History of the Quran

The history of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the timeline ranging from the inception of the Quran during the lifetime of Muhammad (believed to have received the Quran through revelation between 610 and 632 CE), to the emergence, transmission, and canonization of its written copies. The history of the Quran is a major focus in the field of Quranic studies.

In Sunni tradition, it is believed that the first caliph Abu Bakr ordered Zayd ibn Thabit to compile the written Quran, relying upon both textual fragments and the memories of those who had memorized it during Muhammad's lifetime, with the rasm (undotted Arabic text) being officially canonized under the third caliph Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656 CE), leading the Quran as it exists today to be known as the Uthmanic codex. Some Shia Muslims believe that the fourth caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib was the first to compile the Quran shortly after Muhammad died. The canonization process is believed to have been highly conservative, although some amount of textual evolution is also indicated by the existence of codices like the Sanaa manuscript. In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts "consisting of 12,000 pieces" were discovered that were later proven to be the oldest Quranic text known to exist at the time, containing palimpsests — pages washed-off with underlying text (scriptio inferior) still barely visible — dated to the period before 671 CE with a 99 percent probability. German palaeographer Gerd R. Puin, professor of Arabic language and literature at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, affirms that these variants indicate an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.

It is also possible that the content of the Quran itself may provide data regarding the date of writing of the text. For example, sources based on some archaeological data give the construction date of Masjid al-Haram, an architectural work mentioned 16 times in the Quran, as 78 AH an additional finding that sheds light on the evolutionary history of the Quranic texts mentioned, which is known to continue even during the time of Hajjaj, in a similar situation that can be seen with al-Aksa, though different suggestions have been put forward to explain. A similar situation can be put forward for Mecca, which was not recorded as a pilgrimage center in any historical source before 741 and lacks pre-Islamic archaeological data.