al-muʿallal, 41 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī,
2013), 22: 108-10 (no. 9973) [hereafter: MMM].
35
A companion from the Anṣār, he settled in Kūfah where he died in 38/358-59.
36
I.e., the battle between Muʿāwiyah b. Abī Suyfān and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib for the imamate in 37/657.
37
A reference to the events transpiring after the treaty at al-Ḥudaybiyah: Abū Jandal was among those Meccans who
sought to join Muḥammad in Medina but who were turned away as stipulated by Muḥammad’s agreement with
Meccans. See Uri Rubin, “Muḥammad’s Curse of Muḍar and the Blockade of Mecca,” JESHO 31 (1988): 249-64.
38
A widely attested tradition transmitted by the Kufan traditionist al-Aʿmash (d. ca. 147-148/764–5) from the Kufan
authority Abū Waʾil Shaqīq b. Salamah; see MMM, 10: 50-52 (no. 4701).

9
 deed is from ourself as known beforehand.” 34 But you say, “That will not be so until it originates
from ourselves; just the evil deed originates with ourselves.” 35 This is a rejection of scripture on
your part and an offense against religion. Ibn ʿAbbās, 39 may God be pleased with him, had already
said when discussion of predestination (al-qawl fī l-qadar) arose, “This is first instance of
polytheism (shirk) in this nation. By God, their evil opinions will only lead them exclude God from
predetermining good just as they exclude Him from predetermining evil.” 40

36 You yourselves claim, in your ignorance, that whosever in God’s [fore]knowledge is to be

misguided but later is guided, then he has become so due to that which he himself has dominion
over, insofar he attained his guidance without God having known it about him. [And you claim]
that whosoever has a heart receptive to Islam, it is due to what has been delegated to him before
God made it receptive to it on his behalf. [And you also claim] that, if he was believer and later
becomes a disbeliever, it is due to what he wills for his own soul and what he has dominion over
regarding it – thus is his will to be a disbeliever obtain more than God’s will for him to be a
believer. 37 To the contrary! I testify that whosoever does a good deed does so without any help of
his own doing;41 and whosoever does a wicked deed does so without any excuse for so acting. Favor
is in God’s hand: He gives it to whomsoever He wills. Were God to wish to guide all humanity,
then His command would obtain and whosoever was misguided would certainly become guided.

38 You say: By His will has He willed for you to be delegated to decide to do the good deed and the
bad deed, having removed from you His foreknowledge of your deeds and causing His will to
conform to your will. 39 Damn you! By God, He did not enact the will of the Israelites on their
behalf when they refused to hold fast to what He revealed to them so that He shook «the mountain
above them as it were a canopy» (7:171). Do you hold that He would enact the will of any one
before you who were misguided and whom He wished to be guided – even to the point that He
force one to enter Islam by the sword against his will, because of His knowledge of this about
him?42 Or did He enact the will of the people of Jonah when they refused to believe until their
punishment loomed like a shadow over them? They had faith, and it was accepted of them, though
He rejected others’ faith, which was not accepted of them. And He said, «When they saw our
punishment, they said, “We have faith in God alone, and we reject the partners we once ascribed to
Him!,” but having faith after they saw Our punishment did not avail them – such is the law of God
applied to His servants – and thus did the disbelievers suffer ruin» (40:84-85) – that is, God’s
[fore]knowledge applied to His creatures (khalqih), «and thus did the disbelievers suffer ruin»
(40:85). Such was their fate according to Him, for them to perish without (their faith) being
accepted of them. To the contrary, guidance and misguidance, belief and disbelief, as well as good
and evil are in God’s hand. He guides whomsoever He wills, and He leaves whomsoever He wills «to
wander aimlessly in their error» (7:187). Thus did Abraham, upon him peace, say, «My Lord …
force me and my children to abandon the worship of idols» (14:35). And he also said, «Our Lord,
39
ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās (d. ca. 68/687-88), the famed paternal cousin and Companion of Muḥammad.
40
A tradition attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās by the Syrian scholar al-Awzāʿī (88–157/707–774); see Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, 5:
171-72 (no. 3054); Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim (d. 287/900), K. al-Sunnah, 2 vols., ed. Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (Beirut: al-Maktab al-
Islāmī, 1980), 1: 39 (no. 79).
41
Lit., “without any aid that was from himself to do it (bi-ghayri maʿūnatin kānat min nafsihi ʿalayhā).”
42
because of … (bi-mawqiʿ ʿilmihi bi-dhālika fīhi), the reading is uncertain; see van Ess, Anfänge, 170.

10
 make us be submissive to you and from our progeny a nation submissive to you» (2:128) – that is,
being a believer and being a Muslim is in Your hand (al-īmān wa-l-islām bi-yadika), and the
worship of those who worship idols is in Your Hand. But you reject that and have made (the
matter) a domain that rests in your hands and outside the reach of the will of God Almighty.

40 With regard to murder (al-qatl), you say that it is not in accord with a (predetermined) term
(bi-ghayri ʾajal). 41 God has mentioned for you in His scripture some of them by name. Thus He
said to John, «Peace be upon him the day of his birth, the day of his death, and the day of his
resurrection back to life» (19:15). And how did John die if not murdered? One who is killed as a
martyr dies, and one who is murdered intentionally or who is killed by accident suffers a death just
like the one who dies of an illness or a mishap. Each such instance is a death at the fulfillment of a
term and according to a measure of subsistence one consumes, a point in the road one reaches, and
a final resting place to which one arrives. It is not «for a soul to die except by God’s leave in accord
with predetermined record» (3:145). And no soul will die as long as there remains in this world a
moment he has yet to live, or a place he has yet to tread, or a single grain’s weight of allotted
subsistence he has yet to consume, or a resting place, wherever it is, he has yet to reach. That
testifies to the truth of what God Almighty has said, «Say to the disbelievers: you will be overcome
and driven into Gehenna, a foul resting place» (3:12). God informed them that they would be
punished by being killed in this world and by Hell in the next while they were still alive in Mecca.
42 You yourselves say: They possessed the authority to reject God’s [fore]knowledge regarding the
two punishments which God and His Messenger informed them would befall them. 43 But He
said, «Turning away in pride to mislead from the path of God, he will suffer disgrace in this world,»
that is, to be killed on the Day of Badr, «and on the Day of Resurrection, We make him taste
burning torment» (22:9). Consider how your opinion how brought you to ruin! – thus is your
damnation written in his foreknowledge, if He does not show you mercy.

44 Now what the Messenger of God (ṣ) has said is, “The edifice of Islam rests on three actions:
Jihad without ceasing from the day God commissioned His Messenger until a day arises in which an
army of believers battles against the antichrist. Neither the injustice of the unjust nor the justice of
the just shall remove that (obligation). Secondly, you are not to denounce any who confess God’s
oneness (ahl al-tawḥīd) as disbelievers for any sinful act, nor are you to accuse them of polytheism
or exclude them from Islam for any action. Thirdly, all predetermined fates, whether for good or ill,
are what God foreordained.” 43 But you have sought to remove from Islam its jihad; you have
unleashed your testimony of disbelief against your own nation (ummatikum); you have renounced
them by virtue of your innovation (bidʿatikum); and you have denied all predetermined fates: hours
of death, deeds, and allotted livelihoods. No distinction upon which the edifice of Islam rests
remains in your hands which you have not sought to remove and expel from it.

43
A prophetic ḥadīth ostensibly transmitted by the Companion Anas b. Mālik. See ʿAbū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām, K.
al-Īmān, ed. Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), 47; Ibn Abī l-Zamanīn, Uṣūl al-sunnah, ed.
ʿAbdallāh al-Bukhārī (Medina: Maktabat al-Ghurabāʾ al-Athariyyah, 1994), 217-19 (no. 142-43), where the second
report is transmitted by al-Awzāʿī on the authority of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. See also MMM 1: 409 (no. 248) and Abū l-
Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 10 vols., ed. Ṭāriq b. ʿIwaḍ Allāh Abū Muḥammad and Muḥsin al-Ḥusaynī
(Cairo: Dār al-Ḥaramayn, 1995), 5: 95-96 (no. 4775), where the tradition is transmitted on the authority Ibn Jurayj,
Sufyān al-Thawrī, and al-Awzāʿī by a Kufan traditionist of ill-repute named Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā al-Taymī.

11
II. Is the epistle authentic?

As already noted by J. van Ess and M. Cook, there is no explicit internal evidence for ascribing the
epistle to ʿUmar II: no passage in the text of the epistle invokes either caliphal authority or identifies its
author as a caliph. The ascription of the epistle to ʿUmar rests, therefore, solely on the chain of
transmission. Given this state of affairs, the plausibility of this ascription must be assessed on how early its
contents might be dated. In this regard, among the most illuminating internal features of the epistle are the
numerous traditions cited throughout. The traditions cited in the epistle are seven in number and more or
less easily identified: all of them are attested elsewhere except for a single saying attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās
(see §9 above). Otherwise, most of these traditions appear to be relatively early and/or to have originated in
the regions and among the scholarly circles with which ʿUmar II was directly in contact (namely, Medina
and Syria). However, a few of these traditions raise suspicions all the same.

The clearest, standout example is the Kūfan tradition that recounts the admonition of Sahl ibn
Ḥunayf at the battle of Ṣiffīn (see §32 above). The only versions of this tradition which survive are
transmitted on the authority of the Kūfan traditionist al-Aʿmash ( d. ca. 147-148/764–5), and although he is a
contemporary of ʿUmar II, he is a considerably younger one. The presence of his tradition in this epistle
seems anachronistic and, thus, a thorny problem for the attribution of the epistle to ʿUmar. Van Ess notes
the Kufan attestations of this tradition but merely regards the appearance of this tradition in ʿUmar’s epistle
as evidence for an otherwise unattested Syrian version of the tradition. However, this argument leaves much
to be desired, insofar as it only works if one assumes the epistle’s authenticity and, moreover, fails to
adequately explain the close wording shared between the epistle and the tradition of al-Aʿmash. 44

A further consideration as well as is the high number of traditions cited within this epistle which
are transmitted by the Syrian scholar ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Awzāʿī (88–157/707–774), a contemporary of al-
Aʿmash and a prominent anti-Qadarite scholar from Beirut. 45 Of the seven traditions cited in the epistle,
four of them are independently attested as traditions transmitted by al-Awzāʿī to his students (see §§3, 35,
44 above). Indeed, the tradition attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās at §35 is apparently only transmitted by al-Awzāʿī.
This is another worrisome anachronism insofar as it undermines the ascription of the epistle to ʿUmar II. In
al-Awzāʿī’s case, the presence of these traditions is particularly conspicuous insofar as he was a prolific
campaigner against the Qadariyyah and their doctrines.46 He even reputedly wrote numerous epistles to
refute the qadarī views of a Syrian rival named Thawr b. Yazīd al-Ḥimṣī (d. ca. 153-55/770-72, Jerusalem).47
Leaving aside the attribution to ʿUmar II in the sanad accompanying the epistle, its contents are fully in line
with the views of al-Awzāʿī or a scholar from, or at least sympathetic to, his circle. I strongly suspect,
therefore, that the epistle is incorrectly ascribed to ʿUmar II.

44
Anfänge, 164-65.
45
On whom, see Rana Mikati, Creating an Islamic City: Beirut, Jihad, and the Sacred (Leiden: Brill, 2024), ch. 5 et
passim.
46
Abū Bakr Ibn Abī Khaythamah (d. 279/892), al-Tārīkh al-kabīr, 4 vols., ed. Ṣalāḥ Halal (Cairo: al-Fārūq al-
Ḥadīthah, 2003), 3: 245; Abū Yūsuf al-Fasawī (d. 277/890), Kitāb al-Maʿrifah wa-l-tārīkh, 3 vols., ed. Akram Ḍiyāʾ al-
ʿUmarī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1981), 2: 390.
47
Ibn ʿAsākir, Dimashq, 35: 211, waḍaʿa l-rasāʾil fī radd mā samiʿa min Thawr b. Yazīd fī l-qadar. On his conflict with
Thawr b. Yazid, see Steven Judd, “Were the Umayyad-Era Qadarites Kāfirs?,” in Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A
Diachronic Perspective of Takfīr, ed. Camilla Adang, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro, and Sabine Schmidtke (Leiden:
Brill, 2016), 49-50.

