Prosperity and criticism

The year in which the treasuries overflowed

In the year 30 of the Hijra, which corresponds in the Gregorian reckoning to 650–651, something happened in the finances of the Islamic empire that was without precedent. Suyuti ﵀ records it on page 166 of his Tarikh al-Khulafa in a few sentences that contain in their brevity the magnitude of the event. He writes that in that year Jur was taken, and with it many provinces of the land of Khurasan. Naysabur was taken by treaty, and in some sources by force, while Tus and Sarkhas were taken by treaty, and so too Marw and Bayhaq. One year, a whole row of provinces, a whole row of treasuries that let their gold and silver flow to Medina.

In the previous article we followed ʿUthman ﵁ through his decision to let Muʿawiyah ﵁ sail out to sea, and through the pivotal battle of Dhat al-Sawari that laid the Mediterranean Sea open to the ummah. In this article we turn to the other side of that same development, for the expansion at the outer borders had a consequence that made itself felt inward. The revenues from the newly opened provinces, the spoils from the victories on land and at sea, the jizyah from the non-Muslim populations under Islamic rule, came together in a bait al-mal that under Abu Bakr ﵁ had still run a simple household and that under ʿUmar ﵁ had required the establishment of the Diwan, but that under ʿUthman ﵁ in its scale and in its complexity laid a new order of question upon the table. Who receives what, how it is divided, on what grounds, with what priority.

It is in these questions, and in the answers that ʿUthman ﵁ gave to them, that the criticism arose that in the last six years of his Khilafah would swell into the outcry that cost him his life in 35 AH. We follow in this article Suyuti ﵀ in his treatment of this matter, and we adhere strictly to what he recorded for us on pages 166 through 168, with the narrations of az-Zuhri ﵀ and Saʿid ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ as the two load-bearing witnesses.

The wealth in figures

Suyuti ﵀ gives in the same passage on page 166 a picture of the scale of the revenues that in its concreteness speaks for itself. He writes, in the Clarke translation: When these vast provinces were taken, the revenues of ʿUthman ﵁ became abundant, and wealth came to him from every direction, until he established treasuries and let provisions flow abundantly. He would order for a man a hundred thousand bags, in each of which were four thousand ounces of silver.

A hundred thousand bags, four thousand ounces of silver in each bag. The figures are of an order that far exceeds the simple distributions of the earlier Caliphs ﵃. Under Abu Bakr ﵁ the treasury in his house in as-Sunh had been found empty on the day of his passing, because all that came in had also been given out again. Under ʿUmar ﵁ the establishment of the Diwan had been an answer to the question of how a growing state revenue could be divided among the warriors and their families. Under ʿUthman ﵁ a new question arose, which in the time of Abu Bakr ﵁ and in the time of ʿUmar ﵁ had not yet existed on this scale. What does a Caliph ﵁ do when the revenues have become so great that they can no longer be divided among the warriors and their families in a single year, and when reserves arise that must be kept in treasuries.

ʿUthman ﵁ chose an approach that lay within his own ijtihad, and that is illuminated in two opposing aspects in the narrations that Suyuti ﵀ included through az-Zuhri ﵀ and Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀.

The testimony of az-Zuhri ﵀

Suyuti ﵀ opens his treatment of the criticism of the administration on page 167 with a long narration from az-Zuhri ﵀, the great Medinan traditionist who was the first systematic compiler of the prophetic biography. Az-Zuhri ﵀ delivers a judgement that is of the greatest weight in its balance. He praises the first six years of Uthman’s Khilafah, he criticises the last six, and he names precisely what had changed in those last six.

We must read this passage carefully. Az-Zuhri ﵀ is no enemy of ʿUthman ﵁; he is, on the contrary, a great praiser of his character and of the first six years of his rule. But he is also no defender who conceals the facts. He names the turning point, the change that set in during the last six years. He names the content, the appointment of relatives and the assigning of the khums to Marwan ﵁. And he names the position of ʿUthman ﵁: not that the Caliph ﵁ acted in injustice, but that he held in his own ijtihad a different judgement from the two preceding Caliphs ﵃ over a passage from the Book of Allah ﷻ.

What the khums meant

To understand the weight of the criticism, we must pause at what the khums signifies in the Islamic legal order. When the Muslim armies conquered a region and brought in spoils, those spoils were divided, according to the rule set down in Surah al-Anfal, into five equal parts. Four-fifths went to the warriors and their families, in proportion to their share in the fighting. One-fifth, the khums, belonged to a specific category of recipients: Allah ﷻ and His Messenger ﷺ, the near kin of the Prophet ﷺ, the orphans, the poor, and the traveller without means. After the passing of the Prophet ﷺ the legal question arose over the interpretation of the first part, the part ascribed in the text to Allah ﷻ and His Messenger ﷺ. What should fall to that part.

