Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
This is a short article to introduce the subject to fellow Christians. The Holy Quran says about them:
And thou shalt assuredly find those who say, ‘We are Christians,’ to be the nearest of them in love to the believers. That is because amongst them are savants and monks and because they are not proud. (Al Quran 5:83)
The article was originally published in the Muslim Sunrise:
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, the well known Orientalist writes, “Since the use of the Koran in public worship, in schools and otherwise, is much more extensive than, for example, the reading of the Bible in most Christian countries, it has been truly described as the most widely-read book in existence. This circumstance alone is sufficient to give it an urgent claim on our attention.”[1] As non-Muslims begin to learn about the Holy Quran one of the immediate issues is how it was compiled and came about. Reginald Bosworth Smith gave four lectures in 1874 before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, which took on a book form titled Mohammed and Mohammedanism. He wrote in this book, “In the Koran we have, beyond all doubt, the exact words of Mohammed without subtraction and without addition. We see with our own eyes birth and adolescence of a religion.”[2] Sir William Muir agrees with this position. In 1885 he was elected the Principal of Edinburgh University and held the post till 1903. He writes:
There is otherwise every security, internal and external, that we possess a text the same as that which Mahomet himself gave forth and used. ... The conclusion, which we may now with confidence draw, is that the editions of Abu Bakr and of Othman were not only faithful, but, so far as the materials went, complete; and that whatever omissions there may have been, were not on the part of the compilers intentional. … We may upon the strongest presumption affirm that every verse in the Coran is the genuine and unaltered composition of Mahomet himself, and conclude with at least a close approximation to the verdict of Von Hammer: That we hold the Coran to be as surely Mahomet’s word as the Muslims hold it to be word of God.[3]
Little did both of these distinguished gentlemen know that in asserting the Holy Quran to be the exact words of Muhammed, while denying it to be Divine word, they were becoming an important witness to it being actually word of God? How come? The Holy Quran had predicted very early in the ministry of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, “Surely, We Ourself have sent down this Exhortation, and we will, most surely, safeguard it.” (Al Quran 15:10). The chapter of the Quran with this promise was revealed at Mecca (Noldeke) when the life of the Holy Prophet and his followers was extremely precarious and the enemy could easily crush the new Faith. It was then that disbelievers were challenged to do their worst to destroy it and were warned that God would frustrate all their designs because He Himself was the Guardian of the religion and its scripture the Quran. The challenge was open and unequivocal and the enemy strong and ruthless, and yet the Quran remained safe against corruption and interpolation and has continued to enjoy perfect security. This distinction of the Quran is not shared by any other revealed Book. Especially in the case of the Bible, the new research has established beyond doubt that it is nowhere close to the Holy Quran in this distinction. Some of this information is covered by two documentaries Banned from the Bible I and Banned from Bible II, by the History channel that can be seen on Youtube.com.
The Quran was written by the scribes during the life time of the Prophet Muhammad. It was collected in a book form in the time of his first Caliph Abu Bakr and the master copy was stored with the Prophet’s widow Haphsa, who was daughter of the second Caliph Omar. John Davenport has given a short summary version of this process:
Sir William Muir testifies to the compilation and preservation of the Holy Quran in a detailed appendix to his biography of the Prophet Muhammad. In 1878 edition of his book the Life of Mahomet from original sources there is a very detailed description of how the text of the Holy Quran was preserved early in its history. It is a must read for every student of Islam, it can be downloaded from the book section of Google.com.[5] Coming from the mouth of a non-Muslim who wrote this after an extensive study of the Hadith and the early biographers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, it becomes a very assuring research that the Holy Quran has indeed been preserved for all these centuries. I am not going to reproduce his detailed description here. But here I reproduce a brief and a Reader’s Digest version of his testimony from one of his other books:
There is reason to conjecture that the greater portion, at least the most important chapters, were laid up in the habitation of one of the Prophet’s wives (for he had no separate room or dwelling-place of his own), or left in the custody of the scribes or secretaries who had first recorded them. They were, moreover, treasured up with pious reverence in the memories of the people; and transcripts of the several Suras or fragments, especially of those most frequently in use for meritorious repetition, or for public and private devotion, were even before the Flight in the hands of many persons, and so preserved with religious and even superstitious care. As the Faith extended, teachers were sent forth to the various tribes throughout Arabia to instruct the new converts in the requirements of Islam; and these carried with them, either in a recorded form or indelibly imprinted on the mind (for the Arab memory was possessed of a marvellous tenacity), the leading portions of the Revelation.
