ending the privileged status of the Quraysh. Along these lines, Anthony views Ali's refusal to follow the first two caliphs as evidence of his censure of their rule. Shaban notes that Ali's refusal made him a rallying point for the opposition movement, adding that the wealthy Uthman was possibly selected to guard the Meccan interests. Likewise, Kennedy suggests that Ali refused to follow the precedent of Abu Bakr and Umar because he might have realized that the Quraysh's domination was dividing the community and wished to open the leadership for other groups, especially the Ansar, with whom he had links. Uthman, in contrast, was a wealthy Meccan merchant with good ties with the Quraysh elite. Some contemporary authors go further, suggesting that Ibn Awf's question was designed to weed out Ali, as he was well aware of Ali's disagreements with the past two caliphs and that he would have inevitably rejected the second condition. For Afsaruddin, however, the (Sunni) accounts of Uthman's appointment convey that the third caliph was expected at the time to follow Abu Bakr and Umar. Motivations of Ibn Awf Uthman is often portrayed as a weak-minded man, and Jafri suggests that Ibn Awf and the committee (except Ali) hoped that he would serve their interests, as representatives of the Quraysh aristocracy. Keaney and Ayoub include a report by al-Tabari that quotes Ali as saying, "You [Ibn Awf] have appointed Uthman so that the rule will come back to you." The view of Wellhausen is similar. Still, Madelung disagrees with it, saying that Uthman was actually put forward because he was the only available strong counter-candidate to Ali. His view is echoed by McHugo. Historicity The earliest sources are accounts written more than a century after Uthman, all of which are polemical, written also with the benefit of hindsight. That is, the authors knew about Uthman's nepotism, Ali's caliphate, the civil war, and the Umayyad and the Abbasid dynasties. Cateani () thus rejects Umar's committee altogether as a later fabrication to justify the prevailing practice of the Abbasids, whereas Jafri, Madelung, and Keaney defend the credibility of the accounts in this regard. Jafri further argues that the accounts of Umar's committee are essentially authentic, adding that the accounts of the early historians al-Baladhuri, al-Ya'qubi (), al-Tabari, and al-Mas'udi are similar to each other and to that of the much earlier Ibn Ishaq (). Nevertheless, he admits that