Zayd was present at the Battle of al-Yamāmah; an arrow struck him yet caused him no lasting harm. Thereafter Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq instructed him to collect the Qur’an, saying, “You are a sensible young man in whom we place full confidence, and you used to write down revelation for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Trace the Qur’an and compile it.” Zayd carried out the Caliph’s command, and immense good resulted from it—praise and gratitude belong to Allah.

ʿUmar appointed him twice as his deputy over Madinah during the pilgrimage season, and again when he himself traveled to Syria. ʿUthmān likewise deputized him over Madinah. ʿAlī loved him, while Zayd, for his part, held ʿAlī in great esteem, acknowledged his rank, and did not take part in any of his battles. Zayd lived on after ʿAlī and died in 45 AH—some say 41, others 55.

He was among those who penned the master codices that ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān dispatched to the various regions, codices whose script and orthography became the universally accepted standard for Qur’anic recitation, as we have explained in our work “Kitāb Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān,” placed as an introduction to our Tafsīr. All praise and bounty are Allah’s.

Among that circle, too, was al-Sijill﵃(2), according to the ḥadith transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās—if it is authentic, though it calls for further examination. Abū Dāwūd(3) relates: “Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd told us, Nūḥ ibn Qays narrated to us, from Yazīd ibn Kaʿb, from ʿAmr ibn Mālik, from Abū l-Jawzāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās﵁, who said: ‘Al-Sijill was a scribe of the Prophet ﷺ.’” Al-Nasāʾī(4) records it from Qutaybah by the same chain.

Ibn ʿAbbās also used to say about the verse, “On the Day We roll up the heaven like the rolling up of a scroll for books” (al-Anbiyāʾ 104): “Al-Sijill means the man.” This is his wording. Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Jarīr records it in his Tafsīr on that same verse through Naṣr ibn ʿAlī, from Nūḥ ibn Qays—a transmitter judged trustworthy by Muslim, though Ibn Maʿīn declared him weak in one report. As for his teacher, Yazīd ibn Kaʿb al-ʿAwdhī al-Baṣrī, no one relates from him except Nūḥ ibn Qays; nevertheless, Ibn Ḥibbān listed him among the trustworthy.

I presented this ḥadith to our eminent ḥadith scholar, Abū l-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī, and he rejected it emphatically. I informed him that