Such was the state of things at the Prophet’s death, and so it continued for about a year. After the battle of Yemama, in which many of the reciters of the Coran were slain, the risk of leaving the Revelation on this precarious footing presented itself forcibly to the mind of Omar. ‘I fear,’ he said, addressing the Caliph Abu Bekr, ‘that siaughter may again wax hot among the reciters of the Coran in other fields of battle, and that much may be lost therefrom. Now, therefore, my advice is that thou shouldest give speedy orders for collecting the same together.’ Abu Bekr recognizing the wisdom of this counsel, appointed Zeid, the chief amanuensis of the Prophet, to the task; and so Zeid sought out the various Suras and fragments of the Coran from every quarter, and gathered them together from palm-leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men. The manuscript of the Coran, as thus compiled, was committed to the keeping of Haphsa, one of the Prophet’s widows, and continued to be the standard text during the ten years of Omar’s Caliphate.
But by degrees variety crept into the many transcripts from this compilation, and the Caliph Othman was persuaded to apply a trenchant remedy. Zeid was appointed to the recension of his former work; and as the differences were mainly of dialect and expression, a syndicate was nominated of three Coreish authorities to act as final judges in the matter. The various readings were searched out from all the provinces of the Empire, and the new collection was assimilated to the pure Meccan dialect in which Mahomet had given utterance to his inspiration. Transcripts were then multiplied, and forwarded to the chief cities as standards for reference. All previous copies were called in, and committed to the flames. The recension of Zeid has been handed down unaltered. So carefully has it been followed, that there is but one and the same Coran in use throughout the vast bounds of the Mahometan world. Various readings are almost unknown. The few limitations are almost entirely confined to the vowel forms and the diacritical points, which, having been invented at a later period, formed no part of the original or of Zeid’s recension.
There is every security that the work of Zeid was executed faithfully and, indeed, the acceptance of Coran by Ali and his party, the antagonists of the unfortunate Othman, is the surest guarantee of its genuineness.”[6]
We do not agree with his political analysis that ‘Ali and his party, the antagonists of the unfortunate Othman,’ but we are in complete agreement that there was a consensus about the security and the preservation of the text of the Holy Quran among the early Muslims after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and that consensus has continued. You can pick up the Quran in any part of the world and from any time in history and you will find the same 114 chapters in the exact same order with the exact same verses.
Professor Nicholson, says in his Literary History of the Arabs, “the Koran is an exceedingly human document, reflecting every phase of Muhammad’s personality and standing in close relation to the outward events of his life, so that here we have materials of unique and incontestable authority for tracing the origin and early development of Islam—such materials as do not exist in the case of Buddhism or Christianity or any other ancient religion.”[7]
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke writes, “Slight clerical errors there may have been, but the Quran of Othman contains none but genuine elements, though sometimes in very strange order. Efforts of European scholars to prove the existence of later interpolations in the Koran have failed.[8]
It has become an inconvenient truth for the Christian apologists that the fact that the Bible is not the literal word of God has become an open secret in this information age. Bart D Ehrman is Distinguished Professor of Religious studies in University of North Carolina and author of twenty different books. His most recent book is Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them). He is a specialist in the New Testament. He has shown scores of internal contradictions in the Bible. Ehrman’s 45 minute interview about his book can be watched on Youtube.[9] If the Holy Quran had not been from God and had not been preserved, it would have had contradictions and interpolations in a similar fashion. But the history is a witness that it is not so. The Holy Quran says, “Will they not, then, meditate upon the Qur’an? Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much disagreement.” [Al Quran 4:83]
This manuscript, held by the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, is the earliest existent written version of the Quran. It is the Mushaf of Othman. Image courtesy of Memory of the World Register, UNESCO.[10]
Professor Laura Vaglieri, who served as professor of Arabic and Islamic Culture at the Naples Eastern University, writes:
We have still another proof of the divine origin of the Quran in the fact that its text has remained pure and unaltered through the centuries from the day of its delivery until today, and will remain so, God willing, as long as the universe continues to exist. Read over and over again all through the Muslim world, this work does not induce in the believer any sense of weariness. On the contrary, through repeated reading it endears itself more and more each day. It arouses a deep sense of reverence and awe in one who reads or hears it. It can be readily learned by heart, so that today, in spite of the low ebb of faith, thousands of people can repeat it by heart. In Egypt alone there are more huffaz than there are people in all Europe who can recite the, Gospels by heart.[11]
The Bible had a temporary role in human history. If it had been meant for all times to come the Omniscient and the Omnipotent God, who revealed it would have also ensured its preservation. He did exactly that in the case of the Holy Quran. For further details go to:
References:
[1] Encyclopedia Britannica Edition 1911. Under heading ‘Koran’ page 898.
