CHAPTER FOUR

‘Uthmān

The Challenge of Innovation

The foundations that ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb laid for the nascent Islamic state rested on a complex balance of networks among Meccan and Medinan elites, western Arabian and eastern tribes, Islamic beliefs, and tribal custom. His renowned charisma and ascetic example probably played a key role in holding together an early Islamic coalition of divergent interests. However, religious factors aside, the second caliph seems to have also recognized the pragmatic limits that tribal politics placed on his political power. ‘Umar came from a minor branch of the clan of Quraysh, and this forced him as a leader to rely heavily on more established Meccan merchant and military families, such as the Sufyanids, Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān, and his brother Mu‘āwiya, who played a key role in integrating Syria into the orbit of the caliphate.

In central Arabia and on its northeastern front, ‘Umar had to make a different compromise by reaccepting fighters who had been involved in the Ridda wars to join the Muslim campaign against the Sasanids. This policy represented a break with the first caliph, who had doubted the loyalty of former Ridda tribes, such as Tamīm, Bāhila, and Kinda, and barred them from joining the Islamic army. In Iraq, the newly founded garrison towns of Kufa and Basra quickly became magnets for Arabian tribes from the central and eastern parts of the peninsula as well as the former apostate groups. There was constant grumbling among these new settlers about their Ḥijāzī governors and probably a strong desire for equality with the first generations of Muslim converts in pay and authority.

During his reign the caliph showed tact in forestalling Iraqi dissent by granting the settlers of Basra and Kufa greater control over the revenues of the conquered lands, and gave symbolic concession to their demands by changing their governors frequently. The latter were no doubt often misjudged and being slandered by provincial tribesmen. Charges of haughtiness or privilege, or against the religious puritanism of the governors, were known to find a listening ear in Medina. Whether ‘Umar saw through the cynical use of religion and austere ideals by the Iraqis is never explicitly stated, but Ṭabarī’s Sunnī worldview and tendentious welding of history and epic myth guarantees that the reader will appreciate the issue more for what it says about ‘Umar than what it really tells us about the Iraqi garrison towns. The spotlight on Kufa and Basra as breeding grounds of irresponsible religiosity and pretentious demands will be a vivid theme in his narratives of the early caliphate.

However, although ‘Umar’s policies were based on a two-tiered attention to Meccan and central Arabian tribes, the third caliph, ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān, would emerge as far more unabashedly pro-Meccan than either of his predecessors. ‘Umar had been more the self-made leader, which explained his compromises and cautions. By contrast, ‘Uthmān came from one of Mecca’s wealthiest families and had close kin ties to the clan of Abū Sufyān and the Umayyads, who had fought Muḥammad tenaciously until they found that the new Prophet’s reach was unstoppable and gaining wide hold in Arabia.¹

Tradition reports few things about the early life of ‘Uthmān. He is said to have converted early to Islam, before the Hijra and the Battle of Badr, and so is shown as having stood with the new faith even in its early, uncertain days. But there are no stories about his being a daring defender of Islam or using his social clout (as Abū Ṭālib and Abū Bakr did) to defend the first Muslims from persecution.² Thus, there seem to be some gaps of logic in his companionship career that entice the historian to presume that much of ‘Uthmān’s prestige in appearing to accompany Abū Bakr and ‘Umar during the days of the Sīra represents a back-projection of Sunnī praise on account of his having become third caliph.

Perhaps the most famous fact given in the tradition about ‘Uthmān’s companionship is that he funded the Prophet’s final battle aimed at Syria (ghazwat Tabūk) at such a great level of generosity that the Prophet famously declared ‘Uthmān forgiven of all his sins, both present and future.³ This statement was clearly meant to serve as a Sunnī apologetic for ‘Uthmān’s controversial policies when he became caliph. But in less direct terms, the Prophet’s statement was crafted by narrators for a wider context of political intention that sought to depict the Umayyad rulers as generous patrons of the community’s welfare even if their rule was authoritarian and their religiosity was not sufficient. In such a situation, praise for ‘Uthmān reflected a later Sunnī bias in favor of Syria and the Umayyads against Shī‘īsm (see chapter 7).

In terms of personality profile, we are less informed about ‘Uthmān than the first two caliphs. Tradition attributes little to him by way of religious erudition (dream interpretation, legislative insight, or wisdom sayings, as in the cases of the other Rāshidūn). Instead, the only quality attributed to him besides giving away generous charity is shyness in character (ḥayā ’),⁴ an attribute that, although praised as a mark of piety, may have been used by narrators to signal the danger of weakness in his personality.⁵ The third caliph’s tendency toward indecision and frequent shifts of opinion under the influence of counselors was probably woven ambiguously in this context to cast doubt on his leadership capabilities. A seemingly private tendency to be withdrawn suddenly became a public and crucial matter when it presented a problem in the way the caliph was to use the procedure of shūrā in government. For while Sunnī theory generally praised the procedure of consultation, it also always assumed that the leader was powerful enough to arbitrate decisions when a crisis arose. This was the example that ‘Umar provided at the Saqīfa and that Ibn ‘Awf supplied on the eve of ‘Uthmān’s succession, when in the end they delivered a binding opinion on succession. The third caliph, however, was far from being this decisive. Caught between ambitious advisors, such as ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ and Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, on the one hand and ‘Alī and the more pious companions on the other, ‘Uthmān never seemed to know who to believe and trust, much less how to articulate a consistent political position to all sides.⁶ This made him detrimental to community unity and eroded the image of the caliphal office.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF ‘UTHMĀN’S REIGN

Historians generally agree that on the whole ‘Uthmān did not depart much from ‘Umar’s policies upon assuming power.⁷ For several years the third caliph kept the governors appointed by ‘Umar, maintained the same systems of taxation and stipends in the conquered territories, and continued the expansionist policy. Over the course of a twelve-year reign, ‘Uthmān’s conquests probably even overshadowed ‘Umar’s in significance, and on different regional fronts. In Egypt, ‘Uthmān’s new governor, ‘Abdallāh b. Abī al-Sarḥ, was given permission to march on North Africa and venture into Nubia. On the sea, Ibn Abī al-Sarḥ confronted the Byzantines at the famous Battle of Dhāt al-Ṣawārī in A.H. 31/ A.D. 651 off the Lycian coast, which opened the way for the conquest of Cyprus by Mu‘āwiya,⁸ who also led incursions into the Byzantine domain on land at Malāṭya and on sea toward the straits of Constantinople. From Kufa, a campaign was initiated in A.H. 24/ A.D. 644 by al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba, heading north toward Armenia and Azerbayjan. The army, which was led by Salmān b. Rabī‘a al-Bāhilī, was later followed by reinforcements led by ‘Abdallāh b. Shubayl b. ‘Awf al-Aḥmasī, and strengthened by another army sent from Syria led by Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī. The accounts describe cursory truces and submissions achieved but consistently report the success of Ibn Maslama’s campaign, which reached as far as Tiflīs in the middle of the Caucasus. On the eastern front, Islamic armies fanned out on different routes to conquer the major Iranian cities, including Iṣṭakhr (Persepolis), Isfahan, Herat, and Nīshapūr, and reached the Oxus River valley, where the Arab commander al-Aḥnaf b. Qays reportedly drank from the river as if in a gesture of defiance. Another commander, ‘Ubaydallāh b. Ma‘mar al-Taymī, is said to have conquered Makrān and reached the Indus River, while another commander, ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Umayr, moved from Sijistān to the boundaries of Ferghāna.⁹ The greatest success, however, accompanied a column led by ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Āmir, who pursued the fleeing Sasanid emperor from southern Iran into Khurāsān and toward the capital of that province, Marw, where Yazdajird ultimately died in unclear circumstances, just before the arrival of the Arab army in A.H. 31/ A.D. 652. Throughout the reports on these campaigns, there are no signs of disgruntlement among the troops.

These stories of conquest, however, receive none of the fanfare that surrounds the conquests in ‘Umar’s time. The detailed, day-to-day accounts that Ṭabarī so vividly gives of the battles of Yarmūk, Qādisiyya, and Nihāwand are virtually nonexistent for similar pivotal battles in ‘Uthmān’s time. There are no images of religious fulfillment, no portraits of miracle victories, just a plain progression of conquest campaigns noted in brief listing. More critically, perhaps, we lack the record of correspondence between the caliph and his governors and commanders that could describe how this expansion was directed. For ‘Umar’s time, Ṭabarī and others provide a mountain of documents that show the caliph managing, or at least made aware of, every decision made in the field, whether the issue was deciding where to begin the conquest of Syria (Damascus or Pella), where to build the first garrison towns, whether to invade by sea, or how the governors were faring in general. None of this exists for ‘Uthmān’s reign. Some letters describe a few rearrangements that ‘Uthmān made regarding the revenues of Iraq, but these are positioned only to foreshadow the sources of grievance and trouble later in his reign, and on the whole the caliph always appears to have been reacting belatedly when he dismissed a governor or made a decision. ‘Umar’s deep probing of affairs everywhere, his network of spying on commanders, and his supervising letters to Abū Ubayda, Sa‘d, ‘Amr, Mu‘ādh, Ḥudhayfa, and others are simply not matched in ‘Uthmān’s reign.

