Successors to Murdered Successors: The Tape Recorder Trilogy - S3E03

(644 - 656 CE · Egypt, Palestine, & Arabia) 

The Narrator recounts how Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab and later Caliph Uthman were assassinated, the differences between their lives and deaths, and how the community of Muslims was shaped by these events. 

Based on Chapter 3 of End by Geoff Micks.

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Credits: 

Voice Acting - Geoff Micks

Editing - Geoff Micks

Music - Dimitri Kovalchuk (MokuseiNoMaguro) through Pixabay

Additional Music - Aleksey Voronin (Amaksi) through Pixabay

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In 2015, a man who has been alive since the last ice age bought a tape recorder, and over the course of three days he dictated his life story as fast as he could while waiting for a woman to visit who he believes will finally be the death of him. Hello again. My name is Jeff Mix, and you are listening to season three, episode three of the Tape Recorder Trilogy Podcast. Enjoy. Egypt was good to us, and we were good to Egypt. Amr loved the place, and so it was his pleasure to rule the Egyptians with a light hand. As part of their terms of surrender, the Christians of Egypt were allowed to worship as they preferred, rather than how Constantinople demanded. With this freedom guaranteed, we Muslims were considered better masters than the Romans before us, and the jizya rested lightly on the local shoulders after the heavy taxes they had endured to fund Rome's wars against the Sassanids. Amur was something of a poet, as are so many Arabs, and with my pan at the ready he composed beautiful works about the Nile, its bountiful harvests, and the mosque he was building at Fustat in his own name for the greater glory of God. Once Egypt was totally secured, Amur led an army south along the Nile, but was repulsed by Nubian archers who guarded a land he decided was not worth the effort. Ammer returned to Fustat untroubled by his defeat. I suppose my conquering days are done, he told me. Pass the figs. He gained weight from all the good eating, but I did not criticize him. In exchange he did not chastise me for enjoying a discreet mug of Egyptian beer or cup of Greek wine as I went about my day, provided I was always sober when I turned up for prayers. We were very happy together in one another's company, eating and drinking and making merry, until one day a letter arrived from Medina. The same bureaucrat who had taken half of Amr ibn al Ass's worldly wealth had audited the tax revenues of Egypt from before and after his conquest, and it turned out the Romans had gotten more out of Egypt than the Arabs were getting. Caliph Umar, in his wisdom, was dismissing Amur as governor and replacing him with someone who knew how to squeeze dinars out of peasants. If that is God's will, so be it, Amur said piously, but inside I knew he was seething. The tax revenues were less because the taxation rate was less, and the taxation rate was less by the caliph's command as a means to win over the populace. How now could the caliph complain that the lowered revenues were Amur's fault? Why should Amur lose Egypt for the crime of being too good to Egypt when the caliph himself had told him to be good to Egypt? It all seemed very unfair to both of us, but what God gives he can take away. Believing his career as both a general and a governor to be at an end, Amur dismissed me from his service with a generous gift of incense and silver, and then he travelled to visit old friends in Damascus before eventually retiring to a country estate he had bought outside Beersheba. I thought I might never see him again, which made me very sad. I would have been even sadder had I known our story together was only half done, and what was to come would be more bitter or bittersweet than all the happy moments that I have already told you. Anyway, without a reason to stay in Egypt, I returned to Ela to sell my house there, and then I travelled on to Medina to take up a position at the great scriptorium copying the Holy Quran. I will tell this next bit as quickly as I can, for it is in all the history books, and I have no fresh insights to offer beyond the bald facts. There once was a sassanid soldier who was also a skilled craftsman, a carpenter, painter, and ironsmith capable even of building windmills, if you can imagine it. An Arab Gazi captured and enslaved him, but because of this Persian man's abilities he was given special permission to live in Medina and ply his trades without his master being present, despite not being a Muslim convert. He was to pay his master two silver coins a day out of his earnings, as the terms of his enslavement, and in recognition of the freedom he had been given to do his work. Well, Caliph Umar was always an approachable man, accessible to anyone and everyone. One day this Persian slave comes to him and says he is paying too much to his master, will the caliph help him? Umar wrote to the slave's master fighting in Iraq, and when he was given a full account of how much the slave was earning, Umar said two coins a day was reasonable to offer up to an indulgent master. The Persian did not take this decision well, and he took Umar's generous offer of a commission to build a windmill as adding a mocking insult to injury. A few days later that Persian slave stabbed Caliph Umar seven times in the stomach as he led the Umah in morning prayers. In the mad scramble that followed, thirteen more Muslims were killed or maimed as they attempted to subdue the enraged Persian, who finally turned his knife on himself to escape being captured alive. As for Umar, it took the great man three long days to die, during which he kept thanking God that he had met his end at the hands of a non believer, rather