Preservation of the Quran
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

The very first injunction given to the Prophet - ‘Read in the name of your Lord who created’ - stresses the importance of knowledge (96:1). And the last words of revelation pertain to the life hereafter (2:281).

The Quran was revealed over a period of twenty-three years and was written down in its entirety during the Prophet’s lifetime, although the verses were not gathered together in one volume at that time (Al-Katani, V.2, p.384).

For the first twenty-three years the Prophet himself was the fountainhead of Qur’anic learning. Then he appointed certain of his followers to convey the message of the Qur’an after him. These were men who, having memorized the entire Quranic text with complete accuracy, were fully competent to impart its teachings. During the caliphate of Umar Faruq, the second caliph of Islam, a man who had come from Kufa to Madina told the caliph that there was someone in Kufa who was teaching the scriptures from memory. At this Caliph Umar was enraged. But when he found out that the person was none other than Abdullah ibn Masood, he regained his composure, (Istiab, Vol. I, p. 377) the reason being that Abdullah ibn Masood was one of those appointed by the Prophet himself to perform this service. Other more prominent scholars of the Qur’an were as follows: Usman, Ali, Ubayy ibn Kaab, Zayd ibn Thabit, Ibn Masood, Abu Darda, Abu Moosa Ashari, Salim Maula Abi Huzayfa.

However, these Muslims, who had been assigned this task, could not survive forever. Undoubtedly, they were going to leave the world one by one, and then there would be the risk of the Qur’an falling into the hands of less responsible, less knowledgeable people, who might not preserve it intact and who would almost certainly differ as to its true meaning.  There was even the danger of its being entirely lost to posterity. With the death of 700 of the Prophet’s Companions in the Battle of Yamamah in 12 A.H., this danger began to loom large.

It has been recorded in the annals of history that “when Salim Maula Abi Huzayfa was martyred, Umar felt the danger of the Qur’an being destroyed and came to Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, to discuss this” (Fathul Bari, v. 9, p. 5). Salim was one of the few surviving companions who had been selected by the Prophet himself to spread the teachings of the Qur’an. The solution suggested by Umar to Abu Bakr was to preserve the Qur’an by making a formal compilation of it in written form.

As has been established, the Prophet always arranged for each passage of the Qur’an to be recorded in writing as soon as it was revealed. This kitabat (writing down on paper) was so meticulous a procedure that after verse 95 of chapter 4 had been revealed, and the words “except those who are disabled” were revealed again as an addition to the same verse, it was arranged that this phrase—according to Imam Malik—be written at the same moment by the transcriber. (Durr Mansoor, Vol. 2, p.203)

It was customary for the Prophet to ask the transcriber to read out the verses after writing them down. According to Zayd ibn Thabit, if any part was missed out in the writing, he would correct it and only after this written work was fully completed would the Prophet allow the propagation of those verses (Majmauz Zawaid, vol.I, p. 60).

The number of transcribers who worked at different times is put at forty-two. According to Ibn Abdul Bar, Hanzala ibn Rabi was the chief transcriber. He was asked to remain in the company of the Prophet at all times (Aqd Al-Farid, v. 4, p. 114), a foolproof arrangement whereby a number of the companions possessed passages of the Qur’an in written form by the time of the Prophet’s death.  A sizeable number, four of whom are worth mentioning: Abu Darda, Muaz ibn Jabal, Zayd ibn Thabit and Abu Zayd even possessed the complete Qur’an in its present arrangement.

It has been established from authentic traditions that the angel Gabriel, who conveyed the revelations of God to the Prophet, himself arranged these verses:  each year during the month of Ramadan, Gabriel would come to the Prophet and recite before him all the Quranic verses revealed up till that time in the order in which they exist today, after which the Prophet would repeat the verses in exactly the same order. This dual process has been termed al-Irza, ‘mutual presentation,’ in the books of hadith.

It has also been established that in the last year of the Prophet’s life, when the revelations had been completed, Gabriel came to the Prophet and recited the entire Qur’an in the existing order twice, and similarly the Prophet also recited to Gabriel the entire Qur’an twice. This final presentation is called al-Arz al-Akhirah in the books of hadith. (Fathul Bari, p. 659-663)

When by the help of Gabriel the Qur’an was fully and systematically arranged, the Prophet recited it to his companions on different occasions in the order with which we are familiar today. The Qur’an was thus preserved in its pristine form in the memories of tens of thousands of the companions during the Prophet’s lifetime.

The preservation of the Qur’an passed through three stages: transcription, compilation and collection. In the first stage, as soon as a chapter or a verse was revealed, it was committed to writing.  The following items are mentioned in books as examples of the writing materials used:

    Riqa‘a—Thin leather piece
    Likhaf—Thin slates of white stone
    Katf—The round bone of the shoulder of the camel
    'Asib—The wide part of the root of the date branch.

