Methods of Preservation of the Holy Quran
Since the beginning of its revelation, the Holy Quran has been preserved through “memorization” rather than “writing”. The special feature of memorization was only bestowed upon this last divine book. The Night, the Gospel and other heavenly books and scriptures were preserved only in the Ark, so they were subject to changes and alterations and other accidents. In relation to the Holy Quran, Allah Almighty, while addressing the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), said:
And I will send down to you a book that water will not wash away. (Sahih Muslim)
In other words, the preservation of the Quran was primarily through memorization, and this is the most important means of preservation. For this reason, this holy book has remained in its original state to this day. The Companions, may Allah be pleased with them all, diverted their God-given, unparalleled memorization from memorizing the poems of the pre-Islamic period, the lineages of Arabs, and even the lineages of camels and horses, and focused it on memorizing the verses of Allah.
The proverbial memorization of the Arabs brought thousands of memorizers of the verses of Allah to the stage of martyrdom in a few days. The abundance of memorizers can be estimated from the fact that: the number of memorizers who were martyred in the “Battle of Yamamah” alone was seven hundred. It is stated in the footnote of Bukhari Sharif: And the number of reciters was seven hundred (2/745).
When Hazrat Jibreel (AS) recited the Quran to the Holy Prophet (PBUH), he (PBUH) started reciting it quickly so that it would become well-established. On this, Allah Almighty said: Do not move your tongue to hasten it, for upon Us is the collection and recitation of the Quran. (Qiyamah 17) (Translation:) Do not move your tongue to hasten the Quran, for upon Us is the collection and recitation of the Quran.
Arrangement of Writing
In addition to memorizing and having the verses recited orally, the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also made a great effort to write down the verses to preserve them. He would have the verses written down without delay as soon as they were revealed: So when a verse was revealed to him, he would call one of those who were writing and say: Put this in the Surah in which such and such verses are mentioned. (Mukhtasar Kanzs 48, with reference to the compilation of the Quran, p. 27).
And in Majma’ al-Zawa’id it is even stated: Gabriel (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would dictate to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). (7/157) That is, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to write the Holy Quran.
In a narration of Musnad Ahmad, it is also mentioned that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Jibreel came to me and ordered me to put such and such a verse in such and such a place.” (Kanz al-Ummal 2/40) That is, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to take great care in writing down verses, and after writing them, he would listen to them. If there was any omission, he would correct it: “If there was a mistake in it, it was a mistake.” (Majma’ al-Zawa’id 1/60) Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would keep this written verse with him.
The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) also used to go to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and write down what they heard and recite it to him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Thus, many of the Companions had verses written by the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and some had the entire Quran written down.
Writing Materials
According to the research of Hafiz Ibn Hajar, the following materials were used in the writing of the Quran:
(a) Mostly, wide and thin slabs of stones (likhaf) were used, which we can call slate.
(b) It was also written on the wide round bones (qatif) of camels’ tusks, which were prepared by carving them very well.
(c) The Quran was also written on very thin pieces of leather (riqa’), these pieces were very thin, and were prepared for writing, and there was a great abundance of them in the carnivorous country.
(d) Verses were also written on pieces of bamboo.
(e) Wide and clean leaves of trees were also used for writing.
(f) The verses were also written on the inside of the broad roots (asib) of the date palm branches and the attached leaves of the date palm.
(g) The hadith scholars have mentioned the writing of the Quran on paper as well. (Fath al-Bari 9/17).
The order of the surahs and verses
The entire Ummah is unanimous that the order of the surahs and verses in the Holy Quran is fixed, that is, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had the Prophet Gabriel (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) write the entire Holy Quran in order by the command of Allah Almighty. Even today, the Holy Quran is being written and recited in the same order, and it will remain so until the Day of Judgment.
The entire Holy Quran was revealed in twenty-two years, five months, and fourteen days (Manahil-ul-Irfan, p. 43). As needed, sometimes a single verse, sometimes a few verses, and sometimes a whole surah were revealed, and at the same time, it was commanded to place it in such and such a place in such and such a surah; so, calling the scribes of revelation, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would say: ضَعَوَاهَ فَضَعَ قَذَا (At-Tabiyah fi ‘Ulum al-Qur’an, p. 49, Fath al-Bari 9/27) (translation:) Write it in such and such a place!
