When the Prophet, sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, died and Abu Bakr, may Allaah be pleased with him, succeeded him, it was Hafsah, may Allaah be pleased with her, who was chosen to keep the first copy of the Noble Quran. I want to know what the following means: it was Hafsa who was chosen to keep the first copy of the Noble Quran.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

It is known that Abu Bakr was the first to collect the Quran – and this was proposed by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab – when too many Companions who memorized the Quran by heart were killed during the wars of apostasy. So the Companions agreed with Abu Bakr on this. At the time of the Prophet the Quran was not collected in one mus-haf (a single volume).

After the death of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar the Quran was kept with Hafsah as recommended by her father ('Umar).

Zayd ibn Thaabit narrated the story of the collection of the Quran by Abu Bakr, that the Mus-haf was with Abu Bakr when he was alive and then with ‘Umar when he was alive until he passed away, and then this was reassigned to Hafsah bint ‘Umar. [Al-Bukhari]

Fat-h al-Baari reads, "The saying (and then it was reassigned to Hafsah bint ‘Umar) means after the death of ‘Umar, during the Caliphate of ‘Uthmaan, when the latter took up the writing of the mus-haf. It was kept at Hafsah’s house as recommended by ‘Umar. So, the collection of the mus-haf that was taking place at the time of ‘Umar was kept with Hafsah until the ruler of the Muslims requested the mus-haf from her." [End of quote]

For more benefit, please refer to fataawa 84558and 83643.

Allaah knows best.