[2] Reginald Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, 1889 edition. Page 18.
[3] Sir William Muir. Life of Mahomet. 1878. Pages 561-563.
[4] John Davenport. An apology for Mohammed and the Koran. 1869. Pages 67. The book is available on Archive.org.
[5] http://books.google.com/books?id=5QMMAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Sir+William+Muir%22#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[6] Sir William Muir. The Coran: Its Composition and Teaching and the Testimony it Bears to the Holy Scriptures. The Macmillan Company, 1920. Pages 37-40.
[7] Reynold Alleyne Nicholson. A literary history of the Arabs. Charles Scribner’s sons, 1907.Page 143.
[8] Encyclopedia Britannica Edition 1911. Under heading ‘Koran’ page 905.
[9]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgpjxfn8nSw
[10] http://www.unesco.org/webworld/nominations/en/uzbekistan/reading.htm
[11] Laura Veccia Vaglieri. An Interpretation of Islam. First published in 1957. Goodward books, 2004. Page 44.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Qur'an, Quran
Ahadith about the compilation of the Holy Quran
Since the individual words of the Qur’ān present a grand total of 77,934 words, the average number of words per verse equal twelve, which evidently results in an average revelation of approximately nine words per day. Based on these calculations it is obvious that the Holy Qur’ān was revealed very slowly and gradually. Although it is true that there were temporary respites in the revelation of the Holy Qur’ān, there were also certain days when many verses were revealed to the Holy Prophet all at once. Nonetheless, the Holy Qur’ān was never revealed in such magnitude as might seem arduous to preserve it by writing or memorize it continually.
It was the practice of the Holy Prophet that as verses of the Holy Qur’ān were revealed to him, he would dictate them to writing, and under divine knowledge, organize the sequential order of these verses as well. Many Aḥādīth have been narrated in this regard and the following Ḥadīth can be
presented as an example:
عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ قَالَ قَالَ عُثْمَانُ ابْنُ عَفَّانَ رَضِیَ اللّٰهُ عَنْهُمَا كَانَ رَسُوْلُ اللّٰهِ صَلَّی اللّٰهُ
عَلَیْهِ وَسَلَّمَ اِذَا نَزَلَ عَلَیْهِ شَیْءٌ دَعَا بَعْضَ مَنْ كَانَ یَكْتُبُ فَیَقُوْلُ ضَعُوْا ھٰؤُلَآءِ الْاٰیَاتِ
فِی سُوْرَةِ الَّتِی یَذْكُرُ فِیْھَا كَذَا وكَذَا فَاِذَا نَزَلَتْ عَلَیْهِ الْاٰیَةُ فَیَقُوْلُ ضَعُوْا ھٰذِہ الْاٰیَةَ فِیْ
السُّوْرَةِ الَّتِیْ یَذْكُرُ فِیْھَا كَذَا وَكَذَا
Ḥaḍrat Ibni ‘Abbās who was the paternal cousin of the Holy Prophet narrates that Ḥaḍrat ‘Uthmān bin ‘Affān (who served as a scribe in the time of the Holy Prophet would often state that “When several verses were revealed to the Holy Prophet all at once, the Holy Prophet would summon one of his scribes and instruct that these verses should be written in a certain chapter at the following place. If only one verse was revealed, the Holy Prophet would, in the same manner, summon one of his scribes and particularly instruct that this verse be written in the following place.”
