 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim So the Birmingham Mus'haf, it's a mus'haf that's housed at the University of Birmingham, and scholars did carbon dating on this mus'haf. And they dated it to within a few decades after the passing of the Prophet ﷺ. So we're talking like 670 of the common era, just a few decades after the time of the Prophet ﷺ, in the time of the Khulafat al-Rashidu in the beginning of the Umayyad period. And this started a lot of conversation. How do we know that the Qur'an is authentic? How do Muslims know that the Qur'an is authentic? What if theoretically, one were to find a early mus'haf that we could date to the same time period, but there's differences in the verses, or surahs might be placed here or there or something like that. What would that do to us? Does that change anything for us? Should it? What value does something like that have? So the question came up, and then Sheikh Talal had sought to put together this kind of a teaching, a lecture telling the story of the Qur'an, from revelation to its compilation as a mus'haf, and then how it's transmitted to us today. So Alhamdulillah, it's a great honor to have someone like Sheikh Talal. I consider him one of my teachers, many people in the bay, many of the shayyuf, consider him one of their teachers too. I'm not one of the shaykhs, but I definitely consider him one of my teachers. And so Alhamdulillah, it's on top of the great slides he always produces, he always has good, you know, the content is always something to take home and to really build your faith off of, insha'Allah. So Alhamdulillah, I won't waste any more of anyone's time, but with that set up I'll pass the microphone, insha'Allah to Sheikh Talal. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem, Alhamdulillah, Ya Rabbi Alameen, Wa Aftalu Salatu Wa Atamut Tasleem Ya'ala Sayyidina Muhammadin Wa Aalihi Wa Sahbihi Ajma'een. It's a blessing and an honor to be here with you today, insha'Allah. The purpose of this talk is to share together and talk together about the story of the Qur'an, the story of the Qur'an from revelation to compilation and beyond up until our time. However, as you know, the Qur'an was communicated to us in two format, an oral format and a written format. Today we shall focus on the written format of the Qur'an and we'll touch a little bit on the oral format. The oral format can become its own talk. Can you all see the slides? All right. So the main question we're trying to address here, how did the oral and the written Qur'an reach us with emphasis on the written format of the Qur'an? So usually when I presented this talk in Toronto, we went over three parts. First, we talked about the history of compilation of the Qur'an and part two, we made some comparisons with earlier scriptures like the Bible and number three, we looked at some manuscripts. Today we will take a look at part one only. So let's start by definition of the Qur'an. The technical definition of the Qur'an, as the ulama recorded in their books, it is Kalamullah. The Qur'an is a speech of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Send down upon the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Send down upon his heart via the angel, Jibril. Jibril is an angel, the archangel that is responsible for revelation, that is responsible for communicating with prophets and messengers. The Qur'an is miraculous in its surahs, al-murajizu bi-aqsari surah tenmin, the challenge to mankind to produce even the smallest surah of the Qur'an. Its recital is worship. The Qur'an letter by letter is an act of worship and has been transmitted to us via a process called tawater, which is mass transmission in a way where error is inconceivable for people to have agreed on an error or a mistake and preserved in the masahif, preserved in the copies. We only have one Qur'an, but we have millions and millions of copies. Before we start, let's go over some slides where we show some copies of the Qur'an. For Muslims, we have about 250,000 manuscripts of the Qur'an since the early days, much larger than any other book. This is a copy of the Qur'an that is kept in Egypt in the mosque of Imam Hussain, that dates back to the first century. This is a part of surah al-anbiya, and it's written without any dots, without any tashkail, any harakas, at-hadamma and kasra, and Hamza is going to make an attempt to read it. It took me two hours to read it. This is an inscription on the wall of Masjid al-Aqsa, or the dome of the rock, on some of the walls, that dates back to around 72 Hijri. These are various verses or letters from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to others. The one on the top left is a verse dating from 80 Hijri, written on a rock. The one below is also from the first Hijri, from surah al-Ahzab. These are various mushafs that dates back to the second century, third century, and beyond. So today we hope to go over this, inshallah. We'll go over the history of the compilation of the Qur'an, and we'll take a look at the pre-Islamic time. How Allah s.w.t. prepared the means and prepared the conditions and the environment for the Qur'anic revelation. Then we'll take a look of how the Qur'an was transmitted to us during the Prophet s time. Then after the passing away of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, we'll take a look at what happened during Abu Bakr's time, then during Osman's time, and then from Osman until our day. Before we start, can I get a show of hand? How many of yous are in high school? How many in university? How many parents? Lots of parents, masha'Allah. How many working professionals? Good, we have a good mix of crowd, alhamdulillah. How many doing homeschooling? Yes, we have to. Masha'Allah. Alright. So let's take a look at, before Islam, let's take a look at the Arabic script. The Arabic script went over a lot of development. This is a script that is inscribed on the grave of a poet called Imru Al Qais, some 300 years before the Hijri time. And it's pretty hard to read. It's using a script from a tribe called Al-Ambat near Jordan. And if you know, if you've ever heard of the Petra, it's the same tribe that used this font. By the year 568, just before the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was born, the font has improved a lot. And the quality of the font, and it's now more legible. Even today we can make out some of the few letters in the font. And by the year 620 or 630, when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam started sending letters to kings and to other people and everywhere, we can read the whole letter. Even today, you and me can probably, just by focusing a little bit, you'll be able to read everything. So it seems that when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was about to be born, the conditions have been prepared that the font is more mature and can be used now for recording revelations. Another thing we see also in the Holy Quran, Allah swt, prepared the conditions also in a different way. The jinn used to go to heaven and an eardrop on the angels. Allah swt ordered the angels, we read in Surat al-Jinn that these jinn used to be the first astronauts maybe. They mentioned in Surat al-Jinn that we found them to be very famous. They have sought to reach the heaven but found it filled with powerful guards and burning flames. So the angels kept all of this as top secret. No one is allowed to find out about what's going to happen before it happens. During the Prophet s time, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam communicated the Quran to us in two ways. He communicated the Quran to us in an oral way as well as in a written way. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, whenever a passage of the Quran was revealed, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would call some scribes to record it right away. As soon as it was revealed, whenever the Quran was revealed, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would also deliver the Quran to the community, to the early Muslims either personally, directly, or indirectly, immediately. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, as some of you might know, had many secretaries. In total, the ulamas have documented about 48 secretaries. In performing various functions and various roles for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. During the Meccan time, Mecca was not known to be a community where people knew how to read and write. There weren't many among them that knew how to read and write. And the number of people that knew how to read and write were less than 50. But among the early Muslims in Mecca, there were around six people that knew how to read and write. In those six peoples, many of them became scribes. They used to record the Quran for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when it was revealed. After Hijrah, the number of scribes increased and became in the tens, in the 20s, around 23 to 28 scribes. One of the most important scribes is a man by the name Zaydub Nusabit, and Zaydub Nusabit in Medina was a neighbor to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, as well as many others who became scribes to record the revelation. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, whenever a passage of the Quran was revealed, he would tell people, call the scribes. And usually whoever is available used to come, and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will dictate whatever was revealed to the scribes. Sometimes five people would come, sometimes seven, sometimes more, sometimes less. