The day Umar changed sides

Umar was not a bystander to the persecution of the early Muslims. He was one of the people they were afraid of.

The best-known report has him setting out one day intending harm towards the Prophet ﷺ, and being told on the way that he should look closer to home first — that people in his own family had accepted Islam. He went to his sister's house and found the Qur'an being recited there. This account comes from the early biographies rather than the hadith collections, and its versions differ over who stopped him on the road and what happened at the house.

He read it. And then he went to the Prophet ﷺ, and accepted Islam.

The change this made was immediate and practical. Until then the Muslims had prayed quietly, out of the way. The biographies record that with Umar among them — alongside Hamzah, who had accepted Islam not long before — they were able to pray at the Ka'bah openly.

It is a useful thing to hold on to about him. The man who became the second caliph, remembered for holding rulers to account, began as one of the community's most dangerous opponents.