The holy Quran

The holy Quran is the last revealed word of Allah as transmitted by the Angel Gabriel in the Arabic language through the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It is the most important source of every Muslim’s faith and practice all over the world. Muslims view is that the Quran supersedes earlier revelations and it is regarded as their summation and completion. It is the final revelation, as Muhammad is regarded as the final prophet (the Seal of the Prophets).

It transacts with all the issues which concern humankind such as transactions, doctrine, law, worship, wisdom etc., but its basic theme is the relationship between Allah and His creatures.  it provides guidelines and detailed teachings for a society, suitable human demeanor, and an evenhanded economic system. It was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Arabic language only.  So, any Quranic translation, either in English or any other language, is neither a Quran, nor a version of the Quran, but it is only a translation of the meaning of the Quran [7, 19]

The holy Quran has been handed down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Prophet (PBUH) had dictated its text to the scribes. The written text was then read to the Prophet (PBUH), who having satisfied himself that the scribe has committed no error of recording, would put the manuscript in safe custody. The Prophet (PBUH) used to teach the scribe about the sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed in a particular part (Surah). In this way, the Prophet (PBUH) continued to organize the text of the Quran in systematic order till the end of the chain of revelations.

 

Method of preservations of the Holy Quran

 

During the Prophet's time (570-632 CE)

The text of the Quran had been preserved in four different ways during the lifetime of Prophet (PBUH) [18, 19]:

• Prophet (PBUH) had the whole text of the Divine Messages from the beginning to the end committed to writing by the scribes of revelations.

• The Prophet (PBUH) used to recite the Qur'an before angel Jibreel once every Ramadan, but he recited it twice in the last Ramadan before his death.

• Some of companions learned the whole text of Qur'an by heart.

• All the memorable companions had memorized at least some portions of the Quran, for the simple reason that it was obligatory for them to recite it during worship. An estimate of the number of the memorable companions may be got from the fact that one hundred and forty thousands companions had contributed in the Last Pilgrimage performed by Prophet (PBUH).

• A considerable number of the educated companions kept a private record of the text of the Qur'an and satisfied themselves as to the purity of their record by reading it out to Prophet (PBUH).

• The verses were written by scribes, chosen by the Prophet (PBUH), on any suitable object pieces of wood, parchment or leather, flat stones, and shoulder blades.

• Some of the companions wrote the Qur'an for their own use.

After the demise of the Prophet

It is an indisputable historical truth Qur'an extant today is exactly the same as the Prophet (PBUH) had offered to the world as the Word of Allah. When Prophet (PBUH) died, Abu Bakr who is the first Caliph in Islam collected all the memorable companions (Huffaz) and write records of Qur'an and with their help had the whole text written in Qur'an form. At the time of Caliph Uthman copies of this original version were made and posed to the Capitals of the Islamic World.

Today, there are two copies exist in the world, one in Istanbul and the other in Tashkent, and if we compare any printed text of Qur'an with those two copies, will we find no variation. And how can one expect any difference, when there have existed several million Huffaz in every century since the time of Prophet (PBUH) until today, and anyone alter a syllable of the original text of the Qur'an, Huffaz would expose the mistake [18].

During the caliph of Abu Bakr (632-634 CE)

• The second Caliph in Islam is Umar Ibn Al-Khattab who urged to Abu Bakr to preserve and compile the Qur'an after the battle of Yamamah, where the heavy number of memorable companions is casualties.

• Abu Bakr entrusted Zayed Ibn Thabit with the assignment of collecting the Qur'an. Zayed had been existed during the last recitation of the Qur'an by the Prophet (PBUH) to Angel Jibreel.

• Zayed, with the help of the memorable companions who memorized and wrote verses of the Qur'an, achieved the assignment and handed to Abu Bakr, and this is the first authenticated copy of the Qur'an. The copy was kept in the residence of Hafsah who is wife of the Prophet (PBUH) and daughter of Umar.

During the caliph of Uthman (644-656 CE)

• The third Caliph in Islam is Uthman who ordered scribes (Zayed Ibn Thabit, Abdullah Ibn Al Zubayr, Saeed Ibn Al-Aas, and Abdur-Rahman Ibn Harith) to make perfect copies of the authenticated copy kept with Hafsa. This was due to the fast expansion of the Islamic world and worry about differences in recitation.

• Copies were sent to a variety of places in the Muslim world. The original copy was returned to Hafsa.

Three phases of dotting and discrimination

• In the era of Muawiya Ibn Abi Sufian (661-680 CE), dots were put as syntactical marks by Abu Al-Aswad Al Doaly.

• In the era of Abd Al-Malek Ibn Marawan (685-705 CE), the letters were marked with different dotting by Nasr Ibn Asem and Hayy ibn Yaamor.

• Al Khaleel Ibn Ahmad Al Faraheedy (d. 786 CE) was invented a whole system of diacritical marks (damma, fataha, kasra) [19].

 

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