Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Chapter 3
THE PROCESS OF PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION
The arrangements instituted by the Holy Prophet (Peace be on him!) were perfect not only in respect of the communication of Qur’anic revelations but also concerning their preservation.
In this connection, it should be noted that although paper and parchment were not available in abundance, all important literary work was preserved through writing on parchment or on paper. The concept of writing on parchment or paper has been clearly projected in the Qur’an itself when it says: “If We (i.e., God) had sent unto you (O Muhammad!) a book (or, a writing) on paper (or parchment), so that they could touch it with their hands …” (6:7).
Supplies of paper, and even of parchment, being very limited, the initial writing of the revelations was very naturally executed by using other writing materials of those days, e.g., flat bones, chiselled stems of palm-leaves and wooden or stone tablets. But, once this initial work had been executed, the writing of the revelations, in accordance with their arrangement dictated to the Scribes by the Holy Prophet, on proper pieces of paper or parchment, which were seemingly in the form of the leaves of a book, was undertaken without fail. The evidence in this respect is explicit. For instance, al-Hakim has recorded the testimony of no less an authority than Zaid ibn Thabit, under the heading of “Compilation of the Qur’an during the time of God’s Messenger”, thus: “He said: ‘We (the Scribes) used to compile the Qur’an from the (records of revelations made on) ruqa‘ (i.e., pieces of paper or of parchment).”88 (Al-Mustadrak, vol. 2, p. 611).89
In this way grew up quite a good number of copies of the Holy Qur’an under the direct instruction and supervision of the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him!). Then, the copies compiled 90 by the Scribes were handed over to other Companions, as we have already noted, so that they copied them out in order to possess their own copies for reading as well as memorisation. The copies compiled by the Scribes as well as the others continued to grow in content with the progress in revelation until they were declared to be complete by the Holy Prophet, who proclaimed in clear terms: “I am leaving in your midst a thing which (in terms of its importance) is such that you will never fall into error so long as you hold to it firmly; and it is the Book of God (i.e., the Qur’an).” (Abu Da’ud: Sunan, vol. 1, p. 264).
When we attend to the problem of the number of copies of the Qur’an that existed during the Holy Prophet’s time and look into the statements contained in Bukhari’s sahih (vol. 3, p. 143), Muslim’s sahih (vol. 2, p. 252), Tahdhib al-Tahdhib (vol. 7, p. 243), Istt‘ab (vol. 2, p. 565), Usud al-Ghabah (vol. 2, p. 286), Ibn Sa‘d’s Tabaqat (vol. 2, p. 112), etc., we become sure of the existence of at least fifteen copies.91 Then, when we consider the number of the Scribes appointed by the Holy Prophet, the number of copies goes further up. Again: when we consider the total situation in the Muslim community of the Holy Prophet’s time with reference to widespread activity of recitation and memorisation, we are compelled to consider the number of copies as still higher.
88 Leaves of paper can be stitched together to form a book. Similarly, uniform pieces of parchment can be used for making a book. Hence, whether the Arabs of those days used parchment made of the tanned thin membraneous layer of animal skin, or paper made of rags or reeds, is immaterial; because, although in their texture paper and parchment are different materials, they are similar in respect of their function.
We know that Papyrus, manufactured from reed, was used in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C., while paper made from rags was used by the Chinese since the 2nd Century B.C. The existence of paper in Arabia, together with parchment, which was in use there since the 2nd century B.C., cannot be ruled out, as we find in the references to writing materials given, among others, in Suyuti’s Al-Itqan (vol. 1, pp. 58, 59).
89 Cf. KitÉb al-BurhÉn, vol. 1, p. 256; Darimi: Sunan, p. 68.
90 The following Hadith indicates that the compiled material was maintained “between two boards”, namely, in the form of some sort of binding in bookshape. “Abd al-Aziz ibn Rafi said: I and Shaddad ibn Ma‘qil visited Ibn Abbas; then Shaddad questioned him: ‘Did the Prophet bequeath anything?’ He replied: ‘No, except what is contained between the two boards (‘i.e., the Qur’an)’. Then we visited Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah and put the same question to him; then he too replied that he (the Prophet) did not leave behind anything except what is contained between the two boards.” (Bukhari: Sahih, vol. 3, p. 143).
91 In respect of possessors of complete copies, all recorded evidence compels us to include the first four righteous Caliphs, ‘i.e., Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali,—besides other eminent Companions like Mu‘adh ibn Jabal, Ubayy ibn Ka‘ab, Zaid ibn Thabit. Abu Darda’, Abu Ayyub Ansari, Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud, ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit and Tamim Dari.
After the demise of the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him!), the number of copies multiplied by leaps and bounds under the compulsion of the law of demand and supply, so much so that before the commencement of the caliphate of Uthman thousands upon thousands of copies had come into existence. Ibn Hazm bears testimony to it thus: “When the Prophet passed away, Islam had already spread in the whole (Arabian) peninsula from the Red Sea to the (southern) coast of Yemen and from the Persian Gulf to Euphrates. There were innumerable townships and villages inside the peninsula where all the inhabitants had declared allegiance to Islam and had constructed the masjids. There was no town, village, or quarter, where the Qur’an was not recited at the masjids during prayers. Children and male and female adults, all, learnt it, and it was also copied out in writing. After the Prophet’s period, Abu Bakr ruled as Caliph for 2½ years … the recitation grew more and more. There was no town where the copies of the Qur’an were not available. After that, Omar became the Caliph and conquered the length and breadth of Persia and the whole of Syria and Egypt. In those countries also there was no inhabited place where masjids were not built and new copies of the Qur’an were not made.The leaders of congregational prayers recited it, and the children all over the east and the west (of the Islamic empire) learnt it. This period lasted for ten years and some months.
