Qur-an

The Qur-an (Arabic: القرآن‎ al-qur-ān) means "a recitation". The Qur-an is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of Arabic verb qara-a (Arabic: قرأ‎), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which is the verbatim word of Allah and the final testament. The Quran is divided into 114 chapters of unequal length which are classified either as Meccan or Medinan depending upon their place and time of revelation. The Quran was verbally revealed through angel Jibrīl (Gabriel) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of 22 years 2 months and 22 days, beginning in 610 CE, when Muhammad was forty, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. The Qur-an was precisely memorized, recited, and exactly written down by Muhammad's companions (Sahabah) after each revelation was dictated by him.

Shortly after Muhammad's death the Quran was compiled into a single book by order of the first caliph, Abu Bakr, and at the suggestion of his future successor Umar. Hafsa, Muhammad's widow and Umar's daughter, was entrusted with that Quranic text after the second caliph, Umar, died. When the third caliph, Uthman, began noticing slight differences in Arabic dialect he sought Hafsa's permission to use her text to be set as the standard dialect. Before returning the text to Hafsa, Uthman made several thousand copies of Abu Bakr's redaction and, to standardize the text, invalidated all other versions of the Quran. This process of formalization is known as the Uthmanic recension. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by most scholars as the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.

The Quran is the main miracle of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam, and continued with the Suhuf Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham),[18] the Tawrat (Torah or Pentateuch) of Moses, the Zabur (Tehillim or Book of Psalms) of Dawud (David), and the Injil (Gospel) of Jesus. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in Jewish and Christian scriptures, summarizing some, dwelling at length on others and in some cases presenting alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance, sometimes offering detailed accounts of specific historical events, and often emphasizing the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence.

Qur-an Revelations during Muhammad's Prophecy
The Qur-an began with a divine revelation to Muhammad at 17th of the month of Ramadan in 610 AD, in which Jibril visited him during his contemplation in Hira Cave. All of these revelations were either memorized and written down on palm trees and fiber during the lifetime of Muhammad. These revelations were subsequently collected after Muhammad's death and were standardized in today's version by the caliph Uthman c. 653/654. At that time, there are no dotting (i.e. there's no difference between ق and ف), harakah (i.e. vowel pointing), and punctuation (i.e. there's no tajwid) in Qur-an until the 7th or 8th centuries.

Muhammad memorized the Qur'an by ear, and later recited it to his companions, who also memorized it. Before the Qur'an was written down, speaking it from memory prevailed as the mode of teaching it to others. This fact, taken in the context of seventh century Arabia, was not at all an extraordinary feat. People of that time had a penchant for recited poetry and had developed their skills in memorization to a remarkable degree. Events and competitions that featured the recitation of elaborate poetry were of great interest.

The initial revelations were written on different sorts of parchments, tablets of stone, branches of date trees, other wood, leaves, leather and even bones. Sahaba began recording chapters in writing before Muhammad died in 632. Allusions to written portions of the Qur-an can be found in many events. Immediately before his conversion in 615, Umar ibn al-Khattab caught his sister reading the Qur-anic text (Ta-Ha) from parchment. Muhammad said that reading the Qur'anic text earns a believer twice as much reward as reciting it from memory yet he prohibited carrying written copies of it into battle.

At Medina, about forty companions are believed to have acted as scribes for the Qur'an. Twenty-two such persons are mentioned by name in the Hadith. Among them were well known persons, such as Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Ibn Masud, Abu Huraira, Abdullah bin Abbas, Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As, Aisha, Hafsa and Umm Salama.

Narrated Qatada: I asked Anas bin Malik: 'Who collected the Qur'an at the time of the prophet?' He replied, "Four, all of whom were from the Ansar: Ubai bin Ka'b, Muadh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid".[Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari, 6:61:525]

Also, after the fall of Mekkah, Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan also became a scribe of the Prophet after he accepted Islam.

The Sahaba wrote down the revelations under Muhammad's guidance:

Narrated al Bara: There was revealed 'Not equal are those believers who sit and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah' (Chapter 4:95). The prophet said: 'Call Zaid for me and let him bring the board, the ink pot and the scapula bone.' Then he said: 'Write: Not equal are those believers..."[Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari, 6:61:512]

===Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of twenty-three years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered a considerable number of the sahabah to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. Companions who engaged in the recitation of the Quran were called Qari. Since most sahabah were unable to read or write, they were ordered to learn from the prisoners-of-war the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of sahabah gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most chapters were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632.===

Abu Bakr's Era
During the life of Muhammad, parts of the Qur'an, though written, were scattered amongst his companions, much of it as private possession. After Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr initially exercised a policy of laissez faire as well. This policy was reversed after the Battle of Yamama in 633. During the battle, 700 Muslims who had memorized the Qur'an were killed. The death of Sālim, however, was most significant, as he was one of the very few who had been entrusted by Muhammad to teach the Qur'an. Consequently, upon Umar's insistence, Abu Bakr ordered the collection of the hitherto scattered pieces of the Qur'an into one copy.

