The Qur'an
Islamic traditions fairly consistently agree with one another in showing that
at the time of Muhammad's death, the Qur'an had not been collected into a
single volume. There is one hadith, however, which indicates that while
Muhammad was still living, Zayd b. Thabit (with others) followed
Muhammad's orders in collecting verses of the Qur'an (revealed at various
times) into specific suras.^1
Some Islamic traditions claim that a major collection of the Qur'an was
carried out (in about 11-12 AH) during the caliphate of Abu Ba^2 kr.
Accordingly, Umar is said to have informed Abu Bakr of the number of Qur'an reciters who had been killed in the battle of Yamama (against Musaylima) and suggested that the Qur'an be collected before most of it be lost. After askingUmar how he was to accomplish something even
Muhammad had not, Abu Bakr appointed one of Muhammad's former
secretaries, the Ansar Zayd b. Thabit, to collect the Qur'an. Zayd is then
said to have begun collecting verses of the Qur'an from notes, stones, palm
stalks, shoulder bones, rib bones, pieces of leather, small boards and the
memories of men. Zayd is only said to have been able to find Qur'an 9:129f
with Khuzayma or Abu Khuzayma, and he then added these verses to the
end of the that sura. This manuscript of the Qur'an was then passed from
Abu Bakr to Umar to Hafsa (Umar's daughter), who had been the wife of
Muhammad. (There are also other versions of traditions abou^3 t this
collection of the Qur'an.)^4
Western scholars have shown that this and similar traditions contain serious
flaws: Islamic sources report that Muslim soldiers seem to have known
little of the Qur'an, and also only two Muslims listed among t^5 he casualties
at Yamama seem to have been Qur'an reciters - One Western sch^6 olar
thinks that the period of Abu Bakr's reign was too short to have seen this
work through and justifiably argues that `Umar may have actually begun
the project in his caliphate - Although the fear of most of th^7 e Qur'an being
lost with its reciters is given as the reason for beginning its collection, Zayd
is shown as having relied primarily on written sources - The^8 statement that
this "collected" Qur'an