Sources and names › Person › Uthman ibn Affan
PersonUthman ibn Affan
Cited in 23 segments across 14 recordings · 2018 to 2023 · person/person:uthman-ibn-affan
Citing segments
Newest first. Each opens the whole segment, not a bare quote.
10 Mar 2023video
Who was Imam Malik and where did he come from?
Imam Malik was born in Madinah around 93 AH into an Arab family of Himyarite origin, with a Companion great-grandfather and a grandfather among the tabi'un.
machine5 min 36 s1:06on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do I have to believe Umar and Uthman were better than Ali?
No: preferring one close companion over another is a personal preference, and he calls arguing over the ranking childish; treating Ali as infallible is equally wrong.
machine2 min 37 s21:49on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How could Abu Hurayra narrate 5,000 hadith after only two years with the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is implausible that Abu Hurayra narrated so much after about two years with the Prophet, that Umar restrained him, and that impossible reports such as the Ruqayya comb story should be rejected by Sunnis themselves.
machine9 min 15 s2:50:05on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did early Muslims really not count Ali as the fourth rightly guided caliph?
Ali is a hero of Islam and preferring him is a personal matter, but he rejects the story of Umar burning Fatima's door and urges moving on.
machine8 min 09 s2:05:48on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Is Jay Smith a reliable critic of the Quran's preservation?
No: he agrees with Yasir Qadhi that Jay Smith and David Wood are not clued up and chase sensation, repeating academics' summaries without understanding them.
machine6 min 59 s6:58on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Was the Quran always fixed word for word, or was it flexible at first?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the Quran was dynamic in the Prophet's time, with companions allowed to substitute synonyms, and that a fixed vowel-for-vowel text is a modern idea. Writing it down in a worldly script brought its own constraints.
machine8 min 51 s19:43on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Can we substitute words of the Quran today as the companions did?
No: the Quran was dynamic in the Prophet's time, but after Uthman's codex and the canonised readings it has reached us fixed, so changing it today would not be correct. He feels word substitution was the original default, not a mere dispensation.
machine6 min 25 s28:34on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Which civil war did early Muslims mean by 'the fitnah'?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is often unclear which civil war early scholars meant by 'the fitnah', as several upheavals were each called the great one.
machine4 min 24 s7:47on YouTube
16 Oct 2020video
How was Abu Bakr chosen as leader after the Prophet died?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the idea that the companions knew leaders must come from Quraysh, and cites Umar's own words in Bukhari that Abu Bakr's hasty election must not be repeated and leaders should be chosen by shura.
machine4 min 20 s10:40on YouTube
16 Oct 2020video
Why did Uthman appoint his relatives as governors?
In Mufti Abu Layth's assessment, Uthman lacked Umar's iron fist for an empire that had doubled, so he relied on his own Umayyad relatives as governors, reviving the old clan rivalry.
machine6 min 33 s15:00on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet leave a written Quran, and what did the caliphs really do?
At the Prophet's death the Quran lived in the community's recitation, teaching and notes; he deliberately left no official codex. The caliphs merely spread copies, and the guest says the Bukhari narratives about their compilation are weak in chain and content.
machine3 min 57 s21:00on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What was the qira'a al-'amma, and why does Morocco recite a different reading?
The common reading of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali and the companions, al-qira'a al-'amma, is the mushaf we have, while the other readings stayed in scholars' books; Morocco reads Nafi' only because a third-century ruler imposed it on account of Imam Malik's preference. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the early generations were more secure in their faith than later, institutionalised Islam.
machine5 min 14 s48:32on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the seven canonical readings of the Quran come about?
In the second and third centuries leading reciters were given the privilege of ikhtiyar, choosing one of the inherited variants for each verse by their own criteria, and Ibn Mujahid later popularised seven of them. Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees these readings are not mutawatir and not on the level of the common reading.
machine5 min 16 s53:49on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did the reading of Hafs from Asim become the standard Quran?
The guest relays Ghamidi's thesis that Hafs alone transmitted the common reading without adding his own choices, so his reading coincides with the original. The seven-ahruf hadith was taken as licence for the reciters' choices, and Ibn Mujahid's seven prevailed through his standing and state position.
machine5 min 13 s57:45on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Which reading of the Quran reached India, Malaysia and Indonesia, and why?
The common reading, later called the reading of Hafs, reached the subcontinent and the Far East through the masses, while the other readings took root only where scholars arrived first. Mufti Abu Layth sums up: the Quran is preserved as the qira'a al-'amma of the Prophet's final recitation, and Hafs coincides with it because he made no choices of his own.
machine4 min 53 s1:46:43on YouTube
28 Feb 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Why did Abu Bakr refuse to give Fadak to Fatima?
Abu Bakr cited the hadith that prophets leave no inheritance; Shia sources say Fadak had been gifted to Fatima, while Sunni sources say the Prophet did not give it to her.
machine6 min 24 s10:15on YouTube
28 Feb 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Why didn't Ali take back Fadak when he became caliph?
Mufti Abu Layth finds it a huge open question that Ali never reclaimed Fadak as caliph, and says the Shia answers he heard did not make sense to him.
machine5 min 13 s19:52on YouTube
31 Dec 2019On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Did angels really fight at the Battle of Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth says many take the angelic help at Badr as symbolic language for strengthened resolve, and the companions' later descriptions as storytelling or what they felt they saw.
machine7 min 42 s0:00on YouTube
19 Sep 2019On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Is it okay to criticise the companions of the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth advises most people to view the companions with veneration, but says anyone who chooses critical, academic study must apply it to every companion, Ali included, rather than selectively.
machine13 min 28 s1:19on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
How did Uthman standardise the Quran, and does that explain the Sana'a text?
Uthman locked in one reading in an undotted script that still allowed the known variant readings, so the lower text is either a person's mistaken note or, less likely, a reading not locked in at that time. Mufti Abu Layth prefers the first, as simple human error from memory.
machine3 min 56 s24:43on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Sana'a manuscript support or undermine the Muslim account of the Quran's history?
The Sana'a find confirms the traditional account: a first-century Quran, companions who sometimes erred as the hadith say, and Uthman's standardisation of one reading. The largest discrepancy is a dropped word that exists elsewhere in the Quran.
machine4 min 08 s32:35on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did the Prophet ever execute anyone for leaving Islam?
The Prophet never executed anyone for disbelief or apostasy: he spared the hypocrite Abdullah ibn Ubayy, traded with Jews until his death, did not act against Ibn Sayyad and pardoned Abdullah ibn Abi Sarh.
machine3 min 53 s11:49on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why do almost all the hadith about Jesus returning come through Abu Hurayra?
Mufti Abu Layth does not believe the Prophet said the second-coming hadith: about eighty percent come through Abu Hurayra alone, who learned from the converts Ka'b al-Ahbar and Abdullah ibn Salam, and some of his reports appear elsewhere as Ka'b's words from the Torah. No such hadith comes from Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali or Uthman.
machine7 min 51 s10:26on YouTube