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will call for Zaid, for example, we'll say Udu'u Zaidan, call for Zaid, and let him bring the board, the ink pot, and the scapula bone. So Zaid would come with the board, with the ink pot, with the pen, and with either bones or palm tree leaves, or sheet of wood, or sheet of stone, you name it. And then would record whatever the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would dictate to him. So when something was revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Prophet would call someone from among the scribes immediately, and those who can write, or used to write for him, and he will tell them, after they document what was revealed, he will tell them, place these verses in the chapter in which such and such is mentioned. Sometimes when a verse was revealed, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will tell the scribes, if only one verse was revealed, he would say, place this verse in this chapter, and that was the way of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. But the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also set for us a process, for authentication and documentation of the Holy Qur'an. And the process is the following, Sayyidunna Zaid radiallahu anhu narrates that the Prophet used to call for him. Whenever he goes to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Prophet would say, write down, and then he will write down the passage that was revealed at that moment, and then he will tell Zaid, read back to me what you have written down. And Zaid will say, I will read back to him. So after Zaid radiallahu anhu writes everything, we have to do double checking. We have to do a review. And Zaid will read back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, whatever the Prophet dictated to him. If ever I omitted a letter or a word, he would correct me. If ever there was a mistake, he would correct me. If not, he will say, ukhruj bihi aalan nafs. The Prophet would tell Zaid, take this and deliver it to the people. So Zaid radiallahu anhu or the scribes whoever was present would go out and they will start telling the people that revelation came from Allah s.w. and it was documented, it was written down, and then they would recite these verses to the Muslims. Sometimes the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would recite the verses himself. And sometimes others would recite on his behalf. When the Prophet recites the verses himself, he is communicating the revelation to the people directly. When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would ask others to recite on his behalf, he would be communicating the Koran to the people indirectly. And the ulama have recorded and documented 15 ways of communicating the Koran to the people. Nine direct ways and six indirect ways. So the scribes, their job was to write the Koran in his presence, i.e. as soon as the Koran was revealed, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would call for them and they would record it in his presence. Whatever was recorded in his presence is sacred, has a high value. If the scribes go out and somebody come to them and say, oh I heard that there was a revelation, can I copy what you have? Can I copy those verses? And a companion might copy those verses from Zaid. Those copies are not sacred. They don't have the same value as the copies that were written in the presence of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in between his hands. And someone else might come to the other sahabi and say, oh I heard that you copied something from the scribes that they recorded when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam received revelation. Can I copy it from you? And this can go on indefinitely, hypothetically. Hypothetically it can go on indefinitely. But for us Muslims, only the copies that were recorded in the presence of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have the value of revelation. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is dictating, describes our recording. Allah swt is watching, Jibreel is watching, it is a moment of revelation. Anything copied from those original and authenticated copy by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam are just copies. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would communicate the Quran to the people from his noble mouth to their ears. From his noble heart through his noble mouth to their ears to their heart. And they would commit it to memory. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam communicated the Quran to the people in many ways directly, i.e. either during prayers, he would recite the Quran. Or as soon as revelation comes, he would recite the Quran to the people and tells them unzila alayya kaza wa kaza wa kaza. Such and such was revealed to me and then he would recite. Or he would recite the Quran during Jumu'a prayer. He would take a passage of the Quran like surat Qaf and recite it and talk about it. Comment on it. Nine direct ways that were documented. And six indirect ways. Sometimes the scribes will recite to others and teach others. Sometimes the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will tell the general of the armies when they go on a military expedition. He would tell them recite the Quran to the people and they would communicate the Quran to the people. To those who haven't heard it. To the companions upon hearing the Quran, they would try to memorize it. It goes into their short-term memory and hopefully it goes into their long-term memories and stays there forever. And as we saw, alayhi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam made sure there is always this arod and a cross that he would read and someone will read back to him. And this way error is minimized. Actually error is eliminated. No mistake. So in short, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam communicated the Quran to us both orally as well as in written format. The placement of ayahs was commanded by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The arrangement of suras was done by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And what made everything easy is that usually the Quran is revealed 5 to 10 verses at a time. Most of the Quran was revealed 5 to 10 verses at a time. Very rarely larger than 10 verses would be revealed. Surat al-An'am was revealed all at once. 165 verses. Surat Yusuf was revealed all at once. But the first revelation was 5 verses and then 5 verses and then 5 verses and then 10 verses. And this way it was very, it wasn't difficult to make sure that the recording of the verses is a free of error because you're not dictating 600 pages at once. You're dictating 5 verses. And they can easily write it on a smaller piece of whatever is available. Whether it's a piece of leather, whether it's a piece of wood, whether it's a bone, it can fit on those pieces. And it's easy to memorize. The companions would memorize it. Memorization is their strengths. They memorized long poems without any difficulties. Memorizing 5 to 10 verses can easily be done by the companions. So we started having Quraq. We started having Huffaz. Not only that, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would review the Quran every year. Jibril alaihi sallam would come down and they would review the Quran together every year. I.e. whatever was revealed up to that year will be reviewed, was reviewed. And when we say it was reviewed, it means that it was read twice because it was reviewed through a process called Ardun wa Iqra. Jibril alaihi sallam would recite everything that was revealed up to that moment. Then the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would recite back everything that was revealed up to that moment. In the last year before the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam passed away, the Quran was reviewed twice. I.e. it was read four times. Twice by Jibril and twice by the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So the order was reviewed from beginning to end up to the moment of revelation of that year. In the last year, the Quran was almost revealed completely except for one or two verses that were revealed about a few days before the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam passed away. The other thing maybe we should mention, this process of reading and then double reading back, double checking, is a process that we do today automatically. But the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam made sure that the copyers or the scribes from day one, they weren't amateurs. They weren't people who don't know what they're doing. And they were also double checked. Ibn Al-Jazari has a Manzuma and Hadith in which he said, Wa ba'da an yaktuba palyuqabili wa illa falyarmi fil mazaabili. After you write down, you double check. Otherwise, it has no value. Throw it in the garbage. And that's a process that was followed by the scholars in all disciplines. When you write a draft today, you do a spelling check. You review. You do version one, version two, version three. And if you were to compare that to previous scriptures, that's something that the scholars of previous scriptures complain about. That many of the copyists have so many spelling mistakes that they were definitely not professionals. They were amateurs. And they didn't know what they were doing. So these are some of the ways that the passages of the Quran were documented, either on a bone or on a piece of leather, or on a very thin piece of wood, or on leaves of one day tree. Whatever was available. There are a few names that we should be aware of, because it will help us, inshallah, as we go through this presentation. Many people played a role in the compilation of the Quran. Definitely, the four Khalif played a role. Abu Bakr and Umar were the first to compile the Quran within one year of the Prophet's passing away, as we shall see. The Sayyidun Ar-Rusman and Sayyidun Ali also had their share. Today, we have ten Mutawwatar Qiraat that people recite in Taraweeh. Abu Bakr and Umar did not teach the Quran themselves. Abu Bakr, his period as the head of state, was only two years. And Sayyidun Amr was very busy. But they would assign Obayyub Nuqab, Sayyidun Nusabit, others to teach the Quran. Sayyidun Ar-Rusman taught the Quran. And five of the ten Qiraat go back to Sayyidun Ar-Rusman. Five of the ten Qiraats that you hear in Taraweeh, they go back to Sayyidun Ar-Rusman. Another five go back to Sayyidun Ali. Sayyidun Ali taught the Quran. Sayyidun Abdullah bin Masrood taught the Quran. Five of those recitations, also Qiraat, go back to Abdullah bin Masrood, radiallahu anhu. Sayyidun Abu Dardak taught the Quran when he moved to Damascus as well. And one Qiraat goes back to him. If you follow the Senate, it goes back to Abu Dardak. His wife, Umud Dardak, completed the Quran under her husband Abu Dardak. And memorized the whole Quran. Obayyub Nuqab, the prophet, alayhi s-salam, says, Aqara'uhum Obayy. The prophet gave him a medal of honor. That Obayy is top notch in Quran. And eight or nine of the Qiraat goes back to Sayyiduna Obayyub. I have to check whether it was eight or nine. Sayyidub Nusabit, radiallahu anhu, is one of the main scribes. And four of the Qiraat goes back to him. There are also a few other people who it would be very useful to know about. And those have played a role in preserving the Quran for us today. One of them is called Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami. Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami, radiallahu anhu, is a student of Imam Ali. He's also a student of Usman. He's also a student of Zaid. And he was one of the main reciter that was sent with the copy of the Mus'haf that Sayyiduna Usman sent to the provinces. When Imam Ali wanted his children, Al-Hasan and Al-Hussein, to learn Quran, he sent them to Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami. And Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami taught Sayyiduna Al-Hasan and Sayyiduna Al-Hussein the Quran and perfected their recitation. Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami initially was reading under Sayyiduna Usman. Sayyiduna Usman, when he became head of state, he became so busy that he delegated that function to Sayyiduna Zaid. So Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami read under Sayyiduna Zaid for around 12 years. And when Sayyiduna Zaid passed away, and Sayyiduna Usman passed away, Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami continued teaching up to the year that he passed away. Abu Abdu Rahman al-Sulami died in the year 73 Hijri. Sayyiduna Usman died in the year 35 Hijri. Sayyiduna Zaid died in the year 45 Hijri. For 45 until 73, he was teaching. Another guy who is also a student of Imam Ali, his name is Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali. He is credited by documenting or beginning the documentation of the science of grammar. And two of his students, Nasser and Yahya, they helped in putting the dots on the Mus'haf, around the year 70-80 Hijri. So in short, when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away, he left behind over 120,000 companions, Muslims. Over 120,000 Muslims knew at least some surahs, at least, because they have to use it in their prayers. And thousands of Muslims knew al-Mufassal. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was his habit, was his way that whenever he lead prayers, he will lead from al-Mufassal, which is surah 50 up to surah 114, 65 surahs. Those surahs are short. The prayer can be done and it won't be a burden on children or mothers or families. And he instructed his companions to always shorten the prayer when they pray in Jama'a. If they're praying on their own at night or making Qiyamul-Layl or Tahajjud, you can read the longest surahs. But when we pray in Jama'a, we make the Jama'a short, because people may be busy, may be sick, may have children, and so on and so forth. But Abbas, radiallahu anhu, when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away, when Abbas was 12, 13 years old, he said, he said that I memorized al-Mufassal under the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, 65 surahs. Those 65 surahs were memorized by tens of thousands of people. The longest surahs were memorized by fewer to enter the Medina mosque, the Prophet's mosque in Medina at the time of the Prophet. And you ask a question, who memorizes Qulahu Allahu A'had and everyone will raise their hands? Who memorizes Surat al-Baqarah, hundreds will raise their hands? Who memorizes Surat al-Ali'a Imran, hundreds will raise their hands? Who memorizes Surat al-Nisa, Surat al-Ma'idah, and so on and so forth? And there are those that memorized the whole Quran. They committed the whole Quran to long term memory. And we have documentation that shows, there might be others, but the 23 people have been documented to have completed the memorization of the Quran. Around three women and 20 men. Umud Darda was one of them, and she completed the memorization under her husband Abud Darda. Other people that we will also see when we progress through the presentation is someone by the name Josefa Ibn Ulyaman. This companion, Josefa Ibn Ulyaman, was a visionary. He had a long term vision. Many companions may have a short term vision. Many people have short term vision. Some people have long term vision. Sayyiduna Josefa was one of those people. He had a long term vision. And he used to say, people used to come and ask the Prophet ﷺ about good things. And I used to ask about evil things in order to avoid them. Sayyiduna Josefa would usually would ask about what if scenario? What if this thing happened? What if this thing happened? What if this thing happened to the Ummah? And the Prophet ﷺ would tell him, would answer his questions. And over time Sayyiduna Josefa became Aminus Sir. The Prophet confided in him things. The Prophet ﷺ confided in him the names of the hypocrites. And he used to know the secret of the Prophet ﷺ. If you have a friend, you may not tell him your secrets. But when someone becomes your best friend, then maybe you start opening up and tell him some secrets. Sayyiduna Josefa was like that. And he would play a major role later on during the time of Sayyiduna Osman. Another person that is also of interest is a man by the name Khuzayma. He had an incident at the time of the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ says, man shahida lahu khuzayma bahu hasbuh. Usually you need two testimonies. You need two witnesses for things. But the Prophet ﷺ, because of that incident, he made the witness of Sayyiduna Khuzayma equal to two witnesses. And it is his khususiyah. He is a special case. No one else can claim that. Now we move to phase three, which is a phase during Awabaker's time. So if you can imagine now the Prophet ﷺ passed away. Awabaker became Khalifa. He was the first Khalifa after the Prophet ﷺ. When the Prophet ﷺ passed away, the Qur'an was committed to memory in part by all Muslims, major parts by thousands of Muslims. The Qur'an in full by many Muslims. The Qur'an is written in fragments, five verses at a time, and they scattered. They scattered with the scribes. They scattered with those that witnessed the revelation. And also we might have copies that were copied from those that were written in front of the Prophet ﷺ, or even copies that were copied from those copies and so on. And that was the situation when the Prophet ﷺ passed away. During Awabaker's time, there were the Ridda wars, the war of apostasy. And the Prophet ﷺ, the Muslim army fought those that refused to pay Zakat. And during one of the battles, the battle of Yememah, the Muslims suffered heavy casualties, especially among the Qur'an. 70 of the Qur'an, 70 of those that memorized the Qur'an passed away, were martyred. And that was a wake-up call. Sayyidina Umar, when he saw this, he started thinking. And it was a wake-up call. So he went to Sayyidina Abu Bakr and told him that we should do something about the Qur'an and collect it all together. And Sayyidina Abu Bakr hesitated. How can we do something that the Prophet ﷺ did not do himself? He said, By Allah, this is good. Sayyidina Umar also has a long-term vision, because when you write something on a piece of paper or piece of skin, piece of leather, a piece of stone, piece of wood, piece of palm tree, over time they may get lost. Over time, something may happen, they may get burned. Over time, part of it may get destroyed. And if someone dies, it might also die with him or get lost with him. So he said, we should do something and collect the Qur'an in one place, in one piece. And they kept on discussing until Allah opened their hearts to do it. So they embarked onto that project. So what did they do? Abu Bakr says, Umar kept on urging me to accept the proposal until Allah opened my heart to it and I began to realize how good this idea is. Then they called for Sayyidina Zaid. They called for Zaid and Zaid came and Zaid said, Abu Bakr told him, Zaid ibn Sabir was tasked with collecting the Qur'anic pieces. So he put together a committee and this committee executed the task and the outcome was the first collected copy of the Qur'an and the project took about a year, one year to complete. Then this first copy of the Qur'an was kept with Abu Bakr until he passed away. Then with Sayyidina Umar until he passed away. Then with Sayyidah Hafsa, the sister of Sayyidina Umar, the wife of the Prophet, until something happened. When Sayyidina Zaid went to Abu Bakr and Abu Bakr gave him the task, we have to ask ourselves a few questions here. When you start a project, whether in school or at work or anything you do in life, the first question you ask is why? Why am I doing this project? What is the motivation behind it? And what is the process? The second question you might ask is how is the project decided on? How did the company or the school or your teacher or your parents told you you have an assignment and you have to do this? They must have gone through some decision-making process and reached that conclusion that this project is worthy of being done. And then they came to you and said, this team is going to perform this function. The next question you might ask is what kind of qualifications the committee members must have? We can't just bring anyone on the street and tell them to do this project. They have to be qualified. They have to be good. They have to be committed. They have to see the seriousness of the project. They have to put their heart in it. If they don't, if you don't have passion in doing whatever you're doing, the outcome will be as good as the input. So the committee members had to have an appreciation of the seriousness of the mission. Also, when you do a project, we need an SOW. We need a statement of work. What is the mandate of the project? What am I tasked to do? When we do a project, we need a plan. Some projects are private. Some projects are for the public. And if it is for the public, then we need the public announcement. And we might also need a request for cooperation. Maybe some real estate developer wants to develop 5000 houses in Tracy and they put a public notice. Those who don't like it come, we're going to have a discussion. So public announcement might be needed in some cases and a request for cooperation might be needed. The committee