The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Preservation of the Qur’an
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extraordinary care had not been taken, differences
would have resulted from the slightest lapse in
memorising and transcription. For instance, when
Umar recited this verse to Zayd ibn Thabit, “As for
those who led the way, the first of the muhajirs and
the Ansar, those who nobly followed them,” Zayd
said, that he remembered this verse with
waw,
that
is, with ‘and’ after Ansar. So the investigation
started, and finally the other memorisers of the
Qur’an came and confirmed that the opinion of
Zayd was right. So in the volume the verse was
written with the addition of ‘and’.
In former times, when the accepted way of
disseminating the subject matter of a book was to
memorise it, then recite it, it was quite exceptional
that the Qur’an should have been preserved in
writing as well as memorised. This was like having
a ‘double checking’ system, whereby memory plus
written words and written words plus memory
could be constantly compared for verification.
After Zayd ibn Thabit had prepared the entire
Qur’an and bound it in the form of a book, all other
materials collected from different companions, for
