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90 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

himself?" All contributors answered under oath,15 and all the collected
material was individually labelled and then handed to Zaid bin Thabit.!"

Malik bin AbI 'Amir relates,

I was among those upon whom the Mushaf was dictated [from the
written sources], and if any controversies arose concerning a particular
verse they would say,"Where is the scriber [of this parchment]? Precisely
how did the Prophet teach him this verse?" And they would resume
scribing, leaving that portion blank and sending for the man in question
to clarify his scribing. \7

Thus an independent copy gradually emerged, with the twelve setting
aside all uncertainties in spelling conventions so that 'Uthman might attend
to these personally!" Abu 'Ubaid lists a few such cases. One uncertainty
for example lay in the spelling of at-tdbiii, whether to use an open 't' (vy.WI)
or a closed one (0y.l::ll). Hani' al-Barbari, a client of 'Uthman, reports:
~)..i ,J;..L..a.l1 j ~,~ ~) ,j~ ~..::....:S :Jl! ,j~ Jy <?ppJl Ls't.... rY'
4-:') 20,«p J~ '1» 4-:') 19,«~ t» :4-,! ~ Lj.;) Jl ow, ~
~) ,«I..1JI J1l»~) ,,:,:,.."YJllS..J..>.\ b.....i o\)...I.l~ Is-..u :Jl! 21'«0')t5:JI ~i.;»
22 .<4.11 ~ ~i ,«~ t» ~) ,«~» ~) ,~t.
I was with 'Uthman when the committee was comparing the Mushaf
He sent me to Ubayy bin Ka 'b with a sheep's shoulder bone containing
three different words from three different si'iras[a word each from 2:259,
30:30, and 86:17], asking him to revise the spellings. So Ubayy wrote
them down [with the revised spellings].

iii. 'Uthman Retrieves the Suhuf from 'A'isha for Comparison

'Umar bin Shabba, narrating through Sawwar bin Shabib, reports:

Going in to see Ibn az-Zubair in a small group, I asked him why 'Uthman
destroyed all the old copies of the Qur'an.... He replied, "During 'Umar's

15 Ibn Manzur, Mukhtasar Tiirikh Dimashq, xvi:171-2; see also Ibn AbI Dawud, al-
Masahif, pp. 23-24.
16 A.]effery (ed.),Muqaddimatiin, p. 22. Labelling (e.g.name of the scriber) may bc
deduced from the statement of Malik in the next quotation.
17 Ibn Abr Dawud, al-MaJiiJ;if, pp. 21-22.
lB Ibn Abi Dawud, al-MafiiJ;if, pp. 19, 25.
19 Qur'an 2:259.
20 Qur'an 30:30.
2\ Qur'an 86:17.
22 Abu 'Ubaid, Fat/ifil, pp. 286-7.