than a good Muslim man. While Umar did have long stretches of clear thought as he lay dying, he was unable to choose a successor, preferring instead to ask a council of elders of the faith to make the choice after he was gone. Now Medina was all abuzz with this, as you can imagine. Many people felt the natural choice was Ali, the cousin and adopted son of Muhammad, peace be upon him. I certainly thought that way at the time, and I attended many fiery public speeches in support of one of the very first Muslims ever in the world. Ali was careful not to encourage us for fear we would become a mob. Medina had come to fear the madness of crowds. There were still vigilantes roaming the city, pulling the last living Persians out of sheds and cellars to murder them in cold blood for what one of their countrymen had done to Caliph Umar ibn al-Khatab. Perhaps it was Ali's restraint that cost him the succession. Perhaps it was his relative youth compared to the other candidates. Whatever the reason, the council, in its wisdom chose Uthman, a rich old Meccan merchant who had married two of the Prophet's daughters to become the next prince of the faithful. Even being a non Arab, it did not take me long to realize why so many of my fellows in the Uma were discouraged by this choice. Uthman was a very different kind of caliph to his predecessors, Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab. Where they had lived very modestly before and after their ascension to the caliphate, Uthman had always lived in comfort and continued to do so as Prince of the Faithful. Where they had avoided elevating their family members to positions of power, Uthman did so with wild abandon, firing every Muslim governor and general not related to him and replacing them with men connected with the new head of the Umah by blood. Where Umar ibn al-Khattab had once refused the offer of a new tunic while staying overnight in the Bishop of Ela's house to avoid even the hint of impropriety, Uthman actively encouraged people to give him gifts, the bigger the better. Where Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khatab had carefully balanced the wants and needs of urban Arabs and Bedouin nomads, of Yemenis and Syrians, of early converts and new converts, Uthman was only interested in the world from the perspective of people just like him, wealthy, city dwelling Arabs from the Hejaz, preferably related to him in some way. In short, Uthman was a divisive figure at a time when the Uma was already being pulled in different directions by its own success. My experience in Egypt with Amr ibn al-As was a very different one from that of the Muslims who lived in Syria or Iraq, to say nothing of those who remained at home while their brethren went out to spread the word of God. Holding all those groups together and giving them common purpose was the caliph's most important job, and Uthman's decision to ignore the vast majority in favor of his family and closest friends rubbed many people raw. When respected Muslim elders pointed this out to him, Uthman would explain at length during his orations at Friday prayers that failing to provide for one's family was a sin in the eyes of God, and if Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab ever had a flaw, it was that they had not done right by their own relations when it was within their power to do so. Many people who benefited from Uthman's largesse saw the wisdom in his words, and allowed some small criticism to creep into their own statements about the first two caliphs. Perhaps the thing that angered me personally the most about Uthman was he might have edited the Holy Quran. It seems there were small discrepancies discovered among the copies of the Holy Book carried by the armies of Syria and Iraq when those two forces joined together to march into Armenia. Rather than launch an investigation to determine where the differences had come from and correct them, Uthman declared only his preferred version written in the particular Arabic vernacular of his clan was true, and all the other copies of the Holy Quran written before his edict should be destroyed. Yes, the holy book that I had spent years copying word for word over and over again as part of my new faith, always with great admiration for the Muslim commitment to not changing a single word, was finalized, formalized, and codified under Uthman, and everything that came before was burned, even if they might agree with Uthman's final word exactly. I cannot tell you what the differences even were. They seemed so insignificant to me at the time as to be unworthy of comment, but in imposing his will upon the Holy Quran, Uthman threw out all that had preceded him as suspect without inspection or examination. Oh, how my friends in the great scriptorium and I boiled inside with the righteous indignation as we watched years of our holy labor burn for the sin of being done before the reign of Uthman. We could not watch long, though. Demand for new Uthman authorized copies of the Holy Quran saw us redouble our efforts, working night and day in shifts to replace all that was being discarded and destroyed. Despite all these outrages and more, Uthman was caliph for twelve long years, and Islam continued to expand its frontiers and win new converts under his rule. There were some setbacks, of course. At one point Constantinople briefly recaptured Alexandria. My old friend Amr ibn al Ass came out of retirement in an instant, all his old veterans living in Palestine and Syria flocked to his banner, and they rode into Egypt without any orders from Caliph Uthman to set things right again. Of course, no sooner were the Romans beaten than Uthman put one of his own kin into the restored governorship. Amur might have come from a rich Meccan merchant family, but he was not a close enough relation to Uthman to hold on to a prize as rich as Egypt. Uthman did not give a fig for how much Amur loved figs. The idea of rewarding a companion of the Messenger of God for conquering Egypt twice for the faith never entered Uthman's mind. The greatest province in Islam would belong to someone who had shared the same wet nurse as a baby as Uthman. Those were the ties that bound our caliph. My friend Amr returned to his farm in Bersheba to fume, and he was not the only Ghazi who came back from the second conquest of Egypt angry. A thousand Arab soldiers from the garrison of Fustat arrived in Medina, demanding Uthman step down as Caliph, and Ali step up into his place. I joined some of my former comrades from the first conquest of Egypt in holding a vigil outside Ali's house, praying that he would become the leader of the Umah that we all knew he could be. When it became clear we were not going away without hearing from him, Ali addressed us from his doorway, demuring the great honor we offered him. Uthman is our caliph. If you feel you are wronged, explain your grievances to him, I will pray for you. With that he made his polite salams and bid us a good night. Well, Ali and Uthman might have hoped that would be the end of it, but the Arabs who conquered Egypt, some of them twice, were not alone in their discontent. Within a month another thousand Arab soldiers from Iraq also arrived in Medina, demanding Uthman step down and another companion of the Messenger of God take his place. That great man too refused to answer the mob's call for a coup. Yet another thousand Arab soldiers from the furthest eastern frontiers arrived in Medina, demanding Uthman resign, and yet another companion of the Messenger of God seize power. That third great man also refused to allow a small army to force him to do something he did not want to do. The only thing that was certain was the warriors of God did not want Uthman as the leader of their faith any longer. I should say by this point I had abandoned my former comrades among the Egyptian contingent. They wandered the streets with their swords drawn, looking for an outlet for their frustration. I spent my time praying five times daily in the privacy of my home, and the rest of the daylight hours making copy of Uthman's preferred version of the Holy Koran in the great scriptorium. In a city full of armed and angry men, my actions were above reproach from even the unhappiest. We were all miserable together with Uthman as our caliph, and no one was willing to lash out at quiet, pious me in all the turmoil. What I am about to tell you next is all true, dear listeners, but it was far, far too dangerous for me to hang around downtown Medina to personally witness what I am about to describe. You can take my version for what it is, or you can read more about this from other accounts. The stories are all basically the same, and where they differ, they usually do so based on the self interest of the parties who repeated them in the years to come. Anyway, tensions in Medina reached the point where Uthman was unable to leave his house, not even to leave the faithful in prayer at the nearby mosque. A small army of unhappy Arabs from three of the four frontiers of the Islamic Empire were camped in the square outside his front door, and as the days and weeks went on, less and less was allowed to go in and out of the caliph's home. It got so bad that Uthman had to call out from an upstairs window whenever his household needed water, and then either a companion of the Messenger of God or one of their sons would throw a goatskin of water over his shoulder and muscle his way through the angry crowd. Disaffected though the soldiers may be, none of them was prepared to murder a famous man for the crime of offering thirsty people a drink in a desert city. That year's pilgrimage to Mecca emptied Medina of much of the faithful, but the caliph did not go. He still was unable to leave his house, and the angry soldiers did not go either. I also did not go, for despite living in Medina for all of Uthman's reign, I had not acquired the Medinian habit of making the pilgrimage every year. For a Muslim from Ela or from Egypt, the journey to Mecca was a rare and special thing. I did not want it to become like the Christian Easter to me, observed every year without fail whether you wanted to or not. Besides, I knew all the talk would be of Uthman's absence and what should be done about his situation, and I wanted none of that. I should have gone. It was so dangerous to stay. Now, unfortunately, there was a sense that matters were coming to a head. The caliph and the rebellious army at his doorstep both knew the assembling Muslims in Mecca would soon return to Medina, ready to oust the armed men from the square. Meanwhile, the caliph had fewer supporters in Medina than at any point since the soldier's first arrival. He was vulnerable and weak in a way any combat veteran could perceive in an instant. Many sons of the companion of the Messenger of God took to guarding the front door of Caliph Uthman's home with their swords drawn. It was felt that famous names would be enough to see the prince of the faithful through this difficult time. Certainly, not even the most impulsive hotheads wanted to cross swords with the up and coming next generation of Muslim leaders standing ready at Uthman's front door. Especially not when the back garden was unguarded. Some of the most rabid of Uthman's opponents scaled the compound's rear wall and stormed the caliph's home even while brave young men stared down an armed crowd out front. These intruders murdered Uthman in his bed, roaring their triumph as they did so. Their cheers were taken up by the mob outside, and their victorious words and songs soon became the angry hum of disturbed bees. The