are lucky indeed. You eat and drink as you like and fly, but do not have fear of reckoning on the Day of Judgement. I wish that I were just like you.” Given Abu Bakr’s mystical orientation, it is not surprising that a number of leading Sufi tariqah (or Islamic mystical Orders) such as the naqshbandiyyah trace their spiritual affiliation back to the Prophet through him. To Caliph Abu Bakr, the outstanding Muslim leader, great statesman and spiritual guide par excellence, the life of this world was no more than an illusion. It is here and will be gone soon. Only the love and pleasure of God, the Absolute Reality, mattered to him. This great servant of Islam breathed his last at the age of sixty-one and was buried in Madinah next to the Prophet, his mentor and guide. Such was the greatness of Caliph Abu Bakr that the Prophet once stated, ‘Abu Bakr’s name shall be called out from all the gates of Paradise, and he will be the first person of my community to enter it.’
BEFORE HIS DEATH, Caliph Umar appointed a six-man panel to nominate his successor. Just as the Prophet Muhammad did not nominate his sucessor, in the same way Umar decided not to nominate his own successor. Instead, he instructed the six-man panel (consisting of illustrious figures like Uthman, Ali, Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, Abd al-Rahman ibn Auf, Talha and Zubair), to select one person from among them as the next leader of the Islamic State. After careful consideration and intense discussion, it was eventually decided by the panel to appoint Uthman as the third Caliph of Islam. A son-in-law of the Prophet and a man of exceptional piety, Uthman was also one of the most generous and modest amongst the companions of the Prophet. He was loved and admired by everyone and is said to have personified angelic qualities. The Prophet had such respect and regard for Uthman that once, while he was sitting with a group of his companions, the robe covering the lower part of his leg fell. When he was told that Uthman was on his way, the Prophet quickly covered his leg saying, “Even the angels have regard for the modesty of Uthman.”
Uthman ibn Affan ibn Abi al-As was born into the noble Umayyah family of the Quraysh tribe of Makkah. As a child, he had a privileged upbringing. Like his other family members, he became a hugely prosperous cloth merchant. In addition to being one of only a handful of literate people in Makkah, Uthman was known to have been very soft-hearted and a cultured person who was in the habit of helping the poor and the needy even in his pre-Islamic days. His charitable and philanthropic activities earned him considerable reputation and standing in Makkah at the time. Uthman was one of the first people to embrace Islam, after hearing Caliph Abu Bakr preach. Despite the intense political rivalry between the family of the Prophet (banu hashim) and that of Uthman (banu umayyah), he pledged allegiance to the Prophet. Unlike the rest of his tribesmen (who opposed the Prophet on the grounds that he was a Hashimate), Uthman overlooked the intertribal rivalry between the two tribes in order to acknowledge the truth of Islam as promulgated by the Prophet.
Uthman’s decision to embrace Islam infuriated his tribesmen so much that they became hostile and antagonistic towards him. They accused him of treachery and hurled all sorts of verbal abuse and diatribes at him. When things eventually became unbearable, he approached the Prophet for his permission to seek refuge in Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) along with a group of other persecuted Muslims. Uthman, therefore, became one of the first Muslim men to migrate to a foreign country with his family, for the sake of Islam. At the time, Uthman was married to the Prophet’s daughter, Ruqayyah. After a few months’ stay in Abyssinia, Uthman and his wife returned to Makkah where they stayed for another few years before joining the Prophet in Madinah, but his wife died soon after their return. The Prophet then married his third daughter, Umm Kulthum, to him. As a result, Uthman became known as dhun-nurain (or the ‘man with two lights’). He also acted as a scribe to the Prophet from time to time, and generously spent his money and wealth for the cause of Islam. For instance, on his arrival in Madinah he purchased a large well for twenty thousand dirhams, so all Muslims could have free access to water. He then purchased a plot of land adjacent to the Prophet’s mosque so that the mosque could be enlarged to accommodate more people for daily congregational prayers (salah). Uthman’s generosity knew no bounds. Although there were other wealthy people around at the time, no one else was able to match Uthman when it came to spending for the cause of Islam.
