Page:William Goldsack-The Qurān in Islām (1906).djvu/14

 Rh dialects of Arabia, as some would have us believe; for there is ample evidence to show that the differences extended far deeper. Indeed we learn from the Itqān that the two men mentioned above, ʿUmr and Hishām, were both of the same tribe, the Quraish, so that a supposed difference of dialect does not account for the difference recorded above. In succeeding chapters we shall show how serious these differences were, and shall relate some of the means adopted for their suppression.

 

From the third chapter of the Mishkāt we learn that for some time after the death of the prophet, the Quran continued to be preserved in the memories of the people, and was still recited in various conflicting ways; but in the famous battle of Yamāmah a great number of the Qurān reciters were slain. Then ʿUmr, fearing lest another battle should still further reduce the number of those able to recite the Qurān, so that much of it might be lost, came to Abū-Bakr and importuned him to order the Qurān to be collected into one book. At first Abū-Bakr objected. "How can I do a thing which the prophet has not done?" he asked; but at last, yielding to the entreaties of ʿUmr, the Khalif gave orders to Zaid-ibn-Sābit, who had been an amanuensis of the prophet, to search out the Qurān and bring it all together. This the latter did, "collecting it from leaves of the date, white stones, and the hearts of men." This copy of the Qurān was given to the Khalif Abū-Bakr, after whose death it passed into the possession of the Khalif ʿUmr, who in turn gave it into the keeping of his daughter Hafsa, one of the widows of Muhammad.

This valuable tradition of Al-Bukhārī makes it clear that Abū-Bakr, for the first time, collected the whole Qurān into