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1400 hundred year Challenge

1-19-2019

There is a trend across social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter of people posting their then-and-now profile pictures, mostly from 10 years ago and this year. The choice to partake in the challenge to attract likes on your profiles is yours but one challenge to humanity by Almighty Lord is still outstanding.

Allah Mentions in the holy Quran,

“And if you (Arab pagans, Jews, and Christians) are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down (i.e. the Quran) to Our slave (Muhammad Peace be upon him), then produce a Surah (chapter) of the like thereof and call your witnesses (supporters and helpers) besides Allah, if you are truthful.” Translated by Muhsin Khan (Quran, Surah:  Al-Baqarah Verse 23)

History of the Quran

By: Mansoor Alam 

In a hadith (Vol. 6 No. 201, pages 162-164, Translated by Dr. Muhsin Khan) from Sahih Bukhari    [Imam Bukhari was born in 194 AH (810 CE) and died in 256 AH (870 CE)]:

Narrated Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari, one of the scribes of the Revelation: Abu Bakr sent for me after the casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra were killed). ‘Umar was present with Abu Bakr who said: “Umar has come to me and said, the People have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be some casualties among the Qurra (those who know the Qur’an by heart) at other places, whereby a large part of the Qur’an may be lost, unless you collect it. And I am of the opinion that you should collect the Qur’an.’ Abu Bakr added, ‘I said to ‘Umar, “How can I do something which Allah’s Apostle has not done?” ‘Umar said (to me) “By Allah, it is (really) a good thing”. So ‘Umar kept on pressing trying to persuade me to accept his proposal, till Allah opened my bosom for it and I had the same opinion as ‘Umar’. (Zaid bin Thabit added:) ‘Umar was sitting with him (Abu Bakr) and was not speaking. Abu Bakr said (to me), ‘You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you (of telling lies or of forgetfulness); and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah’s Apostle. Therefore, look for the Qur’an and collect it (in one manuscript)’. By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur’an. I said to both of them, ‘How dare you do a thing which the Prophet has not done?’ Abu Bakr said, ‘By Allah, it is (really) a good thing. So I kept on arguing with him about it till Allah opened my bosom for that which He had opened the bosoms of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. So I started locating the Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, and leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Khuzaima two verses of Suraat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else (and they were 9:128-129).The manuscript on which the Qur’an was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till Allah took him unto Him, and then with ‘Umar till Allah took him unto Him, and finally it remained with Hafsa, ‘Umar’s daughter.

From this hadith we conclude:

-> That Prophet (PBUH) did not compile the Quran and did not give it to the Ummah in a book form.

-> That ‘Umar (R) was the first one to realize that the Quran needed to be collected – and that, too, only after the battle of Yamama when he feared that too many Qurra (i.e., those who had memorized the entire Quran) might die due to future wars. That Abu Bakr (R) initially resisted this suggestion because he did not want to do something that the Prophet (PBUH) himself did not do.

->That ‘Umar (R) swore by Allah and told Abu Bakr (R) that it was a good thing to do. And ‘Umar (R) kept pressing Abu Bakr (R) till Allah opened his heart to accept the proposed idea.

->That after Abu Bakr (R) was convinced of the idea he asked Zaid bin Thabit (R) to find the revelations of the Quran and to start collecting and compiling them.

-> That Zaid bin Thabit (R) resisted the idea initially. (Zaid bin Thabit (R) resisting the order of the Khalifa of the Islamic state?) In any case, Abu Bakr (R) kept pressing Zaid bin Thabit (R) till Allah finally opened his heart to accept the proposed idea. But he found the task extremely difficult: collecting the Quran would be harder than moving a mountain, in his opinion.  One is led to think why it would be left undone by the Prophet (PBUH).

-> That, in any case, Zaid bin Thabit (R) accepted this responsibility and started collecting the Quran.

-> That the verses of the Quran were scattered on parchments, scapula, and leafstalks of date palms.

-> That Zaid bin Thabit (R) found all the verses of the Quran except the last two verses of Surah Al-Tauba which he finally found with Khuzaima bin Thabit (R).