During the Prophet’s lifetime, Uthman actively helped and supported him in every possible way. After the Prophet’s death, he rallied behind Caliph Abu Bakr and his successor, Caliph Umar, and acted in his capacity as a counsel and aide to both of them. Uthman became renowned for his invaluable services to Islam and was held in high estimation by all Muslims. Uthman’s all-round services to Islam did not end there. His unique personal qualities and tremendous contribution to the cause of Islam were also widely recognised by the companions of the Prophet. That is why an ailing Caliph Umar included him in his distinguished six-man panel to nominate his successor. When the panel’s decision went in favour of Uthman, he became the third Caliph in 644. Unlike Caliphs Abu Bakr and Ali, Uthman was very fortunate to have become Caliph at a time when the Islamic dominion was politically strong and economically prosperous. Under Caliph Umar’s outstanding leadership, the Islamic State became a great political, economic and military power of its time. The decision to nominate him as Umar’s successor ensured that continuity, and another smooth transition of leadership, was achieved.
Immediately after becoming Caliph, Uthman strengthened the administrative base of the vast Islamic dominion. During Umar’s Caliphate, the region comprising Syria, Palestine and Jordan was regarded as three separate provinces, but Caliph Uthman combined them to create one strong and united province, and confirmed Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan as governor of that large region. Likewise, Caliph Uthman abolished the two-tier administration developed by Caliph Umar in Egypt, and replaced it with one governor who was responsible for the governance of that strategically important province. Uthman took similar steps to improve and modernise the civil and administrative systems established by Caliph Umar in parts of Iraq and Iran. The administrative reforms carried out by Caliph Uthman sought to simplify and strengthen accountability, and remove unnecessary bureaucratic red tape. The measures taken by the Caliph helped clarify the roles and responsibilities of the provincial governors vis-à-vis the central Government. Such reforms would help to strengthen and consolidate Islamic rule as the Caliph’s empire began to expand.
While Caliph Uthman was busy reforming the political structure of the expanding Islamic State, the Muslim army continued its march, both in the East and the West, and conquered many new territories. In addition to gaining control of Cyprus, the Muslim army raided parts of Persia and Armenia. With every success came more and more responsibility for Caliph Uthman. While the Caliph was busy contemplating the future direction of the rapidly expanding Islamic State, the news that the Byzantine Emperor Constantine had sent a fleet of five hundred ships to invade Alexandria reached him. In response, he dispatched a Muslim fleet to meet the advancing Byzantines. One of Islamic history’s first major naval battles thus took place in 651. The Muslims successfully fought back the Byzantines, who fled to the island of Sicily. The Caliph’s political and military strategies worked exactly according to plan. However, Caliph Uthman’s greatest single contribution to Islam was his codification and standardisation of the Qur’an, based on the original copy (mushaf) prepared during the reign of Caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq. Thus, the copy of the Qur’an we have today is same as that original Uthmanic text. In fact, according to some scholars, two copies of the original Uthmanic texts are still extant to this day. One copy is kept in the Topkapi Museum in Turkey, while the other is preserved in Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
There is no doubt that the first half of Uthman’s Caliphate was immensely successful. This was partly because Caliph Umar had bequeathed to him a politically united and economically prosperous Islamic State, which Uthman strengthened further. But during the second half of his rule, the tide of history began to turn against him. As the Islamic dominion expanded rapidly, internal schism and social disorder started to rear their ugly heads in a number of provinces. A group of insurgents, led by Abdullah ibn Saba (a Yemenite Jewish convert to Islam), began to sow the seeds of political dissension and social disharmony among the Muslims by infiltrating Islamic groups. Ibn Saba and his followers initially targeted Kufah, Basrah, Syria and Egypt and turned those provinces into prominent centres of political insurgency. Under the pretense