Birth: Uthman ibn Affan

All stops in this story

1. Birth: Uthman ibn Affan — c. 576 CE

   Third caliph (644–656); the early community married him to two of the Prophet's daughters in succession. Under him the Qur'an was standardized into a single recension; he was killed by rebels in Medina, opening the first civil war.

2. The three years of the secret call — c. 610 CE

   The first stage of the call to Islam — individual and secret for three years — in which the first band believed: Khadija, Ali, Zayd and Abu Bakr on the first day, then those whom Abu Bakr called, then a company Ibn Hisham numbers at over forty from every clan of Quraysh; during it prayer was first prescribed.

3. The first migration to Abyssinia — c. 615 CE

   In Rajab of the fifth year of prophethood, twelve men and four women — led by Uthman ibn Affan with the Prophet's daughter Ruqayya — slipped away by night to the port of Shu'ayba and sailed in two merchant ships to the kingdom of the Negus, 'a just king under whom no one is wronged'; most returned in Shawwal on the false report that Quraysh had converted.

4. The Hijra — c. 12 September 622 CE · c. 29 Safar 1 AH†

   The migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, the event from which the Islamic calendar is counted.

5. The Treaty of Hudaybiyya — c. March 628 CE · Dhu al-Qa'da 6 AH

   In Dhu al-Qa'da 6 AH (March 628 CE), the Prophet marched towards Mecca with 1,400 companions for Umrah; halted at al-Hudaybiyya by Quraysh, negotiations through Suhayl ibn Amr produced a historic ten-year peace treaty described in the Qur'an as a 'Manifest Victory'.

6. Umar judges the dispute of al-Abbas and Ali over the Prophet's property — between 634 and 644 CE

   اختصم العباس وعلي إلى عمر فيما أفاء الله على رسوله من أموال بني النضير؛ فاستشهد عمر الرهط الحاضرين على قول النبي «لا نورث ما تركنا صدقة»، ثم ذكر ما كان من النبي وأبي بكر وعلي في إدارة الصدقة، فأقسم أن علياً صادق فيها، وقال: إن عجزتما عنها فادفعاها إليّ فإني أكفيكماها (ص152-153).

7. Umar's Expulsion of the Christians of Najran — 640 CE · 20 AH

   In al-Baladhuri: under Umar the people of Najran took usury and multiplied, so he feared them for Islam and exiled them to al-Najraniyya by Kufa — the settlement named after them — buying up their estates and writing for them that wherever they settled in Syria or Iraq they were to be granted arable land in place of their land in Yemen; the Jews of Najran had entered the treaty with the Christians as their followers; in Salim ibn Abi al-Ja'd's report the people of Najran reached forty thousand, quarrelled among themselves, asked Umar 'exile us' — which he did, already fearing them for the Muslims — then regretted it and sought reversal which he refused, and when Ali ibn Abi Talib took office they came to him and he said 'Umar was of sound judgement and I dislike opposing him'; the rulings then ran on: Uthman remitted two hundred hullas by letter to his Kufa governor al-Walid ibn Uqba after Uthman ibn Hunayf told him their exile had harmed the dihqans by driving them off their land; Mu'awiya or Yazid completed them to four hundred hullas; al-Hajjaj restored eighteen hundred after Ibn al-Ash'ath's revolt, accusing them of backing it; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz set them at two hundred hullas worth eight thousand dirhams on finding them at a tithe of their former number — 'I see this treaty is a jizya on their heads, not a treaty on their lands, and the jizya of the dead and the Muslim lapses'; Yusuf ibn Umar restored them under al-Walid ibn Yazid out of solidarity with al-Hajjaj; Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah confirmed two hundred hullas after they scattered basil on his procession at Kufa and Abdullah ibn al-Rabi' al-Harithi interceded for their kinship claim through Banu al-Harith ibn Ka'b his maternal uncles, seconded by al-Hajjaj ibn Arta; and Harun al-Rashid confirmed it by a letter the transmitters saw, ordering them freed from dealing with the tax agents to pay directly to the treasury at the capital.

