THE PERIOD OF ABU BAKR: THE GATHERING OF THE QUR’AN

At the time of the Prophet’s death, although the entire Qur’an had been written, these scriptures had not yet been compiled into book form. This was due to the fact that the Prophet had no knowledge of when the  revelations were to cease. However, as a result of the spread of Islam to other regions, many of the Companions migrated and settled in various other places following the death of the Prophet. In the battle of Yamama against Musaylama, a liar who claimed to be a prophet, almost seventy Companions who were memorizers of the Qur’an were killed. The Companions were afraid that the scripts written during the time of the Prophet would be lost, so on the suggestion of Umar, Caliph Abu Bakr gathered the most prominent of the Companions at Umar’s home. At this meeting, the Companions established the principles of gathering the Qur’an, and decided to assign Zayd ibn Thabit to fulfill this task.

Zayd ibn Thabit was an intelligent, honorable and learned person, a man of virtue who was one of the Prophet’s scribers who had written the revelations. He established a committee of which the prominent Companions such as Uthman, Ali, Abdullah ibn Mas’ud were members. The committee only accepted scripts that were testified by two witnesses as being written as dictated identically by the Prophet in their presence. On completion of this extremely important task, Umar gathered the Companions and recited the verses all of which were then acknowledged and approved by all the Companions. Thus, the entire Qur’an had been collected during the period of Caliph Abu Bakr.

 

Akgul, Muhittin. Tafsir: An Introduction to Qur’anic Exegesis. Tughra Books Press, Inc. 2013