The Collection of the Quran

A study of the compilation of the Qur'an text must begin with the character of the book itself as it was handed down by Muhammad to his companions during his lifetime. It was not delivered or, as Muslims believe, revealed all at once. It came piecemeal over a period of twenty-three years from the time when Muhammad began to preach in Mecca in 610 AD until his death at Medina in 632 AD. The Qur'an itself declares that Allah said to Muhammad: "We have rehearsed it to you in slow, well-arranged stages, gradually" (Surah 25.32).

Furthermore no chronological record of the sequence of passages was kept by Muhammad himself or his companions so that, as each of these began to be collected into an actual surah (a"chapter"), no thought was given as to theme, order of deliverance or chronological sequence. It is acknowledged by all Muslim writers that most of the surahs, especially the longer ones, are composite texts containing various passages not necessarily linked to each other in the sequence in which they were given. As time went on Muhammad used to say" Put this passage in the surah in which so-and-so is mentioned", or" Put it in such-and-such a place" (as -Suyuti, Al Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an, p.141). Thus passages were added to compilations of other passages already collected together until each of these became a distinct surah. There is evidence that a number of these surahs already had their recognised titles during Muhammad's lifetime, as from the following hadith:

The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) (in fact) said: Anyone who recites the two verses at the end of Surah al-Baqara at night, they would suffice for him.....

Abu Darda reported that Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: If anyone learns by heart the first ten verses of the Surah al-Kahf, he will be protected from the Dajal. (Sahih Muslim, Vol.2, p.386).

At the same time, however, there is also reason to believe that there were other surahs to which titles were not necessarily given by Muhammad, for example Suratul-Ikhlas (Surah 112), for although Muhammad spoke at some length about it and said its four verses were the equal of one-third of the whole Qur'an, he did not mention it by name (Sahih Muslim, Vol.2, p.387).

As the Qur'an developed Muhammad's immediate companions took portions of it down in writing and also committed its passages to memory. It appears that the memorisation of the text was the foremost method of recording its contents as the very word al-Qur'an means "the Recitation" and, from the very first word delivered to Muhammad when he is said to have had his initial vision of the angel Jibril on Mount Hira, namely Iqra - "Recite!" (Surah 96.1), we can see that the verbal recitation of its passages was very highly esteemed and consistently practised. Nevertheless it is to actual written records of its text that the Qur'an itself bears witness in the following verse:

It is in honoured scripts {suhufin mukarramatin}, exalted, purified, by the hands of scribes noble and pious

Surah 80. 13-16.

There is evidence, further, that even during Muhammad's early days in Mecca portions of the Qur'an as then delivered were being reduced to writing. When Umar was still a pagan he one day struck his sister in her house in Mecca when he heard her reading a portion of the Qur'an. Upon seeing blood on her cheek, however, he relented and said "Give me this sheet which I heard you reading just now so that I may see just what it is which Muhammad has brought" (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasulullah, p.156) and, on reading the portion of Surah 20 which she had been reading, he became a Muslim.

It nonetheless appears that right up to the end of Muhammad's life the practice of memorisation predominated over the reduction of the Qur'an to writing and was regarded as more important. In the Hadith records we read that the angel Jibril is said to have checked the recitation of the Qur'an every Ramadan with Muhammad and, in his final year, checked it with him twice:

Fatima said: "The Prophet (saw) told me secretly, 'Gabriel used to recite the Qur'an to me and I to him once a year, but this year he recited the whole Qur'an with me twice. I don't think but that my death is approaching'". (Sahih al-Bukhari^ Vol.6) p.485).

Some of Muhammad's closest companions devoted themselves to learning the text of the Qur'an off by heart. These included the ansari Ubayy ibn Ka'b, Muadh ibn Jabal, Zaid ibn Thabit, Abu Zaid and Abu ad-Darda (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.6, pp.488-489).

In addition to these Mujammi ibn Jariyah is said to have collected all but a few surahs while Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, one of the muhajirun who had been with Muhammad from the beginning of his mission in Mecca, had secured more than ninety of the one hundred and fourteen surahs by himself, learning the remaining surahs from Mujammi (Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, Vol.2, p.457).

