It is reported that the last sermon ʿUmar b. ʿAbd Al-‘Aziz – Allāh have mercy on him – delivered was as follows:
He praised Allāh and said, “You were not created in vain, nor will you be left without purpose. Verily, you have an appointed time in which Allāh – the Most High – will come down to judge you. Wretched and ruined will he be who leaves the mercy of Allāh and is denied a Garden whose width is that of the heavens and Earth. Know you not that no one will be safe tomorrow save one who is wary of today and fears it; and sells the transitory for what will remain, and the little for the plenty, and fear in exchange for security [in the hereafter]? See you not that you are in the loins of the dead, to be taken by those who remain after you, until all matters return to the Best of Inheritors? Every day, [in the funerals] you accompany those returning to Allāh the Mighty and Sublime, having spent their time, until you hide them in a crevice in the ground, in the belly of a bare and unfurnished hole, having parted from their loved ones, stroking the dirt and facing their accounts. Now, they are dependent on their deeds, free of what they left behind, in need of [the deeds] they put before them. So fear Allāh before the time He appointed is up and death descends upon you. This is what I have to say.” He then lifted the edge of his garment over his face and wept profusely, and made everyone around him weep.
Abū Bakr Al-Daynūrī, Al-Mujālasah wa Jawāhir Al-‘Ilm Vol. 3 p343.
