Lexical Analysis and Criticism of Orientalists' Claim about the Small Number of Quran Memorizers Qur'an in the Age of Revelation

According to Muslims, the Qur'an has been narrated by many people from the prophetic era to the present time in every generation, and this is the best reason for its non-distortion. But on the other hand, some orientalists and even Muslims who believe in the distortion of the Qur'an have claimed that, contrary to this popular belief, only a small number of the Companions were the memorizers of the Qur'an, and with this small number, the historical authenticity of this book can't be verified. In order to examine this claim, the present article has first assessed the possibility of the small number of Quran memorizers in the era of revelation and then identified the words indicating the action of memorizing the Quran in the era of revelation. In the end, the narrations cited by the deniers of the historical authenticity of the Qur'an were examined and it was found that words such as "Jama", "Akhz" and "Haml" used in these narrations, at the time of its revelation did not mean "memorizing the Qur'an". Therefore, there is no reason for the small number of Qur'an memorizers in the Prophetic era.