Mishkātul-Maṣābīḥ, Kitābu Faḍā’ilil-Qur’ān, Bābu Ikhtilāfil-Qirā’āti wa Jam‘il-Qur’ān, Al-Faṣluth-
Thālith, Ḥadīth No. 2222, Dārul-Kutubil-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut, Lebanon, First Edition (2003)
http://www.alislam.org/holyprophet/Seal-of-Prophets-Vol-1.pdf
Some additional quotes
Nöldeke, a famous German-Christian orientalist of the past is accepted as an expert in his field. With regards to the Holy Qur’ān he states:
“The Qur’ān present today is exactly the same as in the time of the companions of the Prophet.”
“All efforts of European scholars to prove the existence of later interpolation in the Koran have failed”
A renowned Christian-British orientalist by the name of Professor Reynold A. Nicholson writes in his English work titled ‘Literary History of the Arabs’:
“The Koran is an exceedingly human document, reflecting every phase of Muḥammad’s personality and standing in close relation to the ontward events of his life, so that here we have materials of unique and incontestable authority for tracing the origin and early development of Islām – such materials as do not
exist in the case of Buddhism or Christianity or any other ancient religion.”
http://www.alislam.org/holyprophet/Seal-of-Prophets-Vol-1.pdf
Contrasting with the Christian, Jewish and the Buddhist text
The accuracy of the compilation of the Holy Quran is cleary highlighted and better understood when we contrast it with the Christian, Jewish and the Buddhist text. Here let me cover the Buddhist text and I have several knols dedicated to the Bible:
“For four hundred years during and after the Buddha’s life¬time, his teachings were transmitted only orally. After that, monks in the Tamrashatiya School (‘those who wear copper-colored robes’) in Sri Lanka, a derivative of the Vibhajyavada School, began to think about writing the Buddha’s discourses on palm leaves, and it took another hundred years to begin. By that time, it is said that there was only one monk who had memorized the whole canon and that he was somewhat arro¬gant. The other monks had to persuade him to recite the discourses so they could write them down. When we hear this, we feel a little uneasy knowing that an arrogant monk may not have been the best vehicle to transmit the teachings of the Buddha.
…
By the time the Buddha’s discourses were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka, there were eighteen or twenty schools, and each had its own recension of the Buddha’s teachings. These schools did not tear the teachings of the Buddha apart but were threads of a single garment. Two of these recensions exist today: the Tamrashatiya and Sarvastivada canons. Recorded at about the same time, the former was written down in Pali and the latter in Sanskrit and Prakrit. The sutras that were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka are known as the Southern transmission, or ‘Teachings of the Elders’ (Theravada). The Sarvastivada texts, known as the NortherI} transmission, exist only in fragmented form. Fortunately, they, were translated into Chinese and Tibetan, and many of these translations are still available. We have to remember that the Buddha did not speak Pali, Sanskrit, or Prakrit. He spoke a local dialect called Magadhi ot Ardhamagadhi, and there is no record of the Buddha’s words in his own language.”
Thich Naht Hanh. The Heart of Buddh’s Teaching. Broadway Books, 1999. Pages 13 andd 15-16.
The Uthman’s Quran preserved in Cairo
The Cairo Qur’an.
After Uthman sent it to Egypt it remained in the possession of each successive Egyptian ruler until some 500 years ago when it was moved to the Amr Ibn al-As Mosque in Old Cairo, then to the Salah Tala’i Mosque and finally to al-Hussein Mosque where it has been ever since. Dr. Souad Maher, the former dean of Cairo University archeology department, renowned for being the first female to attain a doctorate in Islamic history in the Arab world, has long been involved in the renovations of the relics in the mosque and during the 1960s she verified the authenticity of the text, using the carbon-testing method to determine that it dated back to the time of the Prophet.
http://www.ruqaiyyah.karoo.net/articles/quran.htm
(Edited from an extract from Sr. Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood’s book ‘Islam’ – Hodder and Stoughton, new edition 2006. One of the best sellers in the well-known Teach Yourself series. (ISBN: 0340 928 131)
The picture of the Uthman’s Quran is in the Google-knol above with three men standing around it.
My take on Prof. Bart Ehrman
Prof. Bart Ehrman is an agnostic scholar of the New Testament. If the agnostic and the religious scholars of the Bible, hold honest discussions about the Bible, the Holy Quran wins! What does this mean? If we preserve the best and accurate in the Bible and Christianity what survives is Islam!
