‘STARTLING’ DISCOVERY Fragments of early Koran found at UK university

These parchment folios are among the world’s earliest written forms of the Islamic holy book, with radiocarbon analysis placing them between 568 and 645 AD. This not only traces them to within a few years of the founding of Islam, but to someone who might have even known the Prophet Mohammad, whose lifespan fell between these years.

The manuscript which had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents was tested using radiocarbon dating at a lab at the University of Oxford.

For many years the leaves were misbound with similar manuscripts dating from the late seventh century. The manuscript is written on an animal skin parchment, goat, calf or sheep, two researchers in religion, David Thomas and Nadir Dinshaw said in the press release, and consists of two leaves.

This means it was created close to the time of the Prophet Mohammed, who is generally thought to have lived between AD 570 and 632 AD, they said. According to Muslim belief, Muhammad received the divine revelations that later became the Qur’an between 610 and 632 CE. British Library s expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, Lead Curator for Persian and Turkish Manuscripts at the British Library, said this “exciting discovery” would make Muslims “rejoice”.

The manuscripts are written with ink in Hijazi – an early form of Arabic.

Describing it as a “startling result”, he added that the text is “very similar indeed to the Quran as we have it today”. She convinced the university to have the document sent out for radiocarbon testing, which revealed that the text was old enough to have been transcribed by a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad.

The university says that the Quran fragments will be on display at the Barber Institute in Birmingham in October, with the chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque expecting it to attract people from all over Britain.

The researchers hailed the discovery as being of particular significance to Birmingham because the city is culturally diverse with a large Muslim population. Caliph Abu Bakr, the first leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad, ordered the collection of all Quranic material in the form of a book. Parts were written on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels, he said.

“We know now that these two folios, in a lovely and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, nearly certainly date from the time of the first three Caliphs”.

“I’m very excited. This Quran is a great discovery and I would like to see it as it’s been written long ago and it’d be a great experience for me to see”, added 12-year-old Abdurrahman as he left lunchtime prayers. The carbon dating evidence, then, indicates that Birmingham’s Cadbury Research Library is home to some precious survivors that – in view of the Suras included – would once have been at the centre of a Mushaf from that period.

The 1,370-year-old Quran is thought to be the earliest in existence.