Regarding the written materials there are no records as to exactly how much of the Qur'an was reduced to writing during the lifetime of Muhammad. There is certainly no evidence to suggest that anyone had actually compiled the whole text of the Qur'an into a single manuscript, whether directly under Muhammad's express authority or otherwise, and from the information we have about the collection of the Qur'an after his death (which we shall shortly consider), we must rather conclude that the Qur'an had never been codified or reduced to writing in a single text.

Muhammad died suddenly in 632 AD after a short illness and, with his death, the Qur'an automatically became complete. There could be no further revelations once its chosen recipient had departed. While he lived however, there was always the possibility that new passages could be added and it hardly seemed appropriate, therefore, to contemplate codifying the text into one harmonious whole. Thus it is not surprising to find that the book was widely scattered in the memories of men and on various different materials in writing at the time of Muhammad's decease.

Furthermore we shall see that the Qur'an itself makes allowance for the abrogation of its texts by Allah and, during Muhammad's lifetime, the possibility of further abrogations (in addition to a number of verses which had already been withdrawn) would likewise preclude the contemplation of a single text.

Still further, there appear to have been only a few disputes among the sahaba (Muhammad's "companions", i.e., his immediate followers) about the text of the Qur'an while Muhammad lived, unlike those which arose soon after his demise. All these factors explain the absence of an official codified text at the time of his death. The possible abrogation of existing passages, and the probable addition of further ayat (the Qur'an nowhere declares its own completeness or that no further revelations could be expected) prevented any attempt to achieve the result desired very soon thereafter by his closest companions. It also appears that new Qur'anic passages were coming with increasing frequency to Muhammad just before that fateful day, making the collection of the Qur'an into a single text at any time all the more improbable.

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah sent down his Divine Inspiration to His Apostle (saw) continuously and abundantly during the period preceding his death till He took him unto Him. That was the period of the greatest part of revelation, and Allah's Apostle (saw) died after that.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.6, p.474).

At the end of the first phase of the Qur'an, therefore, we find that its contents were widely distributed in the memories of men and were written down piecemeal on various materials, but that no single text had been prescribed or codified for the Muslim community.

As-Suyuti states that the Qur'an, as sent down from Allah in separate stages, had been completely written down and carefully preserved, but that it had not been assembled into one single location during the lifetime of Muhammad

(as-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an p.96).

All of it was said to have been available in principle. Muhammad's companions had absorbed it to one extent or another in their memories and it had been written down on separate materials - while the final order of the various verses and chapters is also presumed to have been defined by Muhammad while he was still alive.

Shortly after the death of Muhammad a number of written codices of the Qur'an appeared until Uthman ordered the destruction of all but one and further ordered that copies be made of this codex to be sent to the various provinces. From this text further copies were made and the written manuscripts began to increase in number.

Three different forms of script developed in the Hijaz, particularly in the cities of Mecca and Medina. One of these was the al - Ma’il script, unique in the early days in that the letters were vertically inscribed and were written at a slight angle. The very word al - Ma' il means "the slanting" script. The upright character of this script gave rise to the use of a vertical format for each codex in the form that most books are published today. This script survived for about two centuries before falling into disuse and all manuscripts bearing its form are of obvious antiquity. A sign of its early origin is the fact that it employed no vowel marks or diacritical points and also had no verse counts or chapter headings. Only a very few examples of Qur'anic script in al - Ma' il survive, the most well - known being a manuscript occasionally placed on public display in the British Museum in London.

The second early script originating' from Medina was the Mashq, the "extended"  style which continued to be used for many centuries and which went through a process of development and improvement. Unlike the al - Ma' il, the Mashq was horizontal in form and can be distinguished by its somewhat cursive and leisurely style - Gradually the developed Mashq script came to closely resemble the Kufic script, yet it always retained its particular characteristic, namely a balanced dispersal of its words and letters in varying degrees of density. It was supplemented by coloured diacritical points and vowel marks in the same way that the more predominant Kufic script was in later years.

A script which also derives from the Hijaz is the Naskh the "inscriptional" script. This took some time to come into vogue but, when it did, it largely displaced the Kufic script and became the standard for most Qur'ans from the eleventh century onwards and is the script used in virtually all printed Qur'ans today. A very good example of a complete Qur’an text in Naskh which is hardly different to contemporary Qur’ans is the manuscript done by Ibn al - Bawwab at Baghdad in 1001 AD which is now in the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin in Ireland. It differs slightly from the Naskh script of most Mamluk Qur’ans and has a more oriental character..

