Caliph Uthman is perhaps best known for forming the committee which produced multiple copies of the text of the Qur’an as it exists today. The reason was that various Muslim centres, like Kufa and Damascus, had begun to develop their own traditions for reciting the Qur’an and writing it down with stylistic differences.
During the time of Uthman, by which time Islam had spread far and wide, differences in reading the Quran in different dialects 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 complete manuscript of the Qur’an from Hafsah (one of the wives of Muhammad and Abu Bakr’s daughter), who had been entrusted to keep the manuscript ever since the Qur’an was comprehensively compiled by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr . Uthman then again summoned the leading compiling authority, Zayd ibn Thabit, and some other companions to make copies of the manuscript.The style of Arabic dialect used was that of the Quraysh tribe to which Prophet Muhammad belonged.
Zayd and his assistants produced several copies of the manuscript of the Qur’an. One of each was sent to every Muslim province with the order that all other Quranic materials, whether fragmentary or complete copies, be destroyed. As such, when the standard copies were made widely available to the Muslim community everywhere. The Caliph Uthman kept a copy for himself.
The Samarkand Kufic Quran (also known as the Uthman Quran, Samarkand codex, Samarkand manuscript and Tashkent Quran) is a 8th-century manuscript Quran written in the territory of modern Iraq in the Kufic script. It is probably incorrectly believed by local Uzbek Muslims to have belonged to the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, and is the oldest Quran in the world. Today it is kept in the Hast Imam library, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Based on studies, the manuscript probably dates to the 2nd century hijra or the 8th century CE, possibly as late as the beginning of the 9th century CE. Radio-carbon dating showed a 95.4% probability of a date between 595 CE and 855 CE. The copy of the Quran is traditionally considered to be one of a group commissioned by the third caliph Uthman; however, this attribution has been questioned, although no evidence was proffered. In 651, 19 years after the death of the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, Uthman commissioned a committee to produce a standard copy of the text of the Quran ve of these authoritative Qurans were sent to the major Muslim cities of the era, and Uthman kept one for his own use in Medina, although the Samarkand Quran is most likely not one of those copies. The only other surviving copy was thought to be the one held in Topkapi Palace in Turkey. But studies have shown that the Topkapi manuscript is also not from the 600s CE, but from much later. Uthman was succeeded by Ali, who took the Uthmanic Quran to Kufa, now in Iraq. The subsequent history of the Quran is known only from legends. According to one of them, when Tamerlane destroyed the area, he took the Quran to his capital, Samarkand, as a treasure. The Quran remained in the Hoja Ahrar Mosque of Samarkand for four centuries until 1869, when the Russian general Abramov bought it from the mullahs of the mosque and gave it to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, who in turn sent it to the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg (now the Russian National Library). It attracted the attention of Orientalists and eventually a facsimile edition was published in Saint-Petersburg in 1905. The 50 copies soon became rarities. The first thorough description and dating of the manuscript was undertaken by the Russian Orientalist Shebunin in 1891. After the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, in an act of goodwill to the Muslims of Russia, gave the Quran to the people of Ufa, Bashkortostan. After repeated appeals by the people of the Turkestan ASSR, the Quran was returned to Tashkent, in 1924, where it has since remained. The manuscript is incomplete; it begins in the middle of verse 7 of the second sura and ends at Surah 43:10.
The Holy Book of Islam is called the Koran, the Word of God (kalam), and it is believed that only when written in Arabic, does it express God’s word without fault. For this reason, the Koran may be interpreted or paraphrased, but not translated into any other language. Some of its passages are hard to understand and therefore need interpretation. This is known as ‘Tafsir’ and ‘Ta’wil’. Only Arabic is used in prayer, even though the majority of Muslims do not understand this language since only 20% of them belong to the Arab world. The Koran is the foundation, the non-negotiable authority of Islam. The divine revelation of the Koran to Mohammed, which began in 610, continued until his death. After His death these revelations and His sayings were written down by witnesses, the complete text being compiled during the first Caliphates. The Koran is considered to be the most widely-known book, which has remained unaltered throughout the ages. While the Biblical text consists of the words of divinely inspired human authors, the Koran is the Word of Allah. The prophetic practices, known as Hadith or Sunna, and all Islamic acts of worship are based on the Koran, which is divided into chapters (surah) and verses (ayat). The surah’s are not compiled in chronological order, but each bears a name and each begins with the Besmele, the Arabic phrase: “Bism illah al-rahman al-rahim”, meaning, “In the name of God the merciful, Giver of mercy”. Since the Koran prescribes how a human should live on earth, no intermediary is necessary.
The Shari‘a (the Path), is the body of holy Islamic law, composed after the death of the Prophet to regulate the activities of both the individual and the community. The Shari’a covers all areas of life and in its preparation four sources were accepted by scholars. These are: the Koran, sunna (conduct and practices of the Prophet), ijma (consensus) and qiyas (analogy). From these evolved various schools and methods of interpretation, four of which have had a lasting influence on Sunni Muslims. The legal knowledge of Shi’ism is based on the tradition of imams. The guardian of the Shari’a was the Caliph who succeeded the Prophet as his deputy as both religious and political leader. In 1924, the Caliphate was abolished by Kemal Ataturk, since then independent nation-states have been created out if what was the Ottoman Empire. In every Muslim country observance of the Shari’a depends on the degree of secularity of the State.
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