HISTORY OF QURAN

Praise is to Allaah.

Firstly: Allaah has guaranteed to preserve this Qur’aan Himself. Allaah says

“Verily, We, it is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur’aan) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption)”[al-Hijr 15:9]

It is We Who have sent down the Qur’aan in which there is mention of all issues and clear evidence, and in which We remind those who want to be reminded.

 

The Qur’aan was revealed to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) in stages over a period of twenty-three years. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And (it is) a Qur’aan which We have divided (into parts), in order that you might recite it to men at intervals. And We have revealed it by stages”

[al-Isra’ 17:106]

Secondly:

Literacy was not widespread among the Arabs. Allaah described them in such terms when He said :

“He it is Who sent among the unlettered ones a Messenger (Muhammad) from among themselves”[al-Jumu’ah 63:2]

They used to memorize the Qur’aan by heart, and a few of them used to write down some verses or soorahs on animal skins, thin white stones and the like.

Thirdly:

At first the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade the writing of anything other than the Qur’aan, and he forbade them to write down his words for a while, so that the Sahaabah would focus on memorizing the Qur’aan and writing it down, and so that the words of the Prophet  would not be confused with the words of Allaah, and so the Qur’aan was protected from anything being added or taken away.

In addition:

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) appointed a group of his companions who were trustworthy and knowledgeable to write down the revelation. They are known in their biographies as those who wrote down the Revelation, such as the four Caliphs, ‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas, Mu’aawiyah ibn Abi Sufyaan, Zayd ibn Thaabit and others.

It must be noted that:

The Qur’aan was revealed in seven dialects as was narrated in the saheeh hadeeth of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab .

Moreover

The Qur’aan continued to be preserved in the hearts of the Sahaabah who had memorized it, and on the skins and other materials until the time of the caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddeeq. During the Riddah wars many of the Sahaabah who had memorized the Qur’aan were killed, and Abu Bakr  was afraid that the Qur’aan would be lost.

So he consulted the senior Sahaabah about compiling the Qur’aan in a single book so that it would remain preserved and would not be lost. He entrusted this mission to the chief of memorizers Zayd ibn Thaabit .

Zayd ibn Thaabit  who did not find it easy to accept the offer initially but finally agreed to do it after Abu Bakr replied, "By Allaah, it is a good thing." Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allaah opened my heart to that to which He had opened the hearts of Abu Bakr and 'Umar.

Then zaid said :So I started looking for the Qur’aan and collecting it from (what it was written on) palm stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, until I found the last Verse of Soorat al-Tawbah with Abu Khuzaymah al-Ansaari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. The verse is:"Verily, there has come unto you a Messenger (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty...” [al-Tawbah 9:128] 

Then the complete manuscript (copy) of the Qur’aan remained with Abu Bakr until he died, then with 'Umar until the end of his life, and then with Hafsah, the daughter of 'Umar

Again we should note that , Zayd ibn Thaabit knew the Qur’aan by heart but he was methodical in his confirmation; he would not agree to write down any verse until two of the Sahaabah testified that they had heard it from the Messenger of Allaah.

This Mus-haf (written copy of the Qur’aan) remained in the hands of the caliphs until the time of the Rightly-Guided Caliph ‘Uthmaan ibn ‘Affaan. The Sahaabah  had dispersed to different lands, and they used to recite the Qur’aan according to what they had heard of the seven recitations from the Messenger of Allaah, and each of their students used to recite according to what he had heard from his shaykh.

If a student heard someone reciting in a manner different from what he knew, he would denounce him and accuse him of making a mistake, and this went on until the Sahaabah feared that there would be fitnah (trouble) between the Taabi’een and successive generations.

So they thought that they should unite the people in following one recitation, which was in the dialect of Quraysh in which the Qur’aan had first been revealed, so as to dispel any disputes and resolve the matter. Uthman was consulted, and he agreed with this opinion. You can find this narration in saheeh bukhari (4988).

After the writing, 'Uthmaan sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'aanic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

Thus an end was put to dispute and the Muslims were united. The Qur’aan has remained and will remain narrated from generation to generation and preserved in men's hearts until the Day of Resurrection. This is how Allaah has preserved His Book, in confirmation of the verse in which He says:

“surely, We will guard it (from corruption)”[al-Hijr 15:

Verily, We, it is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur’aan) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption)”[al-Hijr 15:

Mashaa Allah, thank you very much for your time

 Inshaa this is where I stop

 If there is another chance I will talk about importance of Quran

Wa salaamu alaikum warahmatullah wabarakaatuh