The script that most concerns any student of the earliest Our' an manuscripts is the Kufic script, properly known as all - Khatt al - Kufi. its title does not hint at any particular characteristic form of its script as the others from the Hijaz do but indicates its place of origin. It derives from Kufa in Iraq where Ibn Mas' ud' s codex had been highly prized until Uthman ordered its destruction. It was only after this event that the Qur'an text as we know it came to be written in Kufic script in this region and it took some time to become predominant but, when it did, it attained a pre - eminence for three centuries as the approved script of the Qur'an until it was largely displaced by the Naskh script. It reached its perfection during the late eighth century ( up to one hundred and fifty years after Muhammad' s death ) and thereafter it became widely used throughout the Muslim world.

Like the Mashq script it employs a largely horizontal, extended style and as a result most of the codices compiled in Kufic were oblong in format. Its letters are more rigid and austere in character than the Mashq script, however. Large numbers of manuscripts and single leaves of Qur'an texts in Kufic survive from various centres, most of which date from the late eighth century to the early eleventh century. Here too the text became supplemented with vowel marks and coloured diacritical points in time. No Kufic Qur'ans are known to have been written in Mecca and Medina in the very early days when the al - Ma' il and Mashq scripts were most regularly used and none of the surviving early Kufic texts are attributed by modern scholars to this region. In any event even the rare complete Kufic Qur’ans that have survived lack proper colophons giving the time and place of the transcribing of the text and the name of its calligrapher so that it is virtually impossible to date or locate them with any degree of certainty.

The history of the written text of the Qur'an would tend to suggest, as a general principle, that all manuscripts in the al - Mail or Mashq scripts derive from the Hijaz, usually the second century of Islam with the exception of the developed Mashq texts which would be of later date and more widespread origin, Surviving Kufic Qur'ans can generally be dated from the late eighth century depending on the extent of development in the character of the script in each case, and it is grossly improbable that any of these were written in Mecca or Medina before the beginning of the ninth century

3. A STUDY OF THE TOPKAPI AND SAMARQAND CODICES.

The question, in closing, which arises, is whether any of the original Qur'ans transcribed by Uthman survives to this day. We have already seen that the codex of the Qur'an said to have been the mushaf of Hafsah was destroyed by Marwan ibn aI - Hakam after her death. Although this would appear to have been an independent codex of her own as distinct from Zaid' s codex which came into her possession after her father' s death, there is clear evidence to suggest that it was in fact the very codex of Zaid from which the others were transcribed. The record linking this codex with that destroyed by Marwan begins as follows :

These are the leaves ( as - suhuf ) making up the collection of the Qur’an which were with Abu Bakr while he was alive until he returned to Allah, then they were with Umar until he returned to Allah, then they were with Hafsah, the daughter of Umar. ( Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al - Masahif, p. 21 ).

It is quite clear that it is Zaid’s codex which is being spoken of, yet we read soon afterwards that it was this particular manuscript which came into the possession of Marwan after the funeral of Hafsah, having been sent to him by Abdullah ibn Umar ( Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al - Masahif, p. 21 ; cf. also, p. 24 ) and which must therefore be the codex said to have been destroyed by him immediately thereafter. If so, then there can be no doubt that the original codex of Zaid has been irretrievably lost. What then of the codices made directly from this codex at Uthman' s instigation ?

As virtually all the earliest ( Qur'an codices and fragments cannot be dated earlier than about one hundred and fifty year' s after the time of Muhammad it would seem most improbable that portions of the Qur'an copied out at Uthman' s direction should have survived, least of all whole codices or substantial sections thereof. Nevertheless Muslim writers often claim that Uthmanic manuscripts still exist. We have seen that the Muslim dogma that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved by divine decree is based not on evidences or facts but purely on popular sentiment, so it should not surprise a student of the early text of the Qur'an to find that this sentiment is often buttressed by claims that proof of the perfection of the text can be found in actual Uthmanic codices still in existence.

