Zayd bin Thabit said, "I used to write down the revelation for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Whenever revelation descended upon him, he would be seized by intense distress and break out in a heavy sweat like beads of pearl. Then it would leave him.I would come in to him with a piece of a camel's saddle or a fragment of bone and write while he dictated to me. By the time I finished, my leg would nearly break from the weight of the Quran, until I would say to myself that I would never walk on my leg again.When I finished, he would say, 'Recite it.' So I would recite it back, and if there was any error in it, he would correct it. Then I would go out with it to the people."
كنت أكتب الوحي لرسول الله ﷺ وكان إذا نزل عليه، أخذته برحاء شديدة، وعرق عرقا شديدا مثل الجمان، ثم سري عنه، فكنت أدخل عليه بقطعة القتب أو كسرة، فأكتب، وهو يملي علي، فما أفرغ حتى تكاد رجلي تنكسر من ثقل القرآن، وحتى أقول لا أمشي على رجلي أبدا، فإذا فرغت قال: اقرأه فأقرأه، فإن كان فيه سقط أقامه، ثم أخرج به إلى الناس.
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Fasawi narrated it in Marifah wa Tarikh (1/377), and Tabarani in Kabir (5/157) and in Awsat - Majmaal-Bahrayn (233), both of them through the route of Abu Tahir Ahmad bin Amr bin Sarh, who said, I found in the book of my maternal uncle, "Aqeel (that is, Ibn Khalid Ayli) narrated to me, Saeed bin Sulayman narrated to me, from his father Sulayman bin Zayd, from his grandfather Zayd bin Thabit," who said, and he mentioned it.Its isnad is hasan because of Sulayman bin Zayd bin Thabit Ansari, from whom a group of narrators transmitted, and Ibn Hibban mentioned him in Thiqat. The maternal uncle of Ahmad bin Amr bin Sarh is Abdul-Rahman bin Abdul-Hameed bin Salim Mahri, who is trustworthy, and Abu Dawud affirmed his trustworthiness. As for Saeed bin Sulayman bin Zayd bin Thabit, Nasai affirmed his trustworthiness, and Abu Hatim said, "Sound in hadith," and Ibn Hibban mentioned him in his Thiqat.Haythami said in Majma (1/381), "Tabarani narrated it in Awsat, and its narrators are deemed trustworthy, except that it contains the phrase 'I found in the book of my maternal uncle,' which makes it a wijada." I say, wijada that can be relied upon is one of the accepted modes of transmission according to the majority, and this is an instance of it. Ahmad bin Sarh did hear from his maternal uncle Abdul-Rahman bin Abdul-Hameed in general, as is shown in Mujam al-Kabir by Tabarani (2/192) and Shuab al-Iman by Bayhaqi (5201).The Prophet ﷺ did not die except that the entire Quran had already been written down on sheets, tablets, and palm-leaf stalks (the stripped ribs of palm branches) in the house of prophethood, though it had not yet been gathered into a single volume. This was because the Prophet ﷺ remained only a few months after returning from the Farewell Pilgrimage, and so he did not have the opportunity to compile it into a single volume. Abu Bakr then gathered it into a single volume, as will be mentioned later.Khattabi and others said, it is possible that the reason the Prophet ﷺ did not compile the Quran into a single volume was that he was still anticipating the possible arrival of something abrogating some of its rulings or its recitation. When its revelation came to an end with his death, Allah inspired the rightly guided caliphs to undertake that task, fulfilling His true promise to guarantee its preservation. Fath al-Bari (9/12).