about any part of the dialect of the Qurán, then do ye write it in the Quraish dialect, because it came not down in the language of any tribe but theirs." Then they did as Osmán had ordered; and when a number of copies had been taken, Osmán returned the leaves to Hafsah. And Osmán sent a copy to every quarter of the countries of Islám, and ordered all other leaves to be burnt, and Ibn-Shaháb said, "Kharíjah, son of Zaid-ibn-Sábit, informed me, saying, 'I could not find one verse when I was writing the Qurán, which, verily, I heard from the Prophet; then I looked for it, and found it with Khuzaimah Ansárí, and entered it into the Súra-i-Ahzáb.'"
This recension of the Qurán produced by Khalífa Osmán has been handed down to us unaltered; and, as Sir William Muir remarks, "there is probably no other book in the world which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text."[1]
That various readings (such as Christians understand by the term) did exist when Osmán produced the first uniform edition is
- ↑ Muir's "Life of Mohamet," vol. i. Introduction.
