Page:Thomas Patrick Hughes - Notes on Muhammadanism - 2ed. (1877).djvu/42

 Rh God opened my breast so to do, and I saw what Omar had been advising.' And Zaid-ibn-Sábit says that, 'Abú-Bakr said to me, "You are a young and sensible man, and I do not suspect you of forgetfulness, negligence, or perfidy; and, verily, you used to write for the Prophet his instructions from above; then look for the Qurán in every place and collect it." I said, "I swear by God, that if people had ordered me to carry a mountain about from one place to another, it would not be heavier upon me than the order which Abú-Bakr has given for collecting the Qurán." I said to Abú-Bakr, "How do you do a thing which the Prophet of God did not?" He said, "By God, this collecting of the Quran is a good act." And he used perpetually to return to me, until God put it into my heart to do the thing which the heart of Omar had been set upon. Then I sought for the Qurán, and collected it from the leaves of the date, and white stones, and the breasts of people that remembered it, till I found the last part of the chapter entitled Tauba (Repentance), with Abú-Khuzaimah Ansárí, and with no other person. These leaves were in