-> That the material on which Zaid bin Thabit (R) prepared his manuscript of the Quran is not mentioned in this hadith. Did he use paper? If he did, then why didn’t the original scribes use it to record the revelation during the lifetime of the Prophet (PBUH)? Didn’t our Prophet (PBUH) know that palm leafstalks are not a very reliable way to protect the Quran? (It is reported in Sunanibn Maajah that ‘Aisha’s (R) goat ate two of the verses of the Quran that were written on palm leafstalk.)

-> That Abu Bakr (R) kept the suhuf(the manuscript with loose chapters) prepared by Zaid bin Thabit (R).

-> That Abu Bakr (R) did not get this suhuf put together in the form of a book during his lifetime. Neither did he distribute copies of this earliest collected manuscript of the Quran to the people.

In the Book Kitab al-Musaahif which was compiled by Abu Bakr Abdullah bin Abi Dawood who was born in 230 A.H. and died in 316 A.H. He was the son of Imam Abu Dawood, the collector and compiler of Sunan Abu Dawood. He writes:

> Imam Ibn Abu Dawood reports on the authority of Salem and Khaarija that Abu Bakr (R) compiled the Quran on paper. He then requested Zaid bin Thabit to have a look at it but he refused. Then Abu Bakr (R) enlisted the help of ‘Umar (R) to persuade Zaid bin Thabit to look at it which he did. These manuscripts remained with Abu Bakr (R) until he died. Then they remained with ‘Umar (R) until he died. Then they remained with Hafsa. When Khalifa ‘Uthman (R) asked for them, Hafsa refused to give them until she got the promise that he would return them. After copying these manuscripts ‘Uthman (R) returned the original to Hafsa. These remained with Hafsa until Marwaan burnt them.

-> Imam Ibn Abu Dawood reports on the authority of Yahya bin Abd al-Rahman bin Haatib that it was ‘Umar (R) who decided to compile the Quran.  He gave a sermon asking the people to bring him any papers, wood plates, leafstalks of date palms, on which they might have written any verses of the Quran after listening to the Prophet (PBUH). ‘Umar (R) did not accept anything from anyone unless he obtained confirmation of two witnesses for everything brought to him.  Meantime ‘Umar (R) was martyred. Then ‘Uthman (R) followed the same principle of accepting from people verses of the Quran only with confirmation from two witnesses. Then Khazima bin Thabit came and told ‘Uthman (R) that he (‘Uthman) had left out two verses from his collection which he (Khazima bin Thabit) used to hear from the Prophet (PBUH).  ‘Uthman (R) asked Khazima bin Thabit where he should place these verses. Khazima bin Thabit suggested putting them at the end of the Surah that was revealed last. So, these two verses were put at the end of Surah Baraat (also known as Tauba).

Mushaf - compilation

By: EKREM BUGRA EKINCI

During the 23 years of Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) time as a prophet, the verses of the Quran were memorized as they were revealed, and about 42 scribes wrote the verses on different materials such as paper, cloth, bone fragments and leather.

There are 6,236 verses, 114 surahs and about 323,000 letters in the Quran.

Abu Bakr formed a delegation under the leadership of Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the leading scribes.

This delegation of 12 people, including famous figures such as Uthman ibn Affan, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Talha ibn Ubaydullah, Abdullah ibn Masood, Ubayy ibn Kab, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Hudhaifah and Saleem, came together in Umar's house and collected all the materials on which verses from the Quran were written.

Saeed ibn al-Aas, who was renowned for the beauty of his handwriting, wrote them down on gazelle skin. The writing used was the Arabic script of the time, which was already old and used commonly at that time in Hejaz.

The companions reached a consensus that this writing, which was used by Prophet Ismail in Hejaz, is the writing of Muslims.

The copy of the Quran was recited to the companions at a general meeting. There was no objection. So, a book called "mushaf" emerged, which means written verses.

A total of 33,000 companions agreed that every letter of the Quran was in the right place. Then this mushaf was sent to Umar ibn al-Khattab. After his death, this book passed on to Hazrat Hafsah, the daughter of Umar and a wife of Prophet Muhammad PBUH.

Dialect of Quraysh

A difference was observed in the recitation of the Quran in the Armenia battles between Muslims from Damascus and Iraq during the period of the third caliph, Uthman.

Hudhaifah, one of the companions, went before the caliph on his way back from an expedition and asked him to prevent this.

