The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1914 page)

ra, of only seven verses, is the
F
ti
a
. In general, the earlier s
ras are the shorter ones, and thus are found towards the end of the book.
The generally accepted belief among Muslims, although there has been criticism of the details is that during Mu
ammad's lifetime portions of the Qur’
n were written down, at his dictation, but that the first collection was made during the caliphate of
Ab
Bakr
(632–4 (AH 11–13)), by Mu
ammad's scribe Zayd b. Th
bit. Subsequently, under ‘Uthm
n, a recension was made by Zayd and a few others. Any other written versions of single parts were ordered to be destroyed. Thus within some thirty years of Mu
ammad's death a definitive text was established, which has remained virtually unchanged down to the present day.
The Qur’
n is divided into the s
ras revealed in
Mecca
, and those revealed in
Mad
na
.
Although the Qur’