There was no Quran as a single Book. Pen and paper were not available. The Prophet’s personal scribes and other companions wrote on anything that they can find, eg. Tree bark, stalks and leaves of palm trees, wood pieces, bones from shoulder of cattle, skins of animals (i.e. leather), rocks, clay, cloth, papyrus, etc.
Each person will have pieces of verses and not the entire Quran. Since writing materials were difficult to get and there were not many people who can write, hence the main medium of preserving the Quran was via memorization.
(1) Quran = The meaning and words from Allah
(2) Hadith = The meaning from Allah but the words are from the Prophet s.a.w, eg. The Prophet s.a.w said: "Anyone of you attending the Friday (prayers) should take a bath."
(3) Hadith Qudsi = The same as Hadith above except that the content is about Allah’s saying or statement. Eg. The Prophet s.a.w said that Allah Almighty has said, "The son of Adam denied Me and he had no right to do so".
Writings of the Quran and the Hadith
In the beginning of Quranic revelations, the Prophet s.a.w refrained the companions from writing the Hadith so as not to be confused with the writings of the Quran. After the companions had the knowledge and skill to differentiate the two and the risk of confusion can be avoided, only then the Prophet s.a.w allowed Hadith to be written. Hence the act of writing both the Quran and Hadith occurred during his lifetime.
After the passing of the Prophet s.a.w, there were many wars against rebellious groups. Groups that Murtad, groups that supported false prophets and groups that do not want to pay the Zakat.
Especially after the battle of Yamama against Musaylama the liar who claimed to be a prophet after Muhammad s.a.w, many memorizers of the Quran were martyred. The preservation of the Quran would be in danger with more and more deaths of these "Huffaz" while the Quran verses that were written down were scattered in bits and pieces.
Seeing that something must be done to preserve the Quran, Umar r.a suggested to Khaleefah Abu Bakr r.a to collect all the Quranic writings, to rewrite them in one compilation. Abu Bakr r.a disagreed concerning the Quran compilation at first since it was not done when the Prophet s.a.w was alive.
(1) Revelations keep coming and it only stopped nearing the death of the Prophet s.a.w.
(2) Writing materials were scarce and no proper binding into book form was practiced.
Umar r.a persisted and in the end Abu Bakr relented and formed a committee of pious memorizers of the Quran to start compiling the Quran from beginning to end. He appointed the young brilliant and trusted Zaid bin Thabit who was barely 20 years old to be head of the project. During this time, we can deduced that the Muslim government had gained better writing materials for this project.
The procedure of collecting and compiling:
Even though Zaid himself had memorized the entire Quran from start to end, but due to the seriousness of accuracy, he will call upon those who had wrote verses of the Quran and themselves had heard those verses directly from the Prophet s.a.w to present those verses to him (and his committee). He added another strict criteria that each person that came must be accompanied by two witnesses who saw this person heard the verses from the Prophet s.a.w himself. The recitation will be checked against Zaid’s own memory and the memory of his Committee. The compilation was completed in about a year. It consist of sheets of leather called Suhuf tied in one bundle.
After the death of Abu Bakr r.a, the Suhuf was kept by the 2nd Khaleefah, Umar r.a. After his death, the Suhuf was kept by his daughter Hafsah r.a who was a wife of the Prophet s.a.w.
During the time of the Khilafah of Uthman bin Affan r.a., there was going to be a battle against the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Muslims from Syam and Iraq gathered preparing for the battle. Some groups recited the Quran but realized that other groups were reciting the Quran in a different way. They got into heated arguments and tension was high. Hudhaifah r.a. quickly galloped his horse back to Medina and plead to Uthman r.a. to save the Muslims from fighting over the differences in recitation.
The Prophet s.a.w recited the Quran to various different Arab tribes each with their own dialect. The Prophet noticed the difficulties of the various tribes to recite it the way the Quraish recite it. Hence Jibril a.s. taught the Prophet s.a.w several ways of recitation that were allowed. The Prophet s.a.w approved the recitation styles from several Arab tribes when he heard them reciting. Each tribe had their own way of pronunciation (the accent), their own style of saying certain phrases, by using a different word with the same meaning or adding to the meaning, etc.
