II.—The Collation of the Qurʾān.
The whole book was not arranged until after Muḥammad’s death, but it is believed that the Prophet himself divided the Sūrahs [[SURAH]] and gave most of them their present titles, which are chosen from some word which occurs in the chapter. The following is the account of the collection and arrangement of the Qurʾān, as it stands at present, as given in traditions recorded by al-Buk͟hārī (see Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī, Arabic ed., p. 745.)
“Zaid ibn S̤ābit relates:—‘Abu Bakr sent a person to me, and called me to him, at the time of the battle with the people of Yamāmah; and I went to him, and ʿUmar was with him; and Abu Bakr said to me, “ʿUmar came to me and said, ‘Verily a great many of the readers of the Qurʾān were slain on the day of the battle with the people of Yamāmah; and really I am afraid that if the slaughter should be great, much will be lost from the Qurʾān, because every person remembers something of it; and, verily, I see it advisable for you to order the Qurʾān to be collected into one book.’ I said to ʿUmar, ‘How can I do a thing which the Prophet has not done?’ He said, ‘I swear by God, this collecting of the Qurʾān is a good thing.’ And ʿUmar used to be constantly returning to me and saying: ‘You must collect the Qurʾān,’ till at length God opened my breast so to do, and I saw what ʿUmar had been advising.” And Zaid ibn S̤ābit says that, ‘Abū Bakr said to me, “You are a young and sensible man, and I do not suspect you of forgetfulness, negligence, or perfidy; and, verily, you used to write for the Prophet his instructions from above; then look for the Qurʾān in every place and collect it.” I said, “I swear by God, that if people had ordered me to carry a mountain about from one place to another, it would not be heavier upon me than the order which Abū Bakr has given for collecting the Qurʾān.” I said to Abū Bakr, “How do you do a thing which the Prophet of God did not?” He said, “By God, this collecting of the Qurʾān is a good act.” And he used perpetually to return to me, until God put it into my heart to do the thing which the heart of Abū Bakr had been set upon. Then I sought for the Qurʾān, and collected it from the leaves of the date, and white stones, and the breasts of people that remembered it, till I found the last part of the chapter entitled Tauba (Repentance), with Abū K͟huzaimah al-Anṣārī, and with no other person. These leaves were in the possession of Abū Bakr, until God caused him to die; after which ʿUmar had them in his life-time; after that, they remained with his daughter, Ḥafṣah; after that, ʿUs̤mān compiled them into one book.’
“Anas ibn Mālik relates: ‘Huzaifah came to ʿUs̤mān, and he had fought with the people of Syria in the conquest of Armenia; and had fought in Aẕurbaijān, with the people of al-ʿIrāq, and he was shocked at the different ways of people reading the Qurʾān. And Huzaifah said to ʿUs̤mān, “O ʿUs̤mān, assist this people, before they differ in the Book of God, just as the Jews and Christians differ in their books.” Then ʿUs̤mān sent a person to Ḥafṣah, ordering her to send those portions which she had, and saying, “I shall have a number of copies of them taken, and will then return them to you.” And Ḥafṣah sent the portions to ʿUs̤mān, and ʿUs̤mān ordered Zaid ibn S̤ābit, Anṣārī, and ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn az-Zubair, and Saʿīd ibn Alʿās, and ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥāris̤ ibn Hishām; and these were all of the Quraish tribe, except Zaid ibn S̤ābit and ʿUs̤mān. And he said to the three Quraishites, “When you and Zaid ibn-S̤ābit differ about any part of the dialect of the Qurʾān, then do ye write it in the Quraish dialect, because it came not down in the language of any tribe but theirs.” Then they did as ʿUs̤mān had ordered; and when a number of copies had been taken, ʿUs̤mān returned the leaves to Ḥafṣah. And ʿUs̤mān sent a copy to every quarter of the countries of Islām, and ordered all other leaves to be burnt, and Ibn Shahāb said, “K͟hārījah, son of Zaid ibn S̤ābit, informed me, saying, ‘I could not find one verse when I was writing the Qurʾān, which, verily, I heard from the Prophet; then I looked for it, and found it with K͟huzaimah, and entered it into the Sūratu ʾl-Aḥzāb.’ ”
This recension of the Qurʾān produced by the K͟halīfah ʿUs̤mān has been handed down to us unaltered; and there is probably no other book in the world which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.
Sir William Muir remarks in his Life of Mahomet:—
“The original copy of the first edition was obtained from Haphsa’s (Ḥafṣah) depository, and a careful recension of the whole set on foot. In case of difference between Zaid and his coadjutors, the voice of the latter, as demonstrative of the Coreishite idiom, was to preponderate; and the new collation was thus assimilated to the Meccan dialect, in which the Prophet had given utterance to his inspiration. Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and the previously existing copies were all, by the Caliph’s command, committed to the flames. The old original was returned to Haphsa’s custody.
“The recension of Othmân (ʿUs̤mān) has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance,—we might almost say no variations at all, amongst the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islâm.
“Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othmân himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but one Corân has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text. The various readings are wonderfully few in number, and are chiefly confined to differences in the vowel points and diacritical signs. But these marks were invented at a later date.
“They did not exist at all in the early copies, and can hardly be said to affect the text of Othmân. Since, then, we possess the undoubted text of Othmân’s recension, it remains to be inquired whether that text was an honest reproduction of Abu Bakr’s edition, with the simple reconcilement of unimportant variations. There is the fullest ground for believing that it was so. No early or trustworthy traditions throw suspicion of tampering with the Corân in order to support his own claims upon Othmân. The Sheeahs (Shīʿahs)[115] of later times, indeed, pretend that Othmân left out certain Suras or passages which favoured Ali. But this is incredible. He could not possibly have done so without it being observed at the time; and it cannot be imagined that Ali and his followers (not to mention the whole body of the Mussulmans who fondly regarded the Corân as the word of God,) would have permitted such a proceeding.