A frequent controversy in Islam has been the question of who wrote the Koran. Devout Muslims and conservative scholars believe it was authored by God through divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammad, who laid it down word for word. However, some other scholars have argued that the Prophet was not a parrot; inspired by God, he wrote down the Koran. They argue that the words and images painted in the Qur’an could only come from the human mind. So who wrote the Quran and when was it written? let’s find out
Who wrote the Quran?
The Koran (anglicised version of the Koran) is the holy book of Islam. It literally means recitations. Muslims believe that God, through the angel Gabriel, recited the contents of the Qur’an to the Prophet Mohammad, which struck them down verbatim. These divine revelations form the so-called Quran. The first revelation took place in 610 BC. Takes place when the Prophet was alone in the Hira Cave in Mount Jabal an Nour near Mecca. The angel Gabriel approached the Prophet, who was put into a trance-like state, and revealed three verses to him. When the Prophet woke up, he memorized the verses.
This pattern of divine revelation continued at various times in the Prophet’s life. Whenever the Prophet received divine revelation, he recited it verbatim before his followers, who memorized it and took it to heart. The Prophet also had scribes as companions who used every surface at their disposal to record these revelations. Such surfaces included flat stones, date branches, bones, camel saddles, leather, etc. After the verses were written, the scribes read them to the Prophet, who then confirmed their accuracy.
These divine revelations continued for a period of 23 years. As the text grew in volume, the Prophet, under the guidance of Angel Gabriel, decided where to place each new revelation. The Prophet received his final revelation in 632 AD, the same year he died.
At the time of the Prophet’s death, these revelations were in written form, albeit in different materials. It is instructive to note that the Prophet himself could neither read nor write and as such took no part in writing the verses.
When was the Quran written?
After the death of the Prophet MohammadSayyidina Abu Bakr took over the leadership of the Muslim community as the first rightly guided caliph. A few years later, an internal rebellion resulted in many devout Muslims being killed in the Battle of Yamama. Many of them were people who had made the entire Qur’an known as Hafez. As such, there was a real fear that some of these revelations could be lost forever if nothing urgent was done.
At the suggestion of his trusted advisors, AbuBakr set up a committee headed by Zayd bin Thabit and charged them with compiling all the various records of the Qur’an into one volume. In fulfilling its mandate, the Committee followed a thorough review process. Zayd bin Thabit and Umar ibn Al-Khattab, both of whom had memorized the Qur’an, checked each verse from their own memory. Then two witnesses had to testify that the verse was actually written in the presence of Prophet Muhammad before it was to be included in the final compilation. The final manuscript was read before a general assembly of the late Prophet’s companions, and it was generally agreed that it was correct.
After the death of Sayyidina Abu Bakr, SayyidinaUmar became the 2nd Rightly Guided Caliph and the Qur’an was given to him. After the death of Umar, his daughter and one of the late Prophet’s wives were entrusted with the custody of the manuscript.
After the death of Sayyidina Umar, SayyidinaUthman began his reign as the 3rd Rightly Guided Caliph. At this time, Islam was gaining influence beyond the Arabian Peninsula. There were many new converts, some as far away as the Levant and North Africa. Some of the new converts did not speak Arabic as their first language, while those who spoke Arabic used a different dialect. This presented a problem as the Qur’an had to be recited with a specific pronunciation. There was a dispute as to which pronunciation was correct.
Sayyidina Uthman then formed a committee to standardize the Qur’an in AD 650. This committee drew on the Qur’an written by Abu Bakr and decided that all future copies of the Qur’an should be rendered in the Quraic dialect, the dialect of the late Prophet Muhammad. The chapters of Scripture were also rearranged in length.
All other existing versions of the Qur’an were rounded up and destroyed. The Uthmanic version of the Qur’an was multiplied into several copies and sent to major cities in the Muslim world, including Bahrain, Damascus, Basra, Kufa, Yemen and Mecca.
It is worth noting that all Qur’ans available in the world today are exact replicas of the Uthmanic version. The holy book is divided into 114 chapters (surah). Each chapter contains a series of verses (ayahs). The Koran has no less than 6,000 verses.