whole city trembled at the sound. I slept at the scriptorium because walking home would almost certainly see me cut down for no crime beyond the expression on my face. So furious was that mob that it was three more days after the murder before the caliph's body could finally be taken from the house for a hasty burial. While Caliph Umar's assassination had been a terrible tragedy, remember that he had thanked God that his killer was not a Muslim. Umar had known his murder would not unleash a whirlwind among the faithful. Also, he had lived long enough to make decisions about his succession. The murderers of Uthman had no plan for the future when they cut him down. The Umah reeled as Muslim killed Muslim over an argument about how Islam should rule the world. No one could guess what would happen next, but I do not think anyone was surprised with how things ended. Not really. The Umah had come to its first great crisis, and it was up to each of us to decide who we wanted to be and what we wanted to believe was right on the far side of a conflict among our own. And what about our next caliph? Who would want to become Prince of the Faithful after this, knowing that it was obtained through murder? Uthman had flaws. Of course he had flaws, but were those flaws enough to justify an untimely death? What would his replacement need to be in his reputation and his actions to avoid the same fate? It was chaos for a while as the whole city wrestled with those questions. Eventually, Ali was at last persuaded to lead us. Perhaps it should have come to him instead of Uthman in the first place. I felt that way at the time, but now I do not know what to feel. This issue has been debated hundreds of millions of times, among hundreds of millions of people, from that day to this one, and there is no right answer that will satisfy everyone. Maybe all the terrible things that are to come could have been avoided if Ali had been chosen over Uthman in the first place. Or maybe the elders who chose Uthman were rightly guided by God's will when they passed over Ali, even if they were wrong in their ultimate choice as well. Enough of that. Things happened as they happened, and so Ali, one of the very first Muslims in the world, and the personal champion of the Messenger of God when the army of the faithful numbered less than a hundred, was at last Caliph. He would find no happiness bearing that title. As soon as there was someone in charge again, the people who had prospered under Uthman called out for justice for his murder. Ali could not give it to them, for the guilty were all among his most passionate supporters. Even if they had acted without his orders, a ruler does not rule long by handing over his staunchest allies for execution by those who preferred his slain predecessor to himself. The sun seemed to beat down on me especially hard as I walked the streets of Medina to and from the great scriptorium in those first days of Ali's reign. Each footfall was exhausting. The weight of waiting for the next terrible thing to happen was oppressive. It felt like matters could only get worse, and so I wrote to my old friend Amar Ibn Elas in Beersheba to ask for his advice. He understood his fellow Arabs and our faith in a way that sometimes eluded me. Did he see further violence in the future? Should I abandon Medina and find a quiet place like him to ride out the storm? Meet me in Damascus, he wrote in reply. You will be safe with me and my friends, and I could use you again in a great cause, God willing. Well, his invitation was all the prompting I needed to quit the city of the Prophet. That said, Amar had not seen me in many years, and he would expect me to have aged as other men age. I shaved my head and bleached my beard, dyeing it red with henna as was the fashion among many old Arabs. I practiced my movements in a mirror so I seemed to walk and talk and gesture as an old man, as I have done many times since Deddy first gave me the idea. When I was ready, I joined a camel caravan heading north across the Nod. I was in Damascus by the time Ali's reign began to unravel even faster than Uthman's head before him. You have been listening to the Tape Recorder Trilogy Podcast, and there is a lot more to come. Here are a few ways you can help support this program. First, if you are enjoying it, please tell someone about it. Audio dramas live and die on word of mouth, so please help spread the word. This may be the third and final season, but I plan to leave the series up as long as people continue to take an interest in it. Second, please like it, review it, and subscribe to it wherever you find your podcasts. We want to teach the algorithm that this show is worth people's time. Third, this podcast is based on the novels Beginning, Middle, and End by Jeff Mix, available on Amazon. If you want a copy of the story for yourselves, that would be so appreciated. Fourth, I have a link to a typeform survey in the show notes for each episode. Tell me a little about yourself and feel free to ask me questions. I have already done a QA mailbag episode during the run of this series, and I probably will do another one in a little while once people have had a chance to find it and enjoy the show after the final episode airs. Fifth, while this may be the final season of the Tape Recorder Trilogy podcast, I already have plans for two more shows, so please remain subscribed to this channel for updates on those when they are ready to be shared. Finally, while I don't want to break up the episode with ads, I do have a Patreon account with extra content for those of you who are willing to support this channel with a donation. A link to that is also in the show notes. With that said, thank you so much for your time and attention, and I look forward to you enjoying the next episode soon.