Instead, what receives the attention of the chroniclers of ‘Uthmān’s reign are the endless problems that preoccupied his last years: stories about the disgruntlement of marginal settler tribesmen in Kufa and Basra, the march of the opposition on Medina, and the murder of the caliph. Since these events, generally characterized as having provoked the first civil war in Islam, were followed by an even more tumultuous civil war between ‘Alī and Mu‘āwiya, which fed the great rivalry over succession between the Umayyads and Hāshimites afterward, retrospective views on these events took a tendentious and prophesying form. This complex and divisive climate that haunted the last years of ‘Uthmān’s reign has thus imbued his biography with a disproportionate emphasis on conflict, which was described in various ways that mix forms of reserved criticism and regret. The length of ‘Uthmān’s biography in the compendia of Ibn Sa‘d’s Ṭabāqat pales in comparison with that of ‘Umar (‘Uthmān’s spanning forty pages as compared with ‘Umar’s hundred plus), and shows many signs of orthodox guardedness. The author sums up his view best when he declares the following:

‘Uthmān reigned for twelve years as emir. In the first six of these, no one criticized anything in him, and indeed he became more popular with Quraysh than ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb because ‘Umar used to treat them harshly [kāna shadīdan ‘alayhim], but when ‘Uthmān acceded he treated them gently and extended bounty to them. Then he became lax in affairs [tawānā fī amrihim] and began appointing his kinfolk and members of his household [for rule] in the last six years. He bequeathed to Marwān b. [al-Ḥakam] one-fifth of the revenues of Egypt, he gave financial wealth to his relatives—justifying this as a type of filial support demanded by God [ta’wwala fī dhalika al-ṣila allatī amara allāhu bihā], appropriated wealth [ittakhadha al-māl], borrowed money from the state treasury, and used to say, “Abū Bakr and ‘Umar cast away [their share of] wealth that was theirs, whereas I have chosen to take it and divide it among my kinfolk [aqrubā’ī].” People resented this greatly.”¹⁰

Ibn Sa‘d’s statement can only be described as vaguely historical. The moralizing, religious thrust of writing here clearly goes beyond the mere recounting of factual history, and makes the reader wonder about some biblical influences that went into shaping stories about ‘Uthmān’s reign. The division created between six “good” years and six “bad,” for example, echoes the biblical image of even division between seven prosperous years and seven lean years that Joseph predicted for Pharaoh in interpreting the latter’s dream. The parallel between the positions of political authority of Joseph and ‘Uthmān no doubt encouraged the writer’s choice for making such a broad chronological frame for comparing a process of rise and decline in each reign.¹¹

In addition, the model of even division of years is untenable because ‘Uthmān’s political and provincial policies in fact did not undergo a radical break after six years. Al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba, for example, the most maligned of governors in ‘Uthmān’s reign, accused of drunkenness and misgovernment and on the whole resented for being the son of ‘Uqba b. Abī Mu‘īṭ, a staunch enemy of the Prophet in former times, had been appointed governor from the outset of ‘Uthmān’s reign and did not simply appear later on the scene. Ṭabarī complicates matters by saying that Kufans thought al-Walīd was the best and kindest governor they had ever had during his first five years of rule.¹² Other allegedly flagrant appointments of ‘Uthmān’s relatives had already been laid out by ‘Umar. Mu‘āwiya had been in the governorship of Syria long before ‘Uthmān’s time, while Ibn Abī al-Sarḥ was made governor of southern Egypt by ‘Umar just before he died.¹³ These patterns indicate that ‘Uthmān’s later appointments of relatives only extended a policy, laid down already by ‘Umar, that favored the old Meccan aristocracy.

If ‘Uthmān’s provincial appointments were not radically new, one wonders what else may have happened toward the middle of his reign that led to such widespread resentment against him. A more realistic explanation for a turning point in ‘Uthmān’s reign that provoked a public reaction would probably have to focus on certain measures that reflected the caliph’s new centralizing program, where he sought to garner a larger share from the revenues of the conquered territories to be sent to the capital.¹⁴ These policies helped rally a reaction in Kufa and Basra by tribesmen from Tamīm, Asad, and Bājila—tribes that had shown a similar resistance to Abū Bakr before, during the Ridda.

On the whole, the chronicles do not give much detailed information on how this movement of social and political reaction to ‘Uthmān’s rule was formed. However, there is a particular policy they describe that merits some attention. This relates to the caliph’s distribution, starting in A.H. 30/ A.D. 650, of conquered lands in Iraq (particularly the vast estates in the area of Kufa and Basra formerly owned by the Sasanid royal family and aristocracy but abandoned after their defeat and escape) to elite members of the Quraysh who were living in Medina. The background to this action is that the caliph had responded to complaints of the Kufans about their governor, al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba, by replacing him with Sa‘īd b. al-‘Āṣ, a distant kinsmen but also a close protégé of his as well, who had been supported earlier and recommended for public service by ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb.¹⁵ Apparently, Sa‘īd had accepted his appointment to Kufa only reluctantly, and he publicly declared this to the Kufans upon his arrival—a step that may have been politically unwise because it emboldened them against him later. Furthermore, striving to be cooperative with them and being malleable in personality, he reportedly brought with him from Medina a group of Kufan opposition leaders who had earlier gone to complain about al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba (the group included al-Ashtar, Abū Khushsha al-Ghifārī, Jundub b. ‘Abdallāh, and Abū Muṣ‘ab b. Jaththama). Once at Kufa, Sa‘īd encouraged the local leaders to bring to his attention public grievances and to publicize his desire to address people’s concerns. This was the beginning of a new environment of trouble, as it opened the way for a new climate of rumor, intransigence, and chaos. Sa‘īd thus wrote to ‘Uthmān about these developments, saying:

“The affairs of the Kufans are in turmoil. The nobles among them, the men of distinguished family [buyūtāt], and the veterans of the early campaigns [ahl al-sābiqa wa’l-qudma] have been overwhelmed, and the dominant element in these lands are recent immigrants and bedouin [rawādif radafat wa a‘rāb] who have attached themselves [to the regular forces. It has gotten] to the point that one does not see a man of noble lineage or experience among the settlers or youth [of this place].” And ‘Uthmān wrote back, “Among those to whom God granted the conquest of these lands, give preference to the veterans of the early campaigns [faḍḍil ahl al-sābiqa wa’l-qudma mimman fataḥa allāh ‘alayhi tilka al-bilād]. Then let those who settled here because of (those veterans) be subordinate to them [wa li-yakun man nazalahā bi-sabibihim taba‘an lahum], unless the latter regard [their obligations] as a burden and fail to perform them, while [the newcomers] do strive to carry out their duties. Keep everyone in his proper rank [iḥfaẓ li-kullin manzilatahu], and give them all their due measure (wa a‘ṭihim jamī‘an bi-qisṭihim min al- ḥaqq]. For through knowledge about the people is justice attained [fa-inna al-ma‘rifa bi’l-nās bihā yuṣāb al-‘adl].”¹⁶

‘Uthmān’s new policy suggestion only exacerbated the situation, and forced Sa‘īd to write again asking for help. This is when ‘Uthmān began to explore a new restructuring policy. After summoning the congregation in Medina for a meeting, he described to them the situation in Iraq, and proposed to “restore” to them (more accurately, “grant” them) some of the conquered lands in Iraq as their own feudalistic estates (iqṭā‘). When asked how he would do this, he proposed selling to the Qurashī elite in Medina plots of the conquered (fay’) lands in exchange for their estates or other assets in the Ḥijāz. Aside from demonstrating a blatant caliphal seizure of land and an arbitrary dispensing with what belonged to other members of the community, this step would have allowed the creation of a Qurashī economic and political control in both the Ḥijāz and Iraq. The idea quickly proved popular and several individuals took advantage of this offer soon after.¹⁷

The narrators do not record the economic benefits of such a land swap. They mainly seem interested in showing through this account the philosophical value of granting land and authority to individuals who are more deserving of it or capable of using influence wisely. As the public’s statement to ‘Uthmān in response to his complaints and speech put it: “Do not humor [the Kufans] in this, and do not let them aspire after something for which they are not fit. For if someone undertakes matters in which he is incompetent, he cannot manage them and [instead] corrupts them [innahu idhā nahaḍa fī’l-umūr man laysa lahā bi-ahl lam yaḥtamilhā wa afsadahā]”¹⁸—a moralizing swipe that was undoubtedly intended against ‘Alī as much as it responded to the immediate situation in Kufa. Nor do the narrators record the immediate reaction among the Ku-fan commune to the new policy. The revolt against the governor will be described later in light of the crisis of the year A.H. 33/ A.D. 654. It seems certain, however, that this policy was sure to invite massive resentment against both governor and caliph.¹⁹ The Kufan settlers resented this feudalistic consolidation of power in Medina as preferential and arrogant and began to rally against it.²⁰

Although more historically plausible than the religious myths cited above, this story also served a purpose as a political exemplum, and would have interested Ṭabarī because of its emphasis on the relation of political order and sound government to social hierarchy and the various qualities of social groups. ‘Uthmān was here setting in place an authority system based not simply on his direct rule, but on restoring privilege to pre-Islamic Arab tribal elite (specifically the Quraysh), and this was a theme that would get further developed and advocated in the speeches of Mu‘āwiya when the crisis gives way to conflict.²¹ Thus, there is even in such plain contexts as the historical description of a matter like the land swap incident a possibility that narrators crafted and expanded narratives to serve moralizing and polemical purposes, in this case on behalf of the monarchal (Umayyad) interest and the goal of guarding the collectivity of the community of Medina.

