Concepts are the abstracted forms of events, facts, and creatures in mind. The expression of the concepts in languages is called term or word in the logic science. Besides, Words are the basic units of the language, and every word indicates several meanings. But meanings have no existence outside. In this case, a word won't be able to imply a fact or an event outside directly because the facts and the events don't exist in mind. Then, we ought to ask how a word can signify an event that is outside of the mind with its meanings inside of the mind. In this instance, our mind abstracts this event and transforms it into a concept. After that, it correlates the event with the meanings of the word. Thus, we can understand that event, and additionally, describe and transfer it to another person.
Still, for understanding each other, the concepts in the minds of persons must be the same once they use a word that implies that concept. Likewise, when a person reads a book, he cannot understand the purpose of the writer if the concepts in their minds refer to a different fact or event. So, if we want to comprehend a term like Jam‘ al-Qur'ân in the classics, the writer and we have to have the same concepts in both minds across the same words.
At this point, another significant issue is the translation of the terms, and the same circumstances are valid here as well. In the translations, there must be only one concept in opposition to two words. That's not quite easy but necessary because if the concepts that these two words indicate are different, then understanding wouldn't be possible. Therefore, translating a term, in such a manner that the concepts of the two words would be the same, is essential to reach the right conclusion in the scientific researches.
Currently, in the Turkish tafsir literature, the term jam‘ al-Qur'ân has been used only for the collection in the period of Abû Bakr, a senior companion of the Prophet, and the first caliph after him. However, when we analyze the resources about the history of the Qur'ân and tafsir, it appears that the Qur'ân was collected three times, and the term of Jam‘ al-Qur'ân implies three distinctive concepts.
The first event that the term Jam‘ al-Qur'ân refers to is the compilation of verses in surahs by the instructions of the Prophet Mohammad. In the period of the revelation of the Qur'ân, verses had been revealing from time to time which is called "tancîm al-Qur'ân". Besides, once a verse was revealed, the Prophet Mohammad was calling one of his scribes and making him write the verse to a specific location in the surah which it belongs to. But, if that's not possible because of conditions, the verses had been written on different materials. Afterward, these verses had been collected according to their surahs in another material once the circumstances allow. That is the first collection of the Qur'ân.
The second event that the term of jam‘ al-Qur'ân signifies is the compilation of the Qur'ân between two covers in the period of Abû Bakr. In this period, most of the companions of the Prophet who had memorized the Qur'ân had been martyred at the battle of Yamâma. In this situation, the Caliph Abû Bakr, upon the insistence of his successor ‘Umar who had worried about the possible waste of the Qur'ân, had decided to collect the Qur'ânic pieces into one book between two covers. That is the second collection of the Qur'ân.
The third and last event is to unite the variants of the recitation of the Qur'ân in the period of the third Caliph ‘Uthmân. By this time, Muslims were allowed to recite the Qur'ân according to the pronunciation of their dialect. But, after a while, some serious disputes had begun to appear between them because of these diversities. Consequently, ‘Uthmân decided to standardize the recitation of the Qur'ân into one dialect. So, that is the third concept that the term of jam‘ al-Qur'ân indicates.
Nevertheless, In the studies about tafsir and the history of the Qur'ân by the Turkish language, there is no single term to imply all these three concepts of collections of the Qur'ân at a time. Generally, every one of these concepts has been indicated by terms like "toplanma", "derleme", "istinsah", "çoğaltma" which have meanings like collection, compilation, and copying the texts. Besides, some of these terms are incapable of signifying even only one of these three concepts accurately and appropriately. So, in this article, we suggested the Turkish term "birleştirme" that is capable of referring all these three concepts of Jam‘ al-Qur'ân.