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92 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

in 'Uthman Retrieves the Suhuf from Hafsa for Verification

Ibn Shabba reports,

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27 - cont.
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Kharija bin Zaid bin Thabit transmitted from his father, Zaid bin Thabit,
"While we were copying the Mushaf I missed an ayah (No. 23 from Sura al-
A~Ziib) which I used to hear the Prophet reciting. We sought it until it was
found with Khuzaima bin Thabit al-Ansari, and then inserted it into its
proper sura within the Mushaf." [al-Bukharl, $~l~, hadith no. 4988].
These two ~adiths have caused confusion among some scholars, mainly due to
the proximity of the two names. Note that the two are distinct: Khuzaima and Abu
Khuzaima. Now if we read the hadiths carefully we see that Zaid used the word $u~7if
for the collection during Abu Bakr's reign, and the word Mushaf or Masahif (pI. of
Mushaf) for the work he did under 'Uthman's supervision. Thus we may safely
conclude that these are two different instances of compilation. (Note that in the
~aJ.11J.1, ~adith no. 4986 falls into the section concerning the Qur'an's collection during
Abu Bakr's time, and no. 4988 during 'Uthman's.) If we consider the second
compilation to be Zaid's work on an independent copy of the Mushaf then everything
becomes clear. On the other hand, if we assume that Zaid was simply making a
duplicate copy for 'Uthman based on Abu Bakr's $~uf, not an autonomous copy,
then we must confront the awkward question of why Zaid was unable to locate verse
No. 23 from Sura al-A~ziib - since all the verses should have been right in front of him.
Of interest also is that Zaid uses the first person singular pronoun in the first
narration and the plural 'we', indicating group activity, in the second. All of this
strongly bolsters the view that the second compilation was indeed an independent
endeavour.
28 Ibn Shabba, Tiirikh al-Madina, pp. 1001-2.