They were like a duck that spends all its life in water but...

They were like a duck that spends all its life in water but water does not wet its feathers-as it is said. Yes! They acknowledged Islam jus to spare their bloods and to wait for a suitable opportunity in order to tear down the pillars and bases of Islam. And it was so. When the men of power handed the caliphate over to the first one of them (Uthaman), they flew up with joy and declared some of what their hearts hid.

Abu Sufyan gathered the Umayyads and said, ‘O bani Umayyah, snatch it (the caliphate) like snatching a ball. By that which Abu Sufyan swears by, there is neither Paradise nor Fire.’ Then, they took the rein of the Umayyad caliph (Uthman) with their hands and began leading him (like a submissive camel) to wherever they wished. They seized the wealth of Muslims for themselves, and took people as their slaves.

Muslims in all lands revolted against him (Uthman) and them (the Umayyads), until they blockaded him in his house and forced him to depose himself from the caliphate and make it (the caliphate) be decided in consultation among Muslims. In the beginning, he hesitated and refused, but when the rebels firmed the blockade and prevented him from even water and food, he submitted and gave up, and he tried to put out the fire of the sedition by deposing himself as a response to the revolters.

Then, the Umayyads, whose leadership in Medina was in the hand of Marwan and in Sham was in the hand of Mu’awiya, felt that if their friend (Uthman) deposed himself, the rope would slip from their hands…Muslims had committed a mistake and they would never come to like it again…for what virtue or nobility the Umayyads had or for what jihad they had in Islam so that one of them might assume the caliphate of Muslims?!

They were the enemies and opponents of Islam in all its situations and on every day from its days. Marwan and his party understood that well, and so they colluded with their leader in Sham (Mu’awiya) to kill their friend (Uthaman) before he would depose himself and before the rope of trick would slip from their hands.

Yes, they would kill him and take his murder as an excuse to accuse some group of Muslims of his blood, and then they would pretend before all Muslims that he was killed unjustly and they must revenge him on the killers, and thus this would be the best means to take back the caliphate for themselves. Without the murder of Uthman and the shirt of Uthman the caliphate would not come to Mu’awiya, Marwan, and the offspring of Marwan.