OLDEST COPY OF THE QURAN AS KNOWN TODAY
The many variant reading caused Muslim soldiers from Iraq who followed Ibn Masud's collection, and soldiers of Syria who took Ubay's collection to be the correct one, to accuse each other of lying.Uthman's reaction in 653 AD is recorded in the following Hadith: "Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, 'Send us the manuscripts of the Quran so that we may compile the Quranic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you'. Hafsa sent it to Uthman, Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin Az-Zubair, Said bin Al-As and Abdur Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, 'In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Quran, then write it in the dialect of Quraish as the Quran was revealed in their tongue.' They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Quranic materials whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burned. Zaid bin Thabit added, 'A verse from Surah 33, Alizab, (verse 23) was missed by me when we copied the Quran and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari...'" (Bukhari, VI, No.510)
In spite of the radical measures taken there still is a verse missing in today's Quran: "Abdullah bin Abbas reported that Umar bin Khattab sat on the pulpit of Allahs messenger and said: 'Verily Allah sent Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) with truth and he sent down the book upon him, and the verse of stoning was included in what was sent down the book upon him, and the verse of stoning was included in what was sent down to him. We recited it, retained it in our memory and understood it...I am afraid that with the lapse of time, the people (may forget) and may say: We do not find the punishment of stoning in the book of Allah, and this go astray by abandoning this duty prescribed by Allah...'" (Bukhari, VIII, No.816, Muslim, III, No. 4194)
The verse can not have been abrogated because the messenger of Islam was the only one who was authorized to do so. By the time the problem arose he was dead. The only reference found in today's Quran reads: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with a hundred stripes..." (Surah 24, Nur, verse 2)
Perhaps for reasons such as this Ibn Masud opposed the new official version of the Quran with the following words:
"The Prophet taught me to recite 70 Surahs which I had mastered before Zaid had even become a Muslim. How can you order me to recite the readings of Zaid, when I recited from the very mouth of the Prophet some 70 Surahs? Am I to abandon what I acquired from the very lips of the Prophet?" ("Masahif" by Ibn Abi Dawud)
After having studied the early surviving Quran manuscripts very thoroughly John Gilchrist states: "The oldest manuscripts of the Quran still in existence date from not earlier than about one hundred years after Muhammdad's death." ("Jam' Al-Qur'an", page 153)
He comes to this conclusion because two of the oldest manuscripts, the Samarqand and Topkapi codices are both written in the Kufic script. It "can generally be dated from the late eight century depending on the extent of development in the character of the script in each case." (Ibid. page 146)
