UTHMAN’S PIONEERING ACTS
Al’askari says: ‘Uthmaan was the first to give people plots of land to cultivate (funded by the public treasury); the first to lower his voice in Takbeer (saying Allahu Akbar); the first to perfume mosques with incense; the first to order the pronouncement of the first Adfuum to Salaah in Jummah prayer; the first to give salaries to Mu’adhins (prayer callers); the first to stammer while giving a Kliuthah, he said: “O people! Things are usually hard at the beginning and there are still many days to come. So if I live I will give the complete speech, 1 am not good at delivering speeches but I will learn, Insha-Allah (Narrated by Ibn Sa’d.)
He, may Allah be pleased with him, was the first to assum j leadership in the lifetime of his mother; the first to appoint a sheriff; the first to migrate with his family to Madeenah and he was the first to standardize a special way for reciting the Qur’an.
Official Manuscript of the Glorious Qur’an
One of the magnificent services ‘ Uthmaan did to Islam was to safeguard any possible change in the codex of the Qur’an. After the conquests by the Muslims, hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs, whose mother tongue was not Arabic, accepted Islam because of its teachings. Hudhayfah, may Allah be pleased with him, one of the prominent Companions of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, went for Jihad during that time, and noticed many differences in the manner of recitation (Qira’aat) of the Qur’an. The Syrians recited in a way different from that of Kufis while the Kufis differed from Basris and so on. As a matter of fact these differences were due to the differences in the way of writing Arabic. Seeing this condition, Hudhayfah reported the matter to Caliph ‘Uthmaan on his return from the Jihad. and suggested that the codex of Madeenah should be regarded as authentic, i.e. the Glorious Qur’an which was written and compiled in Book form during the lime of Abu Bakr As-Sideeq, may Allah be pleased with him, and was kept with the Mother of the Believers, Hafsah, may Allah be pleased with her.
‘ Uthmaan took that Book from Hafsah and canonized the codex of Madeenah. He asked Zayd Ibn Thabit, may Allah be pleased with her, the person who wrote it during the time of Abu Bakr, to make copies of the same with the help of some other Companions like ‘ Abdullaah Ibn Az-Zubayr and Sa’eed Ibn Al-‘ Aas and others. Then he ordered all other copies to be burnt and destroyed throughout the State.
Those people who earned their living in the provinces as the receptacles and expositors of the sacred text were not pleased with this act. It has been discussed before that such persons criticised ‘Uthmaan for burning inauthentic texts. However for this great service ‘ Uthmaan is famous as the Jaami’ul-Qur’an (the compiler of the Qur’an).
Extension of the Prophet’s Mosque
The mosque of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was too small for the increasing Muslim population. ‘ Uthmaan bought a big plot of land in the neighborhood of the mosque, but some of the persons living in the nearby houses did not want to leave their places even for reasonable compensation. For four years no new construction was built. One day he gave an effective lecture after Jum’ah prayer, and the people agreed to donate their places. Then, the mosque was extended in the year.
(Source: Biographies of the rightly guided Caliphs )
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