HOW THE QURAN WAS COMPILED

of Hadith (sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad). It has been proved from authentic traditions that the angel Gabriel, who conveyed the revelations of God to the Prophet, himself arranged these verses. Each year during the month of Ramzan, 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 Gabriel, the Prophet would repeat the verses in the order in which he had heard them. This dual process has been termed al-Irza, ‘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, p. 659-663). And in this way the Quran came to be in the form we are familiar with today, preserved originally in the memories of tens of thousands of the Prophet’s companions during his lifetime, which continued through the generations to this day. When the Prophet died in 632 AD, at the age of 63, the Quran existed in two forms: in the memory of these companions, who had learned it by rote in what is now its present order; and, 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 Siddiq was appointed the first Caliph, and it was during his caliphate that the compilation of the Quran was carried out. Zaid ibn Thabit, the Prophet’s foremost scribe and an authority on the Quran, was entrusted with this task. His work was more of collection than of compilation — the scattered bits and pieces of the Quran put together, not that they could be bound in one volume, but that they could be used to crosscheck countless memories in oral tradition. Once this correspondence between the oral and written forms had been established beyond any reasonable doubt, Any copy of the Quran found in any part of the world at any time will be exactly the same as that handed down to the Muslims by the Prophet in his last days.