political and theological strife, the Companions, Followers, Followers of the Followers, and post-Salaf generations worked to stabilize the Qur’n. According to popular Sunn history, the Qur’n was first collected during the caliphate of Ab Bakr. ‘Umar had come to Ab Bakr after numerous Qur’n reciters had been killed in battle and suggested that the Qur’n be compiled for preservation as a textual artifact. Ab Bakr objected: “How can you do something which the Messenger of Allh did not do?” ‘Umar answered, “By Allh, it is a good thing.” Ab Bakr accepted ‘Umar’s position and commanded Zayd ibn Thbit, who had been Muammad’s scribe. Zayd echoed Ab Bakr’s initial concern over departing from Muammad’s example, but Ab Bakr repeated what ‘Umar had said to him: “By Allh, it is a good thing.” What I find startling here is Ab Bakr’s precise order: “Search for the Qur’n and collect/assemble it.” Zayd had to search for something that was out there, beyond even the reach of Ab Bakr, to then gather what was scattered and give form to the formless. It would be unfathomable for many Muslims today to think of the Qur’n in such terms, to imagine the Qur’n as a chaos that must be brought to order by human effort.
In Zayd’s narration of the endeavor, he relates, “So I searched for the Qur’n, and collected it from palm leaves, stones and the breasts of men.” This project resulted in a written copy of the Qur’n, which the Companions called a maaf (reportedly after the Ethiopian word for book), produced not for public use but for archival preservation. Discussing the etymology of the Greek root for archive, Jacques Derrida notes that it was the holders of political power who, as makers of the law, became archons; they protected official documents in their private residences, placing the archive under a kind of “house arrest.”17 As caliph, Ab Bakr retained possession of the new Qur’nic archive. After Ab Bakr’s death, it was kept by his political successor, ‘Umar; with ‘Umar’s death, the archive went into the hands of ‘Umar’s daughter, Hafsa, who was also a widow of the Prophet and regarded as an authoritative scholar of the Qur’n.18 During the third caliphate, the regime of ’Uthmn, a second “official” collection of the Qur’n would be established, this time to achieve standardization of the public Qur’n. ’Uthmn was driven to this project after controversies over proper readings spread among the adherents of conflicting versions (as many as fifteen different collections in the possession of individual Companions and thirteen among the Followers19) and also among troops during distant campaigns. For his codification enterprise, ’Uthmn
