Uthman ibn Affan

Uthman ibn Affan was the third of the early caliphs whom later Sunni tradition counts among the Rashidun ("rightly-guided") successors of the Prophet Muhammad. He was born in Mecca into the Banu Umayya, a wealthy clan of the Quraysh; his exact birth year is disputed, with sources giving roughly 573 or 576 CE, so the date is best treated as uncertain. Before Islam he was a successful long-distance merchant, and he is traditionally remembered as one of the earliest converts to the new faith.

He carries the epithet Dhu al-Nurayn ("Possessor of Two Lights") because, in the traditional account, he married in succession two of the Prophet's daughters, Ruqayya and then Umm Kulthum. (Sunni tradition identifies these two as Muhammad's daughters; some Shia scholars hold they were not his biological daughters.) Sira (biographical) tradition reports that he and Ruqayya were among Muslims who emigrated to Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) during early persecution; he later made the hijra to Medina around 622.

After the second caliph Umar was killed (644), a council of consultation (shura) selected Uthman as caliph. His reign is most associated with ordering a single, standardized written text of the Qur'an, a task carried out by a committee led by the Companion-scribe Zayd ibn Thabit; the resulting "Uthmanic codex" became the basis of the standard text transmitted thereafter.

Discontent over governance and the appointment of kinsmen as governors fueled a revolt; rebels besieged his house in Medina and killed him in 656 CE (35 AH). Sunni tradition venerates him as one of the Rashidun; Shia tradition rejects the legitimacy of the first three caliphates. His death opened the First Fitna, the first Muslim civil war.