Abu Bakr ﵁ and ʿUmar ﵁ had given an unambiguous interpretation of this in their rule. What belonged to Allah ﷻ and His Messenger ﷺ fell, with the passing of the Prophet ﷺ, to the general bait al-mal of the Muslims, and was spent in their rule on the general affairs of the ummah: armament, fortifications, provisions for warriors without means of their own, support of the poor. They had given nothing of this part to themselves or to their families, for they had incorporated it in its entirety into the possession of the Muslims as a whole.

ʿUthman ﵁ chose a different interpretation. In his interpretation, which he justifies himself in the words that Suyuti ﵀ narrates on page 167, a part of what belonged to the ruler ought to be applied to the maintaining of the family bond, which is repeatedly commanded in the Qur’an. And of the khums of the North African conquests, which ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ﵁ had sent to Medina from 27 AH onward, he gave a part to Marwan ibn al-Hakam ﵁, his cousin and his secretary. He also gave wealth from the treasury to other members of the Banu Umayyah, his own clan.

Suyuti ﵀ closes the narration of az-Zuhri ﵀ with the sentence: [It was his ijtihad]. Ibn Saʿd narrated it. It is a sentence that means much in the literary convention of Suyuti ﵀. He places the choice of ʿUthman ﵁ not within the frame of an error or a sin, but within the frame of a juridical weighing over which a Caliph ﵁ has the authority. At the same time he lets it sound through the voice of az-Zuhri ﵀ that the judgement of the community did not accept that ijtihad. Two truths side by side, held in balance by the pen of the narrator.

The testimony of Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀

On pages 167 and 168 Suyuti ﵀ gives a second narration, this time from Saʿid ibn al-Musayyab ﵀, one of the seven great jurists of Medina of the generation after the Sahaba ﵃. Az-Zuhri ﵀ asks him directly: how was the murder of ʿUthman ﵁, what were the people doing, what was he doing, and why did the Sahaba ﵃ of Muhammad ﷺ fail to help him.

Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ answers with a formulation that brings the whole matter together in one sentence and that has been guiding for the ummah in the centuries thereafter.

It is a statement that in its precision renders the judgement of Medinan jurisprudence. The murder was condemned unambiguously: it was injustice, and those who accomplished it were in the wrong. But the not-helping of those who witnessed the fitnah was free of blame, for in a chaotic popular uprising in which the Caliph ﵁ himself had forbidden his companions to act on his behalf with swords, the absence of violence could not be counted as negligence. It is a finely judged ruling, and it has been deliberately placed first by Suyuti ﵀ in his work before he gives the detailed history of the siege and the martyrdom.

Then Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ gives, in the same passage, the historical build-up of the criticism. He does this in a chronological sketch that is the source for what is called in modern historiography the “two phases of Uthman’s Khilafah”.

It is in these few sentences that the whole criticism lies enclosed. Not all those appointed were Sahaba ﵃, for some had not known the Prophet ﷺ. Their actions were not always in accord with the way in which the Sahaba ﵃ would have handled the affairs of administration. And the Caliph ﵁ himself kept asking them for patience instead of dismissing the criticised governors. It was this last choice, the not-dismissing under pressure, that in the course of the years 30 to 35 AH brought the tension in Medina, in Kufa, in Basra and in Fustat to the boiling point.

The names that recur in the criticism

Suyuti ﵀ names in the narration of Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ on page 168 three names with which the criticism connected itself, and he places them in the context of the tribes that had formed around their grievances. There had already been slights of ʿUthman ﵁ against ʿAbdullah ibn Masʿud ﵁, Abu Dharr ﵁ and ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁. Banu Hudhayl and Banu Zuhrah had in their hearts what they had because of the situation of Ibn Masʿud ﵁. Banu Ghifar, their allies and whoever was angry on account of Abu Dharr ﵁, had in their hearts what they had in them. Banu Makhzum were enraged at ʿUthman ﵁ because of the situation of ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁.

We must read this passage with the restraint that Suyuti ﵀ imposes upon us in his treatment. He names the three names, he names the tribes, he names the existence of slights. But he gives no detail of the specific incidents. In the strict fidelity to his work that we maintain in these articles, we therefore confine ourselves to what he has given: there were tensions between ʿUthman ﵁ and these three senior Sahaba ﵃, those tensions were taken up by their tribes in Medina as a commonly felt injustice, and these tribes formed, together with the Banu Taym, the tribe of Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ﵁ of whom there is extensive talk in a later passage, the first core of what would lead to the siege of the house of ʿUthman ﵁.

ʿAbdullah ibn Masʿud ﵁ was one of the first Sahaba ﵃ to enter Islam, one of the four reciters of the Qur’an recommended by the Prophet ﷺ, and the keeper of the treasury in Kufa under ʿUmar ﵁. Suyuti ﵀ mentions on page 166 that he died in the year 32 AH. Abu Dharr al-Ghifari ﵁ was the Sahabi ﵁ of the pronounced aversion to wealth, the man who in the years of ʿUthman’s Khilafah was in Damascus and in ar-Rabadhah, and who is mentioned on page 167 by Suyuti ﵀ as having died in that same year 32 AH. ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁ was the Sahabi ﵁ whose parents Sumayyah and Yasir were the first shuhada of Islam in Mecca, a man whose voice in the criticism of the administration in the last years is repeatedly narrated.

