and this calamity has now overtaken you. I set before you several options: either you go out and fight them—for you still have both numbers and strength; or you open for yourself a door other than the one they are besieging, mount your riding animals and make for Mecca, for they will never deem it lawful to harm you while you are there; or you head for Syria, whose people are your supporters and where Muʿāwiyah is in command.” ʿUthmān replied, “I shall not abandon the city of my Hijra, nor will I be the first to shed blood in the community of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.”

Nāfiʿ narrates from Ibn ʿUmar: One morning ʿUthmān addressed the people, saying, “Last night I saw the Messenger of Allah in a dream, and he said, ‘Break your fast with us tomorrow.’” He therefore began that day fasting, and on that very day he was killed.

Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn said: “I know of no one who accused ʿAlī of involvement in ʿUthmān’s murder. ʿUthmān was slain while the house was crowded with men—among them Ibn ʿUmar and al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī—but ʿUthmān had bound them by oath not to fight.”

In another report from Ibn Sīrīn: al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, Ibn ʿUmar, Marwān, and Ibn al-Zubayr, all fully armed, went in to ʿUthmān. He said, “I adjure you to return, lay down your weapons, and stay in your homes.” Ibn al-Zubayr and Marwān replied, “We place the same injunction on ourselves not to leave.” The others withdrew.

Ibn Sīrīn also stated: “That day there were seven hundred men in the house with ʿUthmān; had he allowed them, they would have beaten the attackers until they drove them out of the city.”

It is related that al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī had been wounded before he even left.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr said, “I said to ʿUthmān, ‘Fight them, for by Allah, Allah has permitted…’”