Anyone coming into contact with the Qur'an for the first time is left with a profound feeling that it is not an ordinary book. The Qur'an seems to challenge the reader: "if your impression is that I am illogical, incoherent and inconsistent, then come, read on and prove it." Thus one is allured to reading further and looking deeper into the Qur'an and its contents, its style, approach and meaning.

From the Seventh Century to this day, it remains the source of inspiration and guidance for millions of people of all languages and races, who firmly accept it and believe in it as the unchanged words of God. How true is this assertion, and how certain could we be today that the Qur'an is the same as that revealed to the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)?

One answer lies in the Qur'an's own statements concerning its immunity from human intervention, and freedom from errors of any kind.

The second dwells essentially with the documentation and compilation of the Qur'an. It is the second area which is the subject of this article. A study of the available historical evidences indicates that the documentation and compilation of the Qur'an passed through three distinct phases: the Prophet's life since the beginning of his call until his death, a period of about 22 years during which the Qur'an existed in written form but no authoritative copy was available; the period immediately following the Prophet's death and up to the reign of the third Khalifa, Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, about 12 years, when a standard written version of the Qur'an was compiled but was not released to the public; the time of 'Uthman's Khilafa when an authoritative copy was verified, endorsed and published. Let us now look closely into each of these phases.

In the first phase there is sufficient evidence to show that the Qur'an was being committed to writing immediately following its revelation to the Prophet, and his recitation of it to his followers. That the art of writing was known to the Arabs of the time is in no doubt. Tradition confirms that several of the Sahaba at Mecca were able to read and write.

Some very early Meccan Qur'anic passages such as:

"Read in the name of your Lord, the Most Highly esteemed, who taught by the pen" (Al-A laq 96:3),

"By the pen and what they write" (Al-Qalam, 68:1),

"You, Mohammad, were not a reader of any book hitherto, nor did you write it with your right hand" (Al-'Ankabut, 29:48),

"They say: fables of the people of old which he had had written down for him" (Al-Furqan, 25:5)

and

'Say: if the sea were to be ink for the words of my Lord, it would have dried up before His words were exhausted" (Al-Kahf, 18:19)

refer clearly to the use of the pen and the art of writing. Other passages mention the qirtas, writing pad, and refer to suhuf or parchments used for writing. Then there is the Our'an's reference to itself as a book "whose passages were perfected", in both its Meccan and Medinan portions.

and the verses ordering the Prophet,peace be upon him, not to

"hasten with the Qur'an before its revelation has been completed" (20:114).

The overall composition and arrangement of the Qur'an suggests that its passages were arranged and put together soon after they had been received without any editing or revision by the Prophet or any of the companions who recorded the revelations in his presence. Several traditions in Al-Bukhari indicate that the Prophet,peace be upon him, asked his followers not to record what they heard from him except for the Qur'an. No sooner a verse, a group of verses, or a surah were revealed, than he would call someone to write it down. There were at least 29 scribes amongst the companions. By the end of this phase the order of verses in the surahs and their identification and arrangement had been finalised under the Prophet's own guidance and supervision. The evidence given for this includes the fact that terms such as ayah and surah were used very early during the Meccan period- the Qur'an challenged the Arabs to produce verses or surahs similar to its own.

Moreover the Prophet, peace be upon him, recited complete surahs several times, especially during prayers. Before his death he recited the whole Qur'an to his followers. The fact that the sahaba memorised the Qur'an implies a whole, and a certain unified order. The existence of the basmalah at the beginning of the surahs (with the exception of Surah IX) and lastly the distinct personalities of each, according to Muslim commentators, points to a unified structure.

Nevertheless, it seems to be a historical fact that in this phase the surahs had not been assigned their present numbers. It is also established that at that time the writing of the Arabic script did not have vowels, diacritical marks or dots. All of these were introduced a few decades later.

The second phase followed immediately the Prophet's death,peace be upon him, during which the first official attempt to collect the written parts of the Qur'an was made. For historical evidence relating to this period we have to rely on Al-Bukhari. The most famous tradition is one attributing to 'Umar b. al-Khattab, the suggestion, put to the Khalifa Abu Bakr,may Allah be pleased with them both, that the written Qur'an should be collected and preserved before the number of people who had committed it to memory decreased drastically or were killed in war.

The task was assigned to Zaid b. Thabit, one of the chief secretaries of the Prophet, who began collecting parchments, bones, stones, palm-tree leaves and any other items on which parts of the Qur'an had been written down by various people. Having done that he then went on to compile the full text of the Qur'an and checked it against his own memorised version and those memorised by other famous and reliable sahaba.

The complete written copy, together with the collected materials, were presented to Abu Bakr in whose possession they remained until his death. Then they came under the custodianship of 'Umar b. al-Khattab who had succeeded as Khalifa. Tradition gives the impression that it was when 'Uthman succeeded to the Khalifa that the matter was pursued further.

It appears that the main achievement of this phase was to prepare a written copy of the Qur'an from extant records, and verifying it by comparison to the memorised version, at a time when a large number of those who were known to have memorised the Qur'an were still living.

Although the Khalifa possessed this authoritative and complete version of the Qur'an, the need did not seem to have arisen, as yet, for that version to be made official all over Muslim lands. This meant that other versions which might have been slightly different to the Khalifa's were still in use in certain areas. This period also marked a transition in the development of communications amongst the Arabs, in which the reliance on memory and memorisation was gradually giving way to writing as a means of documentation and transmission of reports and knowledge.

As the Muslim community was expanding fast, a time had to come when an official version of the Qur'an needed to be issued. This marks the third phase in the history of the compilation of the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari's tradition continues to say that Muslims in different parts of Muslim lands were found to have variations in their reading of the Qur'an.

Some-the Syrians-reading according to Ubay b. Ka'b, while the Iraqis according to Abdullah b. Mas'ud and so on. Serious rifts threatened to creep into the Muslims' understanding of Qur'anic injunctions and principles. This caused Huthaifa b. al-Yaman to hurry to 'Uthman, the Khalifa and urge him to put a stop to that danger, by issuing an authoritative version. This was done by a committee led by Zaid b. Thabit which included three more Meccans of reputed knowledge of Qur'an. What this committee did was to acquire the copy already prepared by Zaid at the instruction of Abu Bakr, check it again against the versions in the memories of known huffaz of the Qur'an and then rewrite it in its final form. Several copies were then sent to the main centres of Islam of the time.

Apart from these copies, all other items on which the Qur'an had been written were destroyed and declared unofficial unless they agreed with the authorised version. In addition to this 'Uthman's action achieved two other goals; it legitimised variation in the reading of certain words and phrases in the Qur'an, and eliminated from the authorised version certain parts that had wrongly been attributed.

'Uthman's action was done with the knowledge of all the state officials and was made public from the very beginning. It certainly had the backing and agreement of all involved; no rival version was ever known to have emerged, and despite all the controversy in which 'Uthman has been claimed to be involved, his actions concerning the Qur'an, even in the eyes of his adversaries, stand to his credit. The version authorised during his Khalifate has remained the only official one used by Muslims of all schools all over the world.

A number of technical refinements such as the addition of dots, numbering of verses and suras, and inclusion of sura's names were no doubt made later. Some of these refinements resulted in certain superficial variations of reading and meaning which are not of serious nature. Enough historical evidences therefore exists that shows that the present Qur'an corresponds, in sub- stance as well as in form, to that left by the Prophet.

The Muslim
October-November 1976