The Islamic Personality by Sheikh Taqīuddīn An-Nabahānī

It has been proven by decisive and definite evidence that when the Prophet  died the whole Qur’ān had been written on pieces of shoulder blades (of animals), palm risps and on lukhaf’s (a thin broad white stone). All of it was preserved in the hearts of the Sahabah (may Allah be pleased with them). When an ayah or ayāt would be revealed he  would order that they be written down before him at once. He did not prevent the Muslims from writing the Qur’ān in other than what he used to dictate to the scribes who wrote down the revelation. Muslim reported a hadīth from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri  that the Messenger of Allah  said:

What the scribes wrote from the revelation was collected on sheets. He  said:

i.e, reciting sheets purified from falsehood, honestly handwritten unequivocally true and just. Allah  said:

i.e this admonition established in the records is held (highly) in honour with Allah  and exalted in value, free from the hands of those that are corrupt and that they have been written down by God fearing scribes. He  left everything that was written between the two covers of the mushaf which had been written down in front of him. 'Abd al-'Aziz b Rufayya' narrated:

An Ijma' (consensus) has been established on the fact that all of the verses of the Qur’ān in their respective chapters (Sura’s) had been written down directly in front of the Messenger  when the revelation was being revealed to him, and that they were written on sheets (suhuf). The greatest of the Messengers  died content about the Qur’ān, his greatest miracle which established the proof for the Arabs and the world. He did not fear for the verses of the Qur’ān that they would be lost because Allah  has preserved the Qur’ān with an explicit text:

Because these verses had been preserved permanently via them being written down before him , and being preserved in the hearts of the Sahabah and by the permission granted to the Muslims to write down the Qur’ān. This is why after the death of the Messenger  the Sahabah did not feel the need to compile the Qur’ān in one book or the need to write it down until many of the Huffaz (memorisers of the Qur’ān) had been killed in the Riddah wars. So due to this 'Umar  feared for the loss of the sheets (suhuf) and the death of the Qurra' (Those who had committed the whole of the Qur’ān to memory), thereby causing some verses to be lost. So he thought about bringing the written sheets together (in one compilation). He presented his idea to Abu Bakr  and so the compilation of the Qur’ān was performed. It has been narrated by 'Ubayd ibn al-Sibaq that Zayd b al-Thabit al-Ansari said: Abu Bakr  sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra' were killed). 'Umar  was present with Abu Bakr  who said, 'Umar  has come to me and said, The people have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be more casualities among the Qurra' (those who know the Qur’ān by heart) at other battle-fields, whereby a large part of the Qur’ān may be lost, unless you collect it. And I am of the opinion that you should collect the Qur’ān.” Abu Bakr  added, “I said to 'Umar ,

'Umar  said (to me),

So ‘Umar  kept on trying to convince me and persuade me to accept his proposal till Allah  opened my heart for it and I had the same opinion as 'Umar.' (Zayd b al-Thabit added:) Umar  was sitting with him (i.e Abu Bakr) and was not speaking to me). 'You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you (of telling lies or of forgetfulness): and you used to write the revelation (wahy) for Allah's Apostle . Therefore, look for the Qur’ān and collect it (in one manuscript). 'By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur’ān. I said to both of them, “How dare you do a thing which the Prophet  has not done?' Abu Bakr  said, 'By Allah, it is (really) a good thing So I kept on arguing with him about it till Allah  opened my heart for that which He  had opened the hearts of Abu Bakr  and Umar . So I started locating the Qur’ānic material and collecting it from the parchments, scapula bones, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found two Verses of Sura at-Tawba with Abu Khuzaima which I did not find with anybody else, (and they were):

until the end of Sura Bara'ah. The manuscript on which the Qur’ān was collected, remained with Abu Bakr  till he passed away, and then with 'Umar  during his lifetime, and finally it remained with Hafsa bint Umar . Zayd's compilation of the Qur’ān did not consist of what he  wrote down from the Huffaz (i.e the memorisers of the Qu’ran). Rather his compilation brought together what he had written himself in front of the Messenger of Allah . He did not place one sheet/page with another sheet in order to compile them unless two witnesses testified, for every sheet that had been presented to him that it was written in the presence of the Messenger of Allah . Furthermore, he did not accept a sheet unless it met two conditions; firstly, that it was present in written form with one of the Sahabah. And second, that it had been memorised by one of the Sahabah. When the written and memorised forms concurred with the sheet that was intended to be compiled, he accepted it. Otherwise he did not accept it. This is why he refrained from taking the end of sura al-Bara'ah until he found it in written form with Abu Khuzayma even though Zayd could himself recall and remember it. It has been narrated via Yahya b 'abd al-Rahman ibn Hatib that he said:

Thus, the (process) of compilation was nothing other than the bringing together of sheets that had already been written in the presence of the Messenger of Allah  into one book between two covers. The Qur’ān used to be written down on sheets but they were kept seperately. So Abu Bakr  assembled them in one place. That is why Abu Bakr's  order to compile the Qur’ān was not an order to write it down in one mushaf, rather it was an order to bring the sheets that had been written in the Messenger's  presence together in one place and it was an order to make certain; that they are in the same form as they were by supporting it with the testimonies of two witnesses that they had been written in front of the Messenger of Allah  and that they were in the possession of the Sahabah in written form and that they had memorised them. These sheets remained preserved in the possession of Abu Bakr  during his life and then with 'Umar  during his lifetime and them with Hafsa the daughter of 'Umar , the mother of the Believers in accordance with 'Umar's  bequest. From this it becomes clear that Abu Bakr's  compilation of the Qur’ān constituted only the bringing together of sheets that had been written in the presence of Allah's Messenger  and it was not an actual compilation of the Qur’ān. And the memorisation was in regard to these sheets i.e the documents which were written in front of the Messnegr of Allah  and not the memorisation of the Qur’ān. The bringing together of such pieces and their preservation was not done except by way of cautiousness and expending all efforts in examining the memorisation of exactly what had been reported from the Messenger of Allah . As for the Qur’ān itself, it was preserved in the hearts of the Sahabah and memorised in their memory. In memorization, dependence was put on a great multitude of Sahabah because those memorising it completely or partially were many.

This was regarding the compilation of Abu Bakr . As for the compilation of 'Uthman , in the third or (some say) the second year of his Khilafah i.e in the year 25 AH, Huzayfah ibn al-Yaman  approached 'Uthman  in Madinah at the time when the people of al-Sham and the people of Iraq were waging a war to conquer Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hudhayfa  was afraid of their (people of al-Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’ān. He saw that the people of al-Sham reciting according to the recitation of Ubay ibn Ka'b , and they were coming with recitations the people of Iraq had not heard of. Also he saw the people of Iraq reciting according to the recitation of 'Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud  and so they brought recitaions the people of al Sham had not heard of. Thus, they began to charge each other of disbelief. They both disagreed about a verse in sura al-Baqarah. One read:

And the other read:

So Huzayfah  became angry and his eyes went red with rage. It has been narrated about Huzayfah  that he said:

It has been reported by Ibn Shihab that Anas ibn Malik narrated: Huzayfa bin al-Yaman  came to Uthman  at the time when the people of al-Sham and the people of Iraq were waging a war to conquer Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hudhayfa  was afraid of their (the people of al-Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’ān, so he said to 'Uthman ,

So 'Uthman  sent a message to Hafsa  saying,

Hafsa  sent it to 'Uthman . 'Uthman  then ordered Zaid bin Thabit (ra), 'Abd Allah ibn al Zubair, Said ibn al-'As and 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Harith ibn Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman  said to the three Qurayshi men,

They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman  returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa . 'Uthman  sent one copy of what they have copies to every Muslim province, and ordered that all the other Qur’ānic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. The number of copies made was seven. The seven mushaf’s were sent to Makkah, al-Sham, Yemen, Bahrain, Basra, Kufah, and one copy was kept in Madinah.

Therefore, 'Uthman's  action was not the compilation of the Qur’ān rather it constituted in only the copying and transcription of the same thing transcribed from the Messenger of Allah  as it was. He did not do anything other than make seven copies from the preserved copy in the possession of Hafsa , the mother of the Believers and unite the people on this single script and forbade any other script or dictation other than it. The matter was settled on this copy as a script and dictation. It is the same script and dictation in which the sheets were written as was written in the presence of Allah's Messenger  when the revelation was revealed. And it is the same copy which Abu Bakr  had compiled. Then the Muslims began to make copies from this copy and not any other copy. Nothing remained except the mushaf of 'Uthman  in its script. When printers came about, the mushaf was printed from this copy with the same script and dictation.

The difference between the compilation of Abu Bakr  and that of 'Uthman  is that the compilation of Abu Bakr  took place due to the fear that something would be lost from the Qur’ān if any of its carriers (memorisers) were lost, the reason being that even though it was written on sheets but it had not been collected in one place like a single book. Thus, it was compiled in pages. The compilation of 'Uthman  took place because the differences increased regarding certain aspects of the Qur’ān which some read in their own dialects and this led some to accuse others of making an error. It was feared that the matter would escalate therefore those sheets were copied into one mushaf. The mushaf that we now have before us is the same mushaf revealed to the Messenger of Allah  and it is the same one which was written in the sheets which were written in the presence of the Messenger of Allah . And it is the same mushaf that Abu Bakr  brought together when the sheets were compiled in one place. And it is the same one from which 'Uthman  transcribed the seven copies and ordered that the rest be burned. And it is the same Noble Qur’ān in its verse arrangement in relation to each other and their arrangment in their respectives Sura’s, script and dictation. As for the copy dictated by the Messenger of Allah  from the revelation, whose sheets were compiled together and then copied it remained protected in the possession of Hafsa , the mother of the believers until Marwan became the Wali (governor) of Madinah and he tore it up since it was not considered important because copies of the mushaf had spread everywhere. Ibn Shihab narrated that Salim ibn 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar informed him: