`UTHMAN IBN `AFFAN
The third Caliph
who reigned from AD 644-656 and is
supposedly the one who standardized the text of the
Quran during his reign.
During his caliphate, his territory extended on the west to Morocco,
Afghanistan in the East, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the north.
In the second half of his reign, a rebellion arose. After a long
seige, his home was broken in and he was murdered by Muhammad, son of
Abu Bakr, and other conspirators
on 18th Zul al-Hijjah, A.H. 35 (June 17th, AD 656).
After his death,
Ali became the Caliph.
``Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the
people of Sham and Iraq were waging war to conquer the Armenia
and Azerbaidjan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (people of Sham and
Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur'an. So he said
to Uthman: "O Chief of the Believers! Save this nation before
they differ about the Book (Qur'an), as Jews and Christians
did before." So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying: "Send
us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the
Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts
to you." Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid bin
Thabit, Abdullah bin Az-Zubair, Said bin Al-As, and Abdurrahman
bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect
copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi men: "In case you
disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an then
write it in the dialect of Quraish as the Qur'an was revealed
in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many
copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman
sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied,
and ordered that all the Qur'anic materials whether written in
fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
(Sahih Bukhari 6.510)
After these copies were sent out, Zaid b. Thabit recalled a verse
which was missing from it:
"A verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an
and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it
and found it with Khuzaima-bin-Thabit al Ansari."
(Sahih Bukhari 6.510).
That verse is the famous Sura al-Ahzab 33:23.
The event may mean
- that verse was not in the collection of Hafsa,
contradicting Muslim claims that the Uthmanic recension merely made
public the Qur'an written down during Abu Bakr's time, or
- that
Zaid overlooked the verse while copying.
Supposedly Zaid would be
making the many copies from the original collection of Hafsa as this
was supposed to be the word of God. Strangely, however, every copy
seem not to have that missing verse, for otherwise, there is no need
to search for it again since some of the copies would have them, or
Zaid and company could have asked for Hafsa's collection to
countercheck. Yet, this was not done, but a new search was made to
see if anyone held them. Thus, the probability that it was not in
Hafsa's collection cannot be discounted. If this is the case, then
the Muslim claim that Uthman merely made public the Qur'an written
down during Abu Bakr's time is suspect.
Morever, this omission was not detected by those present who knew
the Qur'an well when the completed Qur'an was supposed to be recited
before them. Thus, either (a) there was no one at the time of Uthman
who memorize the whole Qur'an or (b) by human error, all of them
overlooked that verse.
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