It is, according to what Suyuti ﵀ gives, sufficient to establish that there were tensions between these three Sahaba ﵃ and the Caliph ﵁, and that those tensions were experienced in the broader Medinan and provincial circles of the Sahaba ﵃ as a reason for discontent. The specific incidents are narrated in other sources; in the Tarikh al-Khulafa of Suyuti ﵀ they remain as general indications. We respect that restraint.

The pattern that spread

What comes together in these passages in Suyuti ﵀ is neither an indictment nor a defence. It is a pattern that spread during the Khilafah of ʿUthman ﵁, and that in the last six years acquired a dynamic of its own. Five elements bear the pattern. First, the expansion of the revenues to a scale that preceding Caliphs ﵃ had not known. Second, an interpretation of ʿUthman ﵁ of his own over the spending of a part of those revenues on his own family, based on a textual passage in the Qur’an about the maintaining of family ties. Third, the appointment of relatives from the Bani Umayyah to governorships, some of whom were not Sahaba ﵃. Fourth, the discontent of the senior Sahaba ﵃ over the deeds of some of these governors, in particular in Egypt under ʿAbdullah ibn Abi Sarh ﵁ and in Kufa under al-Walid ibn ʿUqbah ﵁. Fifth, the refusal of ʿUthman ﵁ to dismiss the criticised governors in the way that ʿUmar ﵁ had done immediately in his time.

Each of these five elements is in itself defensible within the framework of the Khilafah, and each is treated with respect in the narrations that Suyuti ﵀ cites. But in their accumulation, in their coming together over six years, they built up a tension that began to touch the community in its broader layers. What was discussed among one another in Medina was relayed to Kufa, to Basra, to Fustat, and what was heard in the mosques of the provinces was relayed in the markets and in the garrisons. In the year 34 AH, the same year in which the battle of Dhat al-Sawari was fought at sea, the inhabitants of Kufa drove their governor Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs ﵁ out of their city, and demanded that Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁ be set in his place. Suyuti ﵀ mentions this event on page 167 in one sentence, and he places it as the direct introduction to the next year: In the year 35 AH the murder of ʿUthman ﵁ took place.

The personal life of ʿUthman ﵁ against the wealth

It is an element that recurs repeatedly in the broader testimonies that Suyuti ﵀ includes in his work, and that in its significance for history must not be overlooked. ʿUthman ﵁ himself lived in these years of abundance no differently from how he had lived in his early years. Suyuti ﵀ narrates on pages 177 and 178, in the Section passage that immediately follows the short sentence about the Mushaf, two testimonies that illuminate the personal life of the Caliph ﵁ in these years. Musa ibn Talhah ﵀ narrates through Ibn Saʿd ﵀ that he saw ʿUthman ﵁ on a Jumuʿah day go out upon the minbar in two yellow garments, and that the Caliph ﵁ sat upon the minbar before the prayer and spoke with the people about their prices and about their sick. ʿAbdullah ar-Rumi ﵀ narrates that ʿUthman ﵁ saw to his own wudu’ in the night, and when someone proposed that one of the servants do that for him, he answered:

It is in these few sentences that the whole pattern of which az-Zuhri ﵀ and Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ spoke in their narrations receives a final layer. ʿUthman ﵁ gave out from the bait al-mal to his family, and he kept for himself the strictness and the modesty that he had acquired in his early Meccan and Medinan years. It was not his own way of life that was criticised, for what was criticised was his ijtihad over the spending of the khums, and his refusal to dismiss criticised governors. The Caliph ﵁ in his person remained the man who did his own wudu’ in the night.

The judgement of Suyuti ﵀ in his choice of narrations

We have in this article held ourselves strictly to what Suyuti ﵀ recorded in his Tarikh al-Khulafa on page 166, page 167 and page 168 about the prosperity and the criticism. We have left the testimony of az-Zuhri ﵀ standing in its full conciseness, we have left the testimony of Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ standing in its cautious formulation, and we have treated the names he named, ʿAbdullah ibn Masʿud ﵁, Abu Dharr ﵁ and ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁, in the general context that Suyuti ﵀ gives us, without going into specific incidents on which he does not expatiate in this passage.

What Suyuti ﵀ implicitly tells us through his choice of narrations is that the prosperity that came over the ummah under ʿUthman ﵁ was a gift and a testing at once. A gift, because it flowed from the jihad conquests that the community had attained under the guidance of Allah ﷻ. A testing, because it raised questions for the administration that in the simple years of Abu Bakr ﵁ and even under ʿUmar ﵁ had not existed to the same degree. ʿUthman ﵁ answered those questions with his own ijtihad. A part of the community accepted his answer, another part rejected it, and in the tension between the two there arose, gradually, the fitnah that would break the centre of his Khilafah in 35 AH.

In the next article we follow the build-up of that fitnah at close hand, in the testimony of Ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ that Suyuti ﵀ gives us on page 168 and the following, with the slave on the camel, with the letter in the water-jug, with the alarm of Medina when the contents of that letter were spoken aloud.