Othman’s father had been one of the richest men in Mecca, and Othman inherited his father’s millions when he was twenty. With a deft touch for business, he managed to multiply that wealth many times over before he was even in his thirties, earning the nickname of Othman Ghani, “Othman the wealthy.”
Chaste and modest even before his conversion, Othman never drank, smoked, or chased women. Around Mecca, he was famous for his good looks—people even went so far as to call him “beautiful”—yet an air of anxious melancholy always surrounded this austere, soft-spoken man.
He converted to Islam about a year after Mohammed began his preaching and nine years before the Hijra. His conversion story begins one evening when he was on his way home from a successful
business trip. Reputedly, Othman had stopped someplace for the night and was lying under the stars, looking up at the black dome of the sky, when the immensity of the universe suddenly overwhelmed him. Along with a crushing sense of his own insignificance came a conviction that
somebody
was in control, that this universe had a master, and what a master He must be! At that moment, even though he was alone, Othman heard a penetrating voice announce out loud that the Messenger of God was in the world. As soon as he got home, the story goes, Othman went to his friend Abu Bakr, who told him the curious tale of Mohammed and his message about a single, omnipotent God. Othman immediately announced himself a believer.
His conversion enraged his family. After all, his clan, the aristocratic Umayyads, was the most rabidly anti-Muslim faction of the Quraysh tribe. O
thman’s uncle Abu Sufyan would soon emerge as the leader of the anti-Muslim forces. Othman’s stepfather had once attacked Mohammed in an alley and would have strangled him if Abu Bakr had not intervened. Othman’s two wives reviled him for embracing Mohammed’s faith. They would not convert, so Othman divorced them and married the Prophet’s famously beautiful daughter Ruqayya. When she died, Othman married another daughter of Mohammed’s, Um Kulthum.
The Muslims were no doubt glad to have a rich man in their ranks, and Othman was glad to help his fellow Muslims any way he could, but the main way he could think of was to provide money. Once, when abuse of Muslims was peaking in Mecca, Mohammed decided that a group of his followers should emigrate to Abyssinia, and Othman helped finance that. He himself emigrated with the group as well and in Abyssinia forged fruitful business connections that made him even richer than before. A few years later he returned to Mecca, where his Abyssinian connections—yes—served him so well he grew even richer.
For most Muslims, the Hijra meant losing everything they owned. They knew nothing about farming, the main occupation in Medina, so the move impoverished them. But not Othman. Although he emigrated with the others, he never quite severed his ties to business associates back home, and with those associates looking after his properties and business interests, Othman continued to prosper, even in Medina. There was never any suggestion that he came by his wealth dishonestly: quite the opposite. Some people simply have the golden touch, and Othman was such a man. Nor
was he a miser. He spent lavishly for the public good; for example, he expanded the mosque in Medina for Mohammed, and when the Muslims needed water, he bought a valuable well from one of the Jewish tribes and donated it to the public.
Staggering wealth, dazzling beauty, two of the Prophet’s daughters for wives—what did this man lack? And yet Othman seemed haunted by the fear that he was not good enough. He spent much of his time fasting, praying, and reading the Qur’an. Perhaps his extravagant donations to the public good were attempts to deserve the extraordinary good fortune he already enjoyed.
Or perhaps he worried that his character was not quite at the level of the Prophet’s other close companions. He missed the battle of Badr because his wife was sick. At the battle of Uhud, when a rumor spread that Mohammed had been killed, Othman was among the Muslims who abandoned hope and left the field. Othman redeemed himself at the Battle of the Moat, but shortly after that battle, his son died, and Othman seemed to feel that God was still punishing him. To earn forgiveness, he made a practice of buying slaves and liberating one each Friday.
After Mohammed died, Othman worried that the community might fall apart, but in addition he seemed particularly afraid for his own individual soul. “How will we now be safe from the snares of the devil?” he lamented. Fear of the hereafter consumed the poor man. “Every day is doomsday,” he once said, by which he meant there is never an instant when it’s safe to stop being good, so he for one stepped up his fasting and praying, and dispensed ever more extravagant contributions, trying desperately to deserve a place in paradise that the Prophet Mohammed had assured him was already hi
s. This haunted giant of benevolence became the third khalifa of Islam.
