Ulum al-Quran

How the Book was gathered

The Quran was spoken, written, and memorised while the Prophet ﷺ still lived. The book in your hand is that same wording, gathered by the companions, copied under Uthman, and read today as Hafs from Asim.

إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا ٱلذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُۥ لَحَٰفِظُونَ

Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian.

15:9

  • 114

    Surahs

    86 begun in Makkah, 28 in Madinah

  • 23

    Years of wahy

    Thirteen in Makkah, ten in Madinah

  • 30

    Ajza

    So the Book can be finished in a month

  • 604

    Pages of a Cairo mushaf

    The Madinah print most mosques use

  1. 1 · 610–632·Before the Hijra to 11 AH

    Spoken over twenty-three years

    نَزَلَ بِهِ ٱلرُّوحُ ٱلْأَمِينُ

    Jibril brought the words to the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah and then in Madinah — not as one book dropped from the sky, but as living speech for each moment: warning, law, consolation. Companions memorised as they heard. Scribes wrote on palm stalks, thin stone, leather, and bone. The Prophet ﷺ told them where each passage sat in its surah.

    The last revelation came shortly before his death. The order of the surahs is his, not later editors’.

    26:193

  2. 2 · 633·12 AH

    Abu Bakr gathers one suhuf

    جَمْعُ الْقُرْآنِ

    At Yamamah many who carried the Quran in their chests were killed. Umar feared the wording might be lost with them. He pressed Abu Bakr, who at first refused to do what the Prophet ﷺ had not done, then saw the good in it. Zayd ibn Thabit — young, precise, a scribe of revelation — collected every ayah from writing and from memory, accepting a verse only when both agreed.

    Sahih al-Bukhari 4986. The sheets stayed with Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Hafsah bint Umar.

  3. 3 · c. 650·25 AH

    Uthman sends one rasm to the cities

    الْمَصَاحِفُ الْعُثْمَانِيَّةُ

    Islam had reached Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hudhayfah heard soldiers argue over how to recite. He told Uthman: unite this ummah before they differ over the Book as the People of the Book differed. Uthman borrowed Hafsah’s sheets. Zayd, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, Said ibn al-As, and Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith copied them in the tongue of Quraysh. Copies went to Makkah, Madinah, Kufa, Basra, and Sham. Other personal mushafs were set aside so one written skeleton remained.

    Sahih al-Bukhari 4987. That unpointed skeleton is the rasm Uthmani — the same letters Nur opens.

  4. 4 · 8th–10th c.·2nd–4th century AH

    Dots, vowels, seven readings

    الْقِرَاءَاتُ

    The Uthmanic copies had no dots and no vowel marks. Readers who had heard the Prophet ﷺ still knew the words. As new towns learned Arabic, scholars marked the letters so a child could not confuse ب and ت. Ibn Mujahid (d. 324 AH) named seven sound readings, each a living chain back to a companion. They are not seven Qurans. They are seven ways the one rasm is voiced — all the Prophet ﷺ allowed.

    The seven include Asim of Kufa, Nafi of Madinah, and Ibn Kathir of Makkah.

  5. 5 · Today·The reading of the ummah

    Hafs from Asim — what you recite

    حَفْصٌ عَنْ عَاصِمٍ

    Most of the world now recites the path of Hafs ibn Sulayman from Asim ibn Abi al-Najud, from Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, from Ali and Uthman and Zayd and Ubayy — back to the Messenger ﷺ. Warsh from Nafi is still heard in North and West Africa. The Arabic in Nur is Hafs from Asim, the reading almost every Muslim hears in tarawih.

    75:17–18

Nur does not invent a tenth reading. The Arabic you open is the Uthmanic rasm in the voice of Hafs from Asim — the same path most of the ummah recites today.

Open the 114 surahsThe seven readingsLearn