ʿUthmān ibn Khālid narrated from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Madani: Ḥafṣah related to me a report identical to that of ʿĀʾishah, and in it he said, “Shall I not feel shy (1) before the one before whom the angels feel shy?”

Another chain from Ibn ʿAbbās
The ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bazzār said: Abū Kurayb narrated to us; Yūnus ibn Bukayr narrated to us; al-Naḍr—namely, Ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Abū ʿUmar al-Khazzāz al-Kūfī—narrated to us, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “Shall I not feel shy before one before whom the angels feel shy—ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān?” Al-Bazzār then remarked, “We know of no other transmission from Ibn ʿAbbās except through this chain.” I add: it meets the criteria of al-Tirmidhī, yet he did not record it (2).

Another chain from Ibn ʿUmar
Al-Ṭabarānī (3) said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdamī narrated to us; Abū Maʿshar narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar ibn Abān told me; my father ʿUmar ibn Abān told me, from his father. He said: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar say:

While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was sitting with ʿĀʾishah behind him, Abū Bakr asked permission and entered, then ʿUmar asked permission and entered, then Saʿd ibn Mālik asked permission and entered, and finally ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān requested permission and entered. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was speaking with his knee uncovered; when ʿUthmān asked permission he covered his knee with his garment and said to his wife, “Step back.” They spoke for a while and then departed.

ʿĀʾishah said, “O Prophet of Allah, my father and his companions came in and you did not adjust your garment over your knee, nor did you move me away, yet when ʿUthmān entered you did so.”

He replied, “O ʿĀʾishah, shall I not feel shy before a man before whom the angels feel shy? By Him in whose hand is my soul, the angels are indeed shy of ʿUthmān just as they are shy of Allah and His Messenger. Had he entered while you were close to me, he would not have spoken nor lifted his head until he left.”

This report is gharīb through this route; it contains an additional detail to what preceded, and its chain is weak.

I say: There are also narrations on this topic from ʿAlī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Awfā, and Zayd ibn Thābit. Abū Marwān al-Qurashī transmitted from his father, from Mālik, from Abū al-Zinād, from al-Aʿraj, from Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “ʿUthmān is so modest that the angels feel shy before him” (4).