CHAPTER 3: The 'collection' of the Qur'n

(a) The 'collection' under Abu-Bakr.

There is a widespread report, found in many slightly differing forms, telling of a 'collection' of the Qurn in the caliphate of Abu-Bakr (632-4). According to this report 1 Umar ibn al khattab (who succeeded as caliph in 634) was perturbed by the fact that in the battle of Yamma during the 'wars of the apostasy (ridda)' many of the 'readers' of the Qurn were killed. Since these were the men who had parts of the Qurn by heart, Umar feared that, if more of them died, some of the Qurn would be irretrievably lost. He therefore counselled Ab-Bakr to make a 'collection' of the Qurn. At first Ab-Bakr hesitated to undertake a task for which he had received no authority from Muammad, but in the end he gave his approval and commissioned Zayd-ibn-Thbit. The latter, who had been one of Muammad's secretaries, had no illusions about the difficulty of the task, but at length agreed. As mentioned above (p. 32), he then proceeded to 'collect' the Qurn 'from pieces of papyrus, fiat stones, palm-leaves, shoulder-blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather and wooden boards, as well as from the hearts of men'. The last passage to be found was 9.128/9f.-the two closing verses of sura 9. Zayd wrote what he 'collected' on sheets (suhuf) of equal size and gave them to Ab-Bakr. On the latter's death they passed to Umar, and on Umar's death to his daughter Hafsa, a widow of the prophet.

This tradition is open to criticism on a number of grounds. For one thing it seems to assume that up to the time of Muammad's death there had been no authoritative record of the revelations and no attempt to bring some order into them but it has been already shown that this is unlikely. Then there are many discrepancies between this tradition and others and between the different versions of this tradition. Thus there is no unanimity about the originator of the idea of collecting the Qurn; generally it is said to have been Umar, but sometimes Ab-Bakr is said to have commissioned the 'collection' on his own initiative. On the other hand, there is a tradition which says Umar was the first to 'collect' the Qurn and completely excludes Ab-Bakr. 2 Again, the reason given for the step, namely the death of a large number of 'readers' in the battle of Yamma has also been questioned. In the lists of those who fell in that campaign, very few are mentioned who were likely to have had much of the Qurn by heart. 3 Those killed were mostly recent converts. Besides, according to the tradition itself, much of the Qurn was already written in some form or other, so that the death of some of those who could recite it from memory need not have given rise to the fear that parts of the Qurn would be lost.

Perhaps the weightiest criticism of the tradition is that an official collection of this kind might have been expected to have had wide authority attributed to it, but of this we find no evidence. Other 'collections' of the Qurn seem to have been regarded as authoritative in different provinces. The disputes which led to the recension of theQurn under Uthmn could hardly have arisen if there had been an official codex in the caliph's possession to which reference could have been made. Again the way in which Umar himself is represented elsewhere as insisting that the verse of stoning 4 was in the Qurn, is hardly consistent with his having in his possession an official collection. Lastly, and most significant of all, the suhuf on which Zayd wrote the Qurn were, at the time when the revision came to be made, in the keeping of Hafsa. Now Hafsa was Umar's daughter, and we are apparently to assume that since Umar had become caliph by the time Zayd finished his work, the suhuf were handed to him, and from him passed to his daughter. If Zayd's collection was an official one, however, it is hardly probable that it would pass out of official keeping, even into the hands of the caliph's daughter. That Hafsa had a copy of the Qurn on suhuf seems certain; but it is unlikely that it was an official copy made in the official way that tradition asserts.

It seems practically certain, then, that no complete 'collection' of the Qurn was officially made during the caliphate of Ab-Bakr. The traditional account so far considered was doubtless gradually elaborated to avoid the awkward fact that the first 'collection' of the Qurn was made by Uthmn, who was greatly disliked. On the other hand, there is no good ground for doubting that Hafsa possessed a Qurn written on suhuf whether this was written by herself, by Zayd, or by someone else.

(b) The 'collection' under Uthmn.

The traditional account of what led to the next step in the fixing of the form of the Qurn implies that serious differences of reading existed in the copies of the Qurn current in the various districts. During expeditions against Armenia and Azerbaijan, we are told, disputes concerning the reading of the Qurn arose amongst the troops, who were drawn partly from Syria and partly from Iraq. The disputes were serious enough to lead the general, Hudhayfa, to lay the matter before the caliph, Uthmn (644-56), and to urge him to take steps to put an end to these differences. The caliph took counsel with senior Companions of the Prophet, and finally commissioned Zayd ibn thabit to 'collect' the Qurn. With Zayd were associated three members of noble Meccan families, Abd-Allh ibn-az-Zubayr, Said ibn al As and Abd-ar-Ramn ibn al harith. One of the principles they were to follow was that, in case of difficulty as to the reading, the dialect of Quraysh, the tribe to which the Prophet belonged, was to be given the preference. The whole Qurn was carefully revised and compared with the suhuf which had been in Hafsa's keeping and which were returned to her when the work was finished. Thus an authoritative text of the Qurn was established. A number of copies were made and distributed to the main centres of Islam. As to the exact number of these standard codices, and the places to which they were sent, the account varies; but probably one copy was retained in Medina, and one was sent to each of the towns, Kufa, Basra and Damascus, and possibly also to Mecca. Previously existing copies are said to have been then destroyed, so that the text of all subsequent copies of the Qurn should be based upon those standard codices.

This traditional account of the 'collection' of the Qurn under Uthmn is also open to criticisms, though they are not so serious as in the case of Ab-Bakr's 'collection'. The most serious difficulties are those connected with the suhuf of Hafsa. Some versions of the story suggest that the work of the commissioners was simply to make a fair copy, in the dialect of Quraysh, of the material on these leaves. Some important material, however, has come to light since the publication of Friedrich Schwally's revised edition of the second volume of Nldeke's Geschichte des Qurns in 1919. In particular there is a story of how the caliph Marwn when governor of Medina wanted to get hold of the 'leaves' of Hafsa to destroy them, and eventually on her death persuaded her brother to hand them over. 5 Marwn was afraid lest the unusual readings in them might lead to further dissension in the community. On the whole it is unlikely that this story has been invented, for it implies that the 'leaves' of Hafsa were unsuitable as a basis for the official text. The 'leaves' are not to be confused with a codex of the new official text said to have been given to Hafsa. The most likely solution of the problem is to hold that, while Hafsa may well have had 'leaves' on which she had written down many suras, hers was in no respect an official 'collection'. It is perhaps specially mentioned to link up this account with that of the first 'collection' under Ab-Bakr. On the whole, then, it seems unlikely that the 'leaves' of Hafsa were of primary importance. They cannot have contained more than what had been arranged in the 'book' by Muammad at the time of his death; and they can hardly have been the sole or main basis of the Uthmnic text.

Other criticisms are minor. There are various lists of the persons who helped Zayd. Schwally shows that the suggested names are all improbable. 6 He also questions the instruction to write the revelations in the dialect of the Quraysh (the tribe of Mecca) on the ground that the Qurn is in a partly artificial, literary language. 7 Perhaps the function of the commissioners was to help to 'collect' revelations from sources known to them. Schwally dismisses this possibility on the ground that the commission was mainly concerned to produce a fair copy of Hafsa 'leaves'; but since the new material shows that Hafsa's 'leaves' were unsuitable as a basis for the new edition, Schwally's objection falls. Indeed, there is no reason now for rejecting two points in the traditional account: (1)the commissioners were to collect all the pieces of revelation they could find; (2) where men had remembered it with dialectal variations of the literary language, they were to make the Meccan forms standard.

This establishment of the text of the Qurn under Uthmn may be dated somewhere between 650 and his death in 656. It is the cardinal point in what may be called the formation of the canon of the Qurn. Whatever may have been the form of the Qurn previously, it is certain that the book still in our hands is essentially the Uthmnic Qurn. Uthmn's commission decided what was to be included and what excluded; it fixed the number and order of the suras, and the 'outline' of the consonantal text (that is, its shape when the dots distinguishing letters are omitted). If we remember that to preserve every smallest fragment of genuine revelation was an ineluctable requirement, the commission under Zayd must be adjudged to have achieved a wonderful piece of work.

2. The pre-Uthmnic codices

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