Financing the Army of Hardship: ʿUthmān, Abū Bakr, and ʿUmar

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Six months earlier the Prophet ﷺ had held the whole treasure of Ḥunayn and Ṭāʾif in his hands, and had given every coin of it away fī sabīlillāh, keeping nothing. So the great army now had to be financed from scratch. He stood on the minbar urging people to give whatever they had, and the piles of gold and coin grew in the masjid, with the promise: "Whoever equips the Army of Hardship (Jaysh al-ʿUsrah) will have Jannah."

❧ʿUthmān's gift

It happened that some hundred camels of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān had just returned laden from a northern trade venture. Hearing the promise, he donated it all, thousands of gold coins. The Prophet ﷺ, turning the coins over in his hands, said: وَاللَّهِ مَا ضَرَّ عُثْمَانَ مَا فَعَلَ بَعْدَ الْيَوْم, "By Allāh, nothing ʿUthmān does after this day will harm him." Years later ʿUthmān himself, and Ibn ʿAbbās on his behalf, would cite this ḥadīth (in Bukhārī and Muslim) against the rebels who besieged his house: if the Messenger ﷺ said that, who were they to press their list of complaints?

❧Abū Bakr and ʿUmar

Here too came their famous contest. ʿUmar, having heard the promise directly, rushed home certain that this time he would outdo Abū Bakr, and brought half his wealth, the other half for his family. But Abū Bakr brought everything. "What did you leave your family?" asked the Prophet ﷺ. "I left them Allāh and His Messenger." And ʿUmar said, "I will never compete with you again, I can never match that kind of tawakkul." (Note: only going in person was farḍ; giving wealth was according to each one's means, Abū Bakr's total gift was his own extraordinary choice.)