a man, and another teacher would teach the recitation of a man, so the boys would meet and differ, until that reached the teachers—Ayyūb said: I think he said—until some of them committed disbelief regarding the recitation of others. That reached ʿUthmān, so he stood up to deliver a sermon and said: "You, who are near me, differ in it and make errors in recitation; so those of the garrison towns who are far from me are even more differing in it and making worse errors in recitation. Gather together, O Companions of Muḥammad, and write a master copy for the people." Abū Qilāba said: Anas ibn Mālik narrated to me, saying: "I was among those to whom it was dictated." He said: "Sometimes they would differ over a verse, and they would recall a man who had received it from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of God be upon him, while he might be absent or in some of the desert areas; so they would write what was before it and what was after it, leaving its place blank until he came or someone was sent to him. When he finished the Muṣḥaf, ʿUthmān wrote to the people of the garrison towns: 'I have done such and such, and I have erased what was with me, so erase what is with you'" (1).

62- Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to me, he said: Ibn Wahb narrated to us, he said: Yūnus informed me, he said: Ibn Shihāb said: Anas ibn Mālik al-Anṣārī informed me: That during the expedition of Azerbaijan and Armenia, the people of Syria and the people of Iraq gathered, and they recited the Qur'an together and differed in it, until discord almost broke out among them. So Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān—when he saw their disagreement regarding the Qur'an—rode to ʿUthmān and said: "The people have differed regarding the Qur'an, to the point that, by Allah, I fear that there will afflict them the likes of the disagreement that afflicted the Jews and the Christians." He said: So he was severely alarmed by that, and he sent to Ḥafṣa and retrieved the sheets that Abū Bakr had ordered Zayd to collect, and he copied several Muṣḥafs from them, and sent them to the horizons (2).

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