Interfaith Dialogue in Islam

In ancient times information used to be preserved in human memory. Oral traditions in those days functioned as libraries do today. This system made it possible for the revelations of the Quran to be preserved in the memory of a large number of Muslim companions of the Prophet. And to this day, and in spite of the invention of the press, the institution of memorizing the Quran is still alive all over the Muslim world. But the message of the Quran was not transmitted purely by oral tradition even during the lifetime of the Prophet. Among his companions were a select group of about half a dozen katibe-wahy, or transcribers of the revelations. A few of these scribes were always present with the Prophet and whenever any passage of the Quran was revealed, the Prophet would recite it to them. Thereupon, at the exact moment of revelation, they would not only commit it to memory, but would also write it down on any available material, such as paper, bones, leather or skin. In former times, when the accepted way of disseminating the subject matter of a book was to memorize it and then recite it, it was quite exceptional that the Quran should have been both memorized and preserved in writing. The second point concerns the arrangement of the verses and chapters of the Quran. When the Quran was revealed in parts, at different times according to the demand of circumstances, how did it come to be arranged in its present form? We find the answer in books of Hadith. It has been proved from authentic traditions that the angel Gabriel, who conveyed the revelations of God to the Prophet, himself arranged these verses in their present order. Each year during the month of Ramadan, the angel Gabriel would come to the Prophet and recite before him all the Quranic verses revealed up till that time. And after listening to the angel, the Prophet would repeat the verses in the order in which he had heard them. This dual process has been termed as al-Irza, or mutual presentation, in the books of Hadith: In the last year of the Prophet’s life, when the revelations were complete, Gabriel came to the Prophet and recited the entire Quran in the existing order twice, and the Prophet also recited to Gabriel the entire Quran twice. This final presentation is called al-Arz al-Akhirah in the Hadith. (Fathul Bari, pp. 659-663) And in this way the Quran came to be in the form we are familiar with today, preserved in memories of tens of thousands of the Prophet’s companions even during his lifetime. When the Prophet died in 632 AD, at the age of 63, the Quran existed in two forms: first, in the memory of these companions, who had learned it by rote in what is now its present order; second, in writing — on pieces of paper and other materials, preserved by the companions. What must be noted here is that the order existed in memory, not in writing, though all the parts existed at that time in written form. After the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr became the first caliph. In his time, the Quran not only existed in written form on the bark of date palms, stones, leather, etc., but was also preserved in the memory of the companions. The Qur’an, when made into a book, was arranged in the order memorized by the companions, and the verses have been preserved in that same order right up to