Manuscripts of the Holy Quran during the Prophetic Era
As mentioned above, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to have verses written down as soon as the revelation came, and he would also listen to them while writing them down, and then he would keep them with him. For this reason, the entire Holy Quran was also available to him in written form; but it was not bound in one volume, it was written on different things.
Among the companions who knew how to read and write, they would come to the Prophet’s service and write down the verses. When a verse was added to a Surah, they would find out and arrange it. In this way, many companions had the authentic copy of the Quran of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Some had the entire Quran, while others had a few Surahs and a few verses. The process of writing and rewriting was ongoing from the very beginning. The following narrations testify to this:
(1) In the narration of Hazrat Umar bin Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) about his conversion to Islam, it is stated that: His sister Fatima and brother-in-law Saeed bin Zaid (may Allah be pleased with them) had already converted to Islam before him. They were reciting the Quran from Hazrat Khabbab (may Allah be pleased with him). When Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) came to him in a very angry state, he found a scroll in front of him which he had hidden, in which were written the verses of Surah Taha. (Sunan Dar Qutni 1/123 Chapter: Forbidding the Hadith from the Written Quran, Dar Nashar Lahore)
(2) Imam Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) has narrated a tradition in “Kitab al-Jihad” in which it is stated that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) forbade people from entering the land of the enemy with the Mus-e-Hifs (the written Quran). (Sahih Bukhari 1/419)
(3) When the time came for the writing of the consensus version of the Holy Quran on the advice of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Umar (may Allah be pleased with them), Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit was ordered: “Whoever brings a written verse, take the testimony of two witnesses from him that this verse was written in the presence of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).” So it was done (Al-It-Taqan 1/77)
From the above three narrations and many other narrations, it is evident that during the Prophet’s time, many of the Companions had verses written; in fact, some of them even had the entire Holy Quran in written form.
Compilation of the Holy Quran,
On one occasion, Hazrat Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The most rewarded person in the service of the Holy Quran is Abu Bakr, may Allah have mercy on Abu Bakr, he is the first to collect the Book of Allah. (Al-Itqan fi ‘Ulum al-Quran 1/76
During the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), the entire Holy Quran was written on different materials, all the parts were separate, Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) carried out the task of having all the Surahs of the Holy Quran written in the same cutting and size and bound in a single volume, as a government and consensus; thus, such a manuscript was compiled that received the unanimous approval of all the Companions.
Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) was demanding that the same service be carried out by the government. He wanted the Caliphate and the government to take this campaign into their own hands and complete it under their supervision; so that the Holy Quran would not be lost and later there would be no disagreement in the Book of Allah.
Imam Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated the narration of Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him) who says:
Immediately after the “Battle of Yamamah”, Siddiq Akbar sent a summons to me. When I reached him, Hazrat Umar Farooq (may Allah be pleased with him) was also present. Hazrat Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) addressed me and said: Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) has just come and told me that a large number of the memorizers of the Quran have been martyred in the Battle of Yamamah. If the memorizers continue to be martyred in the same way in future battles, I fear that a large part of the Holy Quran will be lost!
So my opinion is that you should order the collection of the Holy Quran. I said: How can we do what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not do? Umar replied: By God! This is better. After that, Umar kept telling me this; until I too became a scholar of the Quran, and now my opinion is the same as Umar’s!
Hazrat Zaid (RA) said: By God! If these gentlemen had ordered me to move mountains, it would not have been as difficult for me as it was for me to collect the Quran. I said: Why are you doing something that the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) did not do? Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) said: By God, this is better. Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) kept repeating this until Allah Almighty opened my chest for the work for which Hazrat Abu Bakr and Umar (RA) had been given the title of Sharh-e-Sadr. So I started collecting the Quran from palm branches, thin stone tablets and the chests of people. Even the verse of repentance: “There has come to you a messenger from among yourselves, up to the last chapter” I found only with Hazrat Abu Khuzaimah Al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), and I did not find it with anyone else. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) considered his testimony alone as equivalent to the testimony of two people (Sahih Bukhari 2/745, 746).