In the hadith, the second stage of this process is referred to as  “compilation.”  That is, first the verses were written down at the time of revelation. Then, when one chapter was completed, the whole chapter (often it took several revelations to complete one chapter) was written in compiled form, i.e. arranged in proper order on riqa‘a (leather). Such copies of the compiled Qur’an (complete or incomplete) were in the possession of a large number of people during the lifetime of the Prophet. We have the well-known incident of Umar who beat his own sister and brother-in-law mercilessly for having accepted Islam. Finally, when his anger had subsided, he asked them to show him the book they were reading from. His sister replied that he could not touch it in a state of impurity and only after he had bathed himself did his sister give him the book (Ibn Hisham).

The third stage of this process is termed “Collection” that is, writing down the entire Qur’an together in one volume. The form of the bound volume consisting of pages of the same size was not prevalent in the Prophet’s time. According to a narration recorded by Bukhari, only four companions Ubayy ibn Kaab, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Zayd, and Zayd ibn Thabit had the entire Qur’an put together during the life of the Prophet.  In Kanz al Ummal, referring to Muhammad, Ibn Kab Al-Qurzi gives us the names of five such collectors of the complete Qur’an.  However the status of their collections was that of a personal possession. The official version was produced under the direction of  the caliph Abu Bakr, who had it bound after arranging for all the verses to be written on square papers of the same size. Imam Malik has also recorded (citing as his source, Shahab Zahri, who had learned it from Salim, son of Abdullah ibn Umar,) that Zayd ibn Thabit wrote down all the verses of the Qur’an on al-Qaratis (papers of the same size) at the command of Abu Bakr. This volume was called Raba‘a (square). (Itqan, v. 1, pp. 84-85)

It is said that during the caliphate of Umar Faruq there were more than one hundred thousand copies of the Qur’an in circulation in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, etc.

In later times the written Qur’an became the main source of Islamic learning. But one danger was still lurking. In sacred books even very minor differences can become a source of great controversy. It was feared that if people wrote the Qur’an on their own, differences in transcribing (kitabat) e.g. writing ‘eether’ for ‘either’ and in recitation would create widespread dissension and there would be no way of putting an end to it.  For instance, just one word in the first chapter of the Qur’an was written in different ways according to the pronunciation of different dialects: maalik-e-yaumuddin, malik-e-yaumuddin and maleek-e-yaumuddin, etc.; with the passing of time and changes in the style of writing, the differences in the manuscript would have become a source of great contention. Therefore, on the advice of Umar, Abu Bakr decided to have an authentic copy of the Qur’an prepared under state patronage and thus put an end forever to the possibility of phonetic differences obscuring the true meaning of the text.

For this purpose Zayd ibn Thabit was the most competent, as he was the katib of the Prophet. Zayd and Ubayy ibn Kaab both had joined in the ‘last recitation’ having heard the Qur’an directly from the Prophet in the order still extant today. Not only had they memorized the entire Qur’an, but they also possessed the whole text in written form. The first caliph commanded them to collect all the available parts of the scriptures and to compile them. (Bukhari). After this decision had been taken, Umar made an announcement in the Mosque that whoever had any piece of writing from the Qur’an should bring it and hand it over to Zayd.

During the first caliphate, the Qur’an not only existed in written form on the bark of date palms, stones, leather, etc, but was also preserved in the memory of the companions. The Qur’an, when made into a book, was arranged in the order memorized by the companions, and the verses have been preserved in that same order right up to the present day.

Zayd ibn Thabit’s work was more a process of collection than of compilation. That is, the scattered bits and pieces of the Qur’an in written form were collected by him, not just to be assembled and bound in one volume, but to be used to verify the authenticity of the Qur’an as memorized and passed on in oral tradition by countless individuals. Once this exact correspondence between the oral and written forms of the Qur’an had been established beyond any reasonable doubt, Zayd proceeded to put the verses of the Qur’an down on paper in their correct order.

Harith Muhasibi writes in his book, Fahm As-Sunan, that the transcription of the Qur’an was nothing new, because the Prophet himself had arranged for it to be written down. But it was written separately on Riqa‘a, Likhaf, Katf, ‘Asib, etc. All the materials on which the Qur’an was written were available in the Prophet’s house, but had not been put in any special order.  What the collector did was assemble all these parts and then bind them together so that no part was destroyed. (Al-Itqan, v. 1, p. 40)

This elaborate arrangement of the Qur’an was made so that there should not be even the minutest discrepancy vis-à-vis the original revelation. If this extraordinary care had not been taken, differences would have resulted from the slightest lapse in memorizing and transcription. For instance, when Umar recited this verse to Zayd ibn Thabit, “As for those who led the way, the first of the Muhajirs and the Ansar, those who nobly followed them,” Zayd said, that he remembered this verse with waw, that is, with ‘and’ after Ansar. So the investigation started, and finally the other memorizers of the Qur’an came and confirmed that the opinion of Zayd was right. So in the volume the verse was written with the addition of ‘and’.