When Omar began his khalifate, Islam had been a new kind of social organism still growing into its identity. Omar’s khalifate was filled with a sense of spiritual adventure, invention, and discovery. By the time Othman took charge, the Islamic community was a government in control of a vast territory. It was no longer enough to preach, defend, attack, and spread holy excitement. Muslim leaders now had to collect taxes, run courts, keep bridges and highways in repair, set salaries, define duties for various positions—all that dull administrative stuff of daily life. Managing this transition
fell to Othman.
One great project Othman saw to fruition during the first half of his khalifate was the preparation of a definitive edition of the Qur’an. He
set scholars to work combing out redundancies among the copies that existed, resolving discrepancies, and evaluating passages whose authenticity was subject to doubt. The final product was compiled into a book in which the verses were arranged more or less in order of length (rather than thematically or chronologically). All other compilations, competing versions, and rejected verses were destroyed. From then on, every Qur’an would be the same, word for word, and that’s the Qur’an all Muslims have today. You can see why this had to be done if the priority was to keep the community unifi
ed, but you can also see why this project might have disgruntled some Muslims, especially if they already had suspicions about Othman’s intentions—as some did.
Next came the job of setting the community’s finances in order. In the Prophet’s time, there were basically no state expenditures. All money that flowed into Medina was distributed more or less immediately. Abu Bakr and Omar had operated in much the same way, although Abu Bakr did set up a treasury, and Omar did build up a surplus out of which he paid stipends to soldiers, the beginnings of a standing army for Islam. Under Othman, however, the treasury swelled into a regular organ of government, which financed an ever-proliferating array of state expenses.
This third khalifa dramatically increased the flow of tax revenues from his far-flung provinces. When Amr ibn al-A’as, the governor of Egypt, failed to send in enough money, Othman dismissed him and appointed his own foster brother Abdullah to the post. Abdullah succeeded in getting a great deal more money out of the province—in fact, doubling the revenue from Egypt—proving that Othman had made a wise business decision, but Amr ibn al-A’as grumbled that his successor was getting more milk out of the she-camel only by starving the camel’s young. Islamic rule was acquiring hints of p
ossible oppression and corruption.
Othman upheld Omar’s prohibitions against confiscating land in conquered territories, but he lifted Omar’s restrictions on Muslims
buying
land there, for Othman believed in economic freedom. In fact, he let eminent Muslims borrow money out of the public treasury to finance such purchases. Soon, Muslim elites, including most of the Prophet Mohammed’s companions, were amassing fortunes and acquiring immense estates throughout the new Islamic empire. Othman’s “economic reforms” tended to profit his own clan, the Umayyads, above all because they were b
est situated to take out loans from the treasury. This khalifa also appointed his relatives and “favorites” to many powerful political posts throughout the empire, simply because they were the people he knew best and trusted most. As a result, the Umayyads ended up acquiring disproportionate clout, both economically and politically.
The third khalifa continued to practice an austere lifestyle but demanded no such austerity from his officials. Being a rich man, he took no salary, but he did dole out grants to his favorites and spent lavishly on public works. His administration built over five thousand new mosques across the empire. Othman promoted a building boom that turned Medina into a city of broad streets and imposing buildings paved with fine tile, including a palatial mansion for Othman himself, a headquarters suitable to the dignity of his powerful office (within this palace Othman lived on bread, water
, and prayer).
Throughout the empire, Othman demonstrated his business genius by ordering improvements beneficial to commerce. Canals were dug, highways built, irrigation systems improved. Ports got new facilities. Proliferating cities got new wells and water systems, and new bazaars regulated by government-appointed market officers. The Muslim enterprise didn’t have quite the same flavor as it had in Omar’s day, but who could argue with prosperity?
On questions of personal morality such as drinking and sex, Othman’s asceticism put him beyond criticism. If piety consisted of penance and prayer, he had to rank among the top ten most pious men of his time, but Othman saw no ethical ambiguity in people making money, so long as their moneymaking promoted overall well being.
One of Othman’s great favorites was his cousin Mu’awiya. Omar had appointed Mu’awiya governor of Damascus and its surroundings. Othman kept adding bits to his cousin’s territory, until Mu’awiya governed everything from the headwaters of the Euphrates River down the Mediterranean coast to Egypt.
Mu’awiya was the son of Abu Sufyan, the Meccan tribal aristocrat who led the attack on Islam in two of those three iconic battles between Mecca and Medina. Mu’awiya’s mother, Hind, followed her husband to those battles, and at Uhud, after the Muslims fled, she reputedly ate the liver of Mohammed’s fallen uncle Hamzah in an act of triumphalist gloating. The Prophet, however, was never one to hold a grudge: as soon as som
eone embraced Islam, he or she became part of the family, and so it was with the Umayyads. The Prophet thought Mu’awiya especially competent and kept him close after his conversion.
No doubt Omar appointed Mu’awiya governor of Damascus because he got things done, but perhaps Omar should have paused to consider why Mohammed had kept the man so close: once ensconced in Damascus, Mu’awiya put his brilliance to work assembling a standing army loyal to himself. This would have grim consequences after Othman’s untimely death.
Toward the end of Othman’s twelve-year reign, grumbling began to sound throughout the empire. In Egypt, his foster brother was squeezing people so hard for money that riots broke out. Egyptian notables wrote to the khalifa, begging him to recall the governor. Hearing nothing back, they sent a delegation to petition him in person. As it happened, at this very time, groups of disgruntled citizens were converging on the city from the north as well. Apparently, Othman had displeased a lot of people.
All these petitioners made Othman nervous. He begged Ali to go out and talk to the malcontents on his behalf, placate them and persuade them to go home, but Ali refused, perhaps because he himself disapproved of the third khalifa’s policies and practices. He advised Othman to secure himself by addressing the people’s legitimate complaints. Finally, Othman gave in and met with the Egyptian delegation. He promised to replace his foster brother and told the Egyptians to go home and let the governor know a new man would soon be coming to replace him.
The Egyptians started back, feeling pretty good, but along the way they caught up with a slave of Othman’s. Something about the man aroused their suspicions. They searched him and found a letter on his person, seemingly signed by the khalifa and addressed to the governor of Egypt, which told Governor Abdullah to arrest the delegation of malcontents as soon as they showed up at his court and to execute them as soon as it seemed politic!
The delegation returned to Medina in a fury. Othman came dithering out of the palace to meet them on the steps: Back so soon? What was wrong? They showed him the letter and Othman expressed shock. He swore he had never written such a thing, never heard of it until this moment. In fact, his troublemaking cousin Marwan, a relative and ally of the governor of Damascus, might have penned the letter a
nd forged the khalifa’s signature to it. Poor Othman, nearly eighty at this time, might well have been easy to manipulate.
In any case, the peaceful petitioners turned into an angry mob. First, they demanded that the khalifa deliver Mu’awiya’s brother to them. The khalifa refused. Then they demanded that Othman step down and let some better man take over. Othman indignantly refused this too. His obligation was to God, he said, and quitting his office at the behest of a mob would be an affront to God! He then retired to his private chambers, where he lit a little lamp and settled in a corner to do what he always did in times of turmoil and doubt: humbly read his Qur’an.
Outside his palace, the rioters worked themselves into a frenzy, broke down palace doors, and burst in with a roar. They found the khalifa in his study, and there in the flickering twilight of the old man’s lamp, in year 34 of the Muslim era, they beat their own leader to death. Suddenly, the succession conundrum had turned into a horrifying crisis that threatened the very soul of Islam.
For four days the mob rampaged through the city. The citizens of Medina cowered in their houses, waiting for the violence to die down. Even when the uproar faded, the leaders of the mob said they would not quit town until a new khalifa was appointed, someone they could trust. Now, at last, all thoughts turned to the one candidate who had been passed over time after time, the man some had always called the Prophet’s only legitimate successor: Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali.