---

slug: bestuur-en-gouverneurs title: Administration and governors under ʿUthman ﵁ arabicName: ولاة عثمان language: en eventDate: 645-01-01 wordCountTarget: 5000

Administration and governors under ʿUthman ﵁

An office and its agents

The khalifah in Medina could not do everything himself. In Kufa stood more than sixty thousand soldiers with their families; in Basra a comparable number; in Fustat on the Nile an army that in four years had conquered Egypt; in Damascus an army that had held Syria and that was being sent out to Cyprus, to Asia Minor and to Armenia on the northern border. Each of these garrisons administered, alongside its military task, also the civil government over a province the size of an empire: taxation, justice, public works, the building of mosques, the payment of stipends, relief in parched years, the reception of delegations. Whoever ruled the community from the capital ruled through these governors. Whoever had the right governor ruled well. Whoever erred in his choice of governors ruled poorly and was at the end of his reign called to account for those errors.

ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan ﵁ in his twelve-year reign appointed, dismissed and transferred some dozens of governors. Suyuti ﵀ has not preserved all their names, but he has recorded a number of key cases that in the tradition of the following generations were passed down as benchmarks for the administration of ʿUthman ﵁. This article follows these key cases one by one: Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas ﵁ in Kufa, al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁ in the same city, Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ after him, ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ﵁ in Egypt, Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan ﵁ in Syria, and the special position of Marwan ibn al-Hakam ﵁ at the court of the khalifah himself.

In the statement of az-Zuhri ﵀, which Suyuti ﵀ cites in his summary concerning the whole khilafah, lies enclosed the tension that runs through this entire pattern of appointments:

What in this sentence marks a turning point was in the events themselves a gradual shift. He began with the appointment of one of the most respected Sahabah ﵃ in Kufa, and he ended with the appointment of his maternal half-brother in the same city. The history of this shift is the history of the administrative policy of his khilafah.

Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas ﵁ in Kufa

The first important administrative decision of ʿUthman ﵁ was the appointment of Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas ﵁ as governor of Kufa, in the year twenty-four, and the simultaneous removal of al-Mughirah ibn Shuʿbah ﵁, whom ʿUmar ﵁ in his final year had placed in that position. Suyuti ﵀ records it dryly:

The appointment was not the appointment of a relative; it was the appointment of a Sahabi ﵁ of the old generation, of Banu Zuhrah, of the ten to whom the Prophet ﷺ had promised Paradise, and moreover the victor of al-Qadisiyyah, the battle in which the Sasanian empire in Iraq had been broken. In the city of Kufa, which Saʿd ﵁ during that same campaign had founded as a garrison city, he was known personally. Soldiers who had served in his order of battle were now settled in its mud-brick houses; the townspeople whose forefathers had fallen on the plain of Qadisiyyah lived beside those who had conquered it, and they all knew the name of Saʿd ﵁ at first hand.

In the year twenty-five, however, Saʿd ﵁ was relieved of his office, and in his place al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁ was appointed. What the reason for the removal was belongs to the details that Suyuti ﵀ does not elaborate. A dispute over debts that Saʿd ﵁ was said to have owed to ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿud ﵁ in the treasury of Kufa is mentioned in other sources, but Suyuti ﵀ in his summary keeps to the fact of the removal and the appointment. What he does elaborate is that this new appointment was the first that aroused criticism in the community, and for a specific reason: al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁ was the half-brother of ʿUthman ﵁ on the maternal side.

Al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁ and the wine incident

Suyuti ﵀ sets down the appointment with a remark that marks the beginning of a pattern in the tradition:

Here in the text of Suyuti ﵀ lies a neatly formulated judgment in which much is enclosed. He does not deny that al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁ was a Sahabi ﵁. He does not deny that he was a brother of the khalifah. He mentions the fact of the appointment. And he adds to it the judgment of the tradition: that was the first thing for which he was no longer loved. The community could have raised little against this appointment in itself, for a half-brother could, in theory, be just as well or even better suited than any other Sahabi ﵁ chosen at random. But the scent of favoritism was so strong that they could hardly accept the appointment for that single reason. It was not the fact that al-Walid ﵁ was a half-brother that aroused the criticism; it was the fact that the office proved to fall to a half-brother rather than to any other Sahabi ﵁ of the old generation.

What happened in the years afterward gave to this criticism a ground that no one could deny. Suyuti ﵀ records the event that in the mouth of Kufa, and thereafter in the mouth of Medina, became the benchmark for the removal of al-Walid ﵁:

In this one sentence lies an entire judgment. The morning prayer consists of two rakʿat, not of four. Whoever as imam performs four rakʿat for the fajr has lengthened the salah in a manner that is at odds with the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. Whoever does this out of inattention errs; whoever does this out of ignorance ought not to stand upon the minbar; whoever does this out of drunkenness has committed a twofold sin, for he has drunk wine and in that state led the community in the salah. The second part of the sentence, shall I perform more for you, completes the picture: the man knew that he had done more than was prescribed, and he made no grimace over it.

The wine incident became widely known in Kufa. It was laid before ʿUthman ﵁ in Medina in a written complaint. ʿUthman ﵁ dealt with the matter: he had al-Walid ﵁ carry out the hadd in his presence, the prescribed punishment for wine consumption, and he removed him. What he did in his place was once again to appoint a Qurayshi relative, Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁, a distant cousin of his own clan. And this was the pattern that would be registered in the community: the removal for clear misconduct, but the replacement once again from the same circle of kin.

Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ and the expulsion from Kufa

Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ was not a half-brother of the khalifah; he was a Sahabi ﵁ from Banu Umayyah, younger than ʿUthman ﵁ and strongly literate. He was one of the men who had taken part in the work in Medina during the period of the mushaf compilation. But in his years in Kufa the Kufan population would turn against him. Suyuti ﵀ records in his concise year-by-year arrangement:

What reads in this sentence as a political event was in the city a grave episode. Saʿid ﵁ had traveled to Medina to render a report to ʿUthman ﵁, and the population of Kufa, or an important faction within it, in his absence closed the city gates against his return and demanded a different governor. ʿUthman ﵁ stood, in this year that already belonged to the final part of his reign, before a choice: to restore order by force, or to grant the wish of the city. He chose the latter. He appointed Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁, a Sahabi ﵁ of the old generation, a renowned reciter of the Qur’an, a man from Banu Ashʿar, not a Qurayshi. The appointment of Abu Musa ﵁ calmed Kufa for a time, but the episode had given the community, and the governors in the other garrison cities, a sign: a city could cast out its governor, and the khalifah could be compelled to a replacement. This precedent would in the years afterward play a part in the revolt that preceded the siege of the house of the khalifah.

ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ removed from Egypt

In the year twenty-seven, in a year that was also marked by great military openings, ʿUthman ﵁ replaced ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ as governor of Egypt with ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ibn Abi Sarh ﵁. Suyuti ﵀ records it without comment:

The removal of ʿAmr ﵁ was administratively complex. ʿAmr ﵁ was the man who had conquered Egypt, a Sahabi ﵁ of the first rank, and one of the shrewdest political minds of his generation. But in his years as governor in Fustat he had acted independently in many administrative matters, and in his correspondence with Medina he had not always adopted the tone that the khalifah expected. ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ibn Abi Sarh ﵁ was, in his turn, a relative of ʿUthman ﵁ on the paternal side and a man with good administrative experience. He would under the new division of tasks increase the fiscal revenues of Egypt, raise a large army, and in twenty-seven march into North Africa. But his appointment was in the years afterward increasingly felt by the Egyptian population to be oppressive, and in thirty-four a delegation from Egypt would come to Medina to complain about him, an event that would lead directly into the siege of ʿUthman ﵁. But this belongs to a later article.

Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan ﵁ in Syria

In Syria Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan ﵁ held the governor’s seat that he had already occupied under ʿUmar ﵁. He was the son of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the chief of Banu Umayyah of the jahiliyyah era who after the conquest of Mecca had converted to Islam. He had as a young Sahabi ﵁ been taken into service by the Prophet ﷺ, and under Abu Bakr ﵁ and ʿUmar ﵁ he had served in Syria, first as a subordinate governor in Damascus, then, after the death of his brother Yazid in the plague of ʿAmwas, as governor of the entire Syrian region.

Under ʿUthman ﵁ his position was strengthened. The Syrian troops had under him increasingly become a disciplined unit; relations with the Byzantine frontier were under his leadership militarily controlled; and in twenty-seven he would equip the first Islamic fleet and send it to Cyprus. ʿUthman ﵁ granted him in these years his trust to a degree that is striking in retrospect. But unlike the other appointments of kin, this one aroused no criticism, for Muʿawiyah ﵁ had already been placed in office under ʿUmar ﵁, and his rule in Syria was strikingly stable.

Az-Zuhri ﵀ treats in his summary the position of Muʿawiyah ﵁ not in the same critical tone as the other appointments, because he was simply a continuous service of well over twenty years, not a new appointment from Banu Umayyah. The difference between a governor who had been appointed by ʿUmar ﵁ and was continued in his office under ʿUthman ﵁, and a governor whom ʿUthman ﵁ appointed from his own circle of kin where formerly another had sat, was clear to the community. Against Muʿawiyah ﵁ in Syria nothing was brought in these years; against al-Walid ﵁ in Kufa and against ʿAbdallah ﵁ in Egypt ever more complaints were voiced.

Marwan ibn al-Hakam ﵁ at the court

Besides the governors in the provinces, there existed at the court of the khalifah in Medina a figure whose position bore no formal title, but whose influence in the years afterward would become unmistakable. It was Marwan ibn al-Hakam ﵁, a cousin of ʿUthman ﵁, son of his paternal uncle al-Hakam ibn Abi al-ʿAs, raised in Medina after his father had returned there from Mecca, for reasons that are rendered differently in the tradition. Marwan ﵁ was literate, good at administration, sharp of mind, and he was taken into service by ʿUthman ﵁ as his secretary. In a court administration where the khalifah himself did not always draft letters himself and where correspondence with governors was daily work, the secretary was a man with considerable power.

Suyuti ﵀ names Marwan ﵁ in his text chiefly in connection with two matters. First, the granting of the khums of the North African spoils to him by ʿUthman ﵁:

In this passage lies a key to the difficulties of the second half of the reign. ʿUthman ﵁ read the Qur’anic command to the preservation of family ties, silat ar-rahim, as a basis for his grants to relatives. He pointed out that Abu Bakr ﵁ and ʿUmar ﵁ in their caution had abstained from what rightfully belonged to them, and he claimed for himself the right to undo this abstention. It was, in other words, an ijtihad: a reasonable interpretation of a text and a precedent, conducted by a man who in his office held authority and who in his person acted in good faith.

The community, however, rejected this ijtihad. What in the practice of Abu Bakr ﵁ and ʿUmar ﵁ had counted as the correct manner it experienced as the Sunnah of the first two khalifahs. What ʿUthman ﵁ saw as a restoration of a right neglected by his predecessors it experienced as a deviation from that same Sunnah. And the specific beneficiary, Marwan ﵁, was a person about whom doubts already lived in the community on account of the history of his father, and in whose hand a fifth of the North African spoils meant a considerable wealth.

Second, Marwan ﵁ would in the final months of the reign of ʿUthman ﵁ play a role that in the tradition of Suyuti ﵀ is elaborated on pages 170 and 171: the letter to Egypt that ordered the killing of the delegation, and whose handwriting was recognized as that of Marwan ﵁ rather than that of the khalifah. But this episode belongs to a later article.

The ijtihad of a good man

What stands out in this whole pattern of appointments is that ʿUthman ﵁ did not act out of ill will. He did not appoint incompetent persons; he did not favor out of corruption. He appointed, out of an ijtihad that in his reasonableness he could defend, men who in his eyes were suited to the office. That some of them, such as al-Walid ﵁, led the salah in drunkenness was no fault of the khalifah; that others, such as ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ﵁, were increasingly felt to be oppressive in their administration of Egypt was a result of factors that were not immediately visible in Medina.

But the community judges a khalifah not by his intentions; it judges him by the consequences of his decisions. And the consequences, for whoever surveys the history of the last six years of the reign of ʿUthman ﵁, were heavy. A fitnah broke out; a delegation from Egypt arrived in Medina; a siege was laid; the khalifah was murdered in his house. Whoever seeks the cause for this in one single appointment errs; but whoever seeks the cause in the pattern that arose in these years finds in the text of Suyuti ﵀ ample material.

Saʿid ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ sums it up, in a statement that Suyuti ﵀ takes over from Ibn ʿAsakir ﵀ and that stands on page 168 of the English translation, in these words:

In the gently formal wording of Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ lies the whole indictment enclosed. Not that ʿUthman ﵁ had appointed bad men, but that after their appointment he acted insufficiently to correct them. The soundness of the appointments was determined not by the appointments themselves, but by what the appointees brought forth in their office. And what they brought forth was increasingly no longer acceptable among the Sahabah ﵃.

The grievances regarding Ibn Masʿud ﵁, Abu Dharr ﵁ and ʿAmmar ﵁

Besides the governors themselves, the community carried in its memory a number of incidents of a different kind. In the years of ʿUthman ﵁ three senior Sahabah ﵃, ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿud ﵁, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari ﵁ and ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁, came into conflict with either the khalifah or his governors. Suyuti ﵀ has not elaborated the details of these conflicts; he merely refers to them, and in his cautious manner he leaves the tradition to whoever wishes to seek out the details elsewhere.

What he does record, in a passage that stands on page 169 of the translation, is that these three incidents ran deep in the community:

This passage shows the tribal dimension of the growing discontent. Ibn Masʿud ﵁ belonged to Banu Hudhayl and stood in clientage with Banu Zuhrah; Abu Dharr ﵁ belonged to Banu Ghifar; ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁ stood in clientage with Banu Makhzum. Three incidents, three tribes, and in each tribe the bitter memory of a sahabi ﵁ who in his final years felt himself ill-treated. The community preserved this. In the years afterward whoever turned against ʿUthman ﵁ could build upon these grievances.

What the incidents themselves were belongs, as said, to the details that Suyuti ﵀ does not narratively elaborate in his text concerning the khilafah of ʿUthman ﵁. Whoever reads them in the more extensive works of Tabari and Ibn Saʿd finds the removal of Ibn Masʿud ﵁ as overseer of the treasury in Kufa, the disagreement between Abu Dharr ﵁ and the governor of Syria over the distribution of wealth, and the affair surrounding ʿAmmar ﵁ in Medina. But for the purpose of the present article, which is drawn strictly from Suyuti ﵀, it suffices to establish that the community carried in its memory three incidents whose details are preserved in the tradition and that would play a part in the fitnah of thirty-four and thirty-five.

A pattern that hardened

For whoever surveys the administrative policy of ʿUthman ﵁, it is striking that his first appointments, in the opening years, did not essentially deviate from the practice of ʿUmar ﵁. Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas ﵁ in Kufa, the retention of Muʿawiyah ﵁ in Syria, the first appointments of Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁ in Basra, these were choices that even a strict critic could hardly contest. What changed in the course of the years was the tone of the replacements. After al-Walid ﵁ came Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁, both from the same Umayyad circle. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ was replaced by ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ﵁, both Qurayshis but within the same circle of kin. Marwan ﵁ received the khums of North Africa. The silence between the circle of kin and the wider community grew.

In the years thirty-four and thirty-five this silence would become loud. But this too belongs to the following articles in this cycle. For the present article it suffices to establish that the administrative policy of ʿUthman ﵁, beginning with the appointment of an undisputed Sahabi ﵁ in Kufa in twenty-four, in the course of his twelve-year reign developed a pattern that in the tradition of az-Zuhri ﵀ and Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ was recorded as the turning point of the reign. Six years of peace, followed by six years of increasing criticism; administration out of a good ijtihad, followed by a fitnah that no one had desired but that none of the appointments could be undone to avert.

ʿUthman ﵁ was no incompetent administrator; he was a man who chose his governors from the circle of kin in which he had trust, and who in an ijtihad that he in all earnestness held to maintained his choices, even when the community asked him for a replacement. Therein lay his piety, and therein lay at the same time, for the community, the beginning of the fitnah.

Sources

• Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti ﵀, Tarikh al-Khulafa (trans. Abdassamad Clarke, Ta-Ha Publishers, 3rd ed. 1995), pp. 165–169.