—“On what faith are you, O Naʿthal?”

He replied, “I am no Naʿthal; I am ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. I follow the creed of Abraham—ever-upright, a Muslim—and I have never been one of the idolaters.”

“You lie!” the assailant shouted; he struck him with the iron mace on his left temple, killing him so that he fell prone.

Bint al-Furāfiṣah drew his body to herself, covering it with her clothing—she was a large, broad-shouldered woman (1)—and Bint Shaybah threw herself upon what remained of the corpse. A man from the people of Egypt (2) entered with his sword drawn, saying, “By Allah, I will cut off his nose!” He grappled with the woman but she overcame him. He then lifted the back of her coat of mail until he could see the skin of her back; when he still could not reach the corpse, he thrust his sword between her armor and shoulder. She clutched the blade, and it sliced off her fingertips.

She cried out, “O Rabāḥ”—Rabāḥ was a black servant of ʿUthmān—“boy, shield me (3) from this man!” The boy stepped forward and killed him. The members of the household then emerged and fought in self-defense; al-Mughīrah ibn al-Akhnas was killed and Marwān was wounded.

He (the narrator) said: “When evening came we said, ‘If you leave your companion until morning, they will mutilate him.’ So we carried him to Baqīʿ al-Gharqad in the depth of night. A dark company overtook us from behind, frightening us so that we nearly scattered, when one of them called out, ‘Do not fear; stand firm. We have only come to witness the burial with you.’”

Abū Khunays would say, “They were angels of Allah.” We buried him, then fled that very night toward Syria. [On the way we met the Syrians] (4) at Wādī al-Qurā under the command of Ḥabīb ibn Maslamah (5); they had set out to assist ʿUthmān, and we informed them of his killing and burial.

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When this immense, dreadful, heinous deed occurred, the people were struck with dismay and regarded it as a matter of the utmost gravity (6). Most of those ignorant Khārijites repented of what (7) they had done, resembling those whom Allah has related to us in His Mighty Book—the people who worshipped the calf—when He said:

“ When remorse seized them and they realized that they had gone astray, they said, ‘If our Lord does not have mercy upon us and forgive us, we shall surely be among the losers.’ ” (Q 7:149)

When al-Zubayr—who had already left Madinah—heard of ʿUthmān’s murder, he said, “Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return,” and he prayed for mercy upon ʿUthmān. On learning that the murderers had repented he said, “Woe to them!” and recited:

“ They await but a single Shout that will seize them while they dispute; then they will not be able to make a bequest, nor will they return to their people. ” (Q 36:49-50)

The news reached ʿAlī as well, and he prayed for mercy upon him. When he heard of the killers’ remorse he recited Allah’s saying:

“ Like Satan, when he says to the human being, ‘Disbelieve’; then when he has disbelieved, he says, ‘I am innocent of you; indeed I fear Allah, Lord of all the worlds.’ ” (Q 59:16)

And when Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ learned of ʿUthmān’s death, he sought forgiveness for him.