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Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit’s method in compiling the Quran
Hafsa bint Umar (RA). As has been mentioned in the narration of Bukhari Sharif, Hazrat Uthman Ghani (RA) had ordered copies from her and had them prepared. Hazrat Abu Bakr, Umar and Zaid bin Thabit (may Allah be pleased with them) were all Hafiz of the Quran, besides them there was no shortage of Hafizs among the Companions. If Hazrat Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) wanted, he could have written the entire Quran from his memory, or he could have collected the Hafiz of the Companions and written the Quran solely with the help of their memory.
Similarly, the Quran could have been written solely from the verses written during the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him); but Hazrat Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered that all resources be used at once, he himself also participated, and Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) was also assigned to Hazrat Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him). Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) announced:
Rather, two witnesses were required for it:
And no verse was accepted from anyone until two witnesses testified to it. (Al-Itqan 1/77)
(Translation:) And no verse was accepted from anyone until two witnesses testified to it (that this verse was written in the presence of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), meaning that it had been confirmed by him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that it was truly a divine verse).
The following things were also kept in mind in the compilation of the Quran:
1. First, Hazrat Zaid would confirm it from his memory.
2. Hazrat Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered Hazrat Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) and Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) to sit at the gate of the Prophet’s Mosque, and whoever brings to you a verse of the Book of Allah with two witnesses, write it down! (Fath al-Bari 9/17, Al-Itqan 1/77)
Hafiz Ibn Hajar has also written another reason: Testimonies were also taken on the fact that: Two witnesses testify that the written verse is in accordance with the seven reasons (seven) on which the Holy Quran was revealed (Fath al-Bari 9/17, al-Itqan 1/77)
3. After writing, it was compared with the written collections available to the Companions; so that this collection would be unanimously reliable, (Al-Burhan fi ‘Ulum al-Quran by al-Zarkashi 1/238)
When the work of compiling and compiling the “Holy Quran” was completed with collective confirmation, the Companions consulted among themselves: What name should it be given? So some of the Companions named it “Sifr”; but this name did not pass due to its similarity to the Jews, finally all the Companions agreed on the name “Musahf”. (Al-It-Taqn 1/77)
This agreed upon copy of the Holy Quran remained with Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) until his death, then with Hazrat Umar (RA). When he also passed away, it was kept safe with Umm al-Mu’minina.
The characteristics of the Siddiq manuscript
Other companions also had the Quran written, but the features that the consensus manuscript of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq possessed were absent from all other manuscripts, for this reason it was called “Umm” among the companions. Its characteristics are as follows:
1 Each Surah was written separately; but the exact order was the same as that which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had given (Fath al-Bari 9/22)
2 This manuscript contained all seven letters, on which the Quran was revealed. (Manahil al-Irfan 1/246, 247)
3 This manuscript was written in the “Hiyri” script. (Tarikh al-Quran by Maulana Abdul Samad Sarem# p. 43)
4 Only those verses were written in it, the recitation of which was not abrogated.
5 The purpose of having it written was to prepare a compiled manuscript with the “unanimous approval” of the entire community; so that it could be referred to when needed (Uloom al-Quran by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, p. 186)
6 In this manuscript, all the surahs of the Holy Quran were written in the same cut and size, and bound in a single volume, and this work was done by the government, which was not possible during the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), (Tadween al-Quran, p. 40)
And the Quran was spread out, so it was gathered together and bound together with a seam. (Al-Itqan 1/83)
(Translation 🙂 And (the collection of the complete memoranda of the Holy Quran in the house of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)) (the Quranic surahs) were written separately; So the one who collected it (by the order of Hazrat Abu Bakr) (Zayd bin Thabit) collected (all the Surahs) in one place and tied them all together with a single thread.
This agreed copy of the Holy Quran remained with Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique (may Allah be pleased with him). When he died, it was kept safe with Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him). When he also died, it was kept safe with his daughter, Umm al-Mu’minin, Hazrat Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her). (Sahih Bukhari 2/746).
