When ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz was caliph, he ordered a man to buy him garment for eight dirhams. The man bought it and brought it to him.
‘Umar placed his hand on it and said: “How lovely and soft it is!”
The man who had brought it smiled, and ‘Umar asked him, “Why are you smiling?”
He said: “Because, O’ Amir al-Mu’minin (Leader of Believers), before you became caliph, you ordered me to buy a silk cloak for you, and I bought it for one thousand dirhams, but you put on it and said, ‘How rough it is!’ Today you find an eight-dirham garment soft.”
‘Umar said: “I don’t think that a man who buys a garment for one thousand dirhams fears Allah.”
Then he said: “I have an ambitious soul. Every time it attains one position, it looks for something higher. I became governor, then I wanted to become caliph. Now I have become caliph, and my soul is longing for something greater than that, namely Paradise.”
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