When Omar died, at least one hundred thousand copies of the Qur’an must have been in existence.” (Kitab al-Fasl, vol. 2, p. 78). Since then upto this day, the number of copies that have gone into circulation is beyond all possibility of counting. But the text of the Holy Qur’an has not suffered even the slightest deviation and variation. Truly had it been proclaimed by God at the time of its revelation: “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message (i.e., the Qur’an), and We are assuredly the guardian thereof.” (15:9).
It is necessary to observe here that the Qur’an was propagated by the Holy Prophet not only in written form but also orally, he being not merely the deliverer of the Divine Message but also its Teacher par excellence (62:2); and the Muslims were asked by him not only to read the holy book but also to memorise it. In this way a double process of preserving the purity of the text of the Holy Qur’an came to exist, and a perfect system of teaching it originated with the Holy Prophet himself.
Thus we find Bukhari reporting about Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud that he said: “I learnt directly from the mouth of God’s Messenger about 79 chapters.” (Sahih, vol. 2, p. 141). The same Companion also reported, according to Muslim’s Sahih (vol. 1, p. 121), that: “God’s Messenger asked me to recite the Qur’an before him. Thereupon I enquired: ‘Should I recite to you while it has been revealed to you?’ He replied: ‘I like to hear it recited by others’. So I recited the chapter al-Nisa’.”
Thus were the Companions trained by the Holy Prophet as licensed teachers of the Qur’an for the masses and they performed this function, under appointment from the him,[1] with utmost diligence. Just by way of examples: Miftah al-Sa‘adah (vol. 1, p. 349) reports: “Abu ‘Aliyah said: I recited the Qur’an to Omar four times;” and, according to Dhahabi’s Tabaqat al-Qurra’ (p. 606): “When Abu Darda would finish his morning prayer, he would set his students in batches of ten. Once he counted them, and they were more than sixteen hundred.”
The system of teaching that developed had the memorisation of the Qur’an as its vital part, and a continuous chain of licensed and authorised teachers grew, and has continued to grow from generation to generation, not only to propagate the text of the Qur’an but also to preserve its purity, in which connection a whole science has developed; and the uniform oral as well as written [2] transmission down the centuries through successive generations of Qur’anic teachers belonging to diverse races and countries, has crowned the Holy Qur’an with the merit of tawatur [3] to a degree of glory where even the slightest possibility of doubt in respect of the purity of its text is totally eliminated.
That is the only reason why even those hostile western scholars, for whom the highest virtue is to revile Islam on the flimsiest grounds, had to bow their heads in humility when confronted with the problem of the authenticity of the Qur’an and had to grudgingly admit the purity of its text—scholars, such as:
Palmer (The Qur’an — English Translation; Introduction, p. 59);
Wherry (Commentary on the Kuran, 1, p. 349);
Snouck Hurgronje (Mohammedanism, p. 18);
William Muir (Life of Mohammad, Introduction, p. 23);
Philip K. Hitti (History of the Arabs, p. 123); and
Torrey (Jewish Foundation of Islam, p. 2).
To quote just the last reference: “The Koran was his (i.e.,Muhammad’s) own creation; and it lies before us practically unchanged from the form which he himself gave it.” Had the blinding fire of antagonism to Islam not burned in the heart of Torrey in the manner it did, he could have spoken at least in the tone of Bosworth Smith, who said: “In the Koran we have, beyond all reasonable doubt, the exact words of Mohammad without substraction and without addition.” (Mohammad and Mohammadanism, p. 22). And it is not only Bosworth Smith who says so, but many others. For instance, F.F. Arbuthnot has confessed that: “… complete text of the Koran … has remained the same, without any change or alteration by enthusiasts, translators, or interpolators, upto the present time. It is to be regretted that the same cannot be said of all the books of the Old and New Testaments.” (The Construction of the Bible and the Koran, p. 5).
[1] “‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit reported that if God’s Messenger was engaged and someone came (to Madina) as immigrant, he entrusted him to one of us to teach him the Qur’an.” (Kanz al-‘Ummal, vol. 1, p. 231). According to Isti‘ab (vol. 1, p. 369) and Tabari’s Tarīkh (vol. 3, p. 156), the Holy Prophet appointed several Companions to teach the Qur’an to the tribes living outside Madina. The appointment of teachers has also been recorded in Bukhari’s Sahih (vol. 3, p. 141), Muslim’s Sahih (vol. 2, p. 252), and Tirmizi’s Jame‘ (vol. 2, p. 222).
[2] These two processes have functioned as guards on one another.
[3] Namely, unbroken transmission with absolute uniformity.
to be continued . . . . .
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