Fath al-Rabbani

It is narrated from Humr bin Abd Kallal that Amir al-Mu’minin Sayyiduna Umar bin Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, after his first journey, set out towards Syria. When he neared Syria, he received news that a plague epidemic had spread there. His companions said to him that he should not go there and should return from here, because if he went there, they feared he might be afflicted by it. So he turned back towards Madinah Munawwarah. On the first night of the return journey, he stopped somewhere to rest for a while. Of all the people, I was the closest to him. When he woke up, I also sat up. I heard him saying, “I had reached as far as Syria, but these people made me return, merely because there was a plague there. Yet, my returning from there cannot delay my death, and my going there would not have hastened my death. Beware! Now, after going to Madinah and completing my necessary tasks, I will again go towards Syria and then stay in Homs. I have heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say: Allah Almighty will raise from there, on the Day of Resurrection, seventy thousand such people upon whom there will be no reckoning or punishment. They will be raised from Barath-e-Ahmar, between its olives and its gardens.”