Ear­ly Preser­va­tion & Trans­mis­sion Of The Qur’an

Asif Iqbal

The fol­low­ing shows the text of the first Sura’ of the Qur’an inscribed on the shoul­der blade of a camel, pre­served in the Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Library.Ency­clopae­dia of the Qur’an, Vol. II (Lei­den : Brill, 2002)

Early Preservation & Transmission Of The Qur'an 1

Early Preservation & Transmission Of The Qur'an 2

We know that the first steps for the preser­va­tion of the Qur’an were tak­en in the life­time of the Prophet. Tra­di­tion records that the Qur’an — in addi­tion to being mem­o­rized — was also writ­ten down on such shoul­der-blades, ribs of ani­mals, flat stones, palm-leaves, pieces of leather and wood­en boards.

How­ev­er, in addi­tion to the use of all this mate­r­i­al, there is no rea­son why papyrus should not have been in nor­mal use in the busi­ness & pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence in Mec­ca, and hence for the record­ing of the Qur’an­ic rev­e­la­tions. In 6:91, the Qur’an refers to the Torah (with the Ara­bi­an Jews) to be record­ed on Qar­tas”. This word refers to a leaf or sheet of papyrus made in rec­tan­gu­lar sheets, past­ed togeth­er or fold­ed to form a book.

In 6:92, the Qur’an speaks of itself in exact­ly the same sense (i.e., writ­ten on Qar­tas”), as it referred to the Torah in the pre­vi­ous verse.

Dr. M. M. Aza­miDr. M. M. Azmi, Kut­tab al-Nabi (Beirut, 1974) men­tions 48 per­sons who used to write for the Prophet, among whom Zayd bin Thabit was very prominent.

TAGS