The Preservation of the Quran

The divine promise

Muslims see the Quran's survival, letter for letter, over fourteen centuries as the fulfilment of this promise.

Preserved in hearts

From the start, the Quran was recited, and the word qur'an itself means “recitation”. Allah told the Prophet ﷺ not to hurry to memorise it during revelation, because its collection and recitation were guaranteed:

The Prophet ﷺ reviewed the Quran with the angel Jibril every year:

This chain of oral transmission, teacher to student, has never been broken. Students today still receive formal licences (ijazah) to recite, with chains of teachers that reach back to the Prophet ﷺ.

Preserved in writing

Revelation was also written down as it came, by Companions who served as scribes, among them Zayd ibn Thabit. They wrote on the materials available, such as palm stalks, flat stones and parchment.

Compilation under Abu Bakr

Within about a year of the Prophet's ﷺ death, many reciters were killed at the Battle of Yamamah (c. 632–633 CE). 'Umar ibn al-Khattab feared that parts of the Quran could be lost with them:

The narration shows how carefully the work was done. Zayd ibn Thabit was himself a hafiz, yet he relied on both written records and the memory of others. The last verses of Surah at-Tawbah, which he found in writing with Abu Khuzaymah, are these:

The 'Uthmanic codex

As Islam spread, new Muslims recited in differing ways. Around 25–30 AH (c. 645–650 CE), the third caliph 'Uthman ibn 'Affan acted:

The consonantal outline (rasm) of these 'Uthmanic codices is the basis of every copy of the Quran printed today.

Early manuscript evidence

Modern dating methods have confirmed the early origin of the written Quran:

• The Birmingham Quran manuscript (Mingana Collection, Islamic Arabic 1572a), University of Birmingham. In 2015, radiocarbon analysis at the University of Oxford dated its parchment to 568–645 CE with 95.4% probability. The leaves contain parts of Surahs 18–20, and their text matches the standard text, apart from the spelling conventions of early Arabic script.
• The Tübingen fragment (Ma VI 165), University of Tübingen. In 2014 it was radiocarbon-dated to 649–675 CE as part of the Coranica project.
• Codex Parisino-petropolitanus, held mainly in Paris and St Petersburg. François Déroche dated it on palaeographic grounds to the second half of the first Islamic century (late 7th century CE).
• The Sana'a manuscripts, discovered in the Great Mosque of Sana'a in 1972. They include a palimpsest whose upper text follows the 'Uthmanic standard. Its erased lower text, studied by Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi (2012), shows variations of a kind that scholars discuss alongside reports of the Companions' personal codices from before 'Uthman's standardisation.

The recitations (qira'at)

The Quran has been transmitted in several recognised recitations (qira'at), each traced through chains of teachers to the Prophet ﷺ. Ten are considered canonical. They fit within the 'Uthmanic rasm and differ mainly in pronunciation and in some vowels and dots. These differences are themselves transmitted as part of the revelation. They are not copyists' errors.

The most widely printed recitation today is Hafs 'an 'Asim. Warsh 'an Nafi' is common in North and West Africa. The verses on this site follow the Hafs text and its Kufan verse numbering.

The printed Quran today

The 1924 Cairo edition, prepared under the auspices of al-Azhar, became the model for most modern printed copies. Since 1984, the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran in Madinah has printed and distributed many millions of copies, checked by committees of reciters. A copy of the Quran bought in Jakarta, Lagos, Istanbul or London today has the same text.