Ibn Umar Answers a Kharijite's Charges Against Uthman

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Bitterness toward ʿUthmān is nothing new, the first to malign and ultimately kill him were the Khārijites. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī preserves a telling exchange: a Khārijite from Egypt, on Ḥajj, pushed rudely through a crowd gathered around ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar to press him with loaded questions, the same interrupting harshness, Dr. Qadhi observes, that still marks such over-zealous groups.

"Did ʿUthmān flee at Uḥud?" Ibn ʿUmar answered, under oath, yes. "Was he absent from Badr?" Yes. "Was he absent from the Pledge of al-Riḍwān?" Yes. The man cried "Allāhu Akbar!" and turned to leave, thinking he had his indictment, but Ibn ʿUmar called him back to hear the rest. As for fleeing Uḥud: Allah Himself pardoned those who withdrew that day, "ʿafā-llāhu ʿanhum" (عَفَا اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ), so Ibn ʿUmar testified that ʿUthmān was forgiven. As for his absence from Badr: ʿUthmān had stayed behind by the Prophet's ﷺ own command to nurse his gravely ill wife Ruqayyah, the Prophet's ﷺ daughter (who died as the army returned), and was still granted a share of the spoils and counted a Badrī in law. And as for al-Riḍwān: the entire pledge took place because of ʿUthmān, and the Prophet ﷺ pledged on his behalf with his own hand. "Now take all of this back to your people," Ibn ʿUmar told him.

Dr. Qadhi adds that the honours of ʿUthmān are many, the Prophet ﷺ said in al-Bukhārī and Muslim, "Should I not feel shy before a man before whom even the angels feel shy?", and frames reverence for the Companions as the cornerstone of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah: the community (jamāʿah) whose way is followed begins with the Companions, through whom alone the Qurʾān and Sunnah reached us, and whom Allah plainly chose to accompany His Prophet ﷺ.