Another likely reason for the growth in opposition to the caliph must have been his attempt to codify an official text of the Qur’ān. Orthodox tradition is reticent about both the history of the codification of the Qur’ān, and attempts to portray variations in the texts of the Qur’ān in the provinces as variations of tribal dialects for reading the text rather than variations of substance—the comparison here usually made with the case of scriptural differences between Jews and Christians.²² The difference between at least one owner of a muṣḥaf (Qur’ān codex), ‘Abdallāh b. Mas‘ūd, who was settled in Kufa but does not seem to have made common cause with the opposition there, and ‘Uthmān led to a famous story of bitter confrontation and suppression of Ibn Mas‘ūd (nothing similar is attributed to another owner of a muṣḥaf, Ubayy b. Ka‘b, whose copy was also sequestered by the caliph). Historians do not possess a firm picture of what these disagreements in content were, and what is even more puzzling is that in the long list of transgressions by ‘Uthmān, there is no mention of a dispute over accepting a particular sūra (chapter) or āya (verse), even though there are other disputes revolving around details of ritual or sunna.²³ Whatever the differences were, it seems clear that ‘Uthmān tried to do something daring for religious scripture that had not been done before—perhaps the mere turning of an oral religious discourse into a written and codified text.²⁴ The attempt to disseminate an official text of the Qur’ān from the capital to the provinces represented another layer of provocation that would have created a controversy in the provinces.

The story about the first appearances of the dispute regarding Qur’ānic readings can also help shed some light on the interrelation between the religious and literary elements that go into the shaping of a historical text. The first disagreement over Qur’ānic reading reportedly began between Syrian and Iraqi tribesmen during the Islamic campaign in Armenia in ‘Uthmān’s time. Noting this, Ḥudhayfa [b. ‘Usayd al-Ghifārī]²⁵ reportedly traveled to Medina, and described how the two factions had nearly came to blows over whose recitation was the correct one, and urged the caliph to protect the umma from further discord. This instance is usually reported as the main impetus for the caliph’s plan to codify the text of the Qur’ān.²⁶ The story is probably apocryphal, but is significant in a number ways. Aside from providing an orthodox apologetic for the caliph’s motivation, it is interesting in that its narrators placed the first dispute on the Armenian frontier, where the Islamic armies had reached their peak of conquest during the last years of ‘Umar’s reign in A.H. 22/ A.D. 642, during the campaign of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī‘a, dubbed “Dhū al-Nūr,” who was then accompanied by Ḥudhayfa. The campaign, then, is said to have targeted the farthest corner of al-Bāb on the northern frontier, which was ruled by Shahrbarāz, a man described as a descendant of the king who marched on Syria and ended the Israelite state in an earlier period.²⁷

We shall examine below other aspects of that Muslim-Christian encounter between the Arab commander and the enemy leader. What is relevant to the Qur’ān issue here, however, are two aspects in particular: first, that discord appears by chance among the troops at the peak of their conquests; and second, that the enemy leader is given an association with the biblical narrative, as another Bukhtnaṣar. These aspects are noteworthy because they may hint of yet another segment of biblical influence on Islamic parabolic writing. The story of discord among troops over proper Qur’ānic recitation could well have been inspired by the biblical story of the tower of Babel and the beginning of discord in language among the builders as they reached the peak. In this context, the limits of Islamic territoriality provided the counterpart to the biblical monument, and the variation in Qur’ānic recitation provided the parallel to the discord over language. The contours in the fortune of the Israelite community, its rise and fall, are represented as repeating in the Muslim community centered in Medina. And this process is accentuated by a numerical resemblance whereby just as the discord at the tower of Babel led to the rise of seventy-three languages,²⁸ so would the Islamic community divide, as per the prophecy of the famous ḥadīth, into seventy-three sects. The eventually destructive conquest of Medina in A.H. 63/ A.D. 683 by the armies of the Umayyads in Yazīd’s reign would later be viewed as a moment of redemptive closure that paralleled the conquest of the Israelite state by leaders such as Bukhtnaṣar and Sharbarāz.

Even the focus on Kufa as the beginning place of opposition to ‘Uthmān is historically questionable. An element of myth has always surrounded the culture of Kufa, to a greater extent than many other Islamic cities. That it was a frontier town with a socially diverse populace, especially with the first arrival of Arabian tribal military contingents, was no doubt a source for political instability.²⁹ However, Kufa’s restless political nature is exaggerated by the Islamic narrators in light of the town’s future support for various ‘Alid and Khārijite rebellions against the Umayy-ads and ‘Abbāsids. Kufa’s frequent espousal of a rebellious cause, and equal treachery toward the leaders of these movements in the seventh and eighth centuries, came down as an enduring moralizing and negative lesson in Islamic history, inviting a sociocultural view of the Kufans as unfaithful; hence the rhyming adage “al-Kūfiyy lā yūfiyy” (“a Kufan is never loyal”).³⁰ This may seem unusual, given that originally Kufa had received high praise from ‘Umar³¹ and is connected in some accounts to the ancient prophets with a rich lore.³² However, such traditions have to be placed within a cyclical view of history that was parabolic in intention and served a polemical purpose. In giving the city some praise but later describing its challenges to caliphs and betrayal of the ‘Alid imām s, narrators were describing a treacherous locale that underwent transitions. It was in some sense intended in representation as the counterpart to Jerusalem and that city’s mixed reception for prophets, but in a wider sense it also served to illustrate the Qur’ānic parable about a universal city or village that loses divine favor and becomes the playing field for cataclysm and parable after initially being the culminating point of success.³³

Ṭabarī seems to have had a low regard for the tribes that settled in Kufa, whom he viewed as uncouth tribesmen (a‘rāb) or irregular auxiliaries (rawādifun radafat), and implicitly contrasts them with Meccan and other sedentary tribes, labeled as “purebred tribes” (dhawī al-aḥsāb wa’l-uṣūl). Kufans are viewed as the source of decline, as in the account that describes the campaigns of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī‘a on the Khazar front. There Ṭabarī relates: “He [‘Abd al-Raḥmān] launched a number of incursions in the time of ‘Uthmān. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān was then struck down when the people of Kufa changed in the emirate of ‘Uthmān after he accepted the Ridda folk in his service in an effort to set them on the right path [ḥīna tabaddala ahl al-Kūfa fī imārati ‘Uthmān li-isti‘mālihi man kāna irtadda istiṣlāḥan lahum].”³⁴ Whatever good the governors (umarā ’) would try to accord the Kufans, the latter would little heed any authority and championed various oppositions, first against Medina, then against Damascus, in the hope of selfish gain. The first signs of their discord would appear in ‘Uthmān’s reign, as we shall see later, when they would take on a range of pious causes, whether Hāshimite or Khārijite, only to betray these when the hour of real fighting came.³⁵

THE MYTHOLOGY OF ‘UTHMĀN’S SEDITIOUS REIGN

Where history ends and pious or didactic memory begins is an issue that confronts the reader in various stories about this caliph, and each reader may discern different problems in ‘Uthmān’s reign. From the perspective of the established caliphate of the ninth century, where the concept of divine right had long been internalized into ‘Abbāsid political ideology, ‘Uthmān’s refusal to abdicate would have been considered a righteous and sound political move, but this view would have overlooked other dimensions of ‘Uthmān’s problem. From the juristic view, which preoccupied itself with implementation of the law and the security of the principles of sunna and jamā‘a, political criticisms (concerning the charge of nepotism and the caliph’s lack of willingness to compromise) fell outside the question of ḥudūd : what sins deserved the death penalty in Islam? And, since the latter were said to be a specific set of three (apostasy, murder, and adultery of the married person), the political discussion was hard to accommodate, especially when it was seen brandishing slogans that were dear to the Khārijites, such as “al-amr bi’l-ma‘rūf wa’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar.”³⁶

