Narrated Zaid bin Thabit:
Abu Bakr As-Siddiq sent for me when the people! of Yamama had been killed
(i.e., a number of the Prophet's Companions who fought against Musailama). (I
went to him) and found `Umar bin Al- Khattab sitting with him. Abu Bakr then
said (to me), "`Umar has come to me and said: "Casualties were heavy
among the Qurra' of the! Qur'an (i.e. those who knew the Qur'an by heart) on
the day of the Battle of Yalmama, and I am afraid that more heavy casualties
may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields, whereby a large part of
the Qur'an may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the
Qur'an be collected." I said to `Umar, "How can you do something
which Allah's Apostle did not do?" `Umar said, "By Allah, that is a
good project. "`Umar kept on urging me to accept his proposal till Allah
opened my chest for it and I began to realize the good in the idea which `Umar
had realized." Then Abu Bakr said (to me). 'You are a wise young man and
we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine
Inspiration for Allah's Messenger (
)
. So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect
it in one book)." By Allah If they had ordered me to shift one of the
mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to
collect the Qur'an. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something
which Allah's Messenger (
)
did not do?" Abu Bakr replied, "By Allah, it is a good project."
Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allah opened my chest for
what He had opened the chests of Abu Bakr and `Umar. So I started looking for
the Qur'an and collecting it from (what was written on) palmed stalks, thin
white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I found the last
Verse of Surat at-Tauba (Repentance) with Abi Khuza`ima Al-Ansari, and I did
not find it with anybody other than him. The Verse is: 'Verily there has come
unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you
should receive any injury or difficulty..(till the end of Surat-Baraa'
(at-Tauba) (9.128-129) Then the complete manuscripts (copy) of the Qur'an
remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with `Umar till the end of his life,
and then with Hafsa, the daughter of `Umar.
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham
and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan.
Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the 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 the 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 AzZubair,
Sa`id 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, 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 other Qur'anic materials,
whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
As you can see Larry, Caliph Uthman (RA) copied the Holy Qur'an which was in the possession of Hafsa then returned it to her. The copies that he ordered to be burnt were the unofficial and contradictory copies that were in circulation causing confusion and discord to the readers. I hope now finally you can set your mind at ease about the 'burning of the Qur'an' which has been plaguing you for some time. Now can you see why ALL the copies of the Holy Qur'an are now identical in every way whether you are in Timbuktu or Swaziland.
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