the time, nor could such a copy be made while the Holy Prophet was alive, and still receiving revelations. But the whole of the Holy Qur’ān in one arrangement was safely preserved in the memories of reciters (qurrā’). It happened, however, that many of the reciters fell in the famous battle of Yamāma, in the caliphate of Abū Bakr,13 and it was then that ‘Umar14 urged upon him the necessity of compiling a standard written copy, so that no portion of the Holy Qur’ān should be lost even if all the reciters were to die. And this copy was compiled, not from the hundreds of copies that had been made by individual Companions for their own use but from the manuscripts written under the direction of the Holy Prophet himself, and the arrangement adopted was that of the oral recitation as followed in his time. Thus a standard written copy was prepared, which was entrusted to the care of Ḥafṣah, wife of the Holy Prophet.15 But still no arrangement had been made for securing the accuracy of the numerous copies that were in circulation. This was done by ‘Uthman16 who ordered several copies to be made of the copy prepared in the time of the first Caliph, and these were then sent to the different Islāmic centres so that all copies made by individuals should be compared with the standard copy at each centre.
Thus Abū Bakr ordered a standard copy to be prepared from the manuscripts written in the presence of the Holy Prophet, following the order of chapters which was followed by the reciters under the directions of the Holy Prophet, and ‘Uthmān ordered copies to be made from this standard copy. If there was any variation from that standard copy, it went no further than this that where the Quraish17 wrote a word in one way and Zaid wrote it in another way, ‘Uthmān’s order was to write it in the manner of the Quraish. This was because Zaid was a Madinite while his colleagues were Quraish.18
As to what these differences were, some light is thrown on the point by Tirmidhī, one of the collectors of Ḥadīth, making the following addition to this report: “And they differed on that occasion as to tābūt and tābūh. The Quraish members said that it was tābūt and Zaid said that it was tābūh. The difference was reported to ‘Uthmān
13 First Caliph of Islām, 11-13 A.H., 632-634 A.D.
14 ‘Umar became the second Caliph, (13-23 A.H. 634-644 A.D.).
15 Bukhārī, 66:3.
16 Uthmān succeeded ‘Umar as the third Caliph (23-35 A.H., 644-656 A.D.).
17 Quraish: the leading tribe of Makkah, the Holy Prophet Muḥammad belonged to the Banū Hāshim branch of this tribe.
18 Here is an account of what took place: “Anas son of Mālik relates that Ḥudhaifah came to ‘Uthmān, and he had been fighting along with the people of Syria in the conquest of Armenia and along with the people of ‘Irāq in Azerbaijan, and was alarmed at their variations in the mode of reading (the Holy Qur’ān), and said to him, O Commander of the Faithful, stop the people before they differ in the Holy Book as the Jews and the Christians differ in their scriptures. So ‘Uthmān sent word to Ḥafṣah, asking her to send him the Holy Qur’ān in her possession so that they might make other copies of it and then send the original copy back to her. Thereupon Ḥafṣah sent the copy to ‘Uthmān, and he ordered Zaid ibn Thābit and ‘Abd Allāh ibn Zubair and Sa‘īd ibn al-‘Āṣ and ‘Abd al Raḥmān ibn Ḥarith ibn Hishām, and they made copies from the original copy. ‘Uthmān also said to the three men who belonged to the Quraish (Zaid only being a Madinite), ‘Where you differ with Zaid in anything concerning the Holy Qur’ān write it in the manner of the Quraish, for it is in their language that it was revealed.’ They obeyed these instructions, and when they had made the required number of copies from the original copy, ‘Uthmān returned the original to Ḥafṣah, and sent to every quarter one of the copies thus made, and ordered all other copies or leaves on which the Holy Qur’ān was written to be burned” (Bu. 66:3).