Try me, and read the different books of Prof. Bart Ehrman and listen to his interviews and debates available on the Youtube. And, of course, if you are not a Muslim and do not know about the Holy Quran, you have to learn about it from the Muslim sources, in addition to the usual Christian experts on Islam. Here is a Google Knol for starters:
http://knol.google.com/k/zia-shah/the-holy-quran-as-the-miracle-of-the/1qhnnhcumbuyp/55#
My Christian friends have to remember that they have to spend enough hours in learning the Holy Quran to overcome their decades of pre-conceived biases and centuries of Islamophobic propaganda. And remember, according to Confucius, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
A detailed account in the Appendix of biography of the Prophet Muhammad by Sir William Muir
The 1878 edition of Life of Mahomet has a detailed appendix that gives a comprehensive account of compilation of the Holy Quran:
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=william+muir+life+of+mahomet&ei=wzRxTK2JCYH98Ab94aH5DA&ct=book-preview-link&pg=PP7&id=5QMMAAAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false
To read the account by Muir changed into contemporary English go to:
http://www.alislam.org/quran/Quran-and-non-Muslims-20080128MN.pdf
Another detailed account by Muir is in his book, The Coran Koran (AlCoran) – its composition and teaching and the testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures by Muir:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheCoranKoranalcoran-ItsCompositionAndTeachingAndTheTestimonyIt
A detailed Urdu book on the topic
Here is a 400 page book covering different aspects of the preservation of the Holy Quran:
http://alislam.org/urdu/pdf/Az-Zikrul-Mahfuz.pdf
Here is a quote from John Barrow
He is critical of the Holy Scripture on several counts but its accuracy as given to the world by the Holy Prophet Muhammad is not one of them:
http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2011/08/book-review/review-on-the-christian-conquest-of-asia-by-john-henry-barrows-d-d
I believe that if one pools criticism of different Orientalist on a given issue in Islam, they will themselves cancel out each other. Invariably their individual criticism is ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
Jonathan Brown a scholar of Hadith gives a good proof about Quranic preservation in the last part of this lecture, which is 4/14 of a series in UK, Hadith and the development of western historical critical method:
click here to go to Youtube
How It Came To Be Written, by Dr. Maurice Bucaille, in the Bible, the Quran and Science
Thanks to its undisputed authenticity, the text of the Quran holds a unique place among the books of Revelation, shared neither by the Old nor the New Testament. In the first two sections of this work, a review was made of the alterations undergone by the Old Testament and the Gospels before they were handed down to us in the form we know today. The same is not true for the Quran for the simple reason that it was written down at the time of the Prophet; we shall see how it came to be written, i.e. the process involved.
In this context, the differences separating the Quran from the Bible are in no way due to questions essentially concerned with date. Such questions are constantly put forward by certain people without regard to the circumstances prevailing at the time when the Judeo-Christian and the Quranic Revelations were written; they have an equal disregard for the circumstances surrounding the transmission of the Quran to the Prophet. It is suggested that a Seventh century text had more likelihood of coming down to us unaltered than other texts that are as many as fifteen centuries older. This comment, although correct, does not constitute a sufficient reason ; it is made more to excuse the alterations made in the Judeo-Christian texts in the course of centuries than to underline the notion that the text of the Quran, which was more recent, had less to fear from being modified by man.
In the case of the Old Testament, the sheer number of authors who tell the same story, plus all the revisions carried out on the text of certain books from the pre-Christian era, constitute as many reasons for inaccuracy and contradiction. As for the Gospels, nobody can claim that they invariably contain faithful accounts of Jesus’s words or a description of his actions strictly in keeping with reality. We have seen how successive versions of the texts showed a lack of definite authenticity and moreover that their authors were not eyewitnesses.
Also to be underlined is the distinction to be made between the Quran, a book of written Revelation, and the hadiths, collections of statements concerning the actions and sayings of Muhammad. Some of the Prophet’s companions started to write them down from the moment of his death. As an element of human error could have slipped in, the collection had to be resumed later and subjected to rigorous criticism so that the greatest credit is in practise given to documents that came along after Muhammad. Their authenticity varies, like that of the Gospels. Not a single Gospel was written down at the time of Jesus (they were all written long after his earthly mission had come to an end), and not a single collection of hadiths was compiled during the time of the Prophet.