12
 To strengthen this hypothesis, I would like to briefly present a similar case from the wider corpus of
letters attributed to ʿUmar II. In his famed ḥadīth work, al-Sunan, Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889)
preserves yet another letter attributed to ʿUmar II in which the caliph aims to underscore the certainty with
which scripture, the Prophet, and his Companions upheld al-iqrār bi-l-qadar, the affirmation of the divine
decree. This second letter lacks the extensive theological argumentation of the above epistle and offers,
instead, a stern and pious exhortation. The key section reads as follows: 48

You wrote to ask about affirming [divine] decree (al-iqrār bi-l-qadar), and by God’s leave, you
found just the man for the task. The affirmation of the [divine] decree is more clearly supported by
tradition and more surely established than is any newfangled doctrine, which people have contrived,
or a heresy, which they invented.

Even the barbarous pagans spoke of it in the era of pagan barbarism (laqad kāna dhakarahu fī l-
jāhiliyyah al-juhalāʾ).49 Later, the era of Islam added naught but certainty to this, for the Messenger
of God (ṣ) spoke of it, and not merely once or twice! The Muslims heard this from him, and they
themselves discussed it while he yet lived and even after his passing. With absolute certainty they
knew, utterly devoted to their Lord and abnegating themselves, that there is nothing that His
knowledge does not encompass, that His scripture does not enumerate, and that His decree does
not determine. That is, moreover, decisively stated in His scripture: from it did they grasp it, and
from it did they learn it.

Though you say, “Why did God reveal such a verse?,” and, “Why did He say such a thing?,” they
read from it what you read, but they knew its proper interpretation whereas you do not. After that
they said, “Everything is written and determined (kulluhu bi-kitābin wa-qadarin). Who shall be
damned is written, and whatsoever is determined shall be. What God wills shall be, and what He
wills not shall never be. We possess of ourselves no means for harm nor for benefit.” From thereon
they lived with fear and longing (raghibū baʿda dhālika wa-rabibū).50

The same letter is also transmitted with a different chain in the Kitāb al-Sharīʿah of Abū Bakr al-Ājurrī (d.
360/971). This version adds two items that are absent from Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī’s version: 1) the names
of the letter’s addressee, the governor of al-Baṣrah ʿAdī b. Arṭāh al-Fazārī, 51 and 2) an additional line
wherein ʿUmar gives a ruling about what to do with anyone who fails to acknowledge God’s qadar. Namely,
“Make him feel the sting of the whip and deposit him in prison. If he repents of his wicked dogma [let him
go], and if not, behead him (fa-awjiʿhu ḍarban wa’stawdaʿhu l-ḥabs fa-in tāb min raʾyihi l-sawʾ wa-illā fa’ḍrab
ʿunqahu).”52 There is also one final observation worth noting: the letter makes no mention of the lengthier
epistle translated above.

48
Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, al-Sunan, 7 vols., ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ et al. (Damascus: Dār al-Risālah al-ʿĀlamiyyah,
2009), 6: 22-24 (no. 4612).
49
On this theme, see Helmer Ringgren, Studies in Arabian Fatalism (Uppsala: Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1955), chs.
1-2.
50
I.e., what unknown fates God willed for them, cf. Q. Anbiyāʾ 21:90
51
See n. # above.
52
Abū Bakr al-Ajurrī, K. al-Sharīʿah, 5 vols., ed. ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Sulaymān al-Dumayjī (Riyadh: Dār al-
Waṭan, 1997), 2: 930-34 (no. 529).

