Quran Hub
Tools and references for studying the Qur'an. Everything here is searchable from the search box at the top of any page, and each catalogue entry carries an archived date and a note on how to cite it.
How the Qur'an was compiled
Von Denffer separates the history of the written Qurʾān into three stages: the time of the Prophet, the time of Abū Bakr and the time of ʿUthmān. In the first stage the revelation, which came over about twenty-three years, was memorised by many Companions and written down by scribes, above all Zayd b. Thābit. The Prophet himself told the scribes where each verse belonged, and Jibrīl reviewed the whole text with him every Ramaḍān, twice in the year he died. The text left at his death was therefore complete and ordered, but it lay on loose materials (bones, leather, palm ribs) and in memory, not in one volume.
After many reciters were killed at the Battle of Yamāma, ʿUmar urged Abū Bakr to have the Qurʾān collected. Zayd b. Thābit did so from the written pieces and from those who had memorised it, and the resulting sheets (ṣuḥuf) passed from Abū Bakr to ʿUmar and then to Ḥafṣa. Von Denffer notes that several Companions, among them Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy b. Kaʿb, also kept personal copies. He treats these as private notebooks, whose differences in order and wording were set aside once ʿUthmān's copy became the standard.
When differences in recitation appeared among the armies in Armenia and Azerbaijan, ʿUthmān borrowed Ḥafṣa's sheets and had Zayd and three Qurashī Companions copy them into a muṣḥaf, with the Qurashī dialect deciding any disagreement. A copy was sent to each main region and other material was burnt. Von Denffer takes this text as the consensus of the Companions. The rest of his account covers the later refinements to the script (vowel signs and letter dots), the early manuscripts and what is reported about ʿUthmān's copies, and the printed editions.
From: Ulum al Qur'an by Ahmad Von Denffer. [Dates are given in AH / CE as he gives them; where he gives no date the card says so.]
Timeline
Scroll sideways. Cards run from the first revelation to print.
- c. 610 CEabout 13 years before the Hijra
First revelation
The first revelation is the opening of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq (96:1–5), received in the cave of Ḥirāʾ. The Qurʾān is then revealed in stages over about 23 years, in short and long passages as events required.
- 610–632 CEthe Prophet's lifetime
Written and memorised
Scribes write the revelation on bones, hides and palm ribs, some of it on the Prophet's dictation. Zayd b. Thābit is the best known. Many Companions memorise parts or all of it. The Prophet tells the scribes where each verse goes, so the order is fixed.
- Every Ramaḍāntwice in the last year
Review with Jibrīl
Reports in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī say that Jibrīl recited the Qurʾān with the Prophet once a year and twice in the year he died.
- 11 AH / 632 CEnine nights after the last revelation
Death of the Prophet
Many scholars take 2:281 as the last verse revealed. The whole Qurʾān exists in memory and in writing, but not in a single volume, partly because revelation had continued to the end and verses were still being placed.
- 11 AH / 633 CEdate as given in the book
Battle of Yamāma
A number of those who had memorised the Qurʾān are killed. ʿUmar fears that part of it may be lost and presses Abū Bakr to have it collected.
- After Yamāmathe first collection
The ṣuḥuf
Abū Bakr tells Zayd b. Thābit to collect the Qurʾān. Zayd works from the written pieces and from those who know it by heart, and finds the last two verses of Sūrat al-Tawba with Khuzayma. The sheets (ṣuḥuf) keep the order of verses inside each sūra but are not bound.
- Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, Ḥafṣacustody of the sheets
The sheets are kept
The ṣuḥuf stay with Abū Bakr until his death, then with ʿUmar, and then with ʿUmar's daughter Ḥafṣa.
- Before and after 632e.g. Ibn Masʿūd d. 33/653; Ubayy d. 29/649
Companions' own copies
Von Denffer lists Companions who kept their own written copies, among them Ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy b. Kaʿb, ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās and Ḥafṣa. Reports describe different sūra orders and some variant wordings. He reads them as personal notebooks that did not replace the standard text, and advises caution about the surviving reports.
- Reign of ʿUthmānbefore Ṣiffīn (37 AH); about five years earlier by his reckoning
The standard muṣḥaf
Ḥudhayfa warns ʿUthmān about differences in recitation among the troops. ʿUthmān borrows Ḥafṣa's sheets and has Zayd b. Thābit, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr, Saʿīd b. al-ʿĀṣ and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥārith copy them. Where they differ from Zayd, the Qurashī dialect is followed. Copies go to the provinces, other materials are burnt and the sheets go back to Ḥafṣa.
- 37 AH / 657 CEBattle of Ṣiffīn
No dispute over the text
When Muʿāwiya's troops raise sheets of the Qurʾān on their spears at Ṣiffīn, von Denffer notes, nobody accuses the other side of using a different version of the text.
- Died 65 AH / 684 CEMarwān b. al-Ḥakam
Ḥafṣa's sheets destroyed
According to a report in Ibn Abī Dāwūd, Marwān collects Abū Bakr's sheets from Ḥafṣa's heirs and has them destroyed, probably to prevent new disputes.
- c. 68–86 AH / c. 688–705 CEAbū l-Aswad al-Duʾalī; ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Ḥajjāj
Vowel signs and letter dots
Early copies have no vowel signs and no dots to tell letters apart. Vowel marks are linked to Abū l-Aswad al-Duʾalī. Letter dots (aʿjām) are said to come in under the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik and the governor al-Ḥajjāj, as more non-Arabs studied the text.
- 1st–2nd century AHas the book reports
Early manuscripts
Von Denffer says most surviving early copies date from the 2nd century AH or later, with some first-century papyrus fragments. He describes Ḥijāzī and Kūfī scripts, and reports a Cairo copy dated 68 AH and the Samarkand (Tashkent) codex as possible ʿUthmānic copies. Scholars in the Quran Hub catalogue date these differently.
- 1694 to 1925 CEHamburg 1694; St Petersburg 1787; Cairo 1925
Print
The first extant Qurʾān printed with movable type appears in Hamburg in 1694. The Egyptian (King Fuʾād) edition of 1925 follows the reading of Ḥafṣ from ʿĀṣim and becomes a common standard.
Archived 15 October 2026. How to cite: Ahmad von Denffer. ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān: An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qurʾān. Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1983. Chapter 2, “Transmission of the Qurʾānic Revelation”, and Chapter 3, “The Qurʾān in Manuscript and Print”. https://archive.org/details/von-denffer-ulum-al-quran. Archived 15 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives, “Quran Hub”, https://islamicarchives.org/quran/#compilation.
Source: Ahmad von Denffer, ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān: An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qurʾān (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1983), Chapter 2, “Transmission of the Qurʾānic Revelation”, and Chapter 3, “The Qurʾān in Manuscript and Print”.