robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

who have been true in their covenant with Allah…’ (33.23).” 2 That separate reports exist depicting
Khuzaima saving a portion of the Qur'an that would otherwise have been lost—a different portion in each
case—is yet another indication that these reports are themselves the product of legendary elaboration, not
scrupulous historical reportage.
Once his commission's work was done, around the year 653, Uthman is supposed to have sent back
Hafsa's manuscripts and distributed the final version to all the Islamic provinces. He ordered any other
Qur'anic material already in the provinces to be burned. The canonical Islamic accounts say that Hafsa's
manuscripts were spared, but the governor of Medina, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, who was later to become
caliph, is supposed to have burned them, too, after Hafsa died in 665. 3
The Qur'an and the Battle of Siffin
If Uthman really distributed copies of a standardized Qur'an throughout the Islamic provinces, the contents
of the book would have become generally known among Muslims. Sure enough, Islamic tradition has it
that the Qur'an was widely copied and universally known only four years after Uthman completed his task,
when the Battle of Siffin is supposed to have occurred. The battle, in a village on the banks of the
Euphrates River in Syria, pitted two rival claimants for the caliphate against each other: Ali ibn Abi Talib
and Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan.
According to Islamic accounts of the battle, the hostilities began when Muawiya brought a Syrian force
to contest Ali's having been chosen to succeed Uthman, who had just been murdered. Addressing the
Syrians, Ali invoked the Qur'an: “I have given you time so that you might revert to the truth and turn to it
in repentance. I have argued against you with the Book of God and have called you to it, but you have not
turned away from oppression or responded to truth.” 4 On the eve of battle, he told his own men:
“Tomorrow you will meet the enemy, so lengthen the night standing in prayer, make abundant recitation of
the Qur'an, and ask God for help and stead-fastness.” 5 One of his commanders exhorted his men in a
similar way: “Fight the crude tyrants and do not fear them. How can you fear them when you have in your
hands the Book of God in purity and reverence?” 6
The battle was hotly contested and protracted. Finally, when it looked as if victory was in sight for Ali,
one of Muawiya's commanders, Amr ibn al-As, offered his chief a plan: “What if I put something to you,”
he said to Muawiya, “that can only increase our unity and their division?” When Muawiya agreed, Amr
suggested: “We will raise the masahif and say, ‘their contents are to be authoritative in our dispute.’” 7 Almushaf,
with its plural al-masahif, has been taken in Islamic tradition to refer to a codex of the Qur'an.
Muawiya agreed, so his men raised up copies of the Qur'an on their lances and called out to Ali's men:
“This is the Book of God between us and you.” Ali's pious Muslims responded: “We respond to the Book
of God, and we turn in repentance to it.”
Amr's plan was a canny one, for Ali had charged that Muawiya's forces were “men without religion
and without qur'an.” 8 He told his men that Muawiya was trying to trick them, but they were impressed by
the enemy's maneuver: “If we are called to the Book of God, we are bound to respond.” Ali did his best
to parry this, but finally two of his men approached him with a warning: “Ali, respond to the Book of God