He returned to me a third time and said, “Recite it on seven aḥruf. For each request with which you turned back, you have been granted a supplication.” I therefore said, “O Allah, forgive my community! O Allah, forgive my community!” As for the third request, I have postponed it to the Day when all creatures will turn to me for intercession—even Abraham, peace be upon him.
Ubayy—may Allah be pleased with him—said, “Fa-suqiṭa fī nafsī,” meaning: bewilderment and confusion overtook me. A satanic whisper had struck him, seeking to unsettle his state and disturb his moment. He had magnified in his mind the matter of the variant readings far beyond its true weight. After all, what impossibility or charge of falsehood necessarily follows from the diversity of readings? None of that became incumbent—praise be to Allah—even with abrogation, which is a far weightier issue; so how could it be a problem with respect to the readings!
When the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—noticed what that misgiving had done to him, he alerted him by striking him on the chest. This was followed by an opening of his breast and an illumination within, until the unveiling and expansion reached the point of direct vision. Once he perceived how reprehensible that thought was in the sight of Allah, sweat poured from him out of shame before the Almighty.
This kind of misgiving is of the sort the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—described when they asked him, “We find in our hearts notions so grievous that each of us would be loath to voice them.” He said, “Have you really experienced that?” They replied, “Yes.” He said, “That is the very essence of faith.” Muslim related it on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, and further discussion will come, if Allah wills, under Sūrat al-Aʿrāf.
Chapter: The compilation of the Qur’an, the reason ʿUthmān had the muṣḥafs written and burned what lay outside them, and the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—who memorized the Qur’an during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.
During the Prophet’s lifetime the Qur’an was scattered in the hearts of men. People had written portions of it on parchments, palm fronds, pieces of leather, thin stone tablets, pottery shards, and the like. Al-Aṣmaʿī said: al-likhāf are thin, white stones; the singular is likhfah. Al-ḍurar is a stone whose edge is as sharp as a knife; its plural is ẓirār, like ruṭab and riṭāb, rubaʿ and ribāʿ, and also ẓirrān, as in ṣurad and ṣirdān. When the slaughter intensified (1)