Why wasn't the entire quran written down at the time of the prophet?

Question

Why gather all the hafiz together under Abu Bakr, rather than gather them all together under the prophet himself and record it down in one book before he died? The whole book would have been completed in only a few days so there's no reason thousands of copies couldn't have been completed before his death.

Answer 1

It was written down in the Prophets time, but collected in AbuBakrs time. I think one reason can be that when the Prophet(S) was there, revelations were still comming, therefore maybe no one though of compiling it into a book.

Answer 2

It was, with Imam Ali (as)

Answer 3

The idea of compiling the whole quran came later and it was the worked of saidina osman. During the time of the prophet, people think by memorizing them, they would not only understand them but could feel them in their daily life.  

Answer 4

Allah revealed few Ayahs and chapters at a time because Allah wanted Muslims to memorize the text of Quran,  learn the true meanings of the Ayahs from Prophet  and practice the commands of Allah in the Ayahs in their lives.  Early followers of Islam lived by Quran.

This is why the first generation of the followers of Islam under the guidance of Prophet Mohammad SAW   were the best Muslims as Allah says in Quran in many sections of Quran.

Answer 5

Because Allah promised to guard it.

15:9 Behold, it is We Ourselves who have bestowed from on high, step by step, this reminder? and, behold, it is We who shall truly guard it [from all corruption].

75:16 MOVE NOT thy tongue in haste, [to repeat and learn the words of the revelation:]

75:17 for, behold, it is for Us to gather it [in thy heart,] and to cause it to be read [as it ought to be read].

Answer 6

As pointed out by Muhammad K., the Quran was indeed written down by Prophet Mohammad (Ref. 25:05).

Believe it or not, the Muslims do not have ANY credible history of Prophet Mohammad and his times. The first history to be written down was by Ibn-e-Ishaq and Ibn-e-Hassan. And they both were born later to 85 hijri (+75 yrs AFTER the reported death of prophet Mohammad).

Both of these biographies stand rejected by the scholars for very obvious reasons.

The second history probably was written somewhere around 270 hijri. And then the later biographies and histories were written much later (+600 years). The 270 hijri history is just like trying to write down the history of a person living in somewhere around 1750 A.D. NOW, by consulting people verbally i.e. no written material available. Just how credible can it be, I think !! It can be anyone's guess.

Something really terrible happened. When Usman burned all the copies of the Quran and then when "Marwan Ibne Hakim" came all the way from Iraq and burned the Quran that had remained under the custody of prophet's wife "Hafsah".

But running into these arguments now cannot benefit. Because all we will be doing would be just anticipating and trying to find a theory that suits our senses. The bottom line is that we have this book with us and it contains a verse 15:9, which states:

"We have sent down the Dhikr, and surely we will preserve it".

Therefore we do not really have to worry anymore.

Moreover, we have the HUGE evidence of no. 19. Which stands out and is the UNIQUE and incontrovertible proof that this is indeed from God.

@Edit:

Not just that, if you read the Quran, to me it is crystal clear that it cannot be a work of human/s. It is something extraordinary and cannot be expressed in words. You open it and read it, and you find new things in it EACH and EVERY time. There is so much wisdom in it, which cannot be the work of humans of a primitive society living 1400 years ago. It is just an utter impossibility.

Answer 7

It was all written down but across many papers and books. Imam Ali (AS) took the task of collecting and commentating it, while the Abu Bakr and Uthman decided to do it for themselves and produced their combined version but without commentary. Imam Ali did not complain about their version so he was fine with it knowing it was exactly like his in Quranic text.

Answer 8

I'll quote it from a book I have with me at the moment:

[edit] when the Prophet was a live, as soon as a portion of the Quran was revealed, Muhammed would call his scribe,from among his companions, to record it in writing. The Prophet would than ask the scribe to read the portion to ensure that what was written down was verbatim word of Allah. Once satisfied with the written text , the Prophet would instruct the scribe to put verse or verses where they belonged. That is, he would say the name of the Surah and the location where the just revealed portion(verse or verses) were to be inserted, thus ensuring that the textual order of the Quran was in accordance with the Divine plan.

his scribes used leather, parchments, leaves and tablets to write down the verses. These manuscript were kept safe custody, and it is reported that in fact they were kept in the house of the Prophet.Thus the Quranic verses were not only memorized by the Prophet and his companions, but also existed in written form during the lifetime of the Prophet, unlike any other scripture in the history of world religion.

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Since Muhammed was the "Living Quran" and many Muslims during his lifetime who had memorized the Quran were "Living Copies" of the Quran, there was no need or urgency to put the manuscripts together to form the first official volume.

However, after the death of the Prophet, more than seventy Huffaz(memorizers of the Quran) were martyred in the battle of Al-Yamamah. This caused a great deal of concerns to Umar ibn-kahtaab who was deeply concerned at this sudden loss of the "Oral Copies" of the Quran. He approached Abu Bakr, the first caliph, to start the process of gathering the manuscripts of the quran under one official volume for reference and for the future.................:

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Answer 9

the prophet SAW had not written any book but had carved the Quraan in the hearts of men.

why did Abu Baker do and not the prophet do. the answer is that the prophet was a normal human bieng and did not know the future. he did not know that a time would come when all the huffaaz of the Quraan will die and the children will not follow. he did not do cuz he trusted his sahaba and had strong belief that the sahaba will not do as what the christian and jews did.ie,changd the scriptures according to their will.

why did abu baker do? the answer is all the huffaaz were dieing and the pple who were memorizing the Quraan were diminishing. he feared that if the Quraan is not compiled then the pple will be lost. will start following their wills and say this and that is from Allah and so he compiled it.

but this wasn't the situation during the prophet and so he didn't.

Answer 10

Prophet Muhammed did write Glorious Quran

"These are tales from the past that he wrote down. They are being dictated to him day and night" (25:5).

You cannot "dictate" to an illiterate person. The Prophet's enemies who accuse him of illiteracy abuse Verse 29:48, which relates specifically to previous scriptures.

uthman burnt all the copies of Glorious Quran

Answer 11

  







                  



  History of the Quran

by Syed Abul 'Aala Muadoodi

In this Book, the Holy Prophet's life, the history of the Arabs and the events which occurred during the period of the revelation of the Quran have not been mingled with the Divine Verses, as is the case with the Bible. The Quran is the pure word of God. Not one word therein is not divine. Not a single word has been deleted from its text. The Book has been handed down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Prophet Muhammad. From the time the Book began to be revealed, the Holy Prophet had dictated its text to the scribes. Whenever some Divine Message was revealed, the Holy Prophet would call a scribe and dictate its words to him. The written text was then read out to the Holy Prophet, who, having satisfied himself that the scribe has committed no error of recording, would put the manuscript in safe custody. The Holy Prophet used to instruct the scribe about the sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed in a particular Surah (chapter). In this manner, the Holy Prophet continued to arrange the text of the Quran in systematic order till the end of the chain of revelations. Again, it was ordained from the beginning of Islam that a recitation of the Holy Quran must be an integral part of worship. Hence the illustrious Companions would commit the Divine verses to memory as soon as they were revealed. Many of them learned the whole text and a far larger number had memorized different portions of it.

Method of preservations of the Quran during the Prophet's time

Besides, those of the Companions (pbut) who were literate used to keep a written record of several portions of the Holy Qur'an. In this manner, the text of the Holy Qur'an had been preserved in four different ways during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) had the whole text of the Divine Messages from the beginning to the end committed to writing by the scribes of revelations.

Many of the Companions learned the whole text of the Qur'an, every syllable of it, by heart.

All the illustrious Companions, without an exception, had memorized at least some portions of the Holy Qur'an, for the simple reason that it was obligatory for them to recite it during worship. An estimate of the number of the illustrious Companions may be obtained from the fact that one hundred and forty thousands Companions had participated in the Last Pilgrimage performed by the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

A considerable number of the literate Companions kept a private record of the text of the Qur'an and satisfied themselves as to the purity of their record by reading it out to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

Method of preservations of the Quran after the demise of the Prophet

It is an incontrovertible historical truth that the text of the Holy Qur'an extant today is, syllable for syllable, exactly the same as the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had offered to the world as the Word of God. After the demise of the Holy Prophet, the first Caliph Hadhrat Abu Bakr (PBUH) assembled all the Huffaz and the written records of the Holy Qur'an and with their help had the whole text written in Book form. In the time of Hadhrat 'Uthman (PBUH) copies of this original version were made and officially dispatched to the Capitals of the Islamic World. Two Of these copies exist in the world today, one in Istanbul and the other in Tashkent. Whosoever is so inclined may compare any printed text of the Holy Qur'an with those two copies, he shall find no variation. And how can one expect any discrepancy, when there have existed several million Huffaz in every generation since the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and in our own time? Should anyone alter a syllable of the original text of the Qur'an, these Huffaz would at once expose the mistake. In the last century, an Institute of Munich University in Germany collected FORTY-TWO THOUSAND copies of the Holy Qur'an including manuscripts and printed texts produced in each period in the various parts of the Islamic World. Research work was carried out on these texts for half a century, at the end of which the researchers concluded that apart from copying mistakes, there was no discrepancy in the text of these forty-two thousand copies, even though they belonged to the period between the 1st Century Hijra to 14th Century Hijra and had been procured from all parts of the world. This Institute, alas! perished in the bombing attacks on Germany during World War II, but the findings of its research project survived. Another point that must be kept in view is that the word in which the Qur'an was revealed is a living language in our own time. It is still current as the mother tongue of about a hundred million people from Iraq to Morocco. In the non-Arab world too, hundreds of thousands of people study and teach this language.

The grammar of the Arabic language, its lexicon, its phonetic system and its

Answer 12

The entire Qur'an was also completely written down in the life time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and numerous companions of the Prophet (pbuh) memorized the entire Qur'an word-for-word as it was revealed. So unlike other scriptures, the Qur'an was always in the hands of the common believers and due to wide-spread memorization,  and it was perfectly preserved.

Answer 13

Angel Gabriel revised the parchments with the Prophet (p) that were kept with Ayesha, once each year.  The year of this death, it was revised twice so the master copy existed.

Everyone else who was not in constant contact with the Prophet (p) had incomplete texts.  For example, a delegation visiting for a few days from Yemen who came 10 years before the completion of the Qur'an would have been missing the bulk of it.  It was these incomplete copies that were destroyed by Othman (r.a.)

As for your assumption that thousands of copies could have been completed before his death:

1. the final few verses of revelation continued until a few days before the Prophet's (p) death

2.  they had no printing presses or photocopying machines in Arabia at that time.  They did not even have paper so its not wise to judge them from 21st century standards.

Answer 14

because when the prophet was alive most people learned the quran by heart, but after the prophets death alot of people who memorize it die in one of the battles, so abu baker feared that the quran will be lost soo he ordered that it should be written.

hope i helped..