13
 At first blush, one might be inclined to except the ascription of this second letter to ʿUmar II with
even more confidence than the lengthier, more famous epistle. However, the text of this letter appears in
full, with very few and minor differences, within a longer anti-qadarite epistle written by the Medinan
scholar ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Salamah al-Mājishūn (d. 164/780, Baghdad). 53 Viewed in this
light, it seems very possible that the text of this second epistle attributed to ʿUmar II was merely excerpted
from the longer epistle of al-Mājishūn and subsequently attributed to ʿUmar II by a later redactor. But is
the reverse equally likely—i.e., that Ibn al-Mājishūn freely plagiarized the caliph’s earlier letter?

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mājishūn was himself staunchly opposed to the Qadariyyah. At least two extant
anti-qadarite epistles are transmitted on his authority. Although Van Ess overlooked the textual overlap
between the shorter letter of ʿUmar II and the letter of al-Mājishūn, he already noted the substantial overlap
between the theological vocabulary of the anti-qadarī epistles of al-Mājishūn and the longer epistle of
ʿUmar II. But he was inclined to attribute this to ʿUmar II’s influence on al-Mājishūn, citing the close
relationship between al-Mājishūn’s uncle and ʿUmar II when the latter served as Medina’s governor prior to
his caliphate.54 (To strengthen Van Ess’ argument, one may also add that al-Mājishūn’s father served as a
secretary to the governor of Medina during ʿUmar II’s caliphate. 55) Although somewhat ad hoc, Van Ess’
observation does have a certain explanatory merit, but he also considerably undersells the textual
relationship between al-Mājishūn’s writings and those of ʿUmar II, insofar as one is dealing hear not with
mere affinities of vocabulary but entire blocks of texts. It strikes me, therefore as rather unlikely for al-
Mājishūn to have lifted entire passages from a caliphal letter of ʿUmar II without invoking his authority,
especially insofar as al-Mājashūn readily invokes his authority elsewhere in other extant works. 56

If one views as the longer epistle as a unity rather than a text suffering from interpolations, as I am
inclined to, the epistle carries a conspicuous intellectual profile of a staunchly anti-qadarī scholar who is
steeped in 2nd/8th century Medinan traditionalism and its traditions but who has nonetheless acquired a
familiarity with ʿIraqī traditions of the late-2nd/8th century. This image fits figures like al-Awzāʿī or ʿAbd al-
ʿAzīz al-Mājishūn very well but makes a poor fit for ʿUmar II in my judgment. The authenticity of its
ascription to ʿUmar must, therefore, be considered doubtful.

53
Ibn Baṭṭah al-ʿUkbarī (d. 387/977), al-Ibānah ʿan sharīʿat al-firqah al-nājiyah wa-mujānibat al-firaq al-madhmūmah, 4
vols., ed. Riḍā Muʿṭī, ʿUthmān al-Athiyūbī, et al. (Riyadh: Dār al-Rāyah, 1994-2005), 2(2): 247-52 (no. 1853). Ibn
Baṭṭah also records the letter ascribed to ʿUmar II in ibid., 2(2): 231-33 (no. 1833).
54
J. van Ess, “Biobibliographische Notion zur islamischen Theologie,” Die Welt des Orients 16 (1985): 131-35 [128-
135]; idem, Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra, vol. 2, tr. Gwendolin Goldbloom
(Leiden: Brill, 2017), 777-79.
55
For ʿUmar II’s relationship with his father and uncle—named ʿAbdallāh and Yaʿqūb b. Abī Salamah, respectively—
see Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, 11 vols., ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad ʿUmar (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 2001), 7: 426-
27. According to Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī (d. 236/851), Yaʿqūb was the first Medinan teach singing and to train enslaved
songstresses (al-qiyān) in Medina, for which reason he became the boon companion of the ʿUmar while he governed
Medina. After ʿUmar became caliph, Yaʿqūb allegedly sought to join his court in Syria, but ʿUmar refused saying, “We
abandoned you when we abandoned the wearing of silk (innā taraknāka ḥīna taraknā lubs al-khazz).” See Ibn Khallikān,
Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972), 6: 376; Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī,
Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fī asmāʾ al-rijāl, 8 vols., ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf (2nd edition; Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah,
2014), 8: 172a.
56
For an example where al-Mājishūn does cite ʿUmar II’s authority, see ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mājishūn, K. al-Ḥajj, ed.
Miklos Muranyi (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2007), 187.

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