Breaking from the preference of Muhammad, who simply told his people not to focus on the differences, the khalifa Uthman ordered that the Quran be standardized. They recalled the previous copy from Muhammad’s widow, edited it, copied it, and distributed the copies to each Muslim province. Then, to settle the disputes over the Quran once and for all, Uthman “ordered that all the other Quranic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be destroyed by fire.”