The situation is very different for the Quran. As the Revelation progressed, the Prophet and the believers following him recited the text by heart and it was also written down by the scribes in his following. It therefore starts off with two elements of authenticity that the Gospels do not possess. This continued up to the Prophet’s death. At a time when not everybody could write, but everyone was able to recite, recitation afforded a considerable advantage because of the double-checking possible when the definitive text was compiled.
The Quranic Revelation was made by Archangel Gabriel to Muhammad. It took place over a period of more than twenty years of the Prophet’s life, beginning with the first verses of Sura 96, then resuming after a three-year break for a long period of twenty years up to the death of the Prophet in 632 A.D., i.e. ten years before Hegira and ten years after Hegira. [Muhammad’s departure from Makka to Madina, 622 A.D.]
The following was the first Revelation (sura 96, verses 1 to 5) [ Muhammad was totally overwhelmed by these words. We shall return to an interpretation of them, especially with regard to the fact that Muhammad could neither read nor write.].
“Read: In the name of thy Lord who created,
Who created man from something which clings
Read! Thy Lord is the most Noble
Who taught by the pen
Who taught man what he did not know.”
Professor Hamidullah notes in the Introduction to his French translation of the Quran that one of the themes of this first Revelation was the ‘praise of the pen as a means of human knowledge’ which would ‘explain the Prophet’s concern for the preservation of the Quran in writing.’
Texts formally prove that long before the Prophet left Makka for Madina (i.e. long before Hegira), the Quranic text so far revealed had been written down. We shall see how the Quran is authentic in this. We know that Muhammad and the Believers who surrounded him were accustomed to reciting the revealed text from memory. It is therefore inconceivable for the Quran to refer to facts that did not square with reality because the latter could so easily be checked with people in the Prophet’s following, by asking the authors of the transcription.
Four suras dating from a period prior to Hegira refer to the writing down of the Quran before the Prophet left Makka in 622 (sura 80, verses 11 to 16):
“By no means! Indeed it is a message of instruction
Therefore whoever wills, should remember
On leaves held in honor
Exalted, purified
In the hands of scribes
Noble and pious.”
Yusuf Ali, in the commentary to his translation, 1934, wrote that when the Revelation of this sura was made, forty-two or forty-five others had been written and were kept by Muslims in Makka (out of a total of 114).
–Sura 85, verses 21 and 22:
“Nay, this is a glorious reading [In the text: Quran which also means ‘reading’.]
On a preserved tablet”
–Sura 56, verses 77 to 80:
“This is a glorious reading
In a book well kept Which none but the purified teach.
This is a Revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.”
–Sura 25, verse 5:
“They said: Tales of the ancients which he has caused to be written and they are dictated to him morning and evening.” Here we have a reference to the accusations made by the Prophet’s enemies who treated him as an imposter. They spread the rumour that stories of antiquity were being dictated to him and he was writing them down or having them transcribed (the meaning of the word is debatable, but one must remember that Muhammad was illiterate). However this may be, the verse refers to this act of making a written record which is pointed out by Muhammad’s enemies themselves.
A sura that came after Hegira makes one last mention of the leaves on which these divine instructions were written:
–Sura 98, verses 2 and 3:
“An (apostle) from God recites leaves
Kept pure where are decrees right and straight.”
The Quran itself therefore provides indications as to the fact that it was set down in writing at the time of the Prophet. It is a known fact that there were several scribes in his following, the most famous of whom, Zaid Ibn Thâbit, has left his name to posterity.
In the preface to his French translation of the Quran (1971), Professor Hamidullah gives an excellent description of the conditions that prevailed when the text of the Quran was written, lasting up until the time of the Prophet’s death:
“The sources all agree in stating that whenever a fragment of the Quran was revealed, the Prophet called one of his literate companions and dictated it to him, indicating at the same time the exact position of the new fragment in the fabric of what had already been received . . . Descriptions note that Muhammad asked the scribe to reread to him what had been dictated so that he could correct any deficiencies . . . Another famous story tells how every year in the month of Ramadan, the Prophet would recite the whole of the Quran (so far revealed) to Gabriel . . ., that in the Ramadan preceding Muhammad’s death, Gabriel had made him recite it twice . . . It is known how since the Prophet’s time, Muslims acquired the habit of keeping vigil during Ramadan, and of reciting the whole of the Quran in addition to the usual prayers expected of them. Several sources add that Muhammad’s scribe Zaid was present at this final bringing-together of the texts. Elsewhere, numerous other personalities are mentioned as well.”
