So Muʿāwiyah hastened back. Al-Miswar too set out for Madinah; he met Muʿāwiyah at Dhū al-Marwah on the latter’s return and then went in to ʿUthmān, censuring Muʿāwiyah and granting him no excuse.
When the second siege tightened, ʿUthmān dispatched al-Miswar once more to Muʿāwiyah to seek help. Muʿāwiyah said, “ʿUthmān once did well and Allah dealt well with him; then he changed, and Allah changed toward him, so I bore down on him.” Al-Miswar replied, “You abandoned ʿUthmān until his soul was at his throat, and then you said, ‘Go and ward off death from him.’ That is not in my power. He lodged me in an upper chamber above him, and no one had even entered upon me before ʿUthmān was killed.”
Sayf ibn ʿUmar narrated from Abū Ḥārithah and Abū ʿUthmān: When the news reached Muʿāwiyah he sent for Ḥabīb ibn Maslamah al-Fihrī and said, “Recommend to me a man who will carry out my orders without falling short.” Ḥabīb answered, “I know no one for that task but myself.” Muʿāwiyah replied, “You are the man,” and placed Yazīd ibn Shujaʿah al-Ḥimyarī at the head of the vanguard with 1,000 men, instructing, “If you arrive, Ḥabīb, and he has already been killed, leave not a single person who pointed him out or lent support without executing him. If the news reaches you before you arrive, then halt until I decide.”
Yazīd ibn Shujaʿah set out with 1,000 men mounted on mules, leading the horses; with them were camels bearing the water-skins, and they drove the march hard. The report of ʿUthmān’s murder reached them near Khaybar. Shortly thereafter Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr caught up with them carrying the shirt in which ʿUthmān had been slain, stained with blood, and the fingers of his wife Nāʾilah, which had been severed by a sword-stroke. They turned back. Muʿāwiyah erected the shirt on the pulpit of Damascus with the severed fingers hanging from it, and men from Syria swore an oath that they would not approach women, would not bathe except after a nocturnal emission, and would not sleep on a bed until they had slain the killers of ʿUthmān or their souls had departed. They mourned him for a full year.
Al-Awzāʿī said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān told me that al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah entered upon ʿUthmān while he was under siege and said, “You are the leader of the masses …”