Uthman ibn Affan: Giving Without Counting

Ten men were named in a single breath by the Prophet ﷺ and promised Paradise. This is the third of them.

Uthman ibn Affan was so modest that the Prophet ﷺ said the angels were shy of him, and so generous that he said nothing Uthman did after one day could harm him. He bought the well of Rumah and drew from it like everyone else. He equipped the army of hardship from his own wealth in a year of drought. He married two daughters of the Prophet ﷺ, one after the other, and was called the Man of Two Lights. At Hudaybiyah the Prophet ﷺ raised his own right hand and said: this is the hand of Uthman.

As caliph he gathered the Muslims on one written Quran, the copy every mushaf in the world descends from. When rebels surrounded his house, he refused to let a single drop of Muslim blood be shed for his sake, and he died fasting with that Quran open in front of him.

This short book walks with him through each of those moments. Every claim is backed by a verse of the Quran, a hadith with its reference, or a named report from the early historians. Quranic verses appear in Arabic in the Uthmani script of the Madinah Mushaf with their English meanings, and hadith are given with their numbers and gradings. Reports from the books of history are clearly marked as such.

The book ends with the words Uthman carried to us, including the morning and evening protection and the wudu of Uthman, seven habits drawn from his life, and a forty-day plan for making them your own.

Book Three of The Ten Promised Paradise, a series of ten short companions, one for each of the men the Prophet ﷺ named. Read it slowly. Then go and do one thing he did.