Extremely diverse materials were used for this first record: parchment, leather, wooden tablets, camels’ scapula, soft stone for inscriptions, etc.
At the same time however, Muhammad recommended that the faithful learn the Quran by heart. They did this for a part if not all of the text recited during prayers. Thus there were Hafizun who knew the whole of the Quran by heart and spread it abroad. The method of doubly preserving the text both in writing and by memorization proved to be extremely precious.
Not long after the Prophet’s death (632), his successor Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Islam, asked Muhammad’s former head scribe, Zaid Ibn Thâbit, to make a copy. this he did. On Omar’s initiative (the future second Caliph), Zaid consulted all the information he could assemble at Madina: the witness of the Hafizun, copies of the Book written on various materials belonging to private individuals, all with the object of avoiding possible errors in transcription. Thus an extremely faithful copy of the Book was obtained.
The sources tell us that Caliph Omar, Abu Bakr’s successor in 634, subsequently made a single volume (mushaf) that he preserved and gave on his death to his daughter Hafsa, the Prophet’s widow.
The third Caliph of Islam, Uthman, who held the caliphate from 644 to 655, entrusted a commission of experts with the preparation of the great recension that bears his name. It checked the authenticity of the document produced under Abu Bakr which had remained in Hafsa’s possession until that time. The commission consulted Muslims who knew the text by heart. The critical analysis of the authenticity of the text was carried out very rigorously. The agreement of the witnesses was deemed necessary before the slightest verse containing debatable material was retained. It is indeed known how some verses of the Quran correct others in the case of prescriptions: this may be readily explained when one remembers that the Prophet’s period of apostolic activity stretched over twenty years (in round figures). The result is a text containing an order of suras that reflects the order followed by the Prophet in his complete recital of the Quran during Ramadan, as mentioned above.
One might perhaps ponder the motives that led the first three Caliphs, especially Uthman, to commission collections and recensions of the text. The reasons are in fact very simple: Islam’s expansion in the very first decades following Muhammad’s death was very rapid indeed and it happened among peoples whose native language was not Arabic. It was absolutely necessary to ensure the spread of a text that retained its original purity. Uthman’s recension had this as its objective.
Uthman sent copies of the text of the recension to the centres of the Islamic Empire and that is why, according to Professor Hamidullah, copies attributed to Uthman exist in Tashkent and Istanbul. Apart from one or two possible mistakes in copying, the oldest documents known to the present day, that are to be found throughout the Islamic world, are identical; the same is true for documents preserved in Europe (there are fragments in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris which, according to the experts, date from the Eighth and Ninth centuries A.D., i.e. the Second and Third Hegirian centuries). The numerous ancient texts that are known to be in existence all agree except for very minor variations which do not change the general meaning of the text at all. If the context sometimes allows more than one interpretation, it may well have to do with the fact that ancient writing was simpler than that of the present day. [ The absence of diacritical marks, for example, could make a verb either active or passive and in some instances, masculine or feminine. More often than not however, this was hardly of any great consequence since the context indicated the meaning in many instances.]
The 114 suras were arranged in decreasing order of length; there were nevertheless exceptions. The chronological sequence of the Revelation was not followed. In the majority of cases however, this sequence is known. A large number of descriptions are mentioned at several points in the text, sometimes giving rise to repetitions. Very frequently a passage will add details to a description that appears elsewhere in an incomplete form. Everything connected with modern science is, like many subjects dealt with in the Quran, scattered throughout the book without any semblance of classification.
