Uthman, a rich Meccan merchant, gave Muslims one standard Quran
The Quran most Muslims read today traces back to a single codex issued under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. He was already 68 and the oldest man ever to take the office when a council of six chose him. Twelve years later, rebels besieged his house in Medina and killed him.
Uthman was born in Mecca in 576 into the Banu Umayya, then the strongest Quraysh family just before Islam emerged. His father Affan was a merchant who took him along on trading trips, and Uthman grew very wealthy in business himself. Returning from Syria in 611, he heard of Muhammad's mission, talked it over with Abu Bakr and became one of the earliest converts, to the anger of his uncle Hakam.
With his wife Ruqayya, Muhammad's daughter, he fled persecution to Abyssinia in April 615 and kept trading there. A false rumour that Mecca had converted brought them back, and in 622 they moved to Medina, where he bought a house using money he had brought and needed no help from the local Ansar. His generosity earned him the title Ghani. He stayed home from Badr to nurse the dying Ruqayya, served as Muhammad's envoy to Mecca at Hudaybiyya in 628, and in 630 made the biggest single contribution to the Tabuk expedition, reportedly equipping a third of the army and donating 1,000 gold dinars.
He advised Abu Bakr and took down his will naming Umar as successor. When the council picked Uthman after Umar, the caliphate pushed east into Persia as far as Khorasan and Transoxiana and west to Ifriqiya and the Iberian Peninsula. He centralised administration and presided over rapid economic growth, and his standardised written Quran became the basis of the text used ever since.
Resentment grew in his last years over fiscal policy and his appointment of relatives to key posts. Opponents gathered in Medina and besieged his home, and despite defenders he was assassinated on 17 June 656, fuelling political and sectarian strife. His reign was the longest of the Rashidun caliphs, and Sunni tradition counts him the third rightly guided caliph.
Source: Uthman
