# How Was the Qur'an Compiled and Preserved? > Muslims confess that God guards the Qur'an. The hadith also describe a collection after Muhammad's death, a standard copy under Uthman, and seven ways of reciting. - Canonical: https://apologetics.wiki/islam/how-was-the-quran-compiled - Religions: Islam - Denominations: none - Beliefs: none - Tags: islam, quran - Updated: 2026-10-07 - Author: [Paul Ambrose](https://apologetics.wiki/author/hi-its-paul) ([GitHub](https://github.com/hi-its-paul)) > Preservation is a Muslim confession, and these reports are the Muslim account of how the book was collected. A fair reading quotes both. ## The question Muslims often set the Qur’an and the Bible side by side like this. The Bible was changed by the communities that held it. The Qur’an was not, because God promised to guard it, and the community memorized it and wrote it down. Christians who answer the first claim — in [Was the Bible corrupted?](/islam/was-the-bible-corrupted) — should be willing to read the second claim in the sources Muslims actually use. This page asks what those sources say happened. It is not a claim that the Qur’an is a casual forgery, and it is not a list of invented letter-by-letter variants. It is the collection story in Sahih al-Bukhari, next to the promise in [Qur’an 15:9](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9). ## What Muslims say The account at full strength is this. The Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad and preserved in his lifetime by recitation and by writing. After his death, many who had the Qur’an by heart were killed at Yamama. Abu Bakr, urged by Umar, had Zaid ibn Thabit collect the revelations into one manuscript so that nothing would be lost. That copy passed to Hafsa. Later, Muslims in different regions were reciting differently, and Hudhayfa warned Uthman that the community might split over the book the way Jews and Christians had. Uthman had a committee produce official copies, in the Quraysh dialect where the writers disagreed, sent those copies out, and ordered the other Qur’anic materials burned. The burning was an act of care, not of censorship: one standard, so the community would not fracture. Alongside that story, Muslims receive a report that the Qur’an was revealed in seven ways, and that a person may recite whichever way is easier. They also receive [Qur’an 15:9](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9) as God’s own guarantee that he sent the message down and will guard it. Human effort, on this view, is how the promise was kept. Questions about a companion’s codex, or about a verse found with one man, sit inside that promise. They do not overturn it. That is the position to answer. The reports below are quoted from Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s English translation as published on sunnah.com. They are excerpts from long narrations. The Arabic and the full English are on the linked pages. ## The promise, and abrogation [Qur’an 15:9](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9) [(1)](#ref-1), Saheeh International: > Indeed, it is We who sent down the message [i.e., the Qur’ān], and indeed, We will be its guardian. The translators’ bracket identifies the message as the Qur’an. Muslims read the verse as a promise of preservation. The bracket is the translation’s explanation, and the promise is the sentence readers are standing on. The same Qur’an also speaks of verses being replaced. [Qur’an 2:106](https://quran.com/al-baqarah/106) and [Qur’an 16:101](https://quran.com/an-nahl/101): > We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allāh is over all things competent? > And when We substitute a verse in place of a verse - and Allāh is most knowing of what He sends down - they say, "You, [O Muḥammad], are but an inventor [of lies]." But most of them do not know. Muslims do not treat abrogation as corruption. They treat it as God’s replacement of a ruling or a wording he himself had given. A Christian conversation should grant that distinction. “God replaced a verse” and “the community lost the text” are different sentences. The collection reports are about the second issue: how a complete written book was assembled after the Prophet’s death. ## Abu Bakr’s collection [Sahih al-Bukhari 4986](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4986) [(2)](#ref-2) is Zaid ibn Thabit’s account. Umar comes to Abu Bakr after the fighting at Yamama. > 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 Yamama, 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. Abu Bakr’s first answer, in this report, is that the project was not the Prophet’s. > How can you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do? Zaid says the same thing when the task is given to him, and he describes the search. > 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 (ﷺ). So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it in one book. > So I started looking for the Qur'an and collecting it from (what was written on) palme 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 Khuzaima Al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. The spelling “palme stalks” is the translator’s. The report says the last verses of the surah of repentance were found with Abi Khuzaima, and that Zaid did not find them with anybody else. Those verses are [Qur’an 9:128–129](https://quran.com/at-tawbah/128). > There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you [i.e., your