ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith Revelation Scribes: The well-known of the wahy scribes — as stated — were the four caliphs, and Sa’id ibn al-As and others.

It is said also that the most famous among them and most prolific in writing was Zayd ibn Thabit, though the first one who wrote for the Prophet in Makkah, from Quraysh, was Abd Allah bn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarah, who apostatized after conversion to Islam and was reconverted on the day of the conquest of Makkah. And the first who wrote in al-Madinah was Ubayy ibn Ka'b and Zayd ibn Thabit.

460 In al-Mawahib al-fathiyyah, 461 it is stated: Al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Jaham ibn al-Salt were charged with writing the estates collected through sadaqah (alms), while Hudayfah used to write the produce of date-palms, with al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah and al-Husayn ibn Numayr being charged with writing the credit deals and transactions.

Collection of Qur'an and its Reason: With the demise of the Messenger of Allah the Qur'an was not collected or compiled yet, as it was kept memorized and learnt by hearts. When Abu Bakr assumed caliphate, and on eruption of setback (riddah) wars that took lives of a large number of , Umar was afraid that much of the Qur’an would be lost with the death of the .

Once upon a day he entered upon Abu Bakr saying to him: The Battle of Yamamah is taking the lives of the of the Messenger of Allah as fire devouring the butterflies, and I am afraid that such bloody encounters should recur, many of the Qur'an memorizers 462 would be killed and the Qur'an would be lost and buried in oblivion. Would it be better that you order the Qur'an to be collected and written? But Abu Bakr abstained from this.

Thereafter, Abu Bakr summoned Zayd ibn Thabit and said to him: Umar asked me to do something of which I abstained, and you are the scribe of wahy if you can fulfil his order I would follow you both. But Zayd also did not do so saying: How do we do a thing which the messenger of Allah didn't? Umar said (to both of them): No blame would befall you when you do this. Zayd says: He kept on pressing me, until God opened my heart to do that to which He had opened those of Abu Bakr and Umar.

Then I sought for the Qur'an, and collected it from pieces of palm branches, 463 white stones (likhaf), scapulae, pieces of leather and inside hearts of men.