Umar's Public Hijrah: The Challenge at the Ka'bah
storyʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib narrated: "I do not know of anyone who performed the Hijrah publicly except for ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb."
Every other Muslim who emigrated slipped away quietly, in the middle of the night, under cover of darkness, without announcement, avoiding the Quraysh's eyes. Ṣuhayb gave up his entire fortune to buy his freedom. Abū Salamah left and was nearly stopped. ʿAyyāsh and Hishām were captured. Even the Prophet ﷺ himself would leave at noon in disguise, face wrapped, taking the opposite direction of Madinah.
ʿUmar did none of that.
He packed his bags, armed himself, put on his shield, hung his arrows. He went to the Kaʿbah and performed Ṭawāf, seven full circuits, dressed as a man about to travel. Then he climbed to where he could be heard and announced:
"O people of Makkah! Whoever among you wishes that his mother should lose him tonight, or that his children should become orphans, or that his wife should become a widow, then let him meet me outside of Makkah in such-and-such valley."
He named the time and the place.
Nobody came.
Nobody in Makkah, not Abū Jahl, not Khalid ibn al-Walīd, not Umayyah ibn Khalaf, not any of the tribal leaders who had spent years torturing and killing Muslims, took ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb up on that invitation.
This is the status of ʿUmar. Even his enemies, and he had made many enemies, respected his capacity for violence enough that they let him walk out of Makkah without a murmur.
And this is why the Prophet ṣallā -llāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam ﷺ had made his famous duʿāʾ: Allāhumma aʿizza al-Islāma bi-aḥabbi al-ʿumarayni ilayk, "O Allah, strengthen Islam with the more beloved of the two ʿUmars to You." The two ʿUmars: ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and ʿAmr ibn Hishām (the latter better known as Abū Jahl, because ʿAmr, ʿUmar, ʿĀmir, ʿUwaymir are all forms from the same root, and Abū Jahl's real name was ʿAmr). Allah chose ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. The other ʿUmar has a different fate in the books of history.