Later classical Sufi literature attributes to Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, the saying, “My heart saw my Lord.” Al-Ghazali’s Ihya preserves the shorter form in a discussion of the inner life of the heart, while Sirr al-Asrar gives a fuller wording that explains the vision as being “by the light of my Lord.” Al-Zabidi later repeats the attribution and comments on it in connection with unveiling and spiritual perception. The saying is therefore best presented as a later devotional attribution preserved in classical Sufi literature, not as a securely established statement from Umar himself.
Al-Ghazali includes the shorter wording in the Ihya while discussing the inner life of the heart. In that setting, the phrase functions as an example of inward perception rather than a description of ordinary physical sight. The emphasis is on what the heart may perceive through spiritual awareness, and the saying is cited in that contemplative context.
Sirr al-Asrar preserves a fuller form of the attribution. After the words “My heart saw my Lord,” it adds an explanation meaning “by the light of my Lord.” This additional wording gives the saying a more explicitly spiritual sense: the vision is described through divine light rather than as normal eyesight. The fuller expression became one of the recognizable forms in which the saying circulated in later devotional writing.
Al-Zabidi later repeats the Ghazalian attribution and discusses it while explaining themes of the heart, unveiling and spiritual perception. His treatment shows how the saying continued to be read as a statement about inward knowledge and contemplative experience. By this stage, the phrase had become part of a wider interpretive conversation rather than a simple isolated quotation.
For a public account, the important distinction is between the literary attribution and the person to whom it is attributed. The later Sufi books genuinely preserve the saying under Umar’s name, but the wording should still be introduced as something attributed to him in those works. That allows the reader to see the devotional meaning of the phrase without turning a later literary attribution into a firm biographical statement.
The clearest presentation is therefore straightforward: al-Ghazali preserves the shorter saying, Sirr al-Asrar gives the fuller wording “by the light of my Lord,” and al-Zabidi later explains the phrase in a spiritual context. Together they show a real later classical tradition of attributing this heart-vision saying to Umar ibn al-Khattab, while the public wording remains careful about the status of that attribution.
Conclusion
The later Sufi tradition remembered Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, through the saying “My heart saw my Lord,” with Sirr al-Asrar adding the explanation “by the light of my Lord.”