Uthman

Uthman ibn Affan, the third caliph, governed the young Muslim state from 644 to 656, longer than any of the other three early caliphs. A rich Meccan merchant of the powerful Umayyad family and twice a son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, he oversaw further conquests and the standard written text of the Quran. Growing anger at his rule ended in his murder by rebels, which set off the first civil war in Islam.

Uthman was born around 576, in Mecca according to most accounts, into the Umayya family of the Abd Shams clan, the leading lineage of the Quraysh tribe on the eve of Islam. Like his father he became a trader and grew very wealthy.

Returning from a trading trip to Syria, Uthman was persuaded by Abu Bakr to accept Muhammad's message and became one of the first converts. He married Muhammad's daughter Ruqayya, and after her death another daughter, Umm Kulthum, which earned him the name "possessor of the two lights". To escape persecution the couple went to Abyssinia in 615, and in 622 they joined the move to Medina, where Uthman again prospered in trade. In 628 Muhammad sent him to negotiate with the Meccans at Hudaybiyya, and he is said to have paid for a large part of the expedition to Tabuk in 630.

On his deathbed in 644 the second caliph, Umar, named a council of six senior companions to choose a successor. According to the traditional accounts, the decision lay between Uthman and Ali ibn Abi Talib. Asked whether he would follow the precedent of the first two caliphs as well as the Quran and the Prophet's example, Ali committed himself only to the latter two, while Uthman accepted every condition and was chosen. He was about 68.

Under Uthman the Rashidun Caliphate kept expanding. In the east his commanders pursued the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III, and pushed into Khorasan and towards Transoxiana and Sindh. In the west Muslim forces defeated the Byzantine governor of North Africa at Sufetula; Muslim historians such as al-Tabari also report raids on the coast of Spain, though details are unclear. Uthman let his cousin Mu'awiya, governor of Syria, build a fleet, which took Cyprus and in 655 beat the Byzantine navy at the Battle of the Masts.

Around 650, worried by differences in how the Quran was being recited in distant provinces, Uthman ordered a committee led by Zayd ibn Thabit to produce an authoritative copy, based on the codex compiled under Abu Bakr and kept by Hafsa, Umar's daughter. Copies were sent to the main cities and other versions ordered burned. This Uthmanic text is the Quran used by Muslims today; Shia Muslims use the same text but hold that it had already been gathered in the Prophet's lifetime.

Uthman delegated much power to relatives, appointing members of his clan as governors of key provinces. Critics accused them of misrule and the caliph of favouritism and misuse of public funds. Historians still weigh these charges: the scholar Wilferd Madelung considered the grievances substantial by the standards of the day, while Sunni tradition stresses his generosity and leniency. In 656 groups of rebels from Egypt, Kufa and Basra came to Medina and besieged his house. Uthman refused to let his defenders fight, and on 17 June 656 the rebels broke in and killed him, reportedly while he was reading the Quran.

Uthman was buried in Medina in difficult circumstances, at first outside the main cemetery. His death led directly to the First Fitna, the civil war between Ali and Mu'awiya, who demanded justice for his kinsman. Sunni Muslims count Uthman as the third of the rightly guided caliphs; many Shia view his rule critically.

Our 700 map shows the caliphate after the conquests continued under Uthman had carried Muslim rule from North Africa to Central Asia; the 600 map shows the Sasanian and Byzantine world before them.