Page 99 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

THE WRITTEN COMPILATION OF THE QUR'AN 79

2. His irreproachable morals. Abo.Bakr specificallysaid «~y»: "We
do not accuse you of any wrongdoing."
3. His intelligence(indicatingthe necessarycompetence and awareness).
4. His prior experience with recording the walgJ
5. I may add one more point to his credit: Zaid was one of the fortunate
fewwho attended the Archangel]ibril's recitations with the Prophet
during Ramadan."

iii. Abo. Bakr's Instructions to Zaid bin Thabit

Let me quote a brief case brought before Abu Bakr while he was Caliph.
An elderly woman approached him asking for her share in the inheritance
of her deceased grandson. He replied that the amount of a grandmother's
share was not mentioned in the Qjir'an, nor did he recall the Prophet
making any statements regarding this. Inquiring of those in attendance,
he received an answer from al-Mughira who, standing up, said he had been
present when the Prophet stated that a grandmother's share was one-sixth.
Abo. Bakr asked if any others could corroborate al-Mughira, to which
Muhammad bin Maslama testified in the affirmative. Carrying the matter
beyond the realm of doubt meant that Abo.Bakr had to request verification
before acting on al-Mughira's statement." In this regard Abu Bakr (and
subsequently 'Uthman, as we shall see)were simply following the Qur'an's
edict concerning witnesses:

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"0you who have attained tofaith! Wheneveryou give ortake creditfOr a
stated term, setit down in writing.... And callupon two ifyour men to
act as witnesses; andif two. men are notavailable, then a man and two
women.from among such as are acceptable toyou as witnesses, so thatif

7 See al-Bukhari, $a~0,Jam'i al-Qur'an, hadith no. 4986; also Ibn Abi Dawud,
al-MafiiJ;ij, p. 8.
S Tahir al-jaza'irt, at-Ttbyan, p. 126; see also A. Jeffery (ed.), al-Mabiini, p. 25.
9 Malik, al-Muuiatia', al-Fra'id-I, p. 513.