In former times, when the accepted way of disseminating the subject matter of a book was to memories it, then recite it, it was quite exceptional that the Qur’an should have been preserved in writing as well as memorized. This was like having a ‘double checking’ system, whereby memory plus written words and written words plus memory could be constantly compared for verification.

After Zayd ibn Thabit had prepared the entire Qur’an and bound it in the form of a book, all other materials collected from different companions, for the purpose of checking and rechecking, were all burnt. Now this volume was handed over to the caliph. After Abu Bakr’s death it remained with Umar, the second caliph. After the death of Caliph Umar it remained in the custody of Hafsa, daughter of Umar and wife of the Prophet.

During the caliphate of Uthman, Islam had spread far and wide, and the number of Muslims was legion. Moreover, the companions who taught the Qur’an had gone to different countries that had come within the fold of Islam. For instance, the Syrians learned the Qur’an from Ubayy ibn Kaab, the Kufans (the inhabitants of Kufa, a city in Iraq) learned the Qur’an from Abdullah ibn Masood and the Iraqis in general from Abu Musa Ash’ari. However, due to differences in accent and styles of writing, controversies again began cropping up. People even called one another heretics owing to such differences.

Ibn Abi Daud writes in his book, Al-Masahif, quoting Yazid ibn Muawiyah Nakhai, that once when Huzayfa ibn Al-Yaman was present in the mosque of Kufa, he found a group reciting the Qur’an. One of them recited a certain verse and said: “This is the way of recitation of Abdullah ibn Masood.” Another recited it with a different accent and said that was how Abu Musa Al-Ashari recited it. Huzayfa, enraged on hearing this, stood up and admonished this group: “Those before you (people of the book) differed just like this. By God, I will go riding to the leader of the believers, Uthman, the third caliph.”

Huzayfa was a military officer posted in Armenia and Azerbaijan, and had just come back from doing battle. But when he reached Madina, and witnessed the scene in the Prophet’s mosque, instead of going straight home, he went directly to the third caliph and addressed him thus: “O Leader of the believers! Take care of the people, before they fall victim to the differences regarding the book of God just as the Jews and the Christians did.”

During the caliphate of Uthman there entered the fold of Islam peoples whose mother tongue was not Arabic, and who were not able to speak the language with the proper accent and pronunciation. Even the various Arab tribes themselves had different accents and pronunciation. Hence the variations in the recitation of the Qur’an. The result was that the Qur’an, too, began to be written according to varying pronunciations. Ibn Qutayba writes that the Bani Huzayl tribe used to pronounce ‘hatta’ as ‘atta’. Since Ibn Masood belonged to this tribe, its members saw no reason to deviate from this pronunciation. Such differences in recitation came to be reflected in the transcription of the Qur’an, this being only one of many such examples. Given this state of affairs, Uthman, as advised by Huzayfa ibn Yaman, had copies made of the volume prepared by Abu Bakr, then sent one copy each to all cities. This task was again entrusted to Zayd ibn Thabit Ansari, who was provided with eleven people to assist him. As per the order of the third caliph, the committee wrote down the Qur’an in accordance with the spelling of the Quraysh, so that it should conform to the accent (lehja) of the Prophet of Islam. Caliph Uthman subsequently ordered that all other copies of the Qur’an, which people had written on their own, should be handed over to the government. These were all then burnt by his order.

By this method, all the copies of the Qur’an were made uniform as far as writing was concerned. However, taking natural differences into consideration—since all the people were not able to pronounce the Qur’an uniformly—permission was given for the Qur’an to be recited with seven different pronunciations and accents. The collection prepared by Abu Bakr was done one year after the death of the Prophet. The copies ordered by Uthman were produced fifteen years after the Prophet’s death.

These copies of the Qur’an, made with extraordinary care and precision, were passed on from generation to generation until the age of the press dawned. Many printing presses were then established in the Muslim world, where the beautiful calligraphy of the scriptures was reproduced after its content had been certified by memorizers of the Qur’an. Thus, once again, with the help of the memorized versions and written texts, correct, authentic copies were prepared; then with the publication of these copies on a large scale, the Qur’an spread all over the world.