A man once asked ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUthmān al-Taymī (1) about (2) the manner in which Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh prayed. He replied, “If you wish, I will instead tell you about ʿUthmān’s prayer.” The man said, “Yes!” He continued: “I said to myself, ‘Tonight I will get to the Stone before the people’—meaning the Maqām. When I stood to pray, a man with his face covered pressed in beside me. I turned, and it was ʿUthmān (3). I therefore stepped back (4) behind him and watched as he prayed: at every verse of prostration he would fall in sajdat al-qurʾān. When I thought, ‘This must be the call to Fajr,’ he performed witr (the odd-number prayer) with a single rakʿah (unit of prayer), offered nothing further, and then departed.
This incident (5) is reported through several chains that he recited the entire Noble Qurʾān in one rakʿah by the Black Stone during the days of ḥajj, and such was his constant habit (may Allah be pleased with him).
Accordingly, we have transmitted from Ibn ʿUmar (6) that regarding the verse,
“Is one who is devout throughout the night, prostrating and standing in prayer, fearing the Hereafter and hoping for his Lord’s mercy… ” (al-Zumar 9),
he said, “It refers to ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān.”
Ibn ʿAbbās (7) said about the verse,
“Can the one who enjoins justice while upon a straight path be equal (to others)?” (al-Naḥl 76),
“It is about ʿUthmān.”
Ḥassān (8) composed:
“They slaughtered a grey-haired man whose brow was stamped by prostration;
Through every night he would divide the hours with glorification and Qurʾān.”
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah related: “Isrāʾīl ibn Mūsā told us that he heard al-Ḥasan say that ʿUthmān declared, ‘If our hearts were truly pure, we would never tire of our Lord’s speech. I dislike a day to pass in which I do not look into the muṣḥaf.’ ʿUthmān did not die until his copy of the Qurʾān was worn through from his constant recitation.
Anas and Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn (9) narrated that on the Day of the House his wife said, ‘Kill him or leave him; by Allah, he used to enliven the entire night with the Qurʾān in a single rakʿah!’
More than one transmitter (10) stated that (may Allah be pleased with him) when he rose for the night prayer he would not wake anyone in his household to help him with his wuḍūʾ unless he found the person already awake (11). He fasted continually, and when people reproached him they would say, ‘Why not at least wake one of the servants?’