Introduction to the Study of The Holy Quran — Page 267
267 Quran. It is recorded that a few years later during the struggle between ‘Ali and Mu‘awiyyah the soldiers of the latter’s army on one occasion tied copies of the Quran to the points of their lances and proclaimed that the Quran should decide between the two opposing factions (The Caliphate). This shows that by that time it was usual for every Muslim to possess his own copy. Practice of Committing the Quran to Memory Continued The reciting, copying and publication of the Quran have always been regarded as acts of great spiritual merit in Islam. History tells us that great Muslim divines and even Muslim monarchs used to occupy themselves in copying out the text of the Quran. Even in a non-Arab country like India, centuries after the time of the Holy Prophet, when Muslims had in many respects adopted Hindu customs and practices, the great Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb used to devote his leisure hours to the copying out of the text of the Quran. It is recorded that he had written out with his own hand seven complete copies. The practice of committing the Quran to memory was not confined to the time of the Holy Prophet or the early Caliphs. Even after written copies of the Quran began to be multiplied and became easily available, the Quran was in each age committed to memory by large numbers of Muslims. A modest estimate is that between one hundred and two hundred thousand Muslims have learnt the Quran by heart during all periods of Muslim history and sometimes the number of such persons was very much in excess of this estimate. European writers, not being conversant with the sentiments of Muslims and the degree of love and devotion inspired by the Quran in their hearts, are reluctant to believe that the purity and accuracy of the text of the Quran should have been safeguarded by Muslims in this manner. They find that history does not record the instance of a single person who had learnt the whole of the Bible by heart and it therefore seems to them incredible that the entire text of the Quran should have been committed to memory by large numbers of people in each generation. It must be remembered, however, that it is one of the outstanding characteristics of the Quran that its language is very rhythmic and that it lends itself very easily to memorization. The eldest son of the writer, Mirza Nasir Ahmad, who is a B. A. (Hons) of the Punjab University and M. A. of Oxford University, had under his direction committed the whole of the Quran to memory before he started on the course of his secular studies. In a small place like Qadian, two doctors and several graduates know the Quran by heart. One of these two doctors committed the whole of the Quran to memory within the space of four or five months. The father of Sir Zafrulla Khan, Judge of the Federal Court of India, committed the Quran to memory within the space of a few months after he had attained the age of fifty years. Hafiz Ghulam Muhammad, who was at one time the Missionary of our Movement in Mauritius, committed the Quran to memory in the space of three months. When the