needs to have an office. They need to have an address where the team can gather and execute the job. And then how the project was executed and implemented that also we have to take a look at. And then we need to do some critical and final reviews. Make sure that there's double checking. It's not just we write something and we we say it's finished. No, you have to review and review and review and review until you make sure that there is no error. And then you can send it out. So Sayedun Azaid, radiallahu anhu says, Awu Beker and Umar and the companions told him, you are a wise young man. That's the first thing. Sayedub Nusabat, is he qualified or is he not qualified? Is he qualified to lead that project? Or is he not qualified? So Beker told him three things. He said you are a wise young man. First he told him you are a young man. I.e. you are full of energy. You have a lot of passion. You're strong. You're on someone who was strong, who can do the job. And you're wise. You have experience. You have wisdom. You used to write for the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. You used to write letters for him. He used to translate. Sayedun Azaid, radiallahu anhu, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam requested him to learn Syriac. And he learned Syriac in 15 days. And he also asked him to learn Hebrew. And he learned Hebrew in 17 days. And he started double checking the letters that used to come to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in Hebrew and Syriac. He's wise. That's number one and number two. Number three. And he said, And we do not have any suspicion about you. You are credible. We don't have any suspicion about you. You're credible. You're integrity. You have integrity. You have good conduct. No one doubt you. We cannot give a project to someone that we doubt. Number four, he said, And you used to write the divine inspiration, revelation for the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Number four, you have experience. It's not just that you have energy and you're wise and you have integrity. No, also you have experience. You've done that before. That's not the first time. It's not just you've done it before. You've done it so many times that you are the best person to carry this work. And then Sayyidina Uweker and those with him told him, This is your task. This is your mission. This is your SOW. So search for the fragmentary scripts of the Quran and compile them together into one book. The project is well identified. Very simple. Search, bring them together, compile them into one book. Now Sayyid is qualified. Now we have to select the committee. We have to make sure that the members of the committee appreciate the seriousness of the of the project. So Sayyid of the Allah Anu says, By Allah, if they had ordered me to move one of the mountains it would not have been heavier for me than this. I ordered him to compile the Quran is a heavy responsibility and he felt the seriousness of that of that responsibility. Then later on Sayyid in the same hadith said, Therefore I started looking for the Quran and collecting it from what it was written on palm stalks, sand white stones, and so on and so forth. The committee members that were chosen for this task were Sayyid Nazeid, he was the project manager, Sayyid Naubayyub Nukab, who is Al-Qara'uhum, and Sayyid Naumar. Sayyid Naumar played a marketing role. Sayyid Naumar made the public announcement and chose the address. And the committee had an office, as you might have guessed, outside the gate of the mosque of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So at the gate that was their office. The three people used to stand there. Whoever comes, whoever goes to pray, they would ask him. Public announcement and request for cooperation, they would ask him. And the work was divided as follows. Sayyid Naubayyub Nukab would recite because his recitation is immaculate. And Sayyid Naubayyub Nukab would write. And then they would review back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But first, we have to find all those fragments. So they made the public announcements and they followed a miscidology. And the miscidology is the Quran is committed to memory by Sayyid Naubayyub Nukab. So we know the Quran by memory. Now we want pieces, but we don't want any pieces. We only want the pieces that were written in front of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, only those pieces. Any other piece that was written from those written in front of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we don't want those. So Sayyid Nazeb and his miscidology was that he must be written, it must be written, in the presence of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He said Bring to me whatever was written in between his hands, in between the hands of the Prophet alayhi wa sallam. And number two, at least two witnesses that witnessed that event. And they collected the script, the fragments using that methodology, all of the fragments. So it took, yes, more actually, yes, they went, but whenever something was revealed, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would call whoever was available from the scribes. Now the scribes, they were not just six, the number of scribes at one time, whoever comes, sometimes they're two, sometimes they're three, sometimes they're seven, sometimes they're five, sometimes they're 13. Yeah, because the number of scribes as I, from what we know, I don't recall the exact numbers, it's either 23 or 43 scribes. And some people also go away or maybe that piece, he left it with his brother or his brother, you know. So what is more, what is, what they wanted to do is that whoever present that piece and claims that it is written in the front of al-sallam, we need two witnesses, the scribe and someone else, the one that wrote it, and someone else. And that's what they did. That's a very good question, juzakallahu alayhi wa sallam. So then when the first collected copy of the Mus'haf was written, it was preserved with Sayyidina Obaqar, then with Sayyidina Umar, and then with Sayyidina Hafsa, with Sayyida Hafsa. So nothing of, worthy of notice, took place when Sayyidina Umar was in charge of the khilafa. He was a Khalifa for about 10 years. And Sayyidina Umar had a policy. Policy is the companions should not leave Medina. He needed the companions to stay in Medina, to advise him and consultation, and so on and so forth. So during the time of Sayyidina Umar, most of the companions that were in Medina stayed in Medina. Only a few were sent abroad. Sayyidina Abdullah Masrood was sent to Khufa on a mission by Sayyidina Umar. And very few people were also sent on missions. When Iraq was opened, when Iraq became Muslim, Sayyidina Abdullah Masrood was sent to help in the transition. Iraq is not like Medina. Iraq is a civilization, thousands of years of civilization. Medina is a civilization, but it's a simple civilization compared to Iraq, where you had various religions, various cultures, various ethnicity, various people occupying over thousands of years. So Sayyidina Umar sent Abdullah Masrood to help in that transition. Because when you have new country like Iraq, and they want to align everything with the Islamic teachings, it takes someone who's an expert to do it. Can't be just someone like you and me. So Sayyidina Umar sent Abdullah Masrood. Imagine, for example, if the US or Canada were to become Muslim, and you want to change everything from the political system to the social economic system to everything, to be aligned with the teachings of Islam, it takes a huge team to do it. It takes people who have encyclopedic knowledge, not just someone who knows a little bit here and there. So Sayyidina Umar sent Abdullah Masrood and sent someone with him. Abdullah Masrood began by assessing the situation in Iraq, and then he started an academy. And in the academy there were 10 students. Later on the 10 students became 100. Later on the 100 students became 4,000. Abdullah Masrood and 4,000 students changed all of Iraq in a very short period of time. And he taught them the Quran and how to understand it and how to apply it. So Sayyidina Umar during his time, a few companions went abroad, and there was no need for them to go abroad. But during the time of Sayyidina Umar's man things have changed. Things have changed that many countries have now become Muslim, and they needed to learn their religion. So the companions started leaving Medina and going to Syria, going to Iraq, going to wherever it takes them, and they started teaching the people their religion. The Muslim army was advancing near the Caspian Sea, near Georgia and Uzbekistan and Armenia and Azerbaijan. And in the battle there the army from Iraq and the army from Syria met, and with them was Sayyidina Josefa Abnul Yaman, Aminu Syri Rasuli Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam, the one that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam confided in him, the names of the hypocrites, and the one that used to ask the Prophet about the bad things that could occur after his death. So when the Muslim army, when the Iraqi and Syrian army met in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Josefa Abnul Yaman witnessed something between the two armies that alarmed him. And his reaction, because he saw people reciting the Quran and he saw another group reciting the Quran or two men or two groups and they were calling each other wrong and recitation. So it alarmed him so much to the point that he left the battlefield and went straight to Medina, to Sayyidina Arsman. And he told them, take charge of this ummah, hurry and do something about this ummah before they differ among themselves, like the people of the earlier scriptures, the Jews and the Christians differed among themselves. Then Sayyidina Arsman, radiallahu anhu, took an initiative to start a new project. The new project is to take the master copy that was kept, that was prepared by Sayyidina Arsman, and to make five to seven master copies and send them abroad to various urban areas, to the provinces, to the almsar, to the main cities in each province. And with each copy, with each master copy, he would send also a master reciter and told the people that whatever you have you compare it against this master copy. This is your frame of reference. Whatever agrees with it, you take it. If it doesn't agree with it, you burn it. Those are the master copies. So now we have to ask some questions. Number one, what did Huzayf radiallahu anhu, what did he witness? What did he see? What alarmed him? What made him so upset? Number two, why did he leave Armenia and Azerbaijan? Is it easy to leave Armenia and Azerbaijan? Is it okay to leave Armenia and Azerbaijan? Does he have the right to leave Armenia and Azerbaijan? Is it up to him to leave Armenia and Azerbaijan? Because leaving the battlefield is not allowed. Disserting an army is not allowed. In today's standards, you could be court-martialed. In Islam, it's a major sin. It's kabiratu min al kabair. Yet, Sayyidina Huzayfa left the battlefield and went straight to Sayyidina Arsman in Medina. So the harm, he must have seen a greater harm, greater evil that must be corrected. And leaving Armenia and Azerbaijan was a lesser evil. Number three, what do you think was Arsman's reaction? You have somebody leaving the army and coming and telling you take charge of this ummah, do something about it before before they differ among themselves. How do you think Sayyidina Arsman tackled the issue? What was the issue? In what solution did Sayyidina Arsman adopt and why? Today we will not go over the oral oral format of the of the Quran and the Qur'an and recitations, but we'll have to touch a little bit on it. So let's start by taking a look at dialects. Arabic dialects. No, I'm going to tell you. But before we go into that, we have to take a step back and let's go back to the Arabs before Islam. So let me ask you a question. Like we know the Arabic before Islam is pure Arabic. There is no mistakes. We measure our Arabic by their Arabic. They are the frame of reference and they were excellent in poetry, excellent in rhetoric. That was their strength language. The question is do you think all Arabs spoke the same Arabic or Fusha Arabic at the time? Like we have tribes about 50 tribes. At the time of the Prophet there were about over 50 tribes. The tribe of Bannu Tamim, Watrufan, Aqif, Zid Shannu'a, Quraish, which is in Mecca, Al-Ambat near Jordan, Bannu Hanifa, Bannu Dawus in Yemen, Awsan Khazraj in Medina, Himeer, and many others. But did all these tribes speak the same Arabic or Fusha Arabic or classical Arabic? Because we know in the Qiraat, all Qiraat are Fusha Arabic. But not all Arabic is allowed in Qiraat. Not all Arabic from any tribes is allowed in Qiraat in terms of how they pronounce things and how they say things. The answer is actually that all Arabian tribes spoke Arabic with variants. Variants that specific to their tribe. When we talk about the language, we're talking also about when we say things, we're talking about sounds, linguistic sounds. So as you know, Arabic is a very old language, Semitic language, it's a very old language. And it's an alive language. Some languages are not alive. Languages are like human beings. They get born, they become mature, they become old, and then they die. On earth there's about 6,000 to 7,000 languages. 50% of them are dead and languages are dying at at a high rate, high speed. They say every two weeks or every one month one language dies. And the language dies when the number of people speaking it are less than a thousand. It becomes an endangered species. Some languages are well and alive. Arabic is one of them. What makes a language healthy and that it could survive is the language itself, the structure of the language, and also the linguistic sounds. Some languages in the world have only 11 sounds and some have up to 60 sounds. Arabic is in the middle, has around 32, 33 sounds. And with variants, Imala and Taqleel and so on, maybe 35 sounds. But unlike the other Semitic languages, there are some sounds that are avoided in the Arabic language. They don't exist in the Arabic language, as the Syriac language might might have, or Hebrew, or other languages, or English. For example, in Arabic, we don't have O. Sound O, we don't have. We have the sound O. Our Dhamma is O, not O. We don't say al-Mu'min. We say al-Mu'min. It has to be Dhamma, where you close completely. The sound O might affect the sounds after it. And the sounds after it get compromised by the sound O. So you say, for example, in English, just illustrate the point. We say waq. We say taq. El gets swallowed. You don't say it anymore. You don't say waalq, or taalq. Because this sound O or O affect the sound after it somehow. Sound O does not. And Syriac is a dying language. English is a dying language. According to David Crystal, one of the authorities on the English language, the English that we will speak in 50 years from now will be completely different from the English we have today. The English we speak today is completely different from the English that the British people spoke in the 17th or 16th century. There are some sounds that have completely disappeared. Same thing with French. Same thing with other languages. The Queen actually issued a decree in the 16th century, or around that time, banning certain sounds in the English language. She takes the word light. I don't know how it was pronounced before, but GH had a sound. It's licht. Now licht is an ugly sound. It's not a nice sound. So the Queen didn't like it. It got banned. And language has changed over time. Our use are inventing idioms all the time. Before it was awesome. Now it's sick. Now it's lit. Now I don't know what will happen. 10 years from now. The language is changing. In 50 years to 100 years, God knows what language would look like. But the Arabic language, one of its features, that it's free from the sounds that the Ulema have observed that languages die because of those sounds. It has to go a major change if those sounds are there. So if we go over dialect, there's a difference between dialect and language. When the dialect becomes so much and it develops its own grammar, it turns into a language. There are three aspects of a dialect. Sometimes in one region versus another region, one tribe versus another tribe, one country versus another country, you might have different ways of pronouncing the same sounds. So different pronunciation, but the same meaning. Since we're talking about Arabic, and you can also think of examples in English or in French or any other language. In Arabic, for example, let's take the world water. And to illustrate the point, let's take the way Arabs pronounce water today. So in one region, maybe in the Arab world, you might hear the word maa in the Koran, maa. Another region might be maa. In a third region, it might be it might be Moya. I can Kuwait and some other places. In some regions like Lebanon and Syria and others or Egypt, they say maa. And they make the theme of the meme, maa. But different pronunciation, same meaning. The same meaning. So dialects might differ between tribes or between regions of people speaking the same language. And they may say things differently, but the meaning is the same. We're still talking about the same word and the same connotation. Sometimes the pronunciation is the same, but the meaning is different between one region versus another. Like, for example, the word galil. In Egypt, when you say galil, Allah who said galaluhu, in Yemen or Saudi or other places, when you say galil, it means galil. Little. Doulab, the word doulab, in some parts of the Arab world or Muslim world, it means a tire, rim. In some other parts, it means closet. Like in Egypt, it means a closet, a doulab. Same word, but different meanings depending on where you are, regions. Sometimes the word might exist in one region, but not in another. Like, if you're driving in anybody from South Africa, if you're driving in South Africa, you see a sign. Robot ahead. Robot ahead. When I think of the word robot, I think of transformers and artificial intelligence, but in South Africa, robot means traffic light. So they're telling you traffic light is ahead. So that's the word that's used in South Africa, but it's not used in California, or in Canada, or in the UK. Sometimes let's take sikhine versus midya. Sayyiduna Abu Huraira knows the word midya in his tribe, tribe of Banu Dawus. They use the word midya to indicate a knife, but in Medina and Mecca, they use the word sikhine to indicate a knife. In the Quran, in short use of the wife of Ar-Aziz in Egypt, she gave each lady sikhine, and then they they were so distracted, they cut their hand. They cut themselves. So one time, Abu Huraira was with the Prophet SAW and the Prophet told him, Ya Abu Huraira, now give me the sikhine. Give me the knife, sikhine. Sayyiduna Abu Huraira never heard this word sikhine. In his tribe, they call it midya, and he looked around and he couldn't find it. The Prophet asked him again, and he looked around, he couldn't find it. The Prophet SAW asked him again, and then he said, Now, will me sikhine, and he pointed at it. And Abu Huraira told him, Al midya, that you read? Do you want al midya? Are you asking for al midya? He said, Yes, Abu Huraira, a sikhine. Give me a sikhine. So it's a word that's used in one tribe, but not in another, in one region, but not in another. Those are dialects. We call these dialects. When a dialect changes beyond this, it starts to become its own language. When so many words are different, and then the structure changes, then you start seeing the birth of a new language. In many countries, you may have the language of the country, and also some local languages here and there. So what turns dialect into a language is when number three reaches a certain point, and it becomes, starts to become its own language. Let me ask you now another question. The Quran was revealed in what language? Was it revealed in the language of or which of the tribes the Quran was revealed in? Any guest? Who says Quraysh? Let's take a vote. Who agrees with him? Quraysh. Okay. So you agree with him? All right. So are you saying also in Khazraj or Quraysh? Both. Okay, we have two. So we have a different answer. Who agrees with that guy? So we have Quraysh and we have Quraysh plus. It's not Quraysh. Not Quraysh. Quran was revealed in Arabic, but the majority of the vocabulary in the Qur'an belongs to Quraysh. And a few words here and there were used from other tribes. So the vocabulary Quraysh versus other tribes, like the word Kartas for example, is not the Quraysh word. The word gharabib usud, gharabib is not the Quraysh word. It's not from the tribe of Quraysh. The word makalid usamawati wal-arb, makalid. The word helaka, irish. Helaka, i.e. dies. Quraysh doesn't say helaka. They say mata. He died. So some words are not from Quraysh. Quraysh was revealed in Arabic encompassing all the Arab tribes. But the majority of the word vocabulary Quraysh had the share of the line. 99.9% were Quraysh. And only a small percentage were scattered words from various tribes because of some connotations. So why Quraysh? Why Quraysh got the majority of the words? And here I've put some reasons. Quraysh actually and Makkah was the capital of the Arabs. What does that mean? It means Makkah was a center for people coming together. It's like in New York you have 800 nationalities in that city. It's a center for people coming together from all over Arabia and even the world at that time. Makkah was and you have some maybe some villages here and there, they're far away. They're locals. They have their own language. They have their own tribes. Makkah was different. Quraysh was different. And because you have this melting pot of people the language is more refined and is more mature. Not only that the dialect of Quraysh became the standard for poetry and speeches. So the dialect of Quraysh became the global language. If you want to give a speech you don't give it in your own dialect. You give it in the dialect of Quraysh. If you want to publish an article now today you publish it in English. Don't publish it in French because English has become global language in business for example. So the Makkah dialect became the global language for poetry. When the poets used to come to compete against each other they would compose their poetry not using their own dialect but using the Makkah dialect, the Quraysh dialect. Because it was the more the standard one. It became the standard one. At number three, when Sukhara cause used to happen, Sukhara cause is a yearly conference. Like today we have a yearly Hajj. Sukhara cause is a yearly conference between where people come and give speeches. When people come and present their products. When people come and consult Zohair ibn Abi Sulma used to work as a consultant. The junior poets used to come to him and say I've composed this poem. Can you fix it for me? Can you review it for me? He became a consultant. So in the season of Sukhara cause and Hajj, the season of Hajj even before Islam, when people used to come and visit the Kaaba, visit Makkah, the Quraysh dialect became the standard and was the one that was used, not their own dialect. And because the Quraysh dialect is is very refined the majority of the vocab in the Qur'an belong to Quraysh. With only a few words here and there because of connotation, because of original meanings that were kept they add shade of meaning. Allah swt used them in the there are things more things to say but let's keep that discussion for another time inshallah. If Allah swt wills we can do another one on the oral transmission of the Qur'an. Let's go back now to the time of Sayyidina Arsman and what he witnessed was this. He witnessed someone reading In someone else reading The meaning is not far off but that shouldn't happen. So he left Armenia and Azerbaijan and went straight to Medina to tell Sayyidina Umar and Sayyidina Arsman that do something about this problem. Something the problem that can start small may become something very large. And as soon as he saw the beginning of people differing maybe someone didn't memorize the verse properly maybe whatever maybe he wrote it wrong he was alarmed and went straight to Sayyidina Arsman to tell him to do something. So Sayyidina Arsman put the committee together. Now imagine yourself you know in the presence of Sayyidina Arsman and all of a sudden you see this guy coming from Armenia and Azerbaijan and he's alarmed and telling Sayyidina Arsman do something about the Umar before they differ. What would you do if you were Sayyidina Arsman? What would you do? You tell him, calm down. What happened? Like tell me what's wrong? Why are you so so upset? Then Sayyidina Huzayfar radiallahu anhu related to Sayyidina Arsman what took place. And Sayyidina Arsman consulted with the people and they came to the conclusion that we should do something about it. So what Sayyidina Arsman did he put a committee together he put another team and he chose Zaid again and he put a committee with Zaid. They started out as four and by the time the project ended they became 12 people working on the project. Some of those guys Sayyidina Arsman put the committee together Zaid and people helping him. The project took five years to execute. Lots of reviews and reviews and reviews and reviews and some of those people were chosen. We'll talk about some of them and several master copies were made. So the outcome of this project is that several master copies were made. Exact copies of the original and each copy was sent to the urban area or the capital of provinces. And with each master copy the master reciter was also sent. So let's talk about this committee again committee and plan. Again we have to ask the same questions what is the motivation what is the consultation process how was the project approved and decision and selection of the committee and the 12 people that were selected they were from the Mohajireen and Ansar and the qualifications of the people of the committee members So we had Sayyidina Ars. He was Fasih. He was eloquent. Well if you were to hear him each letter when he pronounces a word it's like each letter is coming on its own. Very Fasih. Zaid is experienced. Ubay is the top notch Qari. And then other Abdullah ibn Abbas was chosen as well and Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Abbas read the Quran under Zaid ibn Sabit about five times. He completed four times and he read most of the fifth. So people who are experts people who are qualified people who have experience Abdullah ibn Abbas as you know is Mufassir by excellence. He is the top Mufassir among the companions one of the top Mufassirs and he read Tafsir under Sayyidina Ali. Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Abbas. The committee worked day and night for five years to produce up to seven copies that were sent to the Amsar to the urban areas of the Muslim world. Wherever there is a large concentration of of people the master copy and the master reciter was sent. Not just a master copy because at the end we want to make sure that we recite properly. So we have documentation control we have recitation control. Today for example if somebody gives you an Ijazah if a top notch scholar gives you an Ijazah in Najweed I'm not talking about the various people that know Qiraat who are still junior or intermediate or still young but the top notch scholar in the Muslim world today when he gives you an Ijazah he is telling you you are now a carbon copy of me and I am a carbon copy of my sheikh. Back to the prophet alaihi s-salatu wa s-salam. Many Qura'ah who read today they're not at that expertise yet even if they have ten Qira'at or seven Qira'at or another but there are top notch ulama in the Muslim world that are experts on Quran and Tashweed and Qira'at that fit this criteria. So what was the role of the committee members? The committee members had various roles some of them were dictating reciting some of them were writing some of them were reviewing and various the processes became known to them and the statement of work the the mission to them was that you you copy and you know that Qura'ish has the absolute majority of vocab and their dialect is a standard and that's how they worked today for example when when we have copies of the Quran when we enjoy copies of the Quran and our mosque is a huge effort that went behind producing a copy that is free of error in many parts of the Muslim world be it in Damascus or in Cairo or now in Saudi they have complexes for producing Quran's or elsewhere in the Muslim world in India and Pakistan many areas when when a calligrapher is tasked with writing the Quran there are committees and there are people that when someone is writing there are people that are watching him as Qura' is right in each letter each word and people watching and some people that because they've been doing this for 50 years 60 years fewer to ask one of them fewer to say one word I would tell you which surat is which bezeth is which line it is which number of word and that line it is in all words and the Quran that's the mushaf that's the copy of the Quran that's produced today it's either 15 lines per page or 13 lines per page that's a standard today if you have 15 lines that's about 600 pages you have 13 lines that's a bit more and then review and review and review and review and review until the hundreds of editions or versions that you see they're all the same they're all the same so this committee worked day and night to produce five to seven master copies that were sent to the various areas and Sayden Arasman kept a copy with him as well and when he when he was killed when he was martyred he was reading that master copy so in Medina there were two copies two master copies one was Sayden Arasman and one was the reference for everybody else so continuous review and until the final review takes place until it's ready for for for it to be published and then Sayden Arasman would send it with the master reciter so some was sent to Mecca some was sent to Yemen some was sent master copy was sent to Damascus to Kufa to Bahrain Bahrain in the old days is not like Bahrain today Bahrain today is an island Bahrain in the old days at the time of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam it's a whole eastern shore which includes Bahrain and Qatar and the Mam and Khubar and Zahran and all that area used to be called Bahrain today Bahrain indicates the name of a country not a region and in Medina Sayden Arasman kept two copies one copy with the people and one copy with himself one copy in the in the mosque of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with the reciter and Abu Abdurrahman Al-Sulami was sent to Kufa and that's where Al-Hasan Al-Hussein read under him and then copies and Sayden Arasman told the people now when you want to make copies you make copies from those master copies whatever and he says whatever you have in your hand if it agrees with the master copies you can keep if it doesn't agree destroy don't keep so many of those copies that may be copies from originals or copies from copies from copies from copies from originals and most of them got destroyed or burned however we also know that Sayden Arasman buried some copies in Medina some copies that any copy that doesn't agree with the master copy they were either burnt or destroyed or buried Saudi Arabia today doesn't do archaeological work they are not active in that regard it may happen that 100 years from now or 50 years from now some might do might dig something in Medina and find one of those copies that might be different than the master copy that we have today the master copy that we have today is authenticated and being transmitted by mass transmission by Tawatur it is the reference today if we print any other Mus'haf we compare it to the master copy that's been transmitted to us we authenticate if you bring me a Mus'haf today bring me a copy of the Qur'an and this copy of the Qur'an that you have I authenticated based on the master copy and the reference if I find a new manuscript anywhere like from 200 years that manuscript is not authentic to me unless it agrees with whatever was transmitted so we can authenticate manuscripts based on what we know but that's a certainty this is your king if somebody wrote a Mus'haf maybe a hundred years ago on his own he might have made a mistake there is no guarantee that he might not have made a mistake but the earlier I have developed a process and documented the words of the Qur'an in volumes and volumes in case let's say all the copies of the Qur'an today were to be destroyed or disappear from the face of the earth an earthquake hits the earth and all of them disappears the alama have written other books that will allow us to reproduce the Qur'an accurately 100% without even having any copy and those books are called Resm al-Masahif how to write the Mus'haf how to write the Qur'an it's a sign it became a discipline on its own and each book in that discipline could be seven volumes 10 volumes and talks about each and every word in the Qur'an and how to write it how to make calligraphy it's a discipline that ulema of Qur'an have to go through ulema of Qira'at have to go through tajweed is just the art of recitation but Qira'at is the art of another art it's the art of also writing the Qur'an reproducing the Qur'an how to write each and every letter there are five categories of words that were documented Arabic as we mentioned is is a language that is wizwig what you see is what you get so when you hear a word you can write it down because the sound that you produce the linguistic sound is exactly the letters in 99% of cases unlike English or French or you say Monsieur the way you write it is m-o-n-s-i-e-u-r completely different from how you pronounce it same thing with English midnight or light you write it differently than the way you pronounce it but in Arabic what you pronounce you can write it exactly the same except for five categories of words that were documented in in volumes and volumes from all angles so that it can always be reproduced in the hypothetical event of copies of the Qur'an not being available anymore so it's another another double checking so what is the impact of the solution and what does the solution solve and what is it that is not supposed to solve so Hoseyf Abnul Yaman what was his reaction he left Armenia and Azerbaijan immediately as soon as he witnessed that he was like booga booga this is not supposed to happen so what problem did Sayyidina Usman solve what problem did Sayyidina Usman solve his solution did it because the question we will have to ask is okay let's forget this for now okay Sayyidina Hoseyf came to Sayyidina Usman and told him there's a problem and Sayyidina Usman consulted the companions and agreed on a solution and they said this is a solution we're going to adopt the question is is the solution adequate so after the solution was implemented and the project was completed did it fulfill its mission did it the requirements were they met or not i.e. with Sayyidina Hoseyf satisfied this solution is actually solved the problem he sought or not what was the reaction of the companions and Sayyidina Hoseyf and others toward that that proposed solution they've all agreed that this is a solution and after that we don't hear of any other complaint from any other companions anywhere in the world so what did the solution solve it solved three things the first thing it solved is that the order of words so for example when i read the Quran i do not switch to words i read one word before another for example or i don't make a switch i keep the order of the words the order now is protected the second point the solution solved is synonymous or replacement if someone by mistake when they copy they put another word instead of a word that's now being it can easily be discovered and it can easily be corrected an example is synonymous or replacement like when instead of a word say hypothetically akbar you say azam that would be synonymous so instead of writing akbar you wrote azam by mistake even though it's synonymous now accepted has to be the exact word and that's part of our our islamic disciplines right in the Quran it says yatlu alayhim ayatihi recite the verses as is not recite the meanings not recite synonymous as is and the same thing in our life as is when we quote other people we call them as is when people say something we quote them accurately we don't put words in their mouth as is because we have to be responsible and that became one of the layer of scholarship is called nakulun variwaya when you quote people you quote them accurately when you transmit from people you transmit accurately when you say people said this because of this and this is their evidence you make sure that you're bringing the exact evidence that they said not an evidence that you found in one book or another book no it has to go back to them and that became a layer of scholarship and today this layer is messed up with many people so before they become top-notch scholars that layer has to be mastered now i'm saying it for them yes they're all mutawater there are 10 ways of qirad they're all mutawater they're not about this we're going to talk about the musha'a later but the oral format we said we're not going to talk about it now because it requires another another talk but jazakum allahu khayran for raising the point the third potential or a problem that it solved it's addition insertion or omission of words let's say i'm writing the Quran i'm writing a copy of the Quran and i forget to write one word or i write i put another word either because i want to i put the meaning of a word or i insert a word i omit a word i add a word all of this now uh is no longer possible because we have a master copy that we can always double check this is what the problem solved however the solution that sidenas man proposed must not exclude the mutawater sounds the linguistic sounds that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam transmitted to us by tawata and this is one of your question is we say for example maliki yawmideen maliki yawmideen the script allows for both so the solution has to exclude a problem but not cause another problem it has to make sure that the qaraat are still can be read by that same script by that same writing so for example the word malik can be read as malik or malik yakhda'un can be read as yukhadi'un or yakhda'un because the Arabs at the time they don't write the alif on words yakhda'un yukhadi'un allows for both khatam khatim the fatha or the kasra the script to the allow for both and all of those are linguistic sounds that prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam taught to the early muslims and the early muslims taught the students and the students taught the students up until today so the solution that Sayyidina al-Isman came up with addressed the issue and also made sure that the linguistic sounds can still be transmitted the mutawater sounds from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam can be transmitted and preserved in the same script so now we have to ask ourselves a question all right it's just the end now we can go home and relax and sleep no it's not the end it's the beginning so now let's say we're at Sayyidina al-Isman's time now we have to make sure that from Sayyidina al-Isman up until today in each and every generation the Quran is always reproduced accurately the mushaf is reproduced accurately the way the Arabs used to then i use the board for some okay can you all see i'll write something so i'm sure most of you can you all see from over there sure most of you know the alphabet so in the today we have ba and ta and sa to ba ta and sa but at the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam those three letters were written like this there were no dots the regime and ha at the time of the prophet they were written like this one symbol one one form representing letters the letter fa and qaf was written like this no no dot was like that and the Arabs knew how to read but as new muslims as people became muslims and new muslims started to read the Quran it was very difficult so now we have to make sure that we can distinguish between the letters and abul aswa the du'ali and his students took on that process so this process is called i'ajam of the letters the consonants the consonants letter there we need a way to distinguish each letter from another letter each letter needs to have its own form the letter saad baad ta and sa used to be written like this all these four letters used to be written as one symbol so what did they do they added something here and they added something here to distinguish these two letters from these two letters now we need to distinguish this letter from this letter so they added a dot here to distinguish dots from saad and what they did they put a line here to distinguish these two from these two and to distinguish this guy from this guy they added a dot here so the one symbol became four symbols to represent four letters because each letter must have its own symbol so that process took place like ra and ze used to be written like this but now to distinguish z from r to put a dot on the z in tajweed you have to pronounce each letter properly yes but in the the way it was written it was written like this you see this on the screen there were no dots there were no fatha no dum no kasras and the arabists they know how to read even today i don't need fatha and dumma and kasra i can read without them but if someone is new they need fatha dumma kasra ta and ta they're different letters yeah we're not learning here no yeah because some letters some letters like the letter ta that we talked about and the letter ta and the science of tajweed or the science of sounds some letters so when i pronounce the letter when i pronounce the letter i open my mouse i have air in my lungs the air in my lungs has to come out has to come out so i say ta ta goes out i say ta when it goes out it doesn't go out like this so with ta what i need to do i need to create an echo in the letter before it goes out as an echo is created the letter becomes bigger and bigger and bigger in the letter ta the air in my lungs goes straight out in the letter ta the air in my lungs are pushed to the roof the roof of my my mouth the roof of my palate so it hits the roof then it reflects and then reflects and then reflects and then reflects creates an echo and then it goes out when this echo is created it's called tafqeen or is t'ala when i say the letter wa i'm pushing the air out push the air out it it does its own creation of echo and then it goes out from my mouse but with other letters i say ta a ba the air in my lungs goes and goes out without any echo if i create an echo that's the wrong sound for the ba and ta that's part of tajweed when to create an echo or not to create an echo and what is the process the mechanism of creating an echo that's something we study in tajweed or in al-mul-aswad the discipline of sound najazakullah khayran for for these observations and questions so here we have a situation so is this the end no this is not the end now we need to have documentation control make sure every time we write a mushaf it has to be written according to the same rules and principles of the master copy and secondly we have to do recitation control like our dear brother and elder has mentioned how to recite it properly like the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and also we need to help new muslims or people who don't know how to read arabic without dots or without fatha and dhamma and kassar so the correctness of the reading we have to make sure that the consonants are can be distinguished even though they may have similar forms the ra and the zay have similar forms but we distinguish them by by dot and we need the phonetic guide the rules of tajweed so the ulema immediately as soon as they saw some lachan some deviation in the recitation they put the whatever they heard from the companions in book format that's how you pronounce that that's how you pronounce that that's how you pronounce this that's how you pronounce combination of letters that's how you pronounce that's how you make an echo that's how you make runna when you make runna you push the air through your nose that's even possible so so we they started doing something called what we call today orthography or resum but the ba the ta and the sa used to have the same form the jim the ha and the ha used to have the same form the dal and the dal used to have the same form the fa and the qaf used to have the same form the sin and the sheen the sad the dad the ta the za used to have the same form the ayn and the ayn used to have the same form and some letters they had their own form because there is no other letter that resembles them that could cause confusion And then came the vowels. The vowels is fatah, dhamma, and kasra. In fatah, fatah means to open. What are we opening? We're opening the jaw, and we're opening the jaw vertically. Vertically. Kasra means we're opening the jaw as khafad. We're opening the jaw horizontally, not vertically. And dhamma means we are closing completely and dhamma comes from gathering together. Closing completely. It's an oo sound. So the fatah is an a sound. When you say a, you open vertically. kat, mat, fat, bat. That's an a sound in English. If you speak English, you can do tajweed. There is, I have no doubt. Because most of the linguistic sounds exist in Arabic as well as in English. But sometimes because we come from an English background, we think we start reading Arabic in a weird way. Thinking this is tajweed. But there are tricks that can help you learn tajweed in a natural way. Let's put it this way. The dhamma is an oo sound, like a blue, like moon, like moon, like the cow, when the cow makes a sound. Moo, blue. The e, the kasra is an e sound. Eee, you open horizontally. Like bee, when you have the bee buzzing, bee, eee, meee, me too, meee, the same sound. If you speak English, you can do tajweed. So in English, for example, if you are a native English, you'll be able to read this. Can you read it? Yeah. You may struggle with it a little bit, but with some practice, it becomes second nature. The same thing in Arabic. You can also read this in Arabic, even though the dots are omitted. The Arabs used to do it naturally. For us, we have to go through training to do it properly. In the first half of the century, the master copies only included the form of the letters, the body of the letter. In Arabic, it's called the resum of the letters only. No dots, no fatha dhamma kasra, no names of suras, no numbers, no numbers of pages, just the body of the Quran, of the text. In the first centuries, the vowels were added, fatha dhamma and kasra, to help a new Muslim read. If you need to open your mouth, they put a line above. If you need to close your mouth, they put small wall. If you need to lower your jaw and open your mouth horizontally, they put a strike underneath the letter. In the second century, in the first century, they put dots, but dots became confusing, so they make it like a line, a small line. And then they made pointing diacritics, which is the ajam, to differentiate and distinguish consonants from one another. And in the third centuries, until the 15th centuries, it was beautifying the font, making different fonts. Like in English, you have aerial and albatica and all these things. In Arabic, you have gufi, you have nasir, you have sulus, you have the various fonts. And calligraphers, calligraphy became an art, became a discipline, became a science, that people study and and learn. The next issue is now, if hypothetically, we want to always reproduce the Mus'haf, as was written at the time of Usman, when the master copies were produced. So the Ulema looked at all the words in the Qur'an and documented five categories of words. And that became a new discipline called and books and books and books and books and books and books are written from all angles. So discipline of Rasman Mus'haf became its own science and was developed. So as highlights, and this afternoon we that's almost on time, this afternoon we went very briefly over this. This is a course actually that Ulema study over one year and from all angles and and sometimes Rasman Mus'haf takes longer. But part of this usually is covered in 12 sessions or 24 sessions and today we were very quickly we went through a summary highlights in order to give ourselves an appreciation of the effort, like without their effort we would be lost today. We would not be able to read the Qur'an. We would not be able to we don't know what to do. And languages keep on changing all the time keeps on changing sounds keep on changing but in our case we what we see and what we recite is exactly what the Prophet ﷺ recited is exactly what the companions recited is exactly what the early muslims and muslims over the ages recited because even the art how to make a sound was transmitted how to make a sound for each letter in in all states, whether it's in the state of fatha or dhamma on kasra it was transmitted and it was transmitted with with raghava Like you're not going to finish Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem properly until you read it properly It may take six weeks. It may take six months. You have to read it properly only then you'll be qualified to be a top notch halem. We also we are very fortunate that the copies of the Qur'an can be reproduced hundred percent. This is something that I was listening to biblical scholars and other religions they would love to have these issues they would love to have a master copy they would love to have you know the challenge of reproducing accurately something that was originally authenticated and we are very fortunate that that we are we are like this it can be reproduced 100% accurately in all circles. It's not just in Cairo. It's not just in Damascus. It's not just in Saudi also in Malaysia and Indonesia everywhere in all circles of the muslim world even in north america it can be reproduced once you study it can be done. It's training can be done and the disciplines of Rasmul Masahif and Qiraat was developed. Qiraat became like today we we have if you study digital communications or digital transmission of information you have coding and error correction codes Qiraat became a code as a scholar wrote poems that if you read it it's a shifra. It's a code you have to decipher it because they're able to condense a lot of information into poems that you can recite as a song difficult disciplines became a song and once you practice the song and sing it now you know you know everything about a particular discipline be it Tajweed or Qiraat and so on and so forth and authentication of manuscripts that I find the manuscript here. I find the manuscript there the manuscript that I find is not the is not the reference I'm going to associate what I find based on what I know because what I know is 100 certain what I find needs to be authenticated not vice versa so if a manuscript is found in Birmingham or in Sana'a or on Mars or on the moon that manuscript I don't know its origin it needs to be authenticated not vice versa and that's the message I hope that we we all get inshallah okay we'll stop here juzakumullahu khayran thank you very much for for staying and listening for two and a half hours three hours juzakumullahu khayran juzakumullahu khayran