Uthman ibn Affan, may Allah be pleased

with him
Uthman ibn Affan
Any critical comments in the following about shiism are certainly not intended as license for the
increasingly barbaric atrocities committed against ordinary shias across the so-called Muslim
world by sectarians whose claim to sunnism is tenuous at best. That insurgent sunnism should
justify its existence by attacks on people whose only sin is by an accident of birth when their
own sunnism is also by an accident of birth, rather than engaging in reasoned, courteous and
convivial conversation with them, is a tacit admission of intellectual, spiritual and human
bankruptcy. It goes without saying that the same applies to shia sectarians guilty of similar
crimes. Whereas we have no hostility for shias or sunnis per se, we reserve a special distaste
for scholars who mislead people, of whatever confessional persuasion they may be.
* * *
How extraordinary and how paradoxical it is when opposites meet. It is well said in the Arabic
proverb whatever increases beyond the limit is transformed into its opposite. Thus, in the
modern age we have witnessed the rise of excessive and ostentatious erudition in texts, which we
most often associate with sectarian wahhabis/salafis erroneously called sunnis by the worlds
media and a sizeable contingent of academics. Yet this superficially learned but dismally
ignorant cult of texts oblivious to the dictum of the Imam of the people of hadith and the
Sunnah, Malik ibn Anas, that knowledge is a light; it is not a great deal of narration and
which has itself been rendered obsolete by databases and search engines, has learned to play both
ends of the sunni-shia spectrum and also produced sunni votaries of the family of the Prophet,
peace be upon him, who are in reality engaged in the covert introduction of shiism itself into
Islam, a story with long antecedents in history.
This covert shiism has long had as its apparently most sensible claim that the Umayyads were
the worst thing to happen to the Muslims. Many nave Muslims and the believer is by
definition nave and trusting, although he is not bitten from the same snake-hole twice have
found themselves lured into the seemingly quite reasonable thesis that the Umayyads were
absolutely responsible for everything that went wrong with Islam. We note here, almost in
parentheses, the telling note of dualism, pitting an ultimate good against an ultimate evil, a
Zoroastrianism. Let me spell that out: historical people had historical reasons for their behaviour,
and history is not the place for the working out of false metaphysics, and certainly not a
metaphysics based on two gods. The only metaphysics whose traces we do expect to discover in
history is the action of the All-Merciful One from Whose decree both good and bad come. Thus
we find extremely troubling this recidivist re-emergence within Islam of an ancient cult, whose
appearance and re-appearance can, nevertheless, be detected throughout history.
The main problem with the corrupt Umayyads thesis is, of course, the considerable number of
Companions, later caliphs of the Muslims and outstanding men of right action there were among

them, not least the splendid dynasty of Western Andalusian Islam. The venom directed at
Muawiyah, is intended really for Uthman ibn Affan, may Allah be pleased with both of them.
But these superficial scholars have rarely got the nerve to attack Uthman directly since, if they
do that, they will be contending with the sizeable and irrefutable evidence from their own hadith
literature of his outstanding merit and will thus find themselves in direct opposition to their
Prophet, peace be upon him.
Although Muawiya is usually blamed for it, it would be tempting to say that Uthman ibn
Affan, may Allah be pleased with both of them, founded Umayyad power and dynasty, a thesis
our covert shia would readily endorse, except of course that it was the Messenger of Allah, may
Allah bless him and grant him peace, who, in appointment upon appointment after the Fath (the
Opening of Makka to Islam), having embraced his erstwhile enemies with a forgiveness that
simply broke their hearts and left them penitent for their wrongdoing and opposition and filled
with love for him, set Umayyads in positions of power and authority. The Rightly Guided
Caliphs, to a man, followed him, peace be upon him, in that, since the wealth of capability that
the Umayyads represented was not something to sneer at.
That Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, also followed that sunnah and relied increasingly
on his relatives was not nepotism but rather the inevitable result of the steady attrition of
Companions, whether in battle or in death through old age. The number of capable people who
had known the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was reduced considerably and
Uthman was forced to draw on his own clan, a wellspring of political savvy that was to benefit
Islam and the Muslims greatly. And one is not glossing over the crimes and excesses of certain
individuals in later times, but saying that they can only be understood as historical matters,
though certainly not endorsed. But then who, aside from the prophets and messengers, is free of
error and wrongdoing?
Yet here again, there is a surprising convergence of apparent opposites: kharijism and shiism,
one claiming to reject all traditional and dynastic authority, the other asserting the most singular
and unique dynastic claim. Somehow the former has bequeathed to the latter its cardinal sin: its
designation of those who do major wrong actions as disbelievers rather than believers who have
erred. Historical figure after figure is thus expelled from the ranks of the believers by these
paragons of self-righteousness, who seem utterly unaware that feeling secure (amn) from Allah is
one of the major wrong actions along with murder, drunkenness, adultery and usury, by the
agreement of the people of the Sunnah. But then self-righteous scholars have none of that most
essential trait of people of knowledge: humility. Inflated with their own apparent erudition and
self-assumed piety, they feel able to slander those who can no longer defend themselves.
Thus, it is timely that the major text on this issue by Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi, Defence
Against Disaster, is close to publication in its second edition. This is a work which, with its
authors unerring discrimination (fiqh), guides us through the pitfalls of the superabundance of
texts. It is no accident that the author was himself not only a discerning scholar of those very
texts but a judge (qadi) of great integrity accustomed to sorting through conflicting and
contradictory evidence in matters of property, life and death, marriage and divorce. Just as
surely, he brings clarity to an area of history that is understandably hard to comprehend for many
people.

There is no better place to hide something than out in the open, and in this sense the Sunnah and
Islam itself are perhaps the most hidden of all matters in the world today even though they daily
occupy the attention of millions of people in the east and the west. Indeed, they are perhaps even
more hidden when taught by celebrity masters of database information with secret agendas or
when fought over by self-proclaimed jihadists, who are now responsible for reducing much of
the Muslim world to rubble even if merely by providing those with greater firepower the excuse
to invade and destroy.
The real hope for the world today is that the Muslims are yet to speak and the Sunnah is yet to be
discovered and it is to be hoped that when that moment comes, the civilisation will be produced
that they always do produce and for which it is revealed.