Oldest Quran pages dating back to the time of the Prophet found in UK

[Manzareh]

What may be the world's oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.

Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.

The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century.

The British Library's expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, said this "exciting discovery" would make Muslims "rejoice".
The manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the world.



Oldest texts
When a PhD researcher, Alba Fedeli, looked more closely at these pages it was decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were "startling".

The university's director of special collections, Susan Worrall, said researchers had not expected "in our wildest dreams" that it would be so old.

"Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting."

The tests, carried out by the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, showed that the fragments, written on sheep or goat skin, were among the very oldest surviving texts of the Koran.

These tests provide a range of dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.

"They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam," said David Thomas, the university's professor of Christianity and Islam.


Full article and Video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33436021

[Badlun]

You see a lot of words obliterated. many words are not illegible and not given in the proper Arabic written below. I don't know how at that time when proper writing material were not available, such huge book was preserved word by word?

[Damir9000]

How can you carbon date a piece of paper? Doesn't it already compose of materials which existed long prior?

[Damir9000]

You see a lot of words obliterated. many words are not illegible and not given in the proper Arabic written below. I don't know how at that time when proper writing material were not available, such huge book was preserved word by word?

Lately, I've been reading on the subject about how the Quran was edited.

[Badlun]

Lately, I've been reading on the subject about how the Quran was edited.

Share your findings please

[Brown Skinned Savage]

You see a lot of words obliterated. many words are not illegible and not given in the proper Arabic written below. I don't know how at that time when proper writing material were not available, such huge book was preserved word by word?

Really? It must be you, your eyes must be failing. Because I can read that pretty well.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

How can you carbon date a piece of paper? Doesn't it already compose of materials which existed long prior?

Well carbon dating works by observing the rate of radioisotopic decay. At different stages in time. Different Mole Units of the Isotope will be present. Hence while the material itself maybe older, the Radioisotopic concentration given a certain rate of decay, will leave behind its remnants at a certain number of units which would indicate a certain era when the material was used & formed into paper & scribed upon.

Pretty basic, I would say

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/12/09/3088319.htm

[Damir9000]

Well carbon dating works by observing the rate of radioisotopic decay. At different stages in time. Different Mole Units of the Isotope will be present. Hence while the material itself maybe older, the Radioisotopic concentration given a certain rate of decay, will leave behind its remnants at a certain number of units which would indicate a certain era when the material was used & formed into paper & scribed upon.

Pretty basic, I would say

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...09/3088319.htm

Couldn't the paper be made long before it was written upon?

[Manzareh]

[MENTION=1034]Badlun[/MENTION] this just PROVES the Quran has not been changed at all. Not a single letter is different. Sorry but not sorry lol

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Couldn't the paper be made long before it was written upon?

What about the ink?

[Brown Skinned Savage]

By the way, I don't see where words were removed It just looks like Ink in certain spots bleeding into the fibers of paper which is very common in ancient types of paper or parchments that have not been chemically treated. That could simply be just the scribe dipped too much ink onto the pen and was too much for the parchment fibers to retain over time.

I actually have old books where I see much of that happening. And that's from relatively modern printing from Asia

[Damir9000]

What about the ink?

"The Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran required a great many of them."

It doesn't really say much when they can simply buy them from others.
I am sure they could afford it with all their spoils of war.

[Damir9000]

[MENTION=1034]Badlun[/MENTION] this just PROVES the Quran has not been changed at all. Not a single letter is different. Sorry but not sorry lol

Finding old parts of the Quran doesn't mean that the rest of Quran wasn't altered.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

"The Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran required a great many of them."

It doesn't really say much when they can simply buy them from others.
I am sure they could afford it with all their spoils of war.

Not sure how this is relevant, but Ink when binding with parchment has certain colloidal properties. So they'd have to carbon date not just the parchment but the ink bonded with the parchment fibers.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Finding old parts of the Quran doesn't mean that the rest of Quran wasn't altered.

But it lends evidence that it was very UNLIKELY the case. Unless you want to develop a conspiracy theory. There would be no prior motive to forge one part and keep others in tact, since they had no clue that in the future Carbon Testing would exist.

I mean even we take the conspiracy theoristic approach, That would mean that these people had visions of the future. That in itself would be impressive and something to explore