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Who was the poet who recited Surat Al-Baqarah to our master Umar -may Allah be pleased with him- and said: "By Allah, I will not compose poetry after Allah has taught me this"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The poet in question is Labid ibn Rabi'ah. It is mentioned in "Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah" that Umar asked his governor in Kufa to inquire from Labid about his new poetry in Islam. Labid replied that Allah had replaced poetry for him with Surat al-Baqarah and Al 'Imran, whereupon Umar increased his stipend. It is also said that he only recited one verse in Islam: "A wise person is not censured like his own self, and a person is reformed by a righteous companion."

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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