Page:The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930).pdf/29

 into the mosque and overheard him. Abû Bakr went to the chamber of his daughter Ayeshah, where the Prophet lay. Having ascertained the fact, and kissed the dead man's forehead, he went back into the mosque. The people were still listening to Omar, who was saying that the rumour was a wicked lie, that the Prophet who was all in all to them could not be dead. Abû Bakr went up to Omar and tried to stop him by a whispered word. Then, finding he would pay no heed, Abû Bakr called to the people, who, recognising his voice, left Omar and came crowding round him. He first gave praise to Allah, and then said: "O people! Lo! as for him who used to worship Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. But as for him who used to woship Allah, Allah is Alive and dieth not." He then recited the verse of the Koran:

"And Muhammad is but a messenger, messengers the like of whom have passed away before him. Will it be that, when he dieth or is slain, ye will turn back on your heels? He who turneth back doth no hurt to Allah, and Allah will reward the thankful."

"And," says the narrator, an eye-witness, "it was as if the people had not known that such a verse had been revealed till Abû Bakr recited it." And another witness tells how Omar used to say: "Directly I heard Abû Bakr recite that verse my feet were cut from beneath me and I fell to the ground, for I knew that Allah's messenger was dead. May Allah bless and keep him!"

All the sûrahs of the Koran had been recorded in writing before the Prophet's death, and many Muslims had committed the whole Koran to memory. But the written sûrahs were dispersed among the people; and when, in a battle which took place during the Caliphate of Abû Bakr&mdash;that is to say, within two years of the Prophet's death&mdash;a large number of those who knew the whole Koran by heart were killed, a collection of the whole Koran was made and put in writing. In the Caliphate of Othmân, all existing copies of sûrahs were called in, and an authoritative version, based on Abû Bakr's collection and the testimony of those who had the whole Koran by heart, was compiled exactly in the present form and order, which is regarded as traditional and as the arrangement of the Prophet himself, the Caliph Othmân and his helpers being Comrades of the Prophet and the