Islam critiqued is truly sceptical; why write Quran if memorization is best?

In answer to the video "Perfect Preservation of the Quran is a Modern Invention"

Even at that point when Muslims felt the need to securize the written Quran, and when it was achieved, it neither diminished nor discouraged the process of memorization, so much so that even today Muslims can count in their ranks thousands of huffaz. Just as the prophet greatly encouraged the act of memorizing the Quran, after him, Memorizers were held in high esteem by the people. Some women even asked to be taught the Quran instead of receiving their dower of marriage as reported in (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasai, al Taj).

The Prophet used to recite different passages from the revealed text while leading the daily prayers and declared the process of memorising the Book an act of great virtue, in countless traditions. The phenomenon reached a point that some Companions went to the extreme of reciting the whole book in one night. However, when the Prophet was informed, he asked them not to seal the Quran in less than three days or a week. (Al Nasai, al Musnad). The prophet said; 

"Whoever completes a recitation of the Quran, it is as if he has reached the station of prophethood except that he does not receive revelation"(Usul al-Kafi) 

"The nobles of my nation are those who bear the Qur'an (in their hearts), and the people of the night (who worship Allah during the hours of darkness)"  

"The number of stations in the garden of Paradise corresponds to the number of verses of the Qur’an. When someone who knows the Qur’an enters the garden he will be told: ‘Recite and for every verse ascend a station.’ There will be no station higher than he who has memorised the entire Qur’an".

Many other traditions show the constant encouragement from the prophet to take care, write down, memorize and transmit the Quran to all members of the society men, women and even children.

"Allah will crown the parents of the one who teaches his child the Quran"  

"The best of you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it"  

"One who teaches his child the Qur’an is like one who has made ten thousand Hajj pilgrimages"  

‘The hearts of men can become rusty just as iron rusts. He was asked: O Messenger of Allah what is their polish? He (S) said: The recitation of the Quran and remembrance of death’

So many of the later-generation Muslims emulated their predecessors in memorising the entire Quran and the number of huffaz increased from generation to generation from an estimated 40 after the prophet's death to hundreds in the next generation and the number continued to swell until now more than 1400 years later we can count hundreds of thousands across the globe with some reciters as young as 10 years old. One cannot but see in this phenomenon, the realisation of the prophecy made 1400 years ago 

54:17"And certainly We have made the Quran easy for remembrance, but is there anyone who will mind?". 

The contemporaries of Muhammad proudly preserved the poems and speeches of the pre­Islamic era so it would be inconceivable for these same people to be careless regarding their personal copies of the great Book whose laws they proclaimed, for which they had staked their lives, left their homes, spent their wealth, abandoned their families and children.

Abu Bakr's collection, as stated earlier was assembled on loose parchments. It was not compiled in book form and reproduced, up to the time of Uthman. It was meant for safekeeping so as to ensure the availability of a complete and approved written testimony to the Quran. Also, AbuBakr's collection was not meant as a standard by which people should refer to in their recital. And so, until the time of Uthman, people kept using their personal codices and ways of recital. Under Abu Bakr' caliphate, Muslim land had not yet expanded beyond the Peninsula, a territory where people were already familiar with the proper reading and recitation of the Quran. However with the rapid expansions to new lands and people under Umar then Uthman, the complete Uthmanic text, properly ordered and rewritten according to the new rasm (more on that point later), was sent to various provinces along with a memorizer to demonstrate the proper reading. Uthman did so under his caliphate upon receipt of the very first report about variant recitations in the provinces.

As already stated, the differences were dialectical and in the manners of vocalization; and this is what the reporter, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, who was sent on a campaign to Azerbaidjan had noticed on his return march. A plan to tacle the issue was put in place the same year. It is to be noted, recital variations had already been detected and addressed by the previous caliph who had rebuked ibn Masud for accepting to teach in the Hudhail dialect to accommodate some people of Iraq. But by Uthman's time, the variations were more widespread given the expansion of the Muslim empire.

Again, this process of proper Quranic education and memorization of the far provinces had already started under Umar the previous caliph who had been entrusted with Abubakr's compilation. Umar sent teachers that established schools in Kufa, Basra, Syria out of which came 100s of students and future teachers would come out from. The reason that prompted Uthman's Quran project, and Abubakr's before him, is thus very different than having to put a canon together from among conflicting traditions each claiming to be the divine truth. This was the case with Christianity's competing sects like the Marcionites, Ebionites, Gnostics, proto-orthodox (named as such because they were the ones that eventually were adopted by the state) each insisting that they correctly upheld the teachings of Jesus. All were in competition to become the rightful, officially endorsed version.

Uthman's collection was therefore not a new one nor the first, but the second based on Abu Bakr's compilation that was in Hafsa's hands. A lesser known, but complimentary narration suggests that Uthman, prior to requesting Abu Bakr's compilation that was in Hafsa's hands, first commissioned the compilation of a mushaf based on primary, independent sources, including the companions' parchments as well as all material he could gather from Aisha. Only then did he compare that compilation to Abubakr's that was in Hafsa's hands. Both versions agree to Hafsa's suhuf playing a crucial role in the final authentication of Uthman's mushaf.

This secondary narration adds even more strength to the Quran's authenticity as we now have a double compilation effort from 2 different sources (Abu bakr, then Uthman) 10 years appart, each agreeing with one another. Besides spelling mistakes or omissions which are known and documented, the written parts of the Quran originally disseminated among the Muslims confirmed one another. Among those anecdotal spelling mistakes which were detected, hence irrelevant to the process of transmission which is primarily oral, the hadith speak of Uthman asking Ubayy ibn Kaab to check the correct spelling of taghut which was found to be written sometimes with an elongated alef. Uthman then returned the original to Hafsa, further showing that no difference whatsoever existed with Uthman's compilation otherwise he would have simply destroyed Hafsa's copy, as he did with other imperfect copies later on.

According to some reports, he even destroyed his own copy that pre-dated his compilation

"I too had a copy of the Quran but I erased it and am content to rely on this copy".

What further corroborates that Uthman's compilation did not differ from the scattered writings left by the prophet, then collected by Abu Bakr a few month after the prophet's death, is the fact that up to this day, the Uthmani script allows the preservation of all the approved recitations going back to the Prophet.