Evidences:
(1) Jibril a.s came to him (the Prophet s.a.w) and said . “Allah has commanded you to recite to your people the Qur'an in one "Harf" (style). Upon this he (the Prophet) said: I ask from Allah pardon and forgiveness. My people are not capable of doing it. He (Jibril) then came for the second time and said: Allah has commanded you that you should recite the Qur'an to your people in two "Harf" (style). Upon this he (the Prophet) again said: I seek pardon and forgiveness from Allah, my people would not be able to do so. He (Jibril) came for the third time and said: Allah has commanded you to recite the Qur'an to your people in three "Harf" (style). Upon this he (the Prophet) said: I ask pardon and forgiveness from Allah. My people would not be able to do it. He (Jibril) then came to him for the fourth time and said: Allah has commanded you to recite the Qur'an to your people in سَبْعَةِ أَحْرُفٍ seven "ahruf" (styles), and in whichever dialect they would recite, they would be right.
[Sahih Muslim 821a]
(2) The Prophet s.a.w said, “Jibreel taught me one "Harf" (style) and I reviewed it until he taught me more, and I kept asking him for more and he gave me more until finally there were seven "Ahruf" (styles).”
[Muslim, 819a]
(3) Hadeeth of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab who said: “I heard Hishaam ibn Hakeem reciting Soorah al-Furqaan in a manner different from that in which I used to recite it and the way in which the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) taught me to recite it. I was about to argue with him whilst he was praying, but I waited until he finished his prayer, and then I tied his garment around his neck and seized him by it and brought him to the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) and said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, I heard this man reciting Soorah al-Furqaan in a way different to the way you taught it to me.’
The Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) said to him, ‘Recite it,’ and he recited it as I had heard him recite it. The Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) said, ‘It was revealed like this.’
Then he said to me, ‘Recite it,’ so I recited it and he said, ‘It was revealed like this. This Qur'aan has been revealed in seven "ahruf" (styles), so recite it in the way that is easiest for you.’” [Bukhaari, 2287; Muslim, 818]
The Arabs had no issue with these recitation modes. The problem came when people from far, eg. Syam and Iraq (who were non Arabs), embraced Islam and they were taught Quran recitation by teachers depending on which Arab tribe the teachers were from.
When the army from Syam and Irag met, they were not familiar with these differences in dialect. To add to the issue, these non Arabs had their own dialect & mistakes.
The idea was to have the Quraishy way as the main recitation as the Prophet s.a.w was from the Quraish tribe. This initiative was also to standardized the Arabic spelling that different tribes may spelled differently. Again Zaid bin Thabit was called upon to head the project.
(Sahih al-Bukhari 4987) .. So Uthman sent a message to Hafsah saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to `Uthman. `Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, `Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa`id bin Al-As and `AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. `Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
Zaid bin Thabit was not a Quraish. He was an Ansar. Even though Zaid was the leader in the Committee, the other 3 Quraish men need to enforce the Quraish way of recitation over Zaid’s dialect if such differences occurred. This Mushaf will be the official copy by Uthman’s government. It was then copied into 6 or 7 copies. Other than sending multiple copies of the official standard Mushaf, Uthman also send teachers to those provinces.
Other personal copies of the Quran that were written down by individuals were ordered to be burned. These individual copies may have personal notes written together in the parchment (since writing medium was scarce for an individual). Personal writings could be confused as part to the Quran. The spelling of certain words may also be different or may contain typo. Abdullah bin Mas’ud (r.a) had his own copy that he wrote down and he was unhappy that Uthman (r.a) ordered him to burn his written Quran. Another reason might be that some other people may be writing their personal copy of the Quran in the order of revelation timeline unknowingly and not of the order that was specified by the Prophet s.a.w himself.
Hence after that day, no personal copies were allowed unless it was copied word by word from the official government copy and taught by the government appointed Teachers. This is the finalized accurate written Quran starting with Surah Al-Fatihah and ends with Surah An-Naas. All other way of writing and different order of the Surahs will be Haram.