—may He be exalted—then Abu Bakr did the same, and ʿUmar did the same; after that I was entrusted with the caliphate—do I not possess the same right that they possessed?’
I said, ‘Indeed you do!’ He replied, ‘Then what are these reports that are reaching me from you? As for what you have mentioned about al-Walid, I shall deal with the matter justly, if Allah wills.’ He then summoned ʿAli and ordered him to flog him, so ʿAli gave him eighty lashes.
[Another Hadith]
Imam Aḥmad (2) said: ‘Abū al-Mughīrah narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Sulaymān (3) narrated to us; Rabiʿah ibn Yazīd narrated to me, from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿĀmir, from al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, from ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with her—who said:
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent for ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, and he came. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ turned toward him, and when we saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ giving ʿUthmān his full attention, each of us turned to the other. The last thing he said to him—after tapping him on the shoulder—was: ‘O ʿUthman, perhaps Allah will robe you in a garment; if the hypocrites demand that you remove it, do not take it off until you meet me,’ and he repeated this three times.”
I said to her, ‘Mother of the Believers, why did you not mention this before?’ She answered, ‘I forgot it; by Allah, I did not recall it.’
He said: I then informed Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, but he was not satisfied with what I had told him until he wrote to the Mother of the Believers asking, “Write it out for me.” So she wrote it to him in a letter.
It was also narrated by Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Jasrī (5) from ʿĀʾishah and Ḥafṣah with wording similar to what has preceded.
Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim and Abū Salamah (6) likewise transmitted it from her.
Abū Sahlah narrated—from ʿUthman—that he said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ entrusted me with a covenant, and I am patiently holding myself to it.”
Faraj ibn Faḍālah related it from Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Zubaydī, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUrwah, from ʿĀʾishah, mentioning it (7); al-Dāraqutnī said, “Faraj ibn Faḍālah alone reported it.”
Abū Marwān Muḥammad ibn (8) ʿUthman ibn Khālid al-ʿUthmānī (9) also narrated it, from his father, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād, from his father, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah.