Preservation · a Light

The book makes a claim about its own survival

In Surah al-Hijr the Qur'an calls itself al-Dhikr, the Reminder, and says that it was sent down and that its keeping is undertaken by the One who sent it. The sentence is short and it is not a claim about paper. Muslims read it as covering the whole apparatus that grew around the text: children who learn it by heart before they can parse it, chains of teachers who will not certify a student until they have heard every letter, the standard copies, the counting of verses, the arguments over a single vowel that were written down rather than suppressed. The verse comes early, in a Makkan chapter, before any of that existed.

Surah al-Hijr, a Makkan chapter

Source · Qur'an 15:9