The Quran continued to be preserved in the hearts of the Sahabah who had memorised it, and on the skins and other materials until the time of the caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ).
In the 12th year after Hijrah, 70 of huffaz were killed in the Battle of Yamamah. Umar (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ) pitched the idea of the Quran to be collected in a written form, gathering of pages (suhuf) and kept it safe. Abu Bakr (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ) was overwhelmed at first, for he didn’t want to do something that was not done by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. However, Allah ﷻ opened his heart and accepted the idea. He approached Zayd ibn Thabit (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ) to lead the gathering and compilation
Zayd ibn Thabit (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ) was overwhelmed with the requested task and said that he would rather move mountains than doing something that was not done during the Prophet ﷺ era. It could be a form of bid'ah. However, Umar convinced him as the intention was for the goodness of the ummah and public benefit. Eventually, Zayd agreed.
The reason Abu Bakr picked Zayd to take the responsibilities in the compilation was due to the followings:
He was the Prophet ﷺ scriber
He memorised the Quran
He developed a reputation among the Companions being a reference when it came to Quran
Many scholars affirmed that Zayd was present during the final revision of the Quran was done between Jibreel AS and Rasulullah ﷺ, final ramadhan - Zayd have knowledge what was Quran and what was being abrogated and wasn’t Quran before the passing of Rasulullah ﷺ.
Zayd came up with trustworthy (robust) process:
He did not relied solely on his memories alone
He committed and stipulated two people beside himself has memorised the verse that would be included
The memorization had to be directly from the Prophet ﷺ, not intermediate
Zayd undertook this responsibility with the highest level of care and detail. He established a methodology to follow that had built-in checks and balances to ensure the authenticity of this official copy. Zaid himself was a hāfidh of the Qurʾān and a scribe of the Prophet ﷺ. If he wanted he could have written the Quran from his own memory. Similarly, there were hundreds of companions who had the Quran memorised and a number who had their own personal copies. Instead of relying on one of these, Zaid used a unique combination of all three. Through all three methods, he ensured that there was both verbal and written testimony for each verse of the Quran.
