The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Preservation of the Qur’an
~ 129 ~
bits and pieces of the Qur’an in written form were
collected by him, not just to be assembled and
bound in one volume, but to be used to verify the
authenticity of the Qur’an as memorised and passed
on in oral tradition by countless individuals. Once
this exact correspondence between the oral and
written forms of the Qur’an had been established
beyond any reasonable doubt, Zayd proceeded to
put the verses of the Qur’an down on paper in their
correct order.
Harith Muhasibi writes in his book,
Fahm As-Sunan,
that the transcription of the Qur’an was nothing
new, because the Prophet himself had arranged for
it to be written down. But it was written separately
on
Riqa’a, Likhaf, Katf, ‘Asib,
etc. All the materials on
which the Qur’an was written were available in the
Prophet’s house, but had not been put in any
special order. What the collector did was assemble
all these parts and then bind them together so that
no part was destroyed.
(Al, Itqan,
v. 1, p. 40)
This elaborate arrangement of the Qur’an was made
so that there should not be even the minutest
discrepancy vis-à-vis the original revelation. If this
