to him as well, and ʿUmar would venerate Ubayy, treat him with the utmost respect, and refer disputes to him for judgment.

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī said, “The reports point to Ubayy ibn Kaʿb’s death occurring during ʿUmar’s caliphate. I have heard his family and others say that he died in Medina in the year 22 AH, and that ʿUmar remarked, ‘Today the leader of the Muslims has died.’ We have also heard some who say that he died in ʿUthmān’s caliphate, in the year 30 AH. This, in our estimation, is the soundest of the opinions, because ʿUthmān had instructed him to collect the Quran.”

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd narrated: “ʿĀrim related to us; Ḥammād related to us, from Ayyūb, from Ibn Sīrīn: that ʿUthmān assembled twelve men from Quraysh and the Anṣār—among them Ubayy ibn Kaʿb and Zayd ibn Thābit—to compile the Quran.” ⦗1⦘

I (the author) say: This chain of transmission is strong, yet it is mursal. I do not think that ʿUthmān actually commissioned Ubayy for the muṣḥaf; had he done so the fact would have been well-known, and the attribution would have centered on Ubayy rather than on Zayd. The more apparent view is that Ubayy died in the time of ʿUmar, for al-Haytham ibn ʿAdiyy and others recorded his death in the year 19 AH.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, Abū ʿUbayd, and Abū ʿUmar al-Ḍarīr said, “He died in the year 22 AH,” and this opinion is the one toward which the heart inclines.

Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ and Abū Ḥafṣ al-Fallās, however, said that he died during ʿUthmān’s caliphate, while Khalīfah on another occasion said he died in the year 32 AH.

In Sunan Abī Dāwūd it is reported—through Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, from al-Ḥasan—that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb gathered the people behind Ubayy ibn Kaʿb for the night prayer of Ramadan, and he would lead them in twenty