used to reverberate with the sounds of recitation of the Quran, until the Messenger of
God ordered them to lower their voices so as not to make errors."١٧
It can be maintained with certainty that memorization of the Quran, however partially, was prevalent among Muslim men and women, to the extent that a Muslim woman used to make her bridal gift [i.e., she accepted her husbands teaching her as being the bridal gift to which she was entitled] teaching her a sura or more from the Quran. ١٨ In the light of all this interest, how is it possible to say that the collection of the Quran was delayed until the caliphate of AbU Bakr, and that Abil Bakr, in col‌ lecting the Quran, needed to have, [for every fragment], two witnesses who would testify that they had heard it from the Messenger of God (peace be upon him and his progeny)?

The Contrariety of the Collection Traditions to the
Consensus (ljma) of the Community

These traditions contradict the consensus of all Muslims that the Quran cannot be established except through an uninterrupted and successive narration from the Prophet himself. The traditions say that the verses of the Quran, at the time of their being collected, could be established only through the testimony of two witnesses, or through the testimony of one witness if his testimony equaled that of two; hence, it follows that the Quran could also be established through a single narration. Is it possible for a Muslim to abide that? It is enigmatic how one can accept as sound the traditions which indicate that the Quran was established through testimonies, and, simulta‌ neously, can hold the view that the Quran cannot be established except through uninterrupted transmission from the Prophet. Is not the absolute necessity that the Quran be uninterruptedly transmitted reason enough to regard all these traditions as absolutely false? It is strange that some scholars, like Ibn I:Iajar, have identified the two witnesses in the traditions as meaning the existence of a written text and an [oral tradition dating back to the Prophet]. ١٩ One may conjecture that he was compelled to offer this explanation by the generally held condition about the necessity of uninter‌ rupted transmission of the Quran. However, this explanation is obviously distorted on the following grounds.
First, it contradicts the explicit statement of all traditions, cited above, that indi‌
cate that the Quran was collected.
Second, according to this explanation, it becomes necessary to maintain that those who collected the Quran did not write that which was proven to be part of the Quran through su cessive
which was already proven through uninterrupted transmission.
Third, there was no need to write down and memorize a verse which was already established through uninterrupted transmission. At the same time, writing and memo‌ rizing could not establish any verse as being part of the Quran if its transmission was not uninterrupted. At any rate, there is no point in making them a precondition in the collection of the Quran.
To summarize, these traditions must be discarded because they make the point that the Quran can be established without its having been uninterruptedly transmit‌ ted. This view has been discredited through the consensus of all Muslims.