关于在先知（ﷺ）去世前能够完整背诵《古兰经》并向先知诵读的圣门弟子总数，学者们意见不一。伊玛目布哈里在其《沙希赫》中收录了安斯·本·马利克的一段陈述，称在先知在世时，只有四人搜集并记住了整部《古兰经》：阿布·达尔达厄、穆阿兹·本·贾巴尔、宰德·本·萨比特和阿布·宰德。① 学者们一致认为，安斯所说的这种限定，要么并非他的本意，要么即便是他的本意，其内容也并不准确。看来他是在圣辅士的两个部落之间就各自的美德展开的一场友好争论中说出这番话的。他提到的人都来自他所属的赫兹拉季部落，而他的意思是说，奥斯部落中没有人完整地背诵了《古兰经》。② 这段陈述有两个版本。另一个版本只说有四人完整背诵了《古兰经》，并未说他们是唯一的人，并且以乌拜伊·本·凯尔卜代替了阿布·达尔达厄。94

Scholars differ on the total number of sahaabah who had memorized all of the Qur’aan and read it back to the Prophet (ﷺ) before his death. Imaam AlBukhaaree collected in his Saheeh a statement of Anas ibn Maalik that only four people had gathered the whole Qur’aan in the Prophet’s lifetime: Aboo adDardaa’, Mu‘aath ibn Jabal, Zayd ibn Thaabit and Aboo Zayd.92 Scholars agree that the apparent limitation in Anas’s statement is either not what he intended or, if he did intend it, that it was not accurate. It seems he made this statement in the course of a friendly argument between members of the two tribes of the Ansaar about the virtues of each tribe. The individuals Anas named were all from the Khazraj tribe to which he belonged, and he meant to say that no one from the Aws tribe had memorized all of it.93 There are two versions of this statement. The other version simply states that four people memorized the whole Qur’aan, without saying they were the only ones, and it mentions Ubayy ibn Ka‘b in place of Aboo ad-Dardaa’.94

在al-Bukhaaree收录的另一则圣训中,先知ﷺ曾嘱咐门徒向Ibn Mas‘ood、Saalim(Aboo Huthayfah的被释奴隶)、Mu‘aath和Ubayy学习《古兰经》。95 其他可靠的证据表明,Aboo Bakr和‘Abdullaah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas已经将整部《古兰经》背诵下来。96 然而,al-Bukhaaree收录的两则圣训显示,能背诵《古兰经》的人数远不止于此。在Bi’r Ma‘oonah事件中,七十位圣门弟子(sahaabah)全部是qurraa’,他们遭到伏击并被杀害。97 qurraa’是qaaree’的复数,指精通诵读、能够背诵《古兰经》的人;不过圣门弟子似乎也用这个词来指熟知其义理的人。在先知ﷺ去世仅两年后的Yamaamah战役中,又有七十位已将整部《古兰经》背诵下来的圣门弟子阵亡,其中大多数来自Ansaar。98 如果他们在先知ﷺ去世前尚未完成背诵,那么至少也必定已背下了《古兰经》的相当大一部分。

In another report collected by al-Bukhaaree, the Prophet (r) instructed his companions to learn the Qur’aan from Ibn Mas‘ood, Saalim, the freed slave of Aboo Huthayfah, Mu‘aath and Ubayy. 95 Other authentic evidence indicates that Aboo Bakr and ‘Abdullaah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas had memorized all of it.96 However, there are two hadeeths reported by al-Bukhaaree to indicate that the number was higher than that. In the incident of Bi’r Ma‘oonah, seventy sahaabah, all of them qurraa’, were ambushed and killed.97 The word qurraa’ is the plural of qaaree’, which is used for a memorizer of the Qur’aan who is proficient in reciting it, although the sahaabah seem to have also used the term for one who is knowledgeable about its meanings. Seventy of the sahaabah who had memorized the whole Qur’aan, most of them from the Ansaar, died fighting in the battle of Yamaamah only two years after the death of the Prophet (r).98 If they had not completed their memorization of it before his death, they must have done so for a substantial portion of it.

