Preservation

Very few of the Arabd knew how to read and write. There was also scarcity of writing materials. But they had good memory. Nabi Karim (Sm) used to memorize the parts of the Holy Quran immediately after these were revealed to him. He even used to try to memorize them by moving his to lips with jibrail (A) at the time of the revelation. In this regard, Allah asys: “you do not recite the revelation rapidly in order to memorize it soon. The matter of its preservation and reading is my responsibility.” (SuraQiama: 15,16)

He used to recite the Holy Quran night and day. He also used to kirect the Sahabis (his followers) to memorize the Quran. They used to memorize the Holy Quran by themselves and made their family members memorize the same with care. The humming sound of the recitation could be heard from their houses at death of night. Nabi Karim (Sm) used to go near the house of the Sahabis in the dark of night and listen to their recitation. He used to sent the Sahabis to the farthest areas with a view to teaching the Holy Quran. He sent Musa’b Ibn Umar (R) and Abdullah Ibn Umme Maktum (R) to teach the Holy Quran.

Apart from memorizing the Holy Quran, it was systematically written during the period of Prophet Muhammad (Sm). A term of distinguished follows were engaged as the writers of the revelation. Of then, Zaid Ibn Sabit (R), Ubai Ibn Kaab (R), Muabia (R), Abu Bakr (R), Umar Farooq (R), Usman (R) and Ali (R) were noteworthy.

Writing materials were scarce during that period, Printing machine was not invented then. So, the Sahabis preserved the Ayats of the Holy Quran by writing them on the branches of date trees, pieces of stones, skins, tree-levels, papers or pieces of clothes, etc.