1. Article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/606294
2. Estelle Whelan (1998) mentions that an abundance of references from a wide variety of texts and from various time periods point to the existence of a group of professional (paid) Qur‘ān copyists in Madinah since the middle of the first century A.H., to meet the public demand for Qur‘āns for personal, educational and official use. Whelan further states that this evidence, among many others, all:
   • …point to the active production of copies of the Qur‘ān from the late seventh century, coinciding with and confirming the epigraphic evidence of the established text itself. In fact, from the time of Mu‘awiyah through the reign of al-Walid the Umayyad caliphs were actively engaged in codifying every aspect of Muslim religious practice… ‘Abd al-Malik made sophisticated use of Qur‘ānic quotations, on coinage and public monuments, to announce the new Islamic world order. Al-Walid gave monumental form to the Muslim house of worship and the service conducted in it. It seems beyond the bounds of credibility that such efforts would have preceded interest in codifying the text itself. The different types of evidence cited here all thus lead to the conclusion that the Muslim tradition is reliable, at least in broad outline, in attributing the first codification of the Qur‘ānic text to Uthman and his appointed commission. The Qur‘ān was available to his successors as an instrument to help weld the diverse peoples of the rapidly expanding empire into a relatively unified polity.
   Estelle Whelan observes that orientalist analysis is often ―guided predominantly by generalizations drawn from the history of the biblical text, which were then applied to Muslim scripture.
3. Inscriptions of the Qur‘ān also exist on various ancient artifacts and structures which corroborate with Qur‘ānic verses in existence today. For example, two long inscriptions in blue-and-gold glass mosaic encircle the inner and outer faces of the octagonal arcade of the Dome of the Rock. They are established to have been commissioned by the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik in 72A.H./691-692C.E. These inscriptions contain excerpts from various parts of the Qur‘ān using the same wording which appears in modern-day Qur‘āns.

1. • It is suggested that there was Qu’ran copyists at the end of the 7th century, and beginning of the 8th century.
   • There is good evidence for the state of the Qu’ranic text at the end of the 7th century

1. The purpose of the study is to call attention to the types of evidence Wansbrough did not take into account, that contradicts the historical conclusions:
2. Qu’ranic inscriptions w/ Abd al-Malik’s long inscriptions at Dome of the Rock:

More:

Conclusion: