Writing Down the Revelation

When a revelation came, the Prophet ﷺ would call for a scribe, and Zayd was the one most often called. He wrote on whatever was at hand: strips of palm-leaf stalk, thin white stones, shoulder blades of animals, pieces of leather.

Zayd once told how the Prophet ﷺ was sitting with his thigh resting on Zayd's thigh when revelation came upon him. The weight was so great that Zayd feared his leg would be crushed (Sahih al-Bukhari 4592). It was during that moment that the verse excusing the blind and the ill from the obligation of battle was sent down.

Before the Prophet ﷺ died, Zayd had written down much of the Qur'an under his dictation. Many Companions held it in their memory as well, and the Qur'an passed in both ways, memory and writing, side by side.