🖋 Scribes

Who were the scribes of the Prophet?

• They were among the closest Companions of the Prophet.
• They included the four Rightly Guided Caliphs and other leading Companions:
  • Zayd ibn Thabit
  • Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
  • Khalid ibn Walid
• They were always near the Prophet to ensure the revelations were written down at an early point.
  • There was always a scribe on hand to take down a revelation from the Prophet.
• They came to know the Qur’an well, and were able to check the truthfulness of copies.
• Their work assisted the memorization of the Qur’an.

Outline the tasks performed by the Prophet’s scribes during his lifetime.

1) Qur'an

• The Qur’an was written in its entirety during the Prophet’s time even though it was not compiled in one text. There were various scribes who had different roles as companions, who wrote the verses down on a number of materials.
  • They wrote down portions of verses on animal skins, bones and palm leaves.
• They took down the revelations as the Prophet dictated them.
  • The revelation was received by the Prophet Muhammad from the Angel Jibril aurally as he could not read or write.
  • They assisted him because he was illiterate.
• The Prophet used to instruct the scribes about the sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed in a particular Sura (chapter). In this manner, the Prophet arranged the text of the Qur’an in a systematic order till the end of the chain of revelations.
  • They re-ordered the revelations and inserted new ones as the Prophet directed them to.
• Hadiths:
• A number of companions had their own personal copies of the words of the revelations, which were later used to verify the one copy in the time of Abu Bakr.
• Companions who kept a private record of the text of the Qur'an satisfied themselves as to the purity of their record by reading it out to the Prophet.

2) Hadiths

• Some of them were official scribes who wrote letters for him (for example Ubayy ibn Ka’ab) whilst some became scribes because they kept their own personal copies of the revelations for example ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘As. **
  • He sought the Messenger’s specific permission asking, ‘May I write down everything I hear from you in the states of contentment and anger?’ He replied, ‘Yes, for I speak nothing but the truth.’

3) Documents

• Some of the tasks of the scribes were writing letters and treaties, for example Abdullah ibn Mas'ud was his regular scribe in charge of writing and responding to letters.
• He was one of the scribes who wrote down all the Revelation as well as Zayd bin Thabit, who the Messenger commanded to learn how to write Hebrew so that he could respond on his behalf to those who wrote to him in that language.