Have you ever thought about how the Quran actually
came together into the form Muslims have today?
Was it fully complete and organized long before
Muhammad died? Or was it still being revealed
right up to his final days? There is a well -known
report in Sahih al -Bukhari that some Muslims
use to suggest that the Quran was already complete
and regularly reviewed before Muhammad's death.
In Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, Often cited in
the chapters on the virtues of the Quran, there
is a narration in which Fatima, the daughter
of Muhammad, reports something her father told
her in private. She says that the prophet told
her that the angel Gabriel used to review the
Quran with him once every year. But in the last
year of his life, Gabriel reviewed the whole
Quran with him twice. Muhammad then said that
he did not think anything about this except that
his death was drawing near. The full reference
is Sahih al -Bukhari. Volume 6, Book 61, Hadith
number 523. In some editions it appears under
Hadith number 520. If you only read this one
report, you might get the impression that the
entire Quran as we know it had already been revealed
and fixed in form some time before Muhammad died.
But is that really what the broader Islamic sources
teach? When we turn to the Sirat, the early biographies
of Muhammad, such as Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasulallah
as edited by Ibn Hisham, and to the historical
chronicle of Al -Tabari, we find many episodes
in which specific passages of the Qur 'an are
said to have been revealed at particular moments
in Muhammad's life. These episodes stretch all
the way from his early Meccan ministry to his
last years in Medina. The Hadith collections
support this picture of continuing revelation.
In Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, Hadith number
505, narrated by Anas ibn Malik. We are told
that Allah sent down his divine inspiration to
his apostle continuously and abundantly in the
period just before his death, until Allah took
him to himself. The narration explains that this
time near the end of his life was when the greatest
part of revelation came down, and that Allah's
apostle died after that. The full citation is
Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 61, Hadith
505. Sahih Muslim confirms the same idea. In
Sahih Muslim, Book 43, Hadith number 7152, Anas
ibn Malik again reports that Allah, the Exalted
and Glorious, sent revelation to the Messenger
of Allah just before his death in quick succession
until he departed this world, and that on the
very day he died, he received revelation profusely.
The full reference is Sahih Muslim, Book 43,
Kitab al -Fada 'il, Hadith 7152. So put those
two strands together and ask yourself, if revelation
was still coming down in great quantity right
up to the day Muhammad died, how could any complete
and final written collection of all his revelations
have been finished during his lifetime? By definition,
if revelation was ongoing, the full set of verses
could only be gathered after his death. Muslims
who accept Sahih al -Bukhari and Sahih Muslim
as reliable often try to reconcile these reports.
One common attempt is to say that when Gabriel
reviewed the Quran with Muhammad once each year,
and twice in the last year, He was only reviewing
the material that had already been revealed up
to that point in time. In that view, the yearly
reviews did not require the Quran to be complete.
They were simply periodic checks of what had
already come down so far. But does that explanation
solve all the tensions? Christian researcher
John Gilchrist, in his book Jam al -Quran, The
Muslim View of the Quranic Text, examines several
traditions about Gabriel's role in reviewing
the Quran. He notes that some reports say Zayd
ibn Thabit attended the final review with Gabriel
and Muhammad. Other reports say that Abdullah
ibn Masud took part in the yearly reviews. These
differing claims create confusion about who actually
witnessed what. Gilchrist's full reference would
be John Gilchrist, Jamal Quran, Mertz Esa, or
similar publisher, especially the chapters on
the final recension and the Gabrielic review.
There is another difficulty. In Sahih al -Bukhari,
Volume 6, Book 60, Hadith number 378, Muhammad
is reported to have said that he only saw the
angel Gabriel in his true angelic form twice.
If Gabriel only appeared in his full form two
times, how are we to picture these multiple yearly
review sessions described in other hadith? Were
they visionary experiences? Physical encounters?
or remembered recitations without a visible form.
The sources are not always clear, and the differences
between them can be hard to harmonize. So let
us step back and ask the big question. If revelation
was still coming in rapid succession right up
to the day Muhammad died, as Anas ibn Malik reports
in both Sahih al -Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, and
if the final collection of the Quranic text was
only completed under later caliphs, through the
work of companions like Zayd ibn Thabit. Then,
can we really say that the Quran in its present
form was fully fixed and reviewed cover to cover
by Gabriel and Muhammad as a finished book during
his lifetime? The hadith about the annual and
final double review suggest care and seriousness
in preserving what had already come down. But
the other hadith in the Sirat remind us that
the process of revelation and collection was
ongoing, complex, and only finalized after Muhammad's
death. For anyone examining the formation of
the Quran, these tensions need to be faced honestly,
not smoothed over by simple statements that everything
was neat, complete, and perfectly organized long
before the Prophet's final breath.