Some twenty years later a second recension was ordered by the Khalif ´Othmán. Slight varieties of reading, mainly dialectal, had arisen; swords were near being drawn over them; and it was evident that a serious schism would come about if a uniform authorised text of the Ḳur-án were not provided. These slight dialectal differences were not sufficiently settled, it would seem, in Aboo-Bekr’s edition, so this new recension was made by Zeyd and three men of the Ḳureysh, for they would best know the original dialect of the Ḳur-án. The new edition followed the first one, apparently, both in order and in matter; definitely fixing, however, the true text in the dialect of the Ḳureysh, and possibly adding any verses that might have been discovered since Zeyd’s first edition. This second recension was conducted with the same careful fidelity and scrupulous impartiality as the first; and it was accepted by all the different parties that were then disputing the supremacy. Copies of this edition were then distributed to the principal cities of the empire, and the old copies and fragments were called-in and burned. This edition of ´Othmán, made about A.D. 660, is the one that has ever since been the authorised and only version of the Ḳur-án throughout the Muslim world and in the studies of European linguists. The only differences that have since crept into the text are certain unimportant varieties in vocalisation and orthography and in the division of verses. It was a singular system these early revisers went upon. They seem, indeed, to have established the authenticity of each saying satisfactorily; but in the arrangement of them they showed an extraordinary dulness. The tradition of the year when each revelation was spoken appears to have been lost even in the short time that had elapsed since it had been spoken. People remembered the words, but seldom the occasion of the words. Hence the revisers had to devise an artificial order; not according to subject, nor after the development of the style, but simply in order of length! They put the longest chapters first and the shortest last; that is to say, they inverted, roughly speaking, the true order, for the early soorahs were short and the later ones long.