Zayd ibn Thabit
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Zayd ibn Thabit (Zaid Ibn Thabit) (زيد بن ثابت ) was the personal scribe of Muhammad and an Ansar[1].
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[edit] Early life: ? – 610
Zayd Ibn Thabit was 13 years old when he asked permission to participate in the Battle of Badr. Since he was less than 15 years old, however,prophet Muhammad did not allow him to do so, and sent him back. He then decided to try to win favor with Muhammad by learning the Qur'an. He asked him to learn the Hebrew and Assyrian languages. Later on he was appointed to write letters to non-Muslims and to collect and keep record of the Qur'anic verses.
Zayd was among those chosen by Muhammad to write down the verses of the Qur'an.
He used to spend most of his time reciting the Qur'an, and continued to learn the Quranic verses as they were recited by Muhammad.
Zayd later volunteered to fight when he was 19 years old. This time he was accepted in the ranks of the Muslim army. Zayd's time to fight had come nine years after the establishment of the Muslim community in Medina.
Mecca had been taken over by the Muslims the previous year. When the news reached the Byzantine empire, the empire mustered an army to invade the Arabian peninsula. Muhammad decided to assemble an army and march to meet the threatened attack.
[edit] Muhammad's era: 610 – 632
He most notably took the role of writing down many of the messages from God that were revealed to Muhammad (s) through the Angel Gabriel.
[edit] Abu Bakr's era: 632 – 634
After the death of Muhammad the task fell on the son of Thabit, who specialized in the Quran, to authenticate the first and most important reference for the ummah of Muhammad. This became an urgent task after the wars of apostasy and the Battle of Yamamah in particular in which a large number of those who had committed the Quran to memory perished. Umar convinced the Khalifah Abu Bakr that the Quran should be collected in one manuscript.
During Abu Bakr's reign as caliph, he was given the task of collecting the Quranic verses from all over Arabia. Zayd finally accepted the task and, according to him, "started locating the Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart)".
When Zayd had completed his task, he left the prepared suhuf (sheets) with Abu Bakr. Before he died, Abu Bakr left the suhuf with Umar who in turn left it with his daughter Hafsah. Hafsah, Umm Salamah, and Aishah were wives of Muhammad who memorized the Qur'an.
He completed the task, compiling a version of the Quran called Mushaf, and delivered the copy to Abu Bakr.
[edit] Umar's era: 634 – 644
Zayd ibn Thabit thus became one of the foremost authorities on the Quran. Umar ibn al-Khattab once addressed the Muslims and said: "O people, whoever wants to ask about the Quran, let him go to Zayd ibn Thabit.
[edit] Uthman's era: 644 – 656
During the time of Uthman, by which time Islam had spread far and wide, differences in reading the Quran in different dialiects of Arabic language became obvious. A group of companions, headed by Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, who was then stationed in Iraq, came to Uthman and urged him to "save the Muslim ummah before they differ about the Quran". Uthman obtained the manuscript of the Quran from Hafsah and again summoned the leading authority, Zayd ibn Thabit, and some other companions to make copies of it[citation needed]. Zayd was put in charge of the task [1]. The style of Arabic dialect used was that of the Quraish tribe. Hence this style was emphasized over all others.
Zayd and other Companions copied many copies. One of these was sent to every Muslim province with the order that all other Quranic materials, whether fragmentary or complete copies, be burnt. When standard copies were made and were widely available to the Muslim community everywhere then all other material was burnt voluntarily by Muslim community themselves. This was important in order to eliminate variations or differences in the dialect from the standard text of the Quran. The Caliph Uthman kept a copy for himself and returned the original manuscript to Hafsah.
[edit] References
- ^ a b A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims on Al-Islam.org [1]