The religious apologetic on behalf of the caliph best represented ‘Uthmān’s dilemma as a form of tribulation (balā’), a concept generally applied in religious narratives to the biographies of prophets to show the divine testing of their faith. The hagiography of this representation is strengthened because the trouble facing the caliph was said to have been foretold to him by the Prophet, who reportedly urged ‘Uthmān not to renounce the caliphate (qamīs al-khilāfa) and predicts his coming death as a martyr (shahīd).³⁷ When ‘Uthmān later does face such a crisis and the opposition demands his abdication, the caliph then makes his famous comment in which he refuses to give up the caliphate.³⁸ After his death comes the famous story about how Mu‘āwiya used the bloodied shirt of the caliph to rouse public support in the war he led against the fourth caliph.³⁹

Within this frame of reading, the orthodox religious position is totally on the side of ‘Uthmān, since the caliph’s errors are not perceived as something against the fundamentals of the law, and the caliph uses the language of ḥadīth to defend his rule. Ibn Sa‘d displays the pro-‘Uthmān orthodox viewpoint by redacting accounts in a way that downplays ‘Uthmān’s missteps, and by commenting with a careful choice of words. When describing the controversy over the third caliph’s financial subsidies to his relatives, for instance, Ibn Sa‘d makes the issue one of religious interpretation, using the term “ta’awwala” (to interpret or reckon), rather than “ibtada‘a” (to innovate deliberately)—a term with negative connotations—to explain the action. Since the term “ta’awwala” is closely related to the concept of scholarly “ijtihād” and to an openness of this exercise to an acceptable range of right and wrong, the implication is that whatever error resulted from this action could be termed as “khaṭī’a” (error) and thus safely distanced from the more damning territory of “dhanb” (sin), which demands atonement, chastisement, and possibly abdication.

Qur’ānic evocations that imply a similarity between the tragedy of ‘Uthmān and the deaths of previous prophets are also favored by Ibn Sa‘d, although the wider parabolic context from which he drew these accounts is lost. In a key passage we read of how ‘Uthmān cautioned of imminent divine punishment toward those planning an attack on him, using a tone closer to that of the prophets and martyrs than to that typical of the caliphs. ‘Uthmān reportedly addressed those who besieged his house before the attack, saying: “O People, do not inflict harm on me for I am [your] ruler and Muslim brother. By God, I have sought only to be constructive [in aradtu illā al-iṣlāḥ] to the best of my ability, whether I acted correctly or erred at times. [Know] that if you kill me, you will never pray in unity again, nor carry out the ghazw [military campaigns] united or receive your rightful booty. You will all become enemies of one another like this” (clasping his hands in way that the fingers cross one another). ‘Uthmān then said (quoting the Qur’ān): “O my people, let not the breach with me move you, so that there smite you the like of what smote the people of Noah, or the people of Hūd, or the people of Ṣāliḥ; ‘and the people of Lot are not far away from you.’^40”41

When they refused, he said: “Do you claim that I seized this authority by the sword and conquest, and not by the shūrā of the Muslims? Or do you claim that God did not know something about me when I first acceded that became known at the end?” With the opponents still refusing to listen, ‘Uthmān declared a prayer, saying: “O Lord, take account of all this multitude, kill them to the last man, and do not let any of them remain.” Mujāhid (the narrator) said: “God killed of them whom he killed during the fitna, and then Yazīd later sent an army of twenty thousand who made Medina open for conquest for three days because of the people’s complicity [in the murder] [li-mudāhanatihim].”⁴²

This account successfully builds up the range of Sunnī defenses against sedition in general and against questioning ‘Uthmān in particular. Opposition is cast as a threat to community unity, as well as to its prospects for jihād, the equitable division of booty, and proper assembly for prayer. ‘Uthmān himself is made to articulate this orthodox view as a doctrine and a question. Furthermore, the accounts generally portrayed (at least on the surface) ‘Uthmān as legitimately elected by the shūrā council, and therefore a representative of the community’s political consensus. No believer in the idyllic background of the companions could therefore conceive of a sour transformation in their lot. This would have implied either that God was misleading the community or that this chosen community was subject to unpredictable turns of fate.⁴³

An indirect discussion of the topic of qaḍā’ and qadar (fate and predestination) figures prominently in this contentious historical representation as the narrators tried to defend or criticize ‘Uthmān and decide on his role as a righteous caliph. When the debate breaks down between the caliph and his opponents in the end, ‘Uthmān’s posture ceases to be that of a temporal ruler and becomes closer to that of a message-bearing prophet. Faced with a stubborn and hostile community of followers, ‘Uthmān resembles prophets, like Nūh, Hūd, or Ṣāliḥ, who completely fail to convince their communities of their divine message and ultimately abandon their locale to let divine punishment fall on their towns. The lack of willingness among ‘Uthmān’s enemies to reason and debate further and their shrugging attitude is exaggerated by the narrator to draw a symmetry with Qur’ānic stories of divine judgment.

Yet in spite of predictions and the merit of a martyr’s death, the orthodox perspective faced the problem of explaining not just the tragic death of ‘Uthmān, but also the discord among the companions and how to characterize the group who attacked the caliph. Ibn Sa‘d’s explanation here tried to mitigate the fallout on the companions by isolating the final outburst of violent action against ‘Uthmān as perpetrated by a band of outside brigands from Kufa, Basra, and Egypt. This position helped to distance the companions of the Prophet living in Medina from responsibility for the assassination, and it also seemed to fit within the frame of a quietist strand of juristic political thinking that favored obedience to authority (although here this gets lost in a mood of apathy and tacit hostility) and avoidance of political activity in times of fitna.

Ibn Sa‘d best presents this view, when he quotes a report that says, “The Egyptians who surrounded ‘Uthmān were six hundred;⁴⁴ at their head were ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Adīs al-Balawī, Kināna b. Bishr b. ‘Attāb al-Kindī, and ‘Amr b. al-Ḥamiq. Those who came from Kufa were two hundred, headed by Mālik al-Ashtar al-Nakh‘ī, and those who came from Baṣra were one hundred, headed by Ḥukaym b. Jabala al-‘Abdī. They all acted as with one hand in the evil deed. And they were joined by a group of lowly people whose oaths and sincerity were dubious and misguided (maftūnūn). The companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, who failed to support him (alladhīna khadhalūh) had disinclined to be part of a seditious event (karihū al-fitna) and thought that matters would not reach killing him. They [the companions] regretted what they did in this matter, and by God, had they or some of them only so much as spoken up and hurled some soil in the face of these [the opponents], the latter would have departed with shame.”⁴⁵

This statement downplays any complicity in Medina in the assassination by painting the companions’ lack of involvement as being the result of a virtuous desire to avoid sedition (fitna). Although this account is attributed to Wāqidī, the extra commentary on history that it includes toward the end may well have been Ibn Sa‘d’s, since it is not characteristic of the rest of the narration style. In this commentary, Ibn Sa‘d does not deny the fact that, whatever the motive, the caliph was let down by the companions (khadhalūh), and they were negligent. Ibn Sa‘d’s closing line rebukes the companions to an unusual degree, and stresses how important it would have been for them to interfere, and shows how much leverage the companions wielded in Medina irrespective of the size of the opposition. Ibn Sa‘d’s main thrust, therefore, epitomizes the pro-‘Uthmān drift of the Sunnī texts, which tend to isolate the companions’ scene from a real historical context and reduce history to a mere frame for the religious viewpoint of the sunna and jamā‘a.⁴⁶

ṬABARĪ’S VIEW: THE EARLY DATING OF TROUBLED TIMES

The controversy surrounding ‘Uthmān that is included in summary form by Ibn Sa‘d and discussed within largely a Sunnī religious frame in his text is elaborated in extensive tales in the chronicle of Ṭabarī, who, unlike other writers, withholds judgment and does not allow his own intrusions to defend or detract from the caliph. Ṭabarī’s account of the reign of ‘Uthmān contains the usual directions of his interests: attention to conquests in the east, a focus on companion interaction in Medina, and the scene of Arab tribal politics in Arabia and the provinces. Compared to his previous accounts of the Ridda wars and conquests in ‘Umar’s reign, his coverage of campaigns in ‘Uthmān’s reign is again, like Ibn Sa‘d’s, relatively short. But unlike Ibn Sa‘d and Balādhurī, who transmit accounts outside any chronological frame, Ṭabarī’s history has a sequential and causal frame. This allows the reader to explore cause and effect among anecdotes more accurately in Ṭabarī’s work, even though his work frequently contains inexplicable gaps. These puzzling gaps, however, can often be completed by anecdotes recounted by the even less bashful Balādhurī and sometimes Ibn Sa‘d, who occasionally transmitted brief accounts to foster a biographical text, ignoring the broader historical context from which these statements came (as in Hurmuzān’s biography). Despite the lacunae, Ṭabarī’s work remains the working benchmark for the original master narrative of that early period, and his text is the key reflection of that lost genre of historiographical literature that communicated allusive meanings while recounting a seemingly feasible historical outline. Like other ninth-century writers, Ṭabarī judges ‘Uthmān’s last years as ones of sedition and failure, and highlights the symbolic turn of fortune from the six good years to the six bad ones that occurred upon the loss of the caliphal ring. However, Ṭabarī’s version of ‘Uthmān’s reign, unlike other chroniclers, hints that the trouble began from the start.

