The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Preservation of the Qur’an
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impurity and only after he had bathed himself did
his sister give him the book (Ibn Hisham).
The third stage of this process is termed “Collection”
that is, writing down the entire Qur’an together in
one volume. The form of the bound volume
consisting of pages of the same size was not prevalent
in the Prophet’s time. According to a narration
recorded by Bukhari, only four companions Ubayy
ibn Kaab, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Zayd, and Zayd ibn
Thabit had the entire Qur’an put together during the
life of the Prophet. In
Kanz al Ummal,
referring to
Muhammad, Ibn Kab Al-Qurzi gives us the names of
five such collectors of the complete Qur’an. However
the status of their collections was that of a personal
possession. The official version was produced under
the direction of the caliph Abu Bakr, who had it
bound after arranging for all the verses to be written
on square papers of the same size. Imam Malik has
also recorded (citing as his source, Shahab Zahri, who
had learned it from Salim, son of Abdullah ibn
Umar,) that Zayd ibn Thabit wrote down all the
verses of the Qur’an on
al-Qaratis
(papers of the same
size) at the command of Abu Bakr. This volume was
called
Raba’a
(square).
(Itqan,
v. 1, pp. 84-85)
