Sayyidina `Uthman’s Preservation of Qur’an

Imam al-Bukhari narrates in his Sahih (6:183-184) from Anas ibn Malik (RA) that Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time the people of Sham (Syria) were battling for the conquest of Armenia and Azerbaijan [~year 25H] with the people of Iraq. Their divergences in Qur'anic reading had alarmed Hudhayfa, so he said to `Uthman: "O Commander of the Believers! Rescue (adrik) this Umma before they differ over the Book the way the Jews and Christians differed." Whereupon `Uthman wrote to Hafsah: "Send us the folios (suhuf) so that we copy them then we shall return them to you." Hafsa then sent them to `Uthman who ordered Zayd ibn Thabit, `Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Saad ibn al-`As, and `Abd Allah ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham who copied those folios into the volumes (masahif). `Uthman said to the group - the three Qurayshis: "If you find yourselves differing, [the three of] you and Zayd ibn Thabit in anything of the Qur'an, write it in the tongue of the Quraysh. For it was not revealed but in their tongue." They did [as instructed] and when they finished copying the folios into the volumes, `Uthman returned the folios to Hafsa, sent one mushaf to each region from those they had copied, then ordered that all other [copies] of the Qur'an in each and every folio or volume be burnt.