There are many references in modern Muslim writings to Qur'ans said to have belonged to Uthman, Ali or the grandsons of Muhammad which are said to have survived to this day. One cannot help wondering whether in such cases the wish is not perhaps father to the thought. Professor Bergstrasser, one of the contributors to Noldeke' s Geschichte des Qurans, recorded up to twenty references to claims made in different parts of the Muslim world to possess not only one of the copies ordered by Uthman but even the actual codex of the Caliph himself, in each case with attendant claims that the pages which he was reading when he was murdered are to this day discoloured by his blood. We shall give two direct examples of such claims made even today for different Qur’ans towards the end of this chapter.

In the Apology of the famous Christian scholar Abdul - Masih al - Kindi, who wrote a defence of Christianity against Islam during the time of the Abbasid Empire, we find it said that of the copies made under Uthman' s supervision, the one sent to Mecca was destroyed by fire while those commissioned for Medina and Kufa were lost irretrievably. Only the copy destined for Damascus was said to have survived, it being preserved at Malatja the time ( Noldeke, Geschichte, 3. 6 ). There are some conflicting claims about the ultimate fate of this copy but it is generally agreed that it, too, is now lost.

All the references one finds in Muslim records to the destiny of those early codices are sketchy, incomplete and often contradictory. Some suggest that the Damascus manuscript is in fact the famous codex of Samarqand while others say that this codex originally came to the city from Fez in Morocco, There hardly appears to be anything like the kind of record of trans mission that an objective scholar would require to give serious consideration to the claim that any of the surviving Qur'an manuscripts is Uthmanic in origin.

In moderate Muslim writings today, however, we find as a rule that only two of the surviving early manuscripts of the Qur'an are said to be the actual mushaf of Uthman or one of the copies prepared under his official supervision. The one is the Samarqand codex and the other is an old Qur’an manuscript kept on public display in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul which I had the privilege of seeing during a visit to Turkey in 1981. Let us briefly consider these two manuscripts,

We shall begin with the Samarqand codex. This manuscript is said to be preserved today in the Soviet State Library at Tashkent in Uzbekistan. It is said to have first come to Samarqand about 1485 AD and to have remained there until 1868. Thereafter it was removed to St. Petersburg ( now Leningrad ) and in 1905 fifty facsimile editions were prepared by one Dr. Pissaref at the Instigation of Czar Nicholas II under the title Coran Coufique de Samarqand, each copy being sent to a distinguished recipient. In 1917 the original manuscript is said to have been taken to Tashkent where it now remains, A further limited edition was published by Dr. Hamidullah in the United Kingdom in 1981.

The manuscript is considerably incomplete. It only begins in the middle of verse 7 of Surutul - Baqarah ( the second surah ) and from there on numerous pages are missing. In some cases only two or three leaves have been removed, in others over a hundred are omitted. The last part of the Qur'an text from Surah 43. 10 onwards is altogether missing from the manuscript. Many of the pages that have survived are also somewhat mutilated and much of the text has been lost.

Nonetheless a study of what remains tells us something about the manuscript. It is of obvious antiquity, being devoid of any kind of vocalisation ( a point specially made in Noldeke, Geschichte, 3. 262 ) although in a few cases a diacritical stroke has been added to a relevant letter. It is perhaps the apparent antiquity of the manuscript that has led to the convenient claim that it is an Uthmanic original. Nevertheless it is precisely the appearance of the script itself that would seem to negate such a claim. It is clearly written in Kufic script and, as we have seen, it is asking too much of an objective scholar to believe that a Qur'an manuscript written at Medina as early as the caliphate of Uthman could ever have been written in this script. Medinan Qur’ans were written in the al - Ma’il and Mashq scripts for many decades before the Kufic script became the common denominator of all the early texts throughout the Muslim world and, in any event, Kufic only came into regular use at Kufa and elsewhere in the Iraqi province in the generations following Uthman’s demise.

Furthermore the actual inscription of the text in the Samarqand codex is very irregular. Some pages are very neatly and uniformly copied out whereas others are distinctly untidy and imbalanced. Then again, whereas the text in most pages has been fairly smoothly spread out, on some pages it has been severely raped and condensed. At times the Arabic letter kaf has been written out uniformly with the rest of the text, at other times it has been considerably extended and is the dominant letter in the text. As a result many pages of this manuscript differ so extensively from one another that one cannot help wondering whether we do not have a composite text on our hands, compiled from portions of different manuscripts.