8. Uthman consults the Companions on the campaign to Ifriqiya — between 644 and 656 CE

   أخبر عبد الله بن سعد والي مصر عثمان بأن المسلمين يغيرون على أطراف إفريقية، فاستشار عثمان الصحابة واحداً واحداً، ومنهم علي وطلحة والزبير والعباس، ثم استشار سعيد بن زيد فكره الغزو مستدلاً بقول عمر، فلم يختلف عليه أحد غيره، ثم ندب الناس فخرج الجيش (ص161). ويذكر الكتاب أن بعض الصحابة، ومنهم عبد الله بن الزبير وأبو ذر، خرجوا في هذا الغزو (ص161-162).

9. The Taking of Qaliqala and the Opening of Armenia — c. 645 CE · c. 25 AH

   In al-Baladhuri: when Uthman ibn Affan acceded he wrote to Mu'awiya — his governor over Syria, the Jazira and their frontier — ordering him to send Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri to Armenia, Habib having a fine record in Syria's conquests and the Roman wars known to Umar then Uthman and after — or, it is said, and it is the sounder, Uthman wrote to Habib directly ordering the raid — so he marched with six thousand, or eight, of the Syrians and Jazirans to Qaliqala, camped on it, fought its sallying people and drove them into the city, whereupon they sought aman on evacuation and jizya, many departing for Roman lands; Habib stayed months with those with him until word came that the patrikios of the Armeniakoi had gathered a great host joined by auxiliaries of the Alan, the Abkhaz and Samandar of the Khazars, so he wrote Uthman asking him to send men of Syria and the Jazira desiring jihad and spoils, and Mu'awiya sent two thousand men whom he settled in Qaliqala with land-grants as its garrison; the Romans and their allies had come and camped on al-Fudhat — the reinforcements slow to Habib — so the Muslims struck them by night, overran them and killed their great man; Umm Abdallah bint Yazid al-Kalbiyya, Habib's wife, that night asked him 'where is your tryst?' — he answered 'the tyrant's pavilion or Paradise', and when he reached the pavilion he found her there; in al-Waqidi's chain — from Abd al-Hamid ibn Ja'far from his father — Habib besieged Dabil's people, sat on it, and the Roman Maurian met him, night-attacked and killed him and spoiled his camp, whereupon Salman came up — the sounder version with them being that he met him at Qaliqala; and after Qaliqala Habib marched to Mariyala where the patrikios of Khilat came to him bearing Iyad ibn Ghanm's writ — Iyad having given him aman on himself, his wealth and his lands for a tribute — and Habib conveyed it to him.

10. Uthman's Land-Grants in Iraq — c. 646 CE · c. 25 AH†

    In al-Baladhuri via Musa ibn Talha: the first to make land-grants in Iraq was Uthman ibn Affan, granting qata'i' from Khusraw's safaya and the Jalandima land — Talha's al-Nashastaj, Wathil ibn Hujr al-Hadrami's land adjoining Urara, Khabbab ibn al-Aratt's Istiniya, Adi ibn Hatim al-Ta'i's al-Rawha', Khalid ibn Urfuta's land by Hammam A'yan, al-Ash'ath ibn Qays al-Kindi's Tizanabadh, Jarir ibn Abdallah al-Bajali's land on the Euphrates bank, Abdallah ibn Mas'ud's land at al-Nahrayn, Ammar ibn Yasir's Istiniya, Khabbab's Sa'naba, Sa'd's village of Hurmuz, Talha ibn Ubayd Allah's al-Nashastaj, and Usama ibn Zayd's land which he sold; Ibn Mas'ud and Sa'd let their lands at a third and a quarter crop-share.

11. The Conquest of Shimshat — c. 647 CE · c. 27 AH

    In al-Baladhuri: when Uthman ibn Affan acceded he wrote to Mu'awiya with Syria's governorship and gave Umayr ibn Sa'd al-Ansari the Jazira, then removed him and joined Syria, the Jazira and their frontier to Mu'awiya, ordering him to raid Shimshat — the fourth Armenia — so he sent Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri and Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal al-Sulami, who took it days after arriving on the like of al-Ruha's treaty; Safwan settled it and died there late in Mu'awiya's caliphate — some say Mu'awiya himself raided it with the two and appointed Safwan, who made it home; Constantine the tyrant later camped on it after alighting at Malatya in year 133, gained nothing there, raided its environs and withdrew; Shimshat stayed kharaj-land until al-Mutawakkil made it tithe-land like the rest of the frontier.

