Umar bin Abdul Aziz's (ra) Reform

When Umar ibn Abdul Aziz (radi Allahu anhu) who can be considered the 6th khalifah, not a king came, and he found that the propaganda and the rumors that were spreading by officials that was nowstandard procedure was not Islamic behavior- remember, we may have slipped, all of this position that the 1st king in Islam institutionalized that became a pillar of themonarchical establishment was attributed to an ayah. They had to have some misinterpretation of an ayah to extend all ofthese deviations to, and that ayah was concerning the death or the murder of Uthman (radi Allahu anhu), And, whoever hasbeen killed or murdered without a basis of justice, then WE have allocated to his guardian 1st of kin, an authorization(Surah Al-Isra' verse 33) They stopped here,the ayah says He should not beexcessive in taking corrective measures for a person who was killed without justice (Surah Al-Isra' verse 33) So, all of this wasextended to give a veneer of legitimacy to the vile language that was used to condemn Ali and his family.Imagine, a khutbah just like this during jum'ah, and then someone would come usewords that we cannot use- these were official words and public pronouncements,and then when Umar ibn Abdul Aziz came, he didn't say that in his khutbah. Hedidn't say any of these institutionalized statements that have been repeatedfor years and generations and then someone stands up and tries to remindthis Muslim who is trying to follow his conscience and tells him "Youshould be following the sunnah" Meaning the Sunnah means you should becondemning Ali and his side; and Umar ibn Abdul Aziz said to him "An innovation! AnInnovation!" and he obliterated or put an end to this type of policy and theseofficial statements from the Mimbar and he replaced it with something that isstill used today- it doesn't come from the time of Allahs Prophet- when you go tothe conventional andtraditional type of Masjid, you hear every khutbah ending with Verily, Allah ordersJustice and that you be patient and dutiful totally for His sake and that you be forthcoming to kin and He forbidsevil deeds and the things which are prohibited and aggression and oppression.Allah admonishes you so that you may take heed. (Surah An-Nahl verse 90) That was not the waythe khutbahs ended during the time of Allahs Prophet. This is the way it began to end when Umar ibn Abdul Azizreplaced those condemnation statements with this ayah from the Qur'an andwe still have it today. People who are not aware of these details think thatthey are saying something that belongs in the time of Allahs Prophet. No!They are saying something that can be traced back to correct what the 1stking in Islam did.

This tradition above is found in the esteemed salafi scholar Ibn Kathir's book. Ibn Kathir in his book The Rightly Guided Calipahs says


The Ummayads use to abuse Ali bin Abi Talib in speeches, but when Umar bin Abdul Aziz became the calipah, he put an end to that by writing to his provincial rulers, ordering them to stop that tradition and quoted the verse.

"Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and he forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: he instructs you, that ye may recieve admonition." (Al-Nahl:90). This is verse was always quoted in their speeches from then onwards.
(Biographies Of RightlyGuided Caliphs, Ibn Kathir Pg 393)

Most scholars agree that Umar bin Abdul Aziz is superior to Muawiyah ibn Sufyaan, for his matchless justice, modesty and asceticism.
(Biographies Of Rightly Guided Caliphs, Ibn Kathir Pg 398)

Online Link for the above source:
http://abdurrahman.org/seerah/BiographiesOfRightlyGuidedCaliphs-IbnKathir.pdf