Meaning-based Quotation; The Key to Understanding the Differences in Companions’ Masahif

One of the important events in the history of the Quran is that some of the companions of the Prophet of Islam have collected their versions of the Quran and there are many differences between their versions and the official version that was compiled by the order of the third caliph, including additions, deficiencies, conversions and displacements of the report. The purpose of this article is to find out the main factor behind the emergence of different writings of the Quran by the Companions, and in this regard and it presents the possible hypotheses. The method of this research is “inference through the best explanation”; this means that after evaluating competing hypotheses, a hypothesis with greater explanatory power is selected. The interpretation of the differences, the addressing of the differences and the different recitations of the Quran by the Prophet are hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the origin of the differences in the Companions’ Masahif, but due to the wide scope of the differences, these three hypotheses appear to lack explanatory power. On the other hand, the hypothesis of transliteration in the meaning of the verses of the Quran is consistent with numerous historical evidence and is capable of comprehensively explaining the differences between the Companions in reading and writing the Quran.