The preservation of the Qur'an passed through three stages: transcription, compilation and collection. In the first stage, as soon as a chapter or a verse was revealed, it was committed to writing. The following items are mentioned in books as examples of the writing materials used:

Riqa'a -Thin leather piece

Likhaf - Thin slates of white stone

Katf - The round bone of the shoulder of the camel

'Asib - The wide part of the root of the date branch.

In the hadith, the second stage of this process is referred to as "compilation." That is, first the verses were written down at the time of revelation. Then, when one chapter was completed, the whole chapter (often it took several revelations to complete one chapter) was written in compiled form, i.e. arranged in proper order on riqa'a (leather). Such copies of the compiled Qur'an (complete or incomplete) were in the possession of a large number of people during the lifetime of the Prophet. We have the well known incident of Umar who beat his own sister and brother-in-law mercilessly for having accepted Islam. Finally, when his anger had subsided, he asked them to show him the book they were reading from. His sister replied that he could not touch it in a state of impurity and only after he had bathed himself did his sister give him the book (Ibn Hisham).

The third stage of this process is termed "Collection" that is, writing down the entire Qur'an together in one volume. The form of the bound volume consisting of pages of the same size was not prevalent in the Prophet's time. According to a narration recorded by Bukhari, only four companions Ubayy ibn Kaab, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Zayd, and Zayd ibn Thabit had the entire Qur'an put together during the life of the Prophet. In Kanz al Ummal, referring to Muhammad, Ibn Kab AI-Qurzi gives us the names of five such collectors of the complete Qur'an. However the status of their collections was that of a personal possession. The official version was produced under the direction of the caliph Abu Bakr, who had it bound after arranging for all the verses to be written on square papers of the same size. Imam Malik has also recorded (citing as his source, Shahab Zahri, who had learned it from Salim, son of Abdullah ibn Umar,) that Zayd ibn Thabit wrote down all the verses of the Qur'an on al-Qaratis (papers of the same size) at the command of Abu Bakr. This volume was called Raba'a (square). (Itqan, v. 1, pp. 84-85)

It is said that during the caliphate of Umar Faruq there were more than one lakh copies of the Qur'an in circulation in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, etc.