On the 25th year of the hijra (647), Uthman gathered a delegation attended by Abdullah ibn al-Zubair, Saeed ibn al-Aas and Abd al-Rahman ibn Harith under the leadership of Zaid ibn Thabit. All of them, except for Zaid, were from Quraysh. Uthman said that the dialect of Quraysh should be preferred if they were to fall into conflict with Zaid regarding the dialect, since Muhammad was from the Quraysh tribe. The Quran had been revealed in seven dialects of the Arabic language of the time.

The first Muslims who were literate could easily read the writing of their own language, but somewhat differently, since at the time the Arabic script did not have diacritical marks to differentiate letters or vowel symbols.

For example, those from the Tameem tribe pronounced the letter "sin" as "te" and read the word "nas" as "nat." It was diverse and convenient, and did not change the meaning.

The delegation brought the original mushaf from Hafsah. In this mushaf, the surahs were not separated from each other. The surahs were sorted according to the order of their descent in Ali's manuscript and according to their lengths in the manuscript of Abdullah ibn Masood.

Now the verses were written in the Quraysh dialect. The surahs were arranged in rows, separated from each other regarding their length and alignment with each other. The order of the surahs was not based on the order the archangel Gabriel gave them to Prophet Muhammad, but on the consensus of the companions.

Seven copies

The old copies were destroyed to prevent future conflicts. Because of this, there are some Shia sects that accusing Uthman of changing the Quran.

From the new copy, some mushafs were also written on parchment and sent to different places such as Bahrain, Damascus, Basra, Kufa, Yemen and Mecca, accompanied by a qari. There are also rumors that copies were sent to Egypt and Jazeera.

The copy that stayed with the caliph was called al-Mushaf al-Imam (the head mushaf). There is no difference between the mushafs recited around the world today since they were all copied from original copies.

Thus, the Quran was written during Muhammad's lifetime, while its compilation was done during the caliphate of Abu Bakr and it was copied during the caliphate of Uthman.

Uthman also established special schools for the correct recitation and writing of the Quran. During the caliphate of Ali, saw the introduction of diacritical marks. During the time of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, vowel marks were also added.

Since then, countless Muslims have memorized the Quran. In the month of Ramadan, the entire Quran is recited in the Tarawih prayer at the Kaaba. Even the slightest mistake can stand out to Muslims who know it well from all around the world.

Original mushafs

Some of these first seven mushafs have disappeared over time. Today, in Topkapi Palace and the Museum of Turkish-Islamic Arts in Istanbul, there are mushafs from Uthman and Ali's period. One of them was handwritten by Uthman, and the other two by Ali.

While the copy in Egypt was in the Mosque of Amr ibn al-Aas, it was presented to Ottoman Sultan Selim II and brought to Topkapi Palace after the conquest of Egypt.

Some claim that this is in fact the copy from Medina and that the last survivor of the Abbasid family took it with him while escaping to Egypt from the Mongol massacre. It is said that due to a blood-like stain on it, this is the mushaf that Uthman read while he was martyred.

Other mushafs belonging to the first period of Islam are displayed in Al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the British Library in London, Hast Imam Library in Tashkent and other museums.

A newly opened museum in Mecca also features verses of the Quran written on bones and stones. The verses written on rocks and stones in the seventh century in Arabia have also survived to the present day.

Conclusion

It is clear, then, that the complete Quran must have been written down in book form during the lifetime of the Prophet (PBUH), most probably, on paper. After all, paper just didn’t suddenly appear during Khalifa ‘Uthman’s period. Paper was around during the Prophet’s time. Our Prophet (PBUH) wrote letters to the kings of Abyssinia and of Iran, on paper. So, it is inconceivable that he would not have used paper for the Quran, the most valuable message for humanity.

The fact is no one else except the Prophet (PBUH) could have received any instructions from Allah about the compilation of the Quran in book form. The Prophet (PBUH) must have employed the best scribes to write the revelation and he personally must have checked the written text for accuracy. The Quran itself tells us that these scribes were truthful and most honorable (80:15-16). As Muslims, we are obliged to believe that our Prophet (PBUH) faithfully discharged his duty of delivering the Quran to humanity in the form of a written book. Its proof is in our hands.

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Article Source: ALAMEENPOST.COM