Zayd ibn Thabit

Zayd ibn Thābit ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Anṣārī al-Khazrajī was one of the most important Companions in the preservation and compilation of the Qurʾān. He was approximately eleven years old when the Prophet ﷺ made the Hijrah to Madinah, and he mastered reading and writing with remarkable speed. He became one of the Prophet's ﷺ personal secretaries and one of the primary scribes of the Qurʾānic revelation.

At the Battle of Uḥud (3 AH), Zayd was sent back by the Prophet ﷺ for being under the minimum age of fifteen, one of several young Companions turned away that day (along with ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar, Usāmah ibn Zayd, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, and Zayd ibn Arqam).

He later played the defining role in the official compilation of the Qurʾān, first under Abū Bakr (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) after the deaths of the Ḥuffāẓ at the Battle of Yamāmah, and again under ʿUthmān (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) when the authorized Muṣḥaf was standardized and sent to the Muslim provinces. He died in 45 AH.