Observation

This question is unpopular among the candidates. Most of the candidates who answered the question got it wrongly due to their inability to explain the contribution of ‘Umarb. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz to the development ofhadith, while some candidates tookʿUmarb.ʿAbdulʿAzīz to be ʿUmar b. al-Khattab, and could not write much on it. However, they performed below average.  The question demanded the candidatesto explain the following points:

•  give account on the role cUmar b. cAbdulcAzīz played in the development of Hadith
• cumar b. Abdul Azīz was the Umayyad Caliph who ruled towards the close of the first century of the Hijrar
• he is also known as Umar the second
• he was the first man to issue definite orders for the collection of Hadith
• his main concern was to prevent the extinction of Hadith knowledge and the disappearance of Hadith scholars
• he ordered Abū-Bakr b. Hazm, his Governor at Madinah to see to the collection of all genuine ahadith
• he himself took interest in the collection of Hadith, though the Umayyad generally did not pay attention to Hadith collection
• cumar b. ‘Azīz also requested ibn ShihābAz-Zuhr to collect traditions for circulation in the empire
• he also suggested to Ibn Hazm to consult Amrah bint Abdur-Rahman, being the foremost traditonist by then
• he also suggested to Ibn Hazm the need to document traditions (ahadith) in Madinah
• he encouraged the establishment of Hadith collection points