During the Prophet's lifetime, the Qur'an existed in two forms at once. It was memorised by a large number of companions, and it was written on scattered materials, such as palm-leaf stalks, flat stones and pieces of leather, kept by different people. It had not yet been gathered into a single bound copy, because revelation was still ongoing until the Prophet's death, and its order was something he himself specified as each new portion arrived.

The first effort to compile it into one physical copy came soon after the Prophet's death, for an urgent reason. Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet's scribes, described how Abu Bakr, the first caliph, summoned him after the Battle of Yamamah, where many companions who had memorised the Qur'an were killed. Umar ibn al-Khattab had raised the alarm, warning that if more of those who knew the Qur'an by heart were lost, a large part of it might be lost with them, and urging that it be collected.

Zaid's first instinct was caution. He objected, “How can you do something which Allah's Messenger did not do?” But he was persuaded, and spent great effort gathering the Qur'an from every companion who had it memorised or written down, cross-checking each portion, before compiling it into a single copy. That copy was kept with Abu Bakr, then with Umar, and after him with Umar's daughter Hafsah. This is in Sahih al-Bukhari, number forty-nine eighty-six.

The second and final stage came about two decades later, under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, for a different reason: not fear of losing the text, but fear of division over how it was recited across a rapidly expanding Muslim world. Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman had seen soldiers from Iraq and Syria disputing over recitation during a campaign, and warned Uthman: “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book”.

Uthman had Hafsah's copy brought. A small committee, led again by Zaid ibn Thabit, produced several standardised master copies in the dialect of Quraysh. One was sent to each major region, and earlier variant personal copies were set aside. That is in Sahih al-Bukhari, number forty-nine eighty-seven.

This standardised text was not a new revelation, but a single agreed written form of the same Qur'an. It is the basis of every printed copy of the Qur'an in use today.