Zaid ibn Thabit, Muhammad's primary scribe, was assigned the duty of collecting all of the Qur'anic text. This was his reaction:

"...By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an... So I started locating the Qur'anic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men.[Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari, 6:60:201]

He also said:

"So I started looking for the Holy quran and collected it from (what was written on) palm-leaf stalks, thin white stones, and also from men who knew it by heart, till I found the last verse of Surat at-Tauba (repentance) with Abi Khuzaima al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.6, p.478).

The task required ibn Thabit to collect written copies of the Qur'an, with each verse having validated with the oral testimony of at least two companions. Usually the written copies were verified by himself and Umar - both of whom had memorized portions of the Qur'an. Thus, eventually the entire Qur'an was collected into a single copy, but it still wasn't given any particular order.

This compilation was kept by the Caliph Abu Bakr, after his death by his successor, Caliph Umar, who on his deathbed gave them to Hafsa bint Umar, his daughter and one of Muhammad's widows.

After seventy reciters were killed in the Battle of Yamama, the caliph Abu Bakr decided to collect the different chapters and verses into one volume. Thus, a group of reciters, including Zayd ibn Thabit, collected the chapters and verses and produced several hand-written copies of the complete book.

Uthman's Era
In about 650, as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant and North Africa, the third caliph Uthman ibn Affan ordered the preparation of an official, standardized version, to preserve the sanctity of the text (and perhaps to keep the Rashidun Empire united, see Uthman Qur'an). Five reciters from amongst the companions produced a unique text from the first volume, which had been prepared on the orders of Abu Bakr and was kept with Hafsa bint Umar. The other copies already in the hands of Muslims in other areas were collected and sent to Medina where, on orders of the Caliph, they were destroyed by burning or boiling. This remains the authoritative text of the Quran to this day.

By the time of the caliphate of Uthman ibn Affan, there was a perceived need for the compilation of the Qur'an. The caliphate had grown considerably, bringing into Islam's fold many new converts from various cultures with varying degrees of isolation. These converts spoke a variety of languages but were not well learned in Arabic and so a complete written text of the Qur'an had to be compiled. Another reason for compiling the Qur'an was that many of the Muslims who had memorised portions of the Qur'an were dying, especially in battle.

Uthman is said to have begun a committee (including Zayd and several prominent members of Quraysh) to produce a standard copy of the text. Some accounts say that this compilation was based on the text kept by Hafsa. Other stories say that Uthman made his compilation independently, Hafsa's text was brought forward, and the two texts were found to coincide perfectly.

Until this time there was reportedly only one written text of the Qur'an. According to Islamic accounts, this text was faithful to its original version. Non-Muslim scholars believe that, while this is entirely possible, there must at least have been slight variations produced from some corruptions.

Thus, this became known as al-mushaf al-Uthmani or the "Uthmanic codex".

Uthman's reaction in 653 is recorded in the following:

"So 'Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to 'Uthman. 'Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, 'Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and 'AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. 'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Said bin Thabit added, "A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): 'Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.'"[Qur'an 33:23][Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari, 6:61:510]

Although the order of his earlier script differed from the Uthmanic codex, Ali accepted this standardized version.

Some scholars suggest that the early Uthmanic texts of the Qur'an differed in terms of punctuation from the version traditionally read today. It is believed that early versions of the text did not contain diacritics, markers for short vowels, and dots that are used to distinguish similarly written Arabic letters such as r[ر] & z[ز] or t[ت] & ṭ[ث] or f[ف] & q[ق]. One claim is that dots were introduced into the writing system sometime about half a century after the standardization of the Uthmanic text around 700 A.D.

When the compilation was finished, sometime between 650 and 656, Uthman allegedly sent copies of it to the different centers of the expanding Islamic empire. From then on, thousands of Muslim scribes began copying the Qur'an.

Canonization
It is a point of contention among Muslims that the entire Qu'ran was preserved by Uthman, but some hadith attest that some verses could not be found, that variant copies were burnt, and that a saying of Muhammad was misremembered as a Qu'ranic verse. For these reasons and others, Western scholars believe that Uthman performed a revision of the Qu'ran.

However, some recent scholars like Allama Tamanna Imadi dispute the collection of Quranic texts by either Uthman, Umar or Abu Bakar. He asserts that the Qur'an in its present form was collected by the prophet himself on deerskin parchments and was called "Al-Imam" or "Al-Um", and from that original source all Sahaba used to copy their own book. He strongly disagrees with all of the Hadiths pointing to such an event taking place like collection of Qur'an by Abubakar or Uthman and further events leading to availabilities of Ayats from different Sahabas. He suspects that the whole chapter about collection of Qur'an in Bukhari is a later addition by some binder or student of Imam Bukhari.