Uthman ibn Affan

Uthman was from Banu Umayyah, one of the leading clans of Quraysh, and was a successful merchant before Islam. He accepted Islam in the early Makkan period.

He was among those who left Makkah for Abyssinia when the pressure on the Muslims became severe, and later migrated to Madinah. He married Ruqayyah, a daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, and after her death married her sister Umm Kulthum — which is where the title Dhun-Nurayn comes from.

Two things from the Madinan period are remembered above the rest, and both involve him spending money on things that would outlast him. The first was the well of Rumah, which he bought and opened to the town. The second was the expedition to Tabuk in 9 AH, which he funded heavily.

This pattern is worth noticing, because it is the same pattern as his caliphate: the things he is remembered for are infrastructure, not victories.

Uthman was chosen by the council Umar appointed, and led for about twelve years from 23 AH. The territory continued to expand, and the administration grew with it.

The decision of his caliphate with the longest reach was about the Qur'an. Muslims were now spread across a very large area and had learned the text in different places. Reports of people disputing over how a passage was to be read reached Madinah, and Uthman acted: standard copies were prepared from the collection made in Abu Bakr's time, and sent out to the main centres.

The final years were troubled. Discontent grew in the provinces, delegations came to Madinah with grievances, his house was besieged, and in 35 AH Uthman was killed. The early chronicles report that he had a copy of the Qur'an open in front of him, and that he refused to let anyone fight on his behalf.

The causes of that unrest, who was responsible, and how the events unfolded are among the most heavily disputed subjects in early Islamic history. The classical historians differ from one another — the fullest surviving narrative rests in large part on a transmitter whom the hadith critics rate as weak, and other early historians tell it without him. The accounts do not even agree on who struck the fatal blow. SahabaMate records that the unrest happened and that Uthman was killed; it does not adjudicate between the accounts.