12. The First Raid on Cyprus — c. 648 CE · 28 AH

    In al-Baladhuri from al-Waqidi and others: Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan led the first sea raid on Cyprus — the Muslims had never before sailed the Byzantine sea; he had asked Umar's leave to raid by sea and was refused, and when Uthman took office he wrote asking leave for Cyprus, noting its nearness and ease; Uthman wrote back 'you witnessed what Umar replied when you consulted him about the sea', and when year 27 opened Mu'awiya again made light of the crossing, so Uthman wrote 'if you sail, take your wife with you — else do not'; he sailed from Acre with many vessels, carrying his wife Fakhita bint Qaraza the Qurashite, and Ubada ibn al-Samit carried his wife Umm Haram bint Milhan the Ansari — in year 28; when they reached its shore — an island some eighty farsakhs square, it is said — its archon sent seeking terms, its people consenting, and he compounded with them for seven thousand two hundred dinars paid yearly, while the Byzantines compounded with them for the like — so they pay two tributes — stipulating that the Muslims not bar them paying the Byzantines, and the Muslims stipulating that they not be made to fight those who came from beyond them and that they warn the Muslims of Byzantine movements; so when the Muslims sailed they did not trouble them, and Cyprus's people neither aided them nor fought them; on this raid went Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, Abu al-Darda', Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Ubada ibn al-Samit, Fadala ibn Ubayd al-Ansari, Umayr ibn Sa'd al-Ansari, Wathila ibn al-Asqa', Abdullah ibn Bishr al-Mazini, Shaddad ibn Aws ibn Thabit — nephew of Hassan ibn Thabit — al-Miqdad, Ka'b al-Ahbar and Jubayr ibn Nufayr al-Hadrami; Umm Haram left the ship and was brought a mount which stumbled and killed her — her grave in Cyprus is called the grave of the righteous woman; Mu'awiya afterwards compounded with them a lasting peace at seven thousand dinars, upon good counsel to the Muslims and warning them of their Byzantine enemy.

13. Uthman's standardization of the mushaf — c. 650 CE · c. 30 AH

    Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, alarmed at the readers' divergence during the Armenia-Azerbaijan campaign, pressed Uthman to save the community before it split over the Book; Uthman borrowed Hafsa's codex, commissioned Zayd ibn Thabit and three Qurashis to copy it into masahif — 'write it in the tongue of Quraysh' — sent a copy to every garrison city and ordered all other codices burned .

14. The forged letter attributed to Uthman — between 655 and 656 CE

    في طريق عودة أهل مصر من المدينة بعد صلح الوفود لقيهم راكب على جمل زعم أنه رسول عثمان إلى عامله بمصر ابن أبي سرح، ومعه كتاب بخاتم عثمان يأمر بقتل فريق من الخارجين، فلم يصدقه أهل مصر؛ ويرى الصلابي أن الكتاب مزوّر لأن أهل العراق وأهل مصر عادوا في آن واحد، ولأن المزوّرين استأجروا راكباً يحمل الكتاب ويوهم المصريين؛ وتنفي أم المؤمنين عائشة كتابة شيء، وينفي علي الكتابة إليهم (ص164-165).

15. Ali's stance during the siege of Uthman — 656 CE · 35 AH†

    اشتد الحصار على عثمان حتى منع من الصلاة في المسجد؛ وعرض علي أن يدفع عنه بخمسمائة دارع، فقال عثمان: ما أحب أن يُهراق دم في سببي (ص166). ولما منع الثوار الماء عن عثمان بعث إليه علي ثلاث قرب ماء فجُرح بسببها رجال من بني هاشم وبني أمية (ص166). وأرسل كبار الصحابة أبناءهم لحمايته، ومنهم الحسن وعبد الله بن الزبير، فجُرح الحسن (ص166).

16. Death: Uthman ibn Affan — 17 June 656 CE · 18 Dhu al-Hijja 35 AH

    Third caliph (644–656); the early community married him to two of the Prophet's daughters in succession. Under him the Qur'an was standardized into a single recension; he was killed by rebels in Medina, opening the first civil war.