有些人曾根据布哈里收录的阿奈斯的一段叙述，主张在先知（r）在世时，背诵古兰经的人数太少，因此不足以支持穆斯林所说的古兰经是通过大量传述（tawaatur）传到我们手中这一观点。99 即便我们按字面接受这一传述，用它来支持这一论点也并不有力。因为，尽管在先知在世时能背诵整部古兰经的人数或许有限，但许多人背诵了相当大量且彼此重叠的部分。所以在他在世期间，对于古兰经的任何一段而言，背诵者的人数都是很多的。其中不少人是在他去世之后才完成背诵的。

Some people have tried to argue on the basis of Anas’s statement collected by al-Bukhaaree that the number of people who memorized the Qur’aan during the lifetime of the Prophet (r) was too small to support the Muslim claim that the Qur’aan was conveyed to us by tawaatur.99 Even if we accept this report at face value, its use to support that argument is not strong, because, although the number of people who had memorized the whole Qur’aan in the Prophet’s lifetime may have been limited, many others had memorized substantial, overlapping portions. So during his lifetime the number of memorizers was great for any given portion of the Qur’aan. Many of these completed their memorization of it after his death.

事实上,随着穆斯林世代的更替,能够背诵整部古兰经的人数不断增加。如今,全世界确实有数十万穆斯林做到了这一点。

In fact, with every succeeding generation of Muslims, the numbers of those who memorized all of the Qur’aan has increased. Today there are literally hundreds of thousands of Muslims throughout the world who have done so.

在有记载的历史中，没有任何其他书籍，无论是宗教典籍还是其他类型的书，曾被如此大规模地背诵。《古兰经》的长度约为基督徒《新约》的五分之四，然而据记载，历史上从未有人能完整背诵整部《新约》。事实上，即使世界上所有的书籍都被毁灭，唯一能够一字不差、毫无错误地重新写出来的书，就是光荣的《古兰经》。

There is no other book, religious or otherwise, which has been memorized on this scale in recorded history. The Qur’aan is about four-fifths the length of the New Testament of the Christians, yet not a single person in recorded history is known to have memorized the New Testament completely. In fact, if all of the books in the world were somehow destroyed, the only book which could be rewritten, word for word, without a single mistake is the Glorious Qur’aan.

著名东方学家之一肯尼斯·克拉格（Kenneth Cragg）就古兰经文本的背诵与保存曾说：“古兰经诵读的这一现象意味着，经文跨越数世纪，以一条未曾中断、活生生的虔诚延续传承。因此，它不能被当作古董式的东西来对待，也不能被视为来自遥远过去的历史文献。”100 另一位东方学学者威廉·格雷厄姆（William Graham）写道：“在伊斯兰教历史的一千四百多年里，对无数穆斯林而言，‘经典’（al-kitab）一直是通过口头重复与背诵来学习、诵读和传承的书籍。成文的古兰经或许以一种历史上前所未有的方式，将神圣启示的权威文本‘固定’于可见的形式之中，但古兰经这部书的权威性，只有在被正确诵读时，才得以充分而完整地实现。”101 还有一位学者约翰·伯顿（John Burton）指出：“从一开始，通过让年轻人背诵长辈的口传传统来代代相传古兰经的方法，就在一定程度上减轻了仅依赖书面记录所带来的最严重风险……”102 在一部篇幅浩繁的关于古兰经编纂的著作末尾，伯顿写道，今天可以获得的古兰经文本是“以先知（ﷺ）所组织并认可的形式流传至今的文本……我们今天手中所持的，正是穆罕默德的穆斯哈夫103。”104

One of the leading orientalists, Kenneth Cragg, said the following regarding the memorization and preservation of the Qur’aanic text, “This phenomenon of Qur’anic recital means that the text has traversed the centuries in an unbroken living sequence of devotion. It cannot, therefore, be handled as an antiquarian thing, nor as a historical document out of a distant past.” 100 Another orientalist scholar, William Graham, wrote: “For countless millions of Muslims over more than fourteen centuries of Islamic history, ‘scripture’, al-kitab, has been a book learned, read and passed on by vocal repetition and memorisation. The written Qur’an may ‘fix’ visibly the authori-tative text of the Divine Word in a way unknown in history, but the authoritativeness of the Qur’anic book is only realised in its fullness and perfection when it is correctly recited.” 101 Yet another, John Burton, stated: “The method of transmitting the Qur’an from one generation to the next by having the young memorise the oral tradition of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solely on written records...” 102 At the end of a voluminous work on the Qur’aan’s collection, Burton stated that the text of the Qur’aan available today is “the text which has come down to us in the form in which it was organised and approved by the Prophet....What we have today in our hands is the mus-haf 103 of Muhammad.”104