* It is imporatnt to say that Quran was collected during the Prophet’s lifetime. The Prophet, and before his death, had showed the collection of Quran scrolls to Gabriel many times. So, what is said in regard to collecting of Quran during the ruling period of the Caliphs after the Prophet means copying the same original copy written in the Prophet’s life which later were sent to different countries, and it does not mean the recording or writing of Quran through oral sources as it may be thought. Yet, many of the Companions have written the Quran exactly during the lifetime of the Prophet. One of those was Imam Ali’s copy. He, because of his close relation with the Prophet, his long companionship, didn’t only collect the dispersed scrolls of the Quran, but he rather could accompany it with a remarkable Tafseer, mentioning the occasion of each verse’s descension, and was regarded the first Tafseer of Quran since the beginning of the Islamic mission. Ibn Abi Al-Hadeed says,” All the scholars agree that Imam Ali is the first one who collected the Quran,” (see Sharhul Nahj, 271). Another one, Kittani, says that Imam Ali could arrange the Quran according to each surah’s order of descension, (see Strategic Administration, 461). Ibn Sireen Tabe’ee relates from ‘Ikrimeh, who said that ‘lmam Ali could collect the Quran in a manner that if all mankind and jinn gathered to do that, they could not do it at all,’ (see al-Itqan 1157-58). Ibn Jizzi Kalbi also narrates, “If only we could have the Quran which was collected by Ali then we could gain a lot of knowledge,” (see al-Tasheel, 114). That was only a brief note about the benefits of Imam Ali’s Mus’haf, as Ibn Sireen had declared, “I searched so long for Imam Ali’s Mus’haf and I correspounded with Medina, but all my efforts gone in vain.’ (see al-Itqan, 1/58, al-Tabaqat,2/338). Thus; it becomes certain that Quran has been collected by Imam Ali without simple difference between it and other known copies, except in the notes mentioned by Him which renders it as the most excellent copy has ever been known. Unfortunately, the inconvenient political conditions emerged after the demise of the Prophet, (i.e after the wicked issue of Saqeefah) was a main obstacle to get benefits from that remarkable copy of the Quran.
http://www.islam-guide.com/bqs/15authenticity.htm
The compulsory open loud recitation of a portion of the Quran during five daily prayers played an important role in the correct preservation of the Quran. That means it was well memorized by many Muslims. Any mistake could be challenged. It was in the heart and soul of the believers.
Also, the Quran is mentioned as a book at many places within its text. How come, it would not live as a book? It was compiled very carefully as a book and had to appear as an important book in the world. We know that a book has text written down.
Another special matter is that the revelation of the Quran in pure clear Arabic language is mentioned within Quran. That is the language in which it was revealed. Also, the name of the person to whom it was revealed is mentioned in Quran and by whom (carrier, angel) it was revealed. The prophet Muhammad s.a.w.s. gave some importance to it to have it committed to writing under his own care during his life time. Most important: Quran is not a biography of Muhammad s.a.w.s. Not at all.
No such thing (writing) was done for the bibleNT during life time of Jesus a.s. and may be not for any other person except in the case of revelation sent to the promised Messiah a.s. He had the words and signs written down as a reminder, remembrance. (Tadhkirah)
One wonders, did the man Muhammad know that the words will be needed and they are important? An ordinary person would not give much importance to ordinary words which come in the mind. It proves that these were revealed words and Muhammad s.a.w.s. was divinely guided.
A similar case is that of the Kalimah and the Qiblah. Only a divinely guided person would have known that these will be much needed all over the world to unite the people and to build mosques all over the world. That a direction will be needed to avoid quarrels and discard.
I have checked the language and style of the Quran, it is so beautiful. Even though I am not any educated person. But I see the beauty of it, as if it has been edited 1000 times. There is no room for any additional word and there are no extra words. Some words are wisely left out and they can be interpolated by understanding persons. Such are called Makhzoof.
No verse and no part of the Quran is abrogated.
The language and style is such as to eliminate any extra words. Had it all the words, so and so said to so and so, the book would have been voluminous. It is a far advanced book carrying very high level meaning mostly spiritual i.e. calling walking talking people as dead, dumb and deaf people. One has to be very careful in understanding the Quran, a message full of peace, love and beauty for all mankind. Wassalam.
The History of the Qur’anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation Hardcover – 2011
by Muhammad Mustafa al-A`zami (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/History-Quranic-Text-Revelation-Compilation/dp/B004YCPR58/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0/132-6444599-7435412?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KMYJ5W965TG3PGVXPXNP