Episode 11: Othman’s end

Dismissing the grievances brought to him earlier in his reign made sure the discontent the caliph faced would only grow. The sources diverge widely when it comes to these contentious and deeply consequential events, but ultimately Othman had to face the wrath of men who held the caliph solely responsible for all the worrying and confusing changes they were experiencing. The Umma had experienced great change since it was first united by the prophet, but the end of Othman’s reign will leave it with a permanent scar.

Glossary

• Abdallah ibn Saba’: I called Abdallah fictitious at some point and that’s not 100% true, it would have been more accurate to say that the testimony quoted in narrations blaming him for the controversial events we discuss today are fictitious. I’m actually quite convinced by Dr. Abdul Rahman al Badawi’s identification of Abdallah bin Wahb al Hamadani a – a native of Hamadan who by this point had indeed agitated against the caliphate and was exiled to and lived just west of the ruins of Ctesiphon – as the man who eventually comes to be known as ibn Saba’. But his mere existence is far from sufficient to hold him responsible for creating and loosing these massive social forces. Theories blaming him become especially transparent and easy to dismiss once they bandy lazy tropes of “dark-skinned Yemeni Jew!” to complete the whole religious-envy motif. 
• Othman ibn Affan: the third caliph’s story wraps up in this episode, I think it’s a tragic one. You could argue that he’s getting his just desserts, or that it was a matter of bad governance, but I find what makes it tragic is how undefined this new political system was. That might read like a joke, but I mean that Othman – whose decision-making we’ve already described as having been very tribal-minded – simply tried pushing the fact that Quraysh ruled the Umma to its ultimate conclusion: if it was legitimate for the Quraysh to restrict rule in their tribe, it was equally legitimate for the Umayyads to do the same through Othman. After all, to him the Umma was a large tribal confederation, and his tribe were its leaders. He was chosen by his tribe’s elders as their chief following his predecessor’s assassination, and his promotion of his clan above the rest seems like a clear extension of that mandate to me. In any case it didn’t work out, and he could not handle the opposition whipped up by this further tightening of the ring of political power from all of Quraysh, to his own clan the Umayyads.
• Ali bin abi Talib: we’ll have more to say on the leader of the Hashemite clan soon, for this episode his role was almost entirely restricted to trying to negotiate between the rebels and the caliph. This wasn’t a self-appointed (or even a remotely enviable) position: he was either asked by people to speak to the caliph, or by the caliph to speak to the people. It quickly becomes clear to anyone reading the sources that Ali – who had been little more than a background figure under the reigns of the previous two caliphs – was now a whole lot busier. 
• Mohammad ibn Maslama: this celebrated member of the Ansar was Omar’s trusted investigator/envoy, a position that didn’t really exist in the caliphate under Othman. He mostly kept to himself in Medina, and like the rest of the Ansar he supported Ali bin abi Talib.
• Mu’awiya bin abi Sufyan: the governor of Syria comes up more in conversations about him than for any actions of his own in this episode. Despite being a distant background figure in these events, he looms large because of his growing and unchecked power.
• Abdallah ibn ‘Amer: Othman’s governor of Basra was a celebrated but relatively minor figure.
• Sa’id ibn il ‘As: the second Umayyad governor of Kufa that Othman had to remove.
• Abu Musa al Ash’ari: the man chosen to replace Sa’id as governor of Kufa. He was requested by the Kufans as he had once been appointed by Omar to govern Basra and they’d heard good things about his islamic conduct and so forth. He was an early muslim, and will play a surprisingly decisive roll in our narrative going forward.
• Malik il Ashtar: leader of the Kufan band of rebels, Malik ibn Harith’s nickname “al Ashtar” translates as scarface. He’d earned a hefty scar across one of his eyes in one of the battles against the Persians. He was of relatively humble tribal origin, which probably contributed to his uncompromising views regarding the application of Islamic governance – his modern bulwark against tribal excesses. This of course made him a natural admirer of Ali. He must have been quite an inspirational figure as he managed to inspire a large following in Kufa, which was otherwise organized along tribal lines.
• Abdallah ibn abi Sarh: Othman’s man in Egypt is rarely faulted for the role his heavy-handed governance played in the uprising that swept the caliphate into chaos. His steep taxation of his province was one thing, but his hoarding of all that wealth and favoring of loyalists led to a palpable sense of injustice in the Egyptian canton of Fustat. 
• Mohammad bin Huthaifa: the sources make Mohammad bin Huthaifa out as a vengeful fool, an amateur Machiavellian who resented being sidelined by his step-father Othman. There really isn’t much about him to confirm or negate this portrait, he is a pretty minor figure.
• Mohammad bin abi Bakr: the step-son of Ali bin abi Talib (and biological son of Abu Bakr, the Umma’s first caliph) was a strong proponent for Hashemite rule of the caliphate, and a rallying point for discontent against the Umayyads in Egypt.