Propaganda in the Provinces
With the expansion of Islam, new colonies had grown up in the distant lands of Syria, Persia, Egypt and Central Asia. New cities like Basra, Kufa and Fustat had also swelled the ranks of Islam with a flood of converts, many of whom had accepted Islam from purely secular motives. These cities now became centres of sedition, breeding the germs of rebellion, mischief and disloyalty. The ideas of equality and the fraternal brotherhood of all Muslims, so much developed and nurtured by Umar, contrasted ill with Uthman’s actions, and it was not difficult to magnify these irregularities and to concoct charges which were calculated to stir up the resentment of the local inhabitants. The Bedouine of the desert who had shared the joys and sorrows of all the battles of the Holy Prophet also had cause for grievance for they now had to fall into the
background and to suffer the advancement of those who had always opposed the Holy Prophet. They were predisposed to listen to propaganda against Uthman and thus the way was paved for a civil war.
Revolutionary Preachings of Ibn Sud
One of the most famous revolutionaries to advance the cause of Ali was Ibn Saba, later styled Ibn Sud, (or son of a negro) because he had been born of a negro mother. Ibn Sud, a Jew of Yemen, accepted Islam in 654 A.D. and, with all the fanaticism of a recent convert, went as a missionary to Basra. Here he first preached the heretical doctrine that Ali was the only legitimate successor of the Holy Prophet, that the Umayyads were a race of godless traitors and that Uthman was an usurper.
Tireless in his efforts to fan the smouldering fires of disaffection Ibn Sud next went to Kufa and from there to Syria. One of the ways in which he stirred up anger against the governor of Syria was by referring repeatedly to the case of Abu Dharr,whom he depicted as one of the true Islamic enthusiasts. Ibn Sud then reminded the people assembled to hear him that, because he had expounded the Islamic verse:
“Those who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in Allah’s way, announce to them a painful chastisement”, (Qur’an 9:34)
Abu Dharr had incurred the displeasure of the niggardly Mu’awiya and had been banished from capital in consequence. the
From Syria Ibn Sud went to Egypt, where he gained a considerable personal following of about five hundred Egyptians. Egypt was particularly fertile ground for the seeds of sedition. Two distinguished revolutionaries Muhammad the son of the late Abu Bakr and Muhammad bin Abu Hudaifah the adopted son of the Caliph Uthman-had already begun to stir up trouble.
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Summary of Uthman’s Reign
Abu Bakr’s son had hoped for the governorship of Egypt for himself, while the latter youngman bore a grudge against his foster father for personal reasons. The agitators also found an influential patron in the person of ‘Amr bin As who had secretly encouraged the rebels from the day that he had been supplanted as governor of Egypt by Uthman’s foster-brother Abi Sarah.
The Gathering of the Storm
Every province of the Islamic Commonwealth now nursed some grievance or other against the Caliph. Everywhere the people were seething with unrest because of his nepotism and favouritism; because of the lavish way in which he wasted the public treasury on his favourites; because he was “unscrupulous in his disregard of the Islamic laws or because they had taken offence at the standardisation of the Holy Qur’an. From Basra, Kufa and Egypt they came, delegation after delegation, to lodge their complaints with the Caliph until, finally, their patience was near its end. In their zeal to overthrow the faulty administrative machinery they sent messengers to enlist the support of the widows of the Holy Prophet, solicited leave to visit the tomb of the Apostle of God so as to gain access to the city and constantly sought permission to present petitions to the Caliph.
The effect of this influx of malcontents on the ordinary people of Medina was disrupting in the extreme and a situation developed which looked very much like a wide-spread and well-organised conspiracy against the Caliph and the State. The mob now sought to bring pressure to bear on the Caliph either to redress their grievances or to abdicate.
Aal-e-Qutub Aal-e-Syed Abdullah Shah Ghazi 