Abū Quḥāfa, ʿUthmān b. ʿAmr b. Kaʿb Abū Quḥāfa, was the father of the first caliph Abū Bakr. There is little information about him, and what is mentioned in the sources is somewhat unreliable for it seems that most of the accounts have been somehow influenced by the fact that he was the father of the first caliph.

He was descended from the Banū Taym and from the Quraysh (Ibn al-Kalbī, 80). It is said that he went blind (Ibn Ḥabīb, 296). According to one account, on the day that Mecca was conquered, he converted to Islam in the presence of the Prophet a…