CHAPTER ONE The Preservation of the Quran

Huzayfa was a military officer posted in Armenia and Azerbaijan and had just come back from doing battle. But when he reached Madina; and witnessed the scene in the Prophet’s mosque, instead of going straight home, he went directly to the third caliph and addressed him thus: “O Leader of the believers! Take care of the people, before they fall victim to the differences regarding the book of God just as the Jews and the Christians did.” During the caliphate of Uthman there entered the fold of Islam peoples whose mother tongue was not Arabic, and who were not able to speak the language with the proper accent and pronunciation. Even the various Arab tribes themselves had different accents and pronunciation. Hence the variations in the recitation of the Quran. The result was that the Quran, too, began to be written according to varying pronunciations. Ibn Qutayba writes that the Bani Huzayl tribe used to pronounce ‘hatta’ as ‘atta’. Since Ibn Masood belonged to this tribe, its members saw no reason to deviate from this pronunciation. Such differences in recitation came to be reflected in the transcription of the Quran, this being only one of many such examples. Given this state of affairs, Uthman, as advised by Huzayfa ibn Yaman, had copies made of the volume prepared by Abu Bakr, then sent one copy each to all cities. This task was again entrusted to Zayd ibn Thabit Ansari, who was provided with eleven people to assist him. As per the order of the third caliph, the committee wrote down the Quran in accordance with the spelling of the Quraysh, so that it should conform to the accent (lehja) of the Prophet of Islam. Caliph Uthman subsequently ordered that all other copies of the Quran, which people had written on their own, should be handed over to the government. These were all then burnt by his order. By this method, all the copies of the Quran were made uniform as far as writing was concerned. However, taking natural differences into consideration – since all the people were not able to pronounce the Quran uniformly – permission was given for the Quran to be recited with seven different pronunciations and accents. The collection prepared by Abu Bakr was done one year after the death of the Prophet. The copies ordered by Uthman were produced fifteen years after the Prophet’s death. These copies of the Quran, made with extraordinary care and precision, were passed on from generation to generation until the age of the press dawned. Many printing presses were then established in the Muslim world, where the beautiful calligraphy of the scriptures was reproduced after its content had been certified by memorizers of the Quran. Thus, once again, with the help of the memorized versions and written texts, correct, authentic copies were prepared; then with the publication of these copies on a large scale, the Quran spread all over the world. It is an irrefutable fact acknowledged by the orientalists, that any copy of the Quran found in any part