guidance] and to the believers is kind and merciful. [129] But if they turn away, [O Muḥammad], say, "Sufficient for me is Allāh; there is no deity except Him. On Him I have relied, and He is the Lord of the Great Throne." The collected copy, the report continues, stayed with Abu Bakr until he died, then with Umar, then with Hafsa. > 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. A Muslim reading hears a careful rescue: memory and fragments gathered before death could thin the company of reciters, and a written book preserved in the caliphs’ care. The report itself also says that a large part might have been lost, that the Prophet had not ordered this collection, and that the closing verses of surah 9 were found written with one man. ## Uthman’s copies [Sahih al-Bukhari 4987](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4987) [(3)](#ref-3) is the later crisis, told by Anas. Hudhayfa hears Muslims from Syria and Iraq reciting differently while they are on campaign. > 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." Uthman sends for Hafsa’s manuscripts and appoints a committee. Where the Quraysh members and Zaid disagree, the dialect of Quraysh decides. > `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." Copies go out to the provinces. The other written materials are burned. > `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. The Muslim explanation is unity. Regional recitation was diverging, and one official copy, in the dialect the report calls the tongue of revelation, was the remedy. The report’s own words are still available for a reader to weigh: there were differences in recitation serious enough to frighten a companion, the committee was told which dialect to prefer when they disagreed, and Uthman ordered the other Qur’anic materials burned. ## Seven ways, and a companion’s objection [Sahih al-Bukhari 4992](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4992) [(4)](#ref-4) is set during Muhammad’s lifetime. Umar hears Hisham reciting a surah “in several different ways” which Umar had not been taught. They go to the Prophet. Each man recites. The Prophet says it was revealed in each way, and then this: > This Qur'an has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever (way) is easier for you (or read as much of it as may be easy for you). The Arabic of this report, as printed with it on sunnah.com, uses the word *ahruf* (أَحْرُف) for those ways. Muslims have explained the seven *ahruf* in more than one way: dialects, modes of recitation, or a license in wording that still conveys the revelation. This page does not pick a theory the hadith itself does not spell out. A later word should not be swapped in as if it were the same word. *Qira’at* is the name Muslims use for the transmitted recitations of the written Qur’an, associated with later readers. The hadith’s word is *ahruf*. Treating the two as synonyms makes the history neater than the vocabulary is. This page also does not list unverified letter-by-letter differences between later printed readings. The report above is enough for the point it actually makes: in the Prophet’s lifetime, two companions recited one surah differently, and both recitations were accepted as revealed. [Sahih al-Bukhari 4999](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4999) [(6)](#ref-6) has the Prophet name four men to learn the Qur’an from, and Ibn Mas’ud is one of them. > Take (learn) the Qur'an from four: `Abdullah bin Masud, Salim, Mu`adh and Ubai bin Ka`b. [Sahih al-Bukhari 4977](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4977) [(5)](#ref-5) then records a disagreement about the two short surahs of refuge, the *mu’awwidhatayn*. Ubai ibn Ka’b is asked about something Ibn Mas’ud said. > O Abu AlMundhir! Your brother, Ibn Mas`ud said so-and-so (i.e., the two Mu'awwidh-at do not belong to the Qur'an). Ubai’s answer is that he asked the Prophet. > They have been revealed to me, and I have recited them (as a part of the Qur'an), The Muslim reception of this report is that Ubai is right, the Prophet included the two surahs, and the standard Qur’an contains them. The report still says that Ibn Mas’ud, one of the four named in [Bukhari 4999](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4999), was remembered as holding that those two surahs were not part of the Qur’an. A preservation story can include that disagreement. It should not be told as if no companion had one. ## What a Christian can fairly say None of these reports is a Christian invention. They are in the collection Muslims call Sahih. Read as Muslims read them, they are the means of the promise in [Qur’an 15:9](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9): memory, fragments, an official copy, and a community that would rather burn rival leaves than split. Read as the sentences stand, they also say that the Prophet had not collected the Qur’an into one book, that Abu Bakr and Umar feared a large part might be lost, that the end of surah 9 was found with a single witness, that companions recited differently, that one dialect was preferred when the committee disagreed, that other written materials were burned, and that a leading companion was associated with the view that two surahs did not belong. That is not the same claim as “the Qur’an is unreliable, so dismiss it.” It is a reason to refuse a double standard. The Qur’an tells the People of the Gospel to judge by the Gospel they have, and it warns against distorting words and selling a rewritten scripture. Those texts are the subject of [Does the Qur’an confirm the Bible Christians read today?](/islam/does-the-quran-confirm-the-bible) and [Was the Bible corrupted?](/islam/was-the-bible-corrupted). The reports on this page are what a Muslim collection says about the Qur’an’s own path into a single book. A conversation that calls the Bible corrupt and the Qur’an untouched has to sit with both sets of texts, in the form the communities actually receive them. ## Follow-up objections **“15:9 settles it. The promise cannot fail.”