under siege. He asked, “What do you advise?” Ibn ʿUmar replied, “I think you should give them what they have asked of you, doing so from behind the threshold of your door, but do not remove yourself from office.” ʿUthmān said, “Here—take the stipend that is due to you,” for Ibn ʿUmar had been holding a grievance against him. He answered, “This is no time for that.”

Ibn ʿUmar then went out to the besiegers and said, “Beware of killing this elder! By Allah, if you kill him you will never again all make pilgrimage to the House together, you will never again all fight your enemy together, and you will never again all divide your booty together; bodies may gather, but hearts will be divided. I remember us—when we, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, were many—and we would say: Abu Bakr, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān.”

This was narrated by ʿĀṣim ibn Muḥammad al-ʿUmari, from his father, from Ibn ʿUmar.

Abū Jaʿfar the reciter said: The Egyptians who besieged ʿUthmān numbered six hundred; their leaders were Kinānah ibn Bishr, Ibn ʿAdīs al-Balawī, and ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥamq. The group that came from Kūfa was two hundred strong, led by al-Ashtar al-Nakhaʿī; the group from Basra was one hundred, led by Ḥakīm ibn Jablah. They were united as one hand in wrongdoing, and a rabble from the populace had flocked to them.

As for the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ who failed to support him, they detested civil strife and assumed the matter would never reach the point of killing him; but once he was killed they regretted the negligence they had shown in his affair. By my life, had they risen—or even some of them risen and