Precursor Events

The litany of trivial innovations (bida‘) that surrounds ‘Uthmān in his early years in power can make the reader unable to perceive any one factor as more important than others in tarnishing the caliph’s image. However, it is likely that, in the original narrative of the Rāshidūn caliphs, the most important of these transgressions was seen to have occurred at the start of ‘Uthmān’s rule, when the caliph issued a controversial judgment on a case connected to the story of ‘Umar’s assassination, namely the case of ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar’s murder of Hurmuzān.

This was the famous retribution affair in which ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar set out to avenge his father’s death by killing Hurmuzān and Abū Lu’lu’a’s daughter, and voicing the threat that he was going to kill all Persians resident in Medina after he had heard rumors of Hurmuzān’s complicity in a conspiracy to assassinate ‘Umar. The narratives make it clear that ‘Ubaydallāh’s actions were wrong and deserved punishment, since his opinion was based on no more than an uncorroborated word from ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr.⁴⁷ This case is treated in the sources as a first signal test of how scrupulous the new caliph was going to be in applying religious law. Things were not so simple as the zealous advocates of the law conceived, however, since ‘Uthmān faced a potential storm from a public that refused to see ‘Ubaydallāh punished with death. A counterassessment of the evidence probably shaped this position, but it was mainly based on a strong nostalgia for the memory of the assassinated caliph.“‘Umar is killed yesterday, and his son gets put to death today!”⁴⁸ the crowds yelled. ‘Uthmān thus had to weigh his options: face a civil war in Medina after executing ‘Ubaydallāh or turn over a new leaf by paying Hurmuzān’s blood money (after the tribal custom of lex talionis) and therefore risk appearing somewhat lax in applying religious law. With some maneuvering advice from ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ, who said that the caliph was availed of responsibility for this issue since it happened before his accession and jurisdiction began, ‘Uthmān chose to pay the blood money for Hurmuzān, claiming to be his patron, and he let ‘Ubaydallāh go.

This was a major legal debacle from a variety of angles. The caliph was assuming the right of lex talionis in the place of the close kin who normally assumed this role (one narrative pushes forward an alleged son of Hurmuzān, al-Qumādhbān, who in another story gives up his right for revenge).⁴⁹ The caliph was viewed as compromising a matter of religious law for political considerations,⁵⁰ and ‘Alī would voice his anger here not by criticizing ‘Uthmān but by vowing to punish ‘Ubaydallāh if he (‘Alī) ever got the chance, thus anticipating not only his own accession but future events at Ṣiffīn, where ‘Ubaydallāh died fighting on the side of Mu‘āwiya. The explicit clash of the ‘Alid opinion and ‘Uthmān’s verdict once again, as in the case of the affair of al-Mughīra in ‘Umar’s reign, does not surface in a direct confrontation between ‘Alī and the ruling caliph, but rather between a pro-‘Alid speaker, al-Miqdad b. ‘Amr, and ‘Uthmān. When the caliph declared at the mosque, “I am guardian of Hurmuzān’s blood, and I have chosen to grant it to God and ‘Umar, and leave it for [the blood of] ‘Umar,” al-Miqdad stood up and declared, “Hurmuzān is the servant of God and His Prophet [mawlā allāh wa rasūlihi]. It is not for you to grant what is for God and His Prophet!”⁵¹

However, the caliph may not necessarily have been lax in applying the law. The case of ‘Ubaydallāh was challenging because it depended not only on those identified as victims of ‘Ubaydallāh’s attack (Hurmuzān, Abū Lu’lu’a’s daughter, and/or Jufayna), but also on what evidence was used to substantiate the conspiracy case. If ‘Ubaydallāh’s only victim was Hurmuzān (since Abū Lu’lu’a’s daughter doesn’t figure in all accounts),⁵² then ‘Uthmān had much ambiguous evidence to digest. The conspiracy-to-murder charge, unlike adultery, did not require four witnesses, and if ‘Umar had been around, a question or two might well have been raised about why Hurmuzān was examining the dagger and consorting with the enemies of Islam. The two conflicting questions that ‘Uthmān was caught between were these: Was the testimony of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr enough to go by? And, was ignoring it permissible if the judgment was to execute ‘Ubaydallāh? Further arguments that the caliph was the only rightful authority to exact revenge or punishment would have activated a broader debate about the final authority of a ruler’s opinion.

These questions about the legitimacy of ‘Uthmān’s action therefore form a classic example of the famous ninth-century debates as to whether a caliph’s political legitimacy is defined by religious excellence or political skill. The debate over whether al-afḍal (the most excellent) (the less excellent in religious terms but competent in political terms) should be allowed to be caliph occupied much of the theoretical attention of both Sunnī and Shī‘ī thinkers, who looked upon the Rāshidūn, Umayyad, and ‘Abbāsid dynasties, and even ‘Alid pretenders, through this lens of religious versus secular assessment. In the present case, ‘Uthmān had shown his political skill of keeping the community united, but he had done so at the enormous price, Shī‘īs especially might argue, of suspending a clear religious ruling. A Sunnī argument would have countered that ‘Uthmān’s act of safeguarding peace in the community by using the license of lex talionis was a religiously valid means to deliver justice. Implicitly, this opened the door to, and seemed to condone, there being much freedom accorded by Sunnīs to caliphs in exercising (or arbitrating) authority at such pivotal moments of decision.

Ṭabarī was conscious of how these early narratives factored into a complex debate that would grow in time. However marginal an issue the pardon of ‘Ubaydallāh may have seemed in its time, and whatever merits there were to either angle in the debate, Ṭabarī and the narrators were implying that the age of righteous justice and of synchrony between a secular and a religious order had come to an end with the death of ‘Umar. The age of Muslim consensus had effectively ended.

Modern historians have traditionally ignored viewing the episode of ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar as a source of discontent against ‘Uthmān. However, the sources strongly suggest that the rift between ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān began precisely over this issue, which reflected their divergent philosophies of rule. ‘Alī had pushed for punishing ‘Ubaydallāh, while ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ swayed the caliph’s opinion, as he would Mu‘āwiya’s later on. This was a case of Ṣiffīn without the swords being drawn or arbitration reached, and it hinted of things to come. Suddenly the death of an average Persian believer, Hurmuzān, became the defining event in the life of the community, and the skies darkened, hinting at divine displeasure with ‘Uthmān’s verdict.⁵³ The episode was undoubtedly connected in the original narrative to the pro-Persian and pro-‘Alid themes discussed earlier, as al-Hurmuzān came to be portrayed as an example of the devoted Muslim.⁵⁴

From the moment of that crisis of justice onward, Ṭabarī’s accounts condition the reader to be wary of any new unusual action, by either ‘Uthmān or his lieutenants, as a new signal of sinister innovation. In this context, it becomes a source of surprise that he used to have his bread made out of sifted flour or that he laid out a significant tent (fusṭāṭ) in the field of Mina while on pilgrimage,⁵⁵ and even stories about insignificant events in the provinces became indicators of potential trouble ahead. When a commander, Muḥammad b. Abī Ḥudhayfa, was heard announcing takbīr at the end of the Battle of Dhāt al-Ṣawārī, he was summoned by Ibn Abī al-Sarḥ and rebuked for being out of line and making this bid‘a⁵⁶ And when Mu‘āwiya was said to have declared that the wealth of the state is “māl allāh” (the wealth or treasury of God), he was criticized by Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī as making a bid‘a (religiously inventive statement).⁵⁷ All manner of major and minor developments were taken as signs that an unrighteous rule was underway and drifting almost mystically in the wrong direction. Between the center and provinces, between caliph and governors, there was, Ṭabarī’s narratives imply, a pattern being set for discord. This pattern is the reverse of the virtuous harmony between caliph and governors that prevailed in ‘Umar’s reign. Thus ‘Uthmān and al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba provide the degenerative antithesis to the famous purported miracle of harmony between ‘Umar and Sāriya.⁵⁸

In his narration of military events in the year A.H. 32/ A.D. 653, Ṭabarī’s religious message about the loss of divine grace for the community and imminent trouble is voiced vividly. One year before the slide into civil war, a small battle occurs on the northern front involving Muslims and Khazars (and Turks) that foreshadows ill fate for the community. After years of victorious raids by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī‘a al-Bāhilī in which no Muslim died and the Turks saw constant defeat, Muslims finally witnessed their first defeat. Evidently, the Turks had prepared for that confrontation at the city of Balanjar with much introspection. “We were a nation to whom there was no match until this small nation came along against which we have been unable to stand,” one of the Khazars is quoted as saying. Another reportedly responded that Muslims do not die, and this myth circulated until one day the arrows of some Khazars finally found their mark in an ambush against a group of passing Muslim soldiers. When news of the soldiers’ death spread, the Khazars became emboldened and mounted an attack on the commander ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī‘a. The Muslims fell in retreat, and ‘Abd al-Raḥmān was killed. His body was afterward taken by the Khazars, and included in their other battles as a good omen.⁵⁹

