Due to Uthman's systematic destruction of the early Quranic
manuscripts, very little evidence remains of what the great pre-
Uthmanic Quran teachers taught. Much of what we know has been
saved through quotations and traditions faithfully recorded by
early Muslim authors such as Ibn Abi Daud (none other than the
son of Abu Daud, compiler of one of the collections of sahih
sittah). As fortunate as we are to have these records of early
variants, very little can replace the power and poignancy of
manuscript evidence. As fate would have it, however, a
palimpsest was discovered which contained a few notable
similarities to the supposed Ibn Masud manuscripts. (A
palimpsest is a manuscript which has been washed out and written
over; the original text can still be examined, however, via UV
light imaging methods). Within this manuscript are no less than
seven types of variances from the standard texts of today: 1 -
Different sequences of words 2 - Omissions 3 - Different words 4
- Orthographical variants 5 - Scribal err