Introduction to the Study of The Holy Quran — Page 265
265 Chapter of the Quran). Five hundred of this special force of three thousand were killed in this battle. Says Sir William Muir: "The carnage amongst the 'Readers' (those who had the Koran by heart) was so great as to give ‘Umar the first idea of collecting the Sacred Text lest any part of it should be lost. " 341 Thus we find that in the time of the Holy Prophet himself the Quran used to be recorded in writing, was committed to memory and was constantly recited and thousands of people knew the whole of it by heart, though it had not yet been collected in one volume. The Quran Collected in One Volume When it was found that five hundred of the reciters of the Quran had been killed in the battle with Musaylimah’s army, ‘Umar suggested to Abu Bakr (who was then the Khalifah) that if those who had the Quran by heart began to be lost in battles in such large numbers, the safeguarding of the purity of its text would become difficult and that the time had therefore arrived when the whole of the Quran should be collected in one volume. Abu Bakr at first demurred but eventually accepted the suggestion and appointed Zayd bin Thabit, being one of those who used to record the Quran at the dictation of the Holy Prophet, to collect the text of the Quran in one volume and appointed prominent Companions of the Holy Prophet to assist him in the task. Abu Bakr directed that the text of the Quran should be collected from its recorded fragments and that the accuracy of the text should be certified by two persons who knew the whole of the Quran by heart. This task was soon accomplished and a written text of the whole of the Quran was got together in one volume, which was certified as accurate by those who knew it by heart. On the basis of these facts can there be the slightest ground for suggesting that variations in the text of the Quran had crept in between the death of the Holy Prophet and the compilation of the Quran into one volume under the directions of Abu Bakr and the supervision of Zayd bin Thabit? Can it be reasonably suggested that any difficulty could arise in the compilation into one volume of a Book which was being continuously recited every day by large numbers of persons, the whole text of which used to be recited from beginning to end in the course of the month of Ramadan by persons who had committed it to memory to the Muslims assembled in congregational prayers, the congregation itself containing large numbers of people who knew the whole of it by heart, and which had been reduced to writing at the dictation of the Holy Prophet himself as the revelation was received from time to time more specially when the task of compilation was committed to the care of a person who was himself one of the recorders of the Quran and had committed the whole of it to memory? Had the compiled volume contained a single variation from the text as dictated by the Holy Prophet and as committed to memory under his supervision by a large number of people, it would at once have been detected and set right. The authenticity and accuracy of the text of the Quran are thus established on the surest and most