To what extent this picture of defeat on the Khazar front is real is difficult to say. The superstition it relates about carrying a commander’s body in battle may be historic or may reflect some custom in that region or beyond in Ṭabarī’s time. The constructed nature of this vivid description and the switch from a tide of victory to a sudden fall of the conquerors becomes clearer when we view it in conjunction with other events in ‘Umar’s reign, especially in the year A.H. 22/ A.D. 642, where it finds an opposite antecedent. In that year, which saw the submission of just about every significant Iranian region (Hamadan, Rayy, Qūmis, Jurjān, Ṭabaristān, and Azerbayjan), Arab armies finally reached the northern extremity of the Persian domain on the Caucasus at the passage of Balanjar, an area described as “al-Bāb.” The local Persian governor, a man said to be of the family of Shahrbarāz, reportedly admired the noble pedigree of the ruling Arabs, describing them as “dhawī aḥsāb,” and contrasted them to the social groups across the frontier he was entrusted with fighting, whom he identified as al-Qibj (possibly a Turkic group) and Armenians. Those people, he explained, “did not have a noble pedigree, nor did it befit noble men [i.e., the Arabs] to help them [lā yunsabūna ilā aḥsāb wa lā yanbaghī li-dhī al- ḥasab an yu ‘īna hā’ulā’],” and therefore he earnestly asked that the Arabs drop the requirement of al-Jizya (poll tax) so as not to humiliate him in the enemies’ eyes (fa-lā tudhillūnā bi’l jizya fa-tūhinūna li-‘aduwwikum). The Arab commander raised this with Surāqa b. ‘Amr, who in turn wrote to ‘Umar, asking for permission to grant the governor this indulgence. ‘Umar, in keeping with his sympathy to a Khusraw-like worldview of order and rank, reportedly agreed [fa-ajāzahu wa ḥassanahu].⁶⁰

The whole episode of this conquest in the Caucasus then becomes symbolic, as the Arabs emerge as the clear successors to the Persian state and as the ones now defending civilization against barbarism on the northernmost thughūr.Surāqa died and was succeeded by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī‘a, who entertained Shahrbarāz as a part of his entourage. On one occasion, the latter showed the Arab governor a treasure he had acquired on one of his exploits into a mythic-sounding cave. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān took a jewel in his hand, turned it about, and then gave it back to Shahrbarāz, who then commented: “This [jewel] is more precious than this entire region [i.e., al-Bāb], and you are, by God, closer to my liking as suzerains than the family of Khusraw, for had they been here, they would have confiscated this [jewel] from me. By God, nothing shall stand in your way, so long as you keep the faith, and your high chief remains faithful [wa aymu allāh lā yaqūmu lakum shay’ un mā wafaytum wa wafā malikukum al-akbar]!”⁶¹

This situation of an infidel ruler admiring the Arabs for the general virtue of order and faithfulness (to treaties, covenants, and established laws) and predicting their providential guidance and success is a device that Ṭabarī used on several occasions to indirectly praise the righteousness of the Islamic conquest. In this particular case, however, the story was meant to compare the reigns of ‘Umar and ‘Uthmān and the fortune of the Arab community under both leaders. The defeat of the Arab army in ‘Uthmān’s reign was indirectly connected with this leader’s departure from established principles of proper government, just as victory in ‘Umar’s reign was attributed to adherence to ideals propounded by the Islamic mission.⁶² In the way Ṭabarī positions the story of defeat in ‘Uthmān’s reign as a turning point from an age of victory to one of incipient discord, we see how he wove together threads of history and fiction to signal the end of the utopian age. The spilling of a commander’s blood became an omen of what was to come later at the center of government.

Precursor Speech

Along with the foreshadowing description of discord through events, Ṭabarī organizes ‘Uthmān’s speeches from the beginning of his reign to show anxiety about impending trouble. At the outset of ‘Uthmān’s reign, Ṭabarī describes how the new caliph laid out a virtuous program and exhorted the people in a speech about their religious and moral duties. ‘Uthmān’s behavior here is reminiscent of Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, who delivered accession speeches that exhorted the populace to obey the caliph if he obeys God and to criticize him if he did not. Interestingly, ‘Uthmān holds back from encouraging the people to criticize him if they find fault, as if to foreshadow the clashes of his later years. However, the speeches of ‘Uthmān serve a unique purpose here, in that they contain a thread of self-criticism adapted for this caliph’s unique tragedy. ‘Uthmān here lays out the religious ideals of rule, then lets the reader judge whether the caliph lived up to these words or contradicted them. Ṭabarī’s narrator describes ‘Uthmān’s first public appearance as follows: After the men of the shūrā had rendered the oath of allegiance to ‘Uthmān, he went out, more distressed than any of them. He came to the pulpit of the Messenger of God and preached to the people, praising and extolling God and asking His blessing upon the Prophet. He said: “Verily you are in a transitory abode and in the flower of life, so set forth until the time appointed for your death and aim for the best you can attain, for you may be met [by your end] morning or evening. Surely this world harbors deceit [inna al-dunyā ṭuwiyat ‘alā al-ghurūr], ‘so let not the present life delude you,’ and ‘let not the deceitful one delude you concerning God.’⁶³ Consider those who have gone before you, then be in earnest and do not be neglectful, for you will surely not be overlooked. Where are the sons and brothers of this world who tilled it, dwelt in it, and were long granted enjoyment therein? [ayna abnā’ al-dunyā wa ikhwānuhā alladhīna athārūhā wa ‘amarūhā wa mutti‘ū bihā ṭawīlan] Did it not spit them out? Cast aside this world as God has cast it aside and seek the hereafter, for verily God has coined a parable for it and for that which is better. The Almighty has said: ‘And strike for them the similitude of the present life [mathal al-ḥayāt al-dunyā]:it is as water that We send down out of heaven, [and the plants of the earth mingle with it; and in the morning it is straw the winds scatter; and God is omnipotent over everything. Wealth and sons are the adornment of the present world; but the abiding things, the deeds of righteousness, are better with God in reward, and better in] hope.’”⁶⁴ Then the people came forward to render the oath of allegiance to him.⁶⁵

The ascetic coloring of ‘Uthmān’s words here is unmistakable and shows little sign of an ambitious caliph who in future years would become an absolutist tyrant. On the surface, this speech confirms what is said about ‘Uthmān as starting out similarly to Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, with a renunciatory lifestyle and warnings of the divine wrath and historical ill fortune to come if the community were to stray. However, the same speech contains much irony, as it anticipates ‘Uthmān’s future departure from these principles. ‘Uthmān’s statement, “alā inna al-dunyā ṭuwiyat ‘alā al-ghurūr,” sounds like general religious advice, but it can also be viewed as an elliptical commentary on his political situation in later years, when he became very jealous of sharing authority and refused to abdicate. The reflexive nature of this advice even hints that ‘Uthmān knew who his audience was (himself), when the narrator declares from the outset that ‘Uthmān appeared before the public more distressed than any of them (kharaja ‘alayhim wa huwa ashadduhum ka’āba). His sadness here perhaps reflects the caliph’s undisclosed premonition of his coming change of character and eventual collapse. The speech provides a heralding summary of concepts and beliefs that ‘Uthmān would abandon and helps the reader contextualize all of the turns taken in the years of ‘Uthmān’s reign.

The same message of idealism and exhortation is repeated in a letter that the caliph sends to provincial governors, in which he again outlines a set of key virtues that define political stability and community success: ḥayā’, amāna, and wafā’. Ṭabarī relates that in this letter, ‘Uthmān declared:

“To proceed: God has commanded the imāms to be shepherds [ru‘āt]; He did not command them to be tax collectors [jubāt]. Indeed, at the inception of this community, they were made shepherds and not tax collectors [inna ṣadra hādhihi al-umma khuliqū ru‘āt, lam yukhlaqū jubāt]. But your imāms are surely on the verge of becoming tax collectors rather than shepherds. If they turn out thus, then modest manners, integrity, and good faith will come to an end [fa-in ‘ādū kadhalika inqaṭa‘a al-ḥayā’ wa’l-amāna wa’l-wafā’]. Verily, the most just conduct is for you to examine the affairs and obligations of the Muslims, so that you can give them what is properly theirs and take from them what they owe. Do likewise as regards the Pact of Protection; Give them what is theirs and take from them what they owe. As to the enemy whom you encounter, faithfully seek God’s aid against them.”⁶⁶

This declaration can be viewed as moralistic rather than specifically Islamic. The virtues of ḥayā’, amāna, and wafā ’ are secular social and political concepts that overlap with religious principles, but the aim of the exhortation is ultimately ethical. ‘Uthmān, as in ‘Umar’s earlier debate with Hurmuzān, does not invoke the miracle of Islamic belief per se (as a ritualistic or legalistic source of power) as the source of Islamic success, but rather casts the success of the Islamic community (still viewed as exclusively Arab in this phase) as tied to the revival of universal moralistic principles: the strict division of right and wrong, loyalty, unity, and devotion to justice, whether delivered to Muslims or non-Muslims. The miracle of religious success, according to this speech, is tied to these virtues—qualities that although are of religious value and are attested in the Qur’ān, are ultimately treated in nonconfessional terms as key operating parameters in history. In describing the conditions of triumph, the caliph’s declaration also describes the conditions of ideal times and the beginnings of the Islamic state. Life was at its ideal when rulers were shepherds, as at the time of ‘Umar, or the prophets, or even of Abel at the dawn of history. Pastoralism created the idyllic society, the community of Muḥammad and ‘Umar in the desert, where egalitarianism and a simple lifestyle reigned. The spread of conquests and the invasion of urban life, with its temptations, competitive pace, and materialism, transformed the community of first believers. The ruler had ceased to be a shepherd (ru‘āt, pl.) or imām, becoming instead a scrutinous tax collector (jubāt, pl.) who is keen on imperial interests more than those of the average community. The theme at work here is universal, spanning Islamic as well as Christian history, and it resonates in vernacular forms in various cultures and societies.