Although the text is virtually devoid of supplementary vocalisation it does occasionally employ artistic illumination between the surahs, usually a coloured tend of rows of squares, and at times accompanied by varying medallions which would tend to indicate that it dates from the late eighth century. It may well be one of the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an surviving to this day, but there appears to be no good reason to believe that it is an Uthmanic. original.

In an article written in a Russian Journal in 1891 the author, A. Shebunin, gives particular - attention to the medallions which appear in various colours at the end of each group of approximately ten verses. Within these medallions a Kufic number is written indicating the number of verses that have passed since the beginning of the relevant Surah. These medallions, usually being flower figures, were composed in four colours, red, green, blue and orange. One hundred and fifty - one such figures feature in the remnant of the text - Shebunin finishes his article with the conclusion that the manuscript dates from the second century of Islam and, being inscribed in Kufic script, most probably derives from Iraq. The partial illumination of the text would almost certainly compel one to give the codex a second - century origin - it is grossly unlikely that such embellishments would have accompanied the Uthmanic manuscripts sent out to the various provinces.

The other manuscript said to be one of the Uthmanic codices is the one on display in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.

Once again it requires only a sight of the text to discount this possibility as we are again faced with a Kufic manuscript. Then again, like the Samarqand codex, it is written on parchment and is also largely devoid of vocalisation, both of which suggest that it, too, is one of the very earliest manuscripts of the Qur'an to survive, but those who claim that it dates back as far as Uthman himself must explain the obvious anachronism in the use of a Kufic script.

This manuscript is also supplemented with ornamental medallions, indicating a later age, with occasional ornamentation between the surahs as well. One only needs to compare it with the Samarqand codex to realise that they most certainly cannot both be Uthmanic originals. The Istanbul codex has eighteen lines to the page whereas the Samarqand codex has between eight and twelve ; the Istanbul codex is inscribed throughout in a very formal manner, the words and lines always being very uniformly written out, while the text of the Samarqand codex is often haphazard and considerably distorted. One cannot believe that both these manuscripts were copied out by the same scribes, (As pointed out already, it is hard to believe that even the Samarqand codex alone was not written out by a number of different scribes).

An objective, factual study of the evidences shows that neither of these codices can seriously be regarded as Uthmanic, yet one finds that Muslim sentiment is so strong at this point that both of them are said to have been not only Uthmanic originals but even the actual which Uthman was reading when he was murdered! The Samarqand text is now preserved in the Soviet State Library and alleges that"This is the same Quran which was in the hand of the Caliph when he was murdered by the rebels and his blood is still visible on the passage' Fasa Yakhfihum (sic) Ullah - o - Wa huwasamiul - Alim' (Surah 2. 137)".

An article once published in the Ramadan Annual by The Muslim Digest in Durban, South Africa, had a photograph of the Topkapi Codex in Istanbul, it correctly identified it as such, but alleged that it belonged to Uthman with the comment,"This Qur'an, written on deerskin, was being read by the Caliph when he was assassinated and the bloodstain marks are still seen on the pages of this copy of the Qur'an to this day” (Vol, 39, Nos. 9 & 10, p. 107).

It is most intriguing to find that both the manuscripts, are not only attributed to Uthman but are alleged to be the very codex in his own possession which he was said to have been reading when he was assassinated. Of course each one has verifiable bloodstains of the Caliph himself to prove the point!

It is contradictory statements like these, where the same fame is claimed for each of these codices, that expose the Muslim approach to this subject as one based not on a cautious historical research dependent on available evidences but on popular - sentiment and wishful thinking. It would suit the Muslim world to possess an Uthmanic original, it would be convenient to have a codex of the earliest possible origin to verify the proposed textual perfection of the Qur’an, and so any manuscript of the Qur’an surviving that can be shown to be a relatively early age is automatically claimed to be the one desired! It hardly matters that the same claim is made for more than one codex, or that in each case internal evidence ( particularly the Kufic script ) must lead an honest enquirer to presume on a much later date.

The Samarqand and Topkapi codices are obviously two of the oldest sizeable manuscripts of the Qur'an surviving but their origin cannot be taken back earlier than the second century of Islam. It must be concluded that no such manuscripts of an earlier date have survived. The oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an still in existence date from not earlier than about one hundred years after Muhammad' s death.