The Unity of the Ummah in the Ottoman Era
Just as the greatest achievement of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA) was the compilation of the Quran, similarly the greatest achievement of Hazrat Usman Ghani (RA) was to unite the entire Ummah on the agreed version of the Quran which was prepared in the “Ahad-e-Siddiq”. In this way, he saved the unity of the Muslim Ummah from being scattered. The details of this are as follows:
Even when people started to declare each other as takfir, Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) gathered the Ummah on the agreed-upon version prepared by Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), and summoned all the other versions and burned them so that “no bamboo would remain, no flute would play.” Thus, the dispute was completely eliminated (for details, see: Tawheed-e-Quran 44, 54, Tuhfat-ul-Ma’i 7/94, 95, Manahil-e-Irfan etc.)
Nature of the Work
Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered from Hazrat Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with him) the copy prepared by Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique (may Allah be pleased with him) saying that we will make a copy from it and return the original to you. So Hazrat Hafsa sent that copy. Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered three Qurayshi and a fourth Ansari companion (may Allah be pleased with him) to write five or seven copies. Among the Qurayshi companions, Hazrat Abdullah bin Zubair, Saeed bin Al-As and Abdur Rahman bin Al-Harith bin Hisham (may Allah be pleased with them) were mentioned, and the Ansari companion was Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit (may Allah be pleased with them).
Hazrat Usman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) also instructed all of them that if you disagree with Hazrat Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) in any place in the script, then write that word according to the script of the Quraysh; because the Holy Quran was revealed in the language of the Quraysh (Fath al-Bari 9/22).
It is known from reliable narrations that: These people did not disagree on any word of the entire Holy Quran, yes! There is a word “at-Tabut” in Surah al-Baqarah, Hazrat Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) was of writing it with a round “ط”, and Hazrat Saeed bin al-As (may Allah be pleased with him) wanted to write it with a long “t”, when this matter reached Hazrat Usman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him), he ordered to write it with a long “t”. (For details, see: Siyar ‘A’lam al-Nubala’ with footnotes 2/441, 442).
It should be noted that the above four men were the main members of the “Majlis Kitabat”, besides them, other men were also appointed with them. It is mentioned in Fath al-Bari that Hazrat Uthman gathered twelve people from Quraysh and Ansar for this purpose. Among them, besides the above four men, Ubayy bin Ka’b, Malik bin Abi Amir, Kathir bin Aflah, Anas bin Malik and Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them all) are particularly noteworthy. (Fath al-Bari 9/23).
Characteristics of the manuscripts prepared during the Ottoman era
1. In the manuscript prepared during the caliphate of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique (may Allah be pleased with him), all the Surahs were written separately. Hazrat Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) had all the Surahs written in the same order one after the other in a single Mushaf. (Fath al-Bari 9/22).
2. The Holy Quran was written in such a script that it could accommodate as many consecutive readings as possible. (Manahil-e-Irfan 1/253)
3. The people whom Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) had commissioned to prepare the manuscript of the Quran, based on the same manuscript that was prepared during the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), and for added caution, he adopted the same method that was adopted during the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him); therefore, the various writings of the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that were preserved with various companions were recalled and these manuscripts were prepared by comparing them anew. (Uloom al-Quran, p. 191)
Number of manuscripts prepared during the Ottoman era
There are two opinions in this regard, one opinion is that Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) had five manuscripts prepared, which is the more popular opinion. (Fath al-Bari 9/24) And the second statement is that Hazrat Uthman had seven copies prepared, one copy was kept in Medina, and the rest were sent one by one to Mecca, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Basra and Kufa. This statement was narrated by Abu Hatim al-Sijistani from Ibn Abi Dawud. (Fath al-Bari 9/25).
Other copies of the Quran found in the Ummah
Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered the burning of all the copies of the Holy Quran in the possession of the Companions and the great followers (Fath al-Bari 9/13) so that the Muslim Ummah would agree on a single script and the unity of the Ummah would remain intact.
All the Companions present at that time, without exception, supported and appreciated this feat of Hazrat Uthman and greatly appreciated it.
The copy of the Ehd al-Siddiq
Hazrat Uthman Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) had ordered the copy of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) from Umm al-Mu’minin Hazrat Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with him) with the promise of return (Fath al-Bari 9/19); therefore, he prepared copies from her and returned them as promised. (Fath al-Bari 139)