Complementing his speech to the companions and his speech to the governors are a speech that ‘Uthmān makes to the military commanders (umarā ’ al-ajnād), a letter addressed to the tax officials (‘ummāl al-kharāj),⁶⁷ and a letter to the public or common people (al-‘āmma).⁶⁸ The clear stratification of messages and audiences in these letters reflected a philosopher/historian’s view of a hierarchical world with segmented classes of political and social power. Ṭabarī’s Persian worldview, and the continuity he envisaged between Sasanid and Islamic times, allowed the Rāshidūn caliphs (especially the most monarchical among them, ‘Uthmān) to speak as both caliphs and kings. In his speech to the commanders, ‘Uthmān warns of dangers that they in fact bring on his rule later on,⁶⁹ and in the speech to the common people, ‘Uthmān warns of certain inevitable problems that will come about when the Islamic state reaches its limits of growth. ‘Uthmān declares: “To proceed: You have attained so much only by strict adherence to sound models [of conduct]. Let not this world turn you away from your proper concerns [amrikum], for this community will become involved in innovation after three things occur together among you: complete prosperity [takāmul al-ni‘am], the attainment of adulthood by the children of the captive women, and the recitation of the Qur’ān by both Arabs and non-Arabs [qirā’at al-a‘rāb wa’l-a‘ājim al-Qur’ān]. The Messenger of God has said, ‘Unbelief stems from speaking Arabic badly [al-kufru fī’l-‘ujma]; if something seems foreign to them, they will do it awkwardly and [thereby] bring about innovation [fa-in ista‘jama ‘alayhim amr takallafū wa ibtada‘ū].’”⁷⁰

In this letter ‘Uthmān appears apprehensive of what the transition from an Arabian to a Perso-Arab society might bring. The idea that decline begins after the attainment of perfection (takāmul al-ni‘am) is a religious theme anchored in many Qur’ānic verses describing divine judgment coming at the hour of full prosperity. However, the way Ṭabarī positioned this religious transition within a historical process that included the growing assertiveness of a‘rāb (i.e., central and northeast Arabian tribes), class mobility, and the intrusion into religious interpretation by foreigners is unique to his version of history. It spans symbolically the problems that ‘Uthmān and ‘Alī faced in Iraq, first with the Saba’iyya and then with the Khārijites, and contains a prophetic note on the growing power of the mawālī in ‘Abbāsid times.

These letters addressed concerns of the present. ‘Uthmān’s words accurately project the later medieval opinion that saw the Rāshidūn golden age begin to wane at the beginning or in the middle of ‘Uthmān’s reign. Various aspects that defined the religious and political peak of ‘Umar’s reign had come to an end. The simple faith based on sunna, a cohesive culture undiluted by foreign influence, and a political authority that deterred ambitious instincts and was just in its dealings are all elements that come to a grinding halt with ‘Uthmān’s reign. History shifts from a celebration of biography and futūḥ to a recounting of tribulation and an attempt to make sense of fitna. Ṭabarī’s focus shifts to an exhaustively detailed account of the crisis at the end of ‘Uthmān’s reign and into ‘Alī’s reign, which becomes the dominant theme in his chronicle.

THE AUTHORITARIAN CALIPH

An evaluation of ‘Uthmān’s rule, policies, and behavior must constantly be mindful of the spectrum of representations applied to him. We have seen Wāqidī’s and Sayf b. ‘Umar’s apologetic statements about ‘Uthmān and the companions, the myth that surrounds this history, and his speeches, which offer meanings that range between the hagiographic and the ironic. Abū Mikhnaf’s account, which is also detailed in its reporting but clearly derivative from Wāqidī’s and Sayf b. ‘Umar’s accounts, tends to accentuate the discord between the caliph and companions such as Abū Dharr, ‘Ammār b. Yāsir, and ‘Abdallāh b. Mas‘ūd, and paints an image of the caliph as an arrogant and despotic ruler.⁷¹ The exaggerated representation in this build-up, however, while helpful to the Shī‘ī position, makes the assassination of the caliph at the end a highly illogical development, because it is left unclear why the caliph did not use military force to defend against the attackers.

Whatever the variances among these accounts, they all share a crucial common denominator that relates to the question of political authority, the legitimation of caliphal control, and the latitude that the caliph may have in governing. This issue was of major concern for Sunnī political theory in the ninth century, and in part catered to the defense of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate in the ninth century—the ‘Abbāsid authority not so much as a government but as the focal point of Sunnī religious ideology and a political symbol against Shī‘īsm and other sects. There was the crucial question of whether a caliph can take liberty in setting rules and taking innovative measures beyond following the sunna of the Prophet and the first two caliphs, and the degree to which his authority is binding on the community and deserves continued obedience. On the latter issue, Sunnī doctrinaires in the ninth century gave free rein to the concept of al-sulṭān (the hegemone) and its importance to the stability of the faith, and cited numerous general ḥadīths that exhorted Muslims to be obedient to rulers, whether or not the ruler was just.⁷²

The centrality of ‘Uthmān’s historical dilemma to the shaping of Islamic political theory deserves some extra scrutiny. The debate over whether a Sunnī caliph holds both religious and political authority in ruling the community or simply has an honorary leadership status in religious terms has long been controversial, especially in light of the ambiguous terminology used to characterize the caliph as imām, sulṭān, successor, or symbolic representative (khalīfat allāh or khalīfat rasūl allāh). Many statements codified in chapters on political theory in classical literary compilations, such as Ibn Qutayba’s ‘Uyūn al-Akhbār, Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi’s al-‘Iqd al-Farīd, as well as later political treatises by al-Ṭurṭūshī and SibṭIbn al-Jawzī, often represent mere excerpts from the wider texts of historical narrative. For example, Ḥudhayfa’s statement, “Those who strive to humiliate the ruler will be humiliated,” is taken from the escalating story of conflict in ‘Uthmān’s reign and the conclusion about what happened to his attackers. Another statement, often given without attribution (ma yaza‘allāh bi al-sulṭān akthar mimmā yaza‘bi al-qur’ān), is originally Ḥudhayfa’s statement as well.⁷³ That a comparison was being made to the Qur’ān probably serves as a rebuttal to the Khārijites, who had insisted on establishing a firm interpretation of the judgment of the Qur’ān at the arbitration after the Battle of Siffīn before they would allow the caliphate of ‘Alī to continue.⁷⁴

Although the narrative of ‘Uthmān’s reign, especially in its occasionally apologetic version by Sayf b. ‘Umar, is often read as a defense of the companions, it seems also to offer a strong statement of political exhortation that defends caliphal authority as “sulṭān allāh.” Ṭabarī seems to have omitted many of the narratives of Sayf b. ‘Umar that dwell on this metaphor during the controversy between the caliph, the opposition, and religious advisors on the sidelines (Sa‘d, Ḥudhayfa, Ka‘b, ‘Abdallāh b. Sallām). This appears to have been the historian’s main method of condemning the wrongdoings of ‘Uthmān, but these statements, which were made mainly by the religious advisors, and generally led to a defense of the ruling institution of “al-sulṭān” outside any religious connotation, are crucial not only for clarifying the meaning of the historiography of ‘Uthmān’s reign but also for discerning the parabolic foundation of these political statements. Although, for example, the orthodox Islamic narration tends to favor commentaries made by Sa‘d b. Abī Waqqāṣ and Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān, due to their orthodox image in ḥadīth, there is an equally crucial role for the religio-political commentaries of Jewish converts such as Ka‘b al-Aḥbār and ‘Abdallāh b. Sallām.

