I don't have a source (the analysis was provided by a third party), but that was the case with Arabic's sister languages like Hebrew and later Arameic. In any event, I went to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Macropedia, to research this subject. I found that for the first 20 years after Muhamed's death, the Quran was an oral tradition (his entourage learned by heart the sura's). The caliph Uthman commissioned Zayid Ibn Thabit to write it down (probably comparing texts from various memories and various section that where written down by different people). That created the Uthmanic recension and the first "Authoritative" version of the Quran. Uthman acted fast, to avoid the problems the two other monotheistic religions had with their holy scriptures, having a plurality of versions (and as a result a plurality of sects as well, thus splitting those religions into many sub sects). Uthman must have understood that a single holy scripture would prevent such sects formation to a large degree. According the EB, the Arabic of the Quran was gradually improved and finally (no date) diacritical notation added, and in the ninth century, the vowels mark were added to the text (in a different color, to indicate that they are not an integral part of the Quran itself.) Like much of the other holy scriptures, a literature of interpretations of the Quran grew in later years, the "Golden Age" of Islam.
Zeev |
