Umar, the second caliph, is honored by Muslims as the epitome of the just ruler. His reign (634-44 CE) built an empire that, to this day, defines the cultural and geographical heartlands of the Islamic world. This is a new edition of the 1939 Urdu classic, translated and abridged to one-sixth its original edition to be of interest to the non-specialist reader, and links the conquests with reforms in law, government, and administration as well as Umar's personal efforts to embody the ethos of Islam.