** The promise is in the Qur’an, and Muslims believe it. The hadith are also Muslim sources, and they describe a human project undertaken because of a fear of loss. Quoting [Bukhari 4986](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4986) is not a refusal to quote [Qur’an 15:9](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9). It is a refusal to quote the promise and skip the account of the collection. **“The burning proves Uthman was protecting the text, not hiding it.”** That is the purpose the usual Muslim reading gives, and Hudhayfa’s warning is in the report. The same report says he ordered the other materials burnt, after a committee had been told to prefer the Quraysh dialect in a disagreement. Protection and the destruction of other copies are both in the narration. A reader can decide what the order implies. The order itself is not in dispute inside this hadith. **“Ibn Mas’ud was corrected, so the two surahs are safe.”** [Bukhari 4977](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4977) is Ubai reporting the Prophet’s word, against the view attributed to Ibn Mas’ud. The standard text includes the surahs. The historical point is smaller, and it still stands: a companion the Prophet had named as a teacher of the Qur’an was remembered as excluding them. That is a fact about the early argument, not a proposal to delete the surahs now. **“Seven ways means the meaning was flexible, so wording never mattered.”** The hadith says seven ways, and that the hearer may recite the easier one. It does not say that every wording is as good as every other, and Uthman’s order in [Bukhari 4987](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4987) shows the community standardizing the written form. *Ahruf* and the later *qira’at* should keep their own names. This page does not collapse them into one claim, and it does not rest on a list of variants it has not quoted. ## Keep reading - [Was the Bible corrupted?](/islam/was-the-bible-corrupted) - [Does the Qur’an confirm the Bible Christians read today?](/islam/does-the-quran-confirm-the-bible) - [What is the Injil?](/islam/what-is-the-injil) - [Jesus in the Qur’an and the Gospels](/islam/jesus-in-the-quran-and-the-gospels) ## Sources Numbered to match the HTML References list. Item 1 is `#ref-1` under `#references`. Scripture links to the King James Version on this site. 1. [Qur'an, 15:9; 2:106; 16:101; 9:128–129](https://quran.com/al-hijr/9) (Saheeh International, as published on Quran.com. Words in square brackets are part of that translation.) 2. [Sahih al-Bukhari, 4986](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4986) (English translation by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. The article quotes excerpts.) 3. [Sahih al-Bukhari, 4987](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4987) (English translation by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. The article quotes excerpts.) 4. [Sahih al-Bukhari, 4992](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4992) (English translation by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. The Arabic of this report uses ahruf for the seven ways. The article quotes an excerpt.) 5. [Sahih al-Bukhari, 4977](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4977) (English translation by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. The article quotes excerpts.) 6. [Sahih al-Bukhari, 4999](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4999) (English translation by Muhammad Muhsin Khan.) ## See also - [Did Jesus Die on the Cross?](https://apologetics.wiki/islam/did-jesus-die-on-the-cross) — The Qur'an is widely read as saying Jesus was not crucified. The Gospels, Paul, and two Roman-era historians say he was. - [Does Jesus Do What Only God Does?](https://apologetics.wiki/islam/does-jesus-do-what-only-god-does) — The Qur'an says God gives life to the dead, is the First and the Last, and comes with the angels. The Gospel says Jesus does those things. - [Does the Qur'an Confirm the Bible Christians Read Today?](https://apologetics.wiki/islam/does-the-quran-confirm-the-bible) — The Qur'an speaks of the Torah and the Gospel as books already in people's hands. This page asks whether that is the Bible Christians still read. - [Jesus in the Qur'an and the Gospels](https://apologetics.wiki/islam/jesus-in-the-quran-and-the-gospels) — What the Qur’an honors in Jesus, and where the Gospels tell a different story about the cross and his identity. - [Was the Bible Corrupted? The Qur'an and Early Muslims on Tahrif](https://apologetics.wiki/islam/was-the-bible-corrupted) — Muslims often say the Bible was corrupted. The Qur'an's own verses, and early reports, describe more than one kind of fault. ## History [View history on GitHub](https://github.com/Apologetics-Wiki/apologetics-wiki/commits/main/src/content/articles/how-was-the-quran-compiled.md)