al-Fusul al-‘Ilmiyya wa’l-Usul al-Hikamiyya, by Imam Imam ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Alawi al-Haddad, trans. Mostafa al-Badawi. The Starlatch Press, Chicago: 2001.
Chapter Forty
THE COMPANIONS AND THE WORLD
‘Uthmān ibn ‘Affān (may God be pleased with him) used to give the caliph’s food to the people, then enter his house and eat bread dipped in oil. When the perpetrators of outrage climbed onto his house, entered it, and murdered him, he said, “O God! Unite the Nation of Muhammad!” The Quran was on his lap and some of his blood fell on His words, exalted is He, God will suffice you against them, and He is the Hearer, the Knowing (Quran, 2:137). Later, one of the Companions, possibly ‘Abdāllah ibn Sallām, said, “Had he not prayed that God the Exalted unite the Nation, it would never have united after him.”