Umar II

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (c. 680 – February 720), commonly known as Umar II, was the eighth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 717 until his death in 720. He succeeded his cousin, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik.

Umar's brief administration instituted major fiscal changes, notably tax reforms that exempted non-Arab Muslims (mawali) from the jizya to address financial inequality, alongside measures preventing the dynastic privatization of state lands. In addition to these economic policies, his government directed the early official compilation of hadith literature. Burdened by the severe financial strain and heavy casualties of the Siege of Constantinople, Umar ordered the withdrawal of Muslim forces from exposed northern fronts, including Constantinople and Cilicia, to consolidate defenses around the Syrian heartland. Despite a general de-escalation of large-scale offensive campaigns, his administration oversaw the conquest and fortification of Narbonne in Septimania.

Contemporaries widely viewed Umar as the Mahdi, due to his reputation for piety, generosity, asceticism, and a profound sense of justice. Many Muslims regard him as the fifth rightly guided caliph. Standing apart from other Umayyad rulers in historical memory, both early critics and the Abbasids largely spared his memory from the systematic desecration and exhumation applied to the rest of the dynasty.