As the pressure grows on ‘Uthmān to abdicate rule after the arrival of the opposition in Medina, various commentators urge ‘Uthmān to remain steadfast, and they give him religious advice. ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Umar said, “I do not recommend that you remove a shirt that God has girded you with, and make a precedent whereby every time a people disliked their caliph or imām they overthrew him, thus endangering the foundations of religion and the order of the community [lā arā an takhla‘… fa-takūn sunna kullamā karih qawmun khalīfatahum aw imāmahum khala‘ūh… ḥattā lā yaqūm li-allāh dīnun wa lā li’l-muslimīn sulṭān].”⁷⁵ Another, al-Nu‘mān b. Bashīr, advised him, saying, “Be patient and do not give in to weakness, and do not undermine the dominion of God [iṣbr wa lā tu‘ṭī al-daniyya wa lā tahdim sulṭān allāh].”⁷⁶ In arguing with ‘Ammār for challenging the caliph, Sa‘d b. Abī Waqqāṣ goes as far as equating opposition to the caliph (or to authority generally, al-sulṭān) with apostasy (ridda).⁷⁷ Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī also exhorted people to defend ‘Uthmān, declaring, “God the Almighty has commanded you to aid His religion, the mainstay of this religion is its political authority [inna qawāma hādhā al-dīn al-sulṭān]; go forth to defend the dominion of God [bādirū ilā sulṭān allāh lā yustadhall].”⁷⁸ Mu‘āwiya would advise in similar terms as well, however through reference to sulṭān allāh.⁷⁹ As for Ka‘b al-Aḥbār, he established a simile for political authority that would become famous when he stated, “The situation of Islam, political authority, and the public [mathal al-Islām wa al-sulṭān wa al-nās] is like that of a tent with its pillars, ropes, and pegs. The tent itself is similar to Islam, the pillar is the authority, and the ropes and pegs are the subjects. The tent is not complete except when all is together [lā yaṣluḥu ba‘ḍuhu illā bi-ba‘ḍ].”⁸⁰

That individuals such as Sa‘d and Mu‘āwiya would heighten their rhetoric in defending the authority of ‘Uthmān is not perhaps unusual, but it is the convergence of their political language with that of Ka‘b and Ḥudhayfa that underscores an interesting historiographical phenomenon, namely the transformation of a biblical storyline into an Islamic political polemic. What would have remained in the biblical context a story about religious dissent in the community becomes in the Islamic one a political story as well, one concerning the fragmentation of the Islamic community into religio-political sects (shiya‘), and various contending concepts of the imamate, its legitimacy, and its range of authority.⁸¹

For readers who sought a more nuanced answer to the justification of caliphal authority, however, a more specialized array of ḥadīth s was offered that dealt with matters of economic and administrative practice in the early Islamic period; these addressed various questions: whether a ruler can declare control over conquered territory, bequeath it in a feudalistic fashion as an iqtā, establish a central treasury in monetary and other terms (ḥimā), and dispense with state wealth as he saw fit. These were all things that ‘Uthmān did, and they find answers in precedents cited from the times of the Prophet, Abū Bakr, and ‘Umar.⁸² The polemical constructions of Sunnī ḥadīths in the ninth century ran parallel to the standard narrative of the Rāshidūn caliphate with all its controversies, and consistently legitimized what the Rāshidūn caliphs did (with minor dissenting occasions representing ‘Uthmān as having departed from the practices of his predecessors). Treatises such as Abū Yūsuf’s kitāb al-kharāj and Ibn Zanjawayh’s kitāb al-amwāl are filled with traditions of a legalistic and doctrinal nature that establish this crucial link between history and religious sunna. Examples of this include topics such as the Prophet’s bequeathing the former land of the Jewish communities of Khaybar and Banū al-Naḍīr to his supporters (not coincidently to the Muhājirūn)⁸³ and ‘Umar’s establishment of ḥimā reserves but refusal to divide the conquered lands.⁸⁴

And the correlation comes across as well in Ṭabarī’s chronicle in the way the Islamic legal voice hawkishly defends a particular reading of how the Sawād region was conquered, describes the system as sunna, and attributes a similar precedent of organization to the Prophet that he applied after Khālid b. al-Walīd’s conquest of the land at Dūmat al-Jandal.⁸⁵ The system of Iraq’s agricultural organization and tax revenue rules in ‘Umar’s time, it seems assumed, had implications about the status of the land, its availability for purchase and settlement, and the status of its people in the religious legal sense (whether or not they are ahl dhimma),⁸⁶ and would thus have set a precedent for other examples of conquered Islamic lands elsewhere, and have similar implications about laws and social regulations in these lands, not to mention their relation to the ruling dynasty in Baghdad.⁸⁷

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of these discussions is that although there is no precedent to justify the caliph’s assertion of authority, here the Sunnī voice comes on the side of the caliph regardless. Discussing the case of a parcel of land that has been neglected by its owners for three years, traditions legitimize the caliph’s dispensing with the land and bequeathing it to others who could plant it.⁸⁸ The caliph in these traditions is consistently referred to as “al-imām” in a clear attempt to strengthen his political authority with a religious symbolism. And a followup statement on this example, attributed to Abū Yūsuf, goes farther by stating that this possibility of a land transfer is “equivalent to the case of monetary wealth which does not belong to anyone and is not claimed as inheritance by anyone, then it is the privilege of the just imām to dispense with it and give it to those whom he finds competent to furthering the cause of Islam [fa-li’l-imām al-‘ādil an yujīza minhu wa yu‘ṭī man kāna lahu ghanā’ fī al-islām… fa-kadhalika al-arḍ... fa-hādhā sabīl al-qaṭā’i‘‘indī fī arḍ al-‘Irāq].”⁸⁹ The reference to “al-imām al-‘ādil” in this tradition also shows the idealizing context of this religious discourse, one which viewed the caliph as a utopian kind of leader, perhaps represented by ‘Umar in Islamic history. The Sunnī “caliph- imām” therefore stood as a counter–focal point for the Islamic community to the Shī‘ī imām, and was being helped in strengthening the legitimacy of his powers by the “ulama.” This said, however, it was always a short distance in Sunnī politics between emir and caliph when polemicists were discussing the issue of the just ruler, and it is not unlikely that such ḥadīth discussions could have thrived in the caliphal environment of Iraq as they would in the courts of the Tahirids in Nīshāpūr or the Samanids in Bukhārā.

The defense of ‘Uthmān’s authority, however, not only answered to Sunnī ideological imperatives that related to matters of community cohesion, the stability of the leadership, and application of the law, but was also a matter of equal centrality to the Persian social and political culture in ‘Abbasīd times.⁹⁰ The organization of the early Islamic caliphate’s government, with the establishment of the diwan, a calendar, and taxation rules, relates more to ‘Umar’s than ‘Uthmān’s reign, but these are all topics that are back-projected from the ninth century to the Rāshidūn period in order to idealize Persian governmental foundations as having been revived in Arab and Islamic forms at such an early date. ‘Uthmān is perhaps adapted to the same path, in the way that he sought to establish a system of iqtā‘ for the Arab conquering elite, and even more critically in the way he sought to devise a hierarchy of social classes that adapted a Sasanid system of privilege and aristocracy to new criteria of Arab tribal and Islamic merit.

‘Uthmān’s appointment of his kin relations to positions of authority would have been viewed as a throwback not only to the Jāhiliyya and its tribal elites, but, from a Persian perspective, to the monarch’s right to appoint his family members to positions of political importance. ‘Umar did not fit in this framework because he did not promote the Qurashī elite in the same way, and he placed more emphasis on evidence of religious precedence among people than on a rigid system of social hierarchy and rank.⁹¹ That he believed there existed a system of hierarchy, such as ‘Uthmān and Mu‘āwiya spoke of, is also mildly attested to in other statements attributed to ‘Umar,⁹² and in his exasperation with tribesmen who challenged his establishment of state land (ḥimā) out of conquered land in Arabia.⁹³ But ‘Umar ultimately considered religion, pious behavior and zeal on behalf of the faith to be matters that deserved more merit than did social lineage. To accept established customs of social hierarchy would have redefined the caliph’s office as that of a king, which he rejected.⁹⁴

The time for the establishment of an Islamic kingship was yet to come officially with Mu‘āwiya, and Sunnism will keep its distance from the direct expression of the Umayyad monarchy. However, this did not prevent Sunnī writers from discussing the political challenges that faced ‘Uthmān and defending him in the context of the Islamic imamate. ‘Uthmān’s imamate, however, was more that of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs than of the Rāshidūn companions—authoritarian, monopolistic, and highly structured, and religion (in the example of the codification of the Qur’ān) was but a tool being used to strengthen the centralizing policy of the state.⁹⁵

The facade of modesty, political consultation, and abidance by the traditions of predecessor caliphs, however, will gradually be lifted in Mu‘āwiya’s reign. The Umayyad leadership, although battered for having radically departed from the political traditions of ‘Umar, and having made the transition to kingship, would nevertheless be accepted as a credible authority system for the jamā‘a. The Umayyads, as much as ‘Uthmān, relied on the same lineage of ‘Abbāsid and Sunnī political legitimation to put up a successful challenge to ‘Alī’s caliphate and the Shī‘ī polemic. We will see in the next chapter how the interactions and discussions that ‘Uthmān and Mu‘āwiya carry out with the opposition in Medina and Damascus will build up the Sunnī philosophy of the competent leadership in a way that legitimizes Umayyad authority before it arrives to power.