Zayd ibn Thabit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zayd ibn Thabit (Zaid Ibn Thabit) (زيد بن ثابت ) was the personal scribe of Muhammad and an Ansar[1].
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Life: ? – 610
Zayd Ibn Thabit was 13 years old when he asked permission to participate in the Battle of Badr the battle. Since he was less than 15 years old, however, Muhammad did not allow him to do so, and sent him back. He then decided to try to win favor with Muhammad by learning Qur'an. Mohammed asked him to learn the Hebrew and Assyrian languages. Later on he was appointed to write letters to non-Muslims and to collect and keep record of the Quranic verses.
Zayd was among those chosen by Muhammad to write down the verses of the Qur'an whenever Allah revealed them to Muhammad.
He used to spend most of his time reciting the Qur'an, and continued to learn the Quranic verses as they were revealed to Muhammad.
Zayd later volunteered to fight when he was 19 years old. This time Muhammad accepted him in the ranks of the Muslim army. Zayd's time to fight had come nine years after Muhammad established the Muslim community in Medinah.
Makkah had been taken over by the Muslims the previous year. When the news reached the Byzantine empire, the empire mustered an army to invade the Arabian peninsula. Muhammad decided to assemble an army and march to meet the threatened attack. Muhammad sent orders to Makkah and the allied tribes for them to send all their available armed and mounted men to Madina.
[edit] Muhammad's era: 610 – 632
He most notably took the role of writing down many of the messages from God that were revealed to Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. These messages later formed the Qur'an, and the wahy, Muhammad's words, public contracts and transactions.
[edit] Abu Bakr's era: 632 – 634
After the death of Muhammad the task fell on Thabit, who specialized in the Quran, to authenticate the first and most important reference for the ummah of Muhammad. This became an urgent task after the wars of apostasy and the Battle of Yamamah in particular in which a large number of those who had committed the Quran to memory perished.Umar convinced the Khalifah Abu Bakr that unless the Quran was collected in one manuscript.
During Abu Bakr's reign as caliph, he was given the task of collecting the Quranic verses from all over Arabia. Zayd finally accepted the task and, according to him, "started locating the Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart)".
It was a painstaking task and Zayd was careful that no error should find its way into the work. When Zayd had completed his task, he left the prepared suhuf (sheets) with Abu Bakr. Before he died, Abu Bakr left the suhuf with Umar who in turn left it with his daughter Hafsah. Hafsah, Umm Salamah, and Aishah were wives of Muhammad who memorized the Qur'an.
He completed the task, compiling an authentic version of the Quran called Mushaf, and delivered the copy to Abu Bakr.
[edit] Umar's era: 634 – 644
Zayd ibn Thabit thus became one of the foremost authorities on the Quran. Umar ibn al-Khattab once addressed the Muslims and said: "O people, whoever wants to ask about the Quran, let him go to Zayd ibn Thabit.
[edit] Uthman's era: 644 – 656
During the time of Uthman, by which time Islam had spread far and wide, differences in reading the Quran became obvious. A group of companions of Muhammad, headed by Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, who was then stationed in Iraq, came to Uthman and urged him to "save the Muslim ummah before they differ about the Quran". Uthman obtained the manuscript of the Quran from Hafsah and again summoned the leading authority, Zayd ibn Thabit, and some other companions to make copies of it[citation needed]. Zayd was put in charge of the operation [1]. The style of Arabic used was that of the Quraish tribe. Hence this style was emphasized over all others.
Zayd and his assistants wrote many copies. One of these was sent to every Muslim province with the order that all other Quranic materials, whether fragmentary or complete copies, be burnt. This was important in order to eliminate variations or differences in the dialect from the standard text of the Quran. The Caliph Uthman kept a copy for himself and returned the original manuscript to Hafsah.
[edit] Legacy
Zayd ibn Thabit had a freedman who became the father of Hasan al-Basri
Bernard Lewis, a 21st century non-Muslim Islamic scholar
[edit] Shi'a view
Ali Asgher Razwy, a 20th century Shi'a Twelver Islamic scholar states:
