Fragment of the Oldest Copy of Qur'an
A fragment of a Koran manuscript is seen in the library at the University of Birmingham in Britain July 22, 2015. A British university said on Wednesday that fragments of a Koran manuscript found in its library were from one of the oldest surviving copies of the Islamic text in the world, possibly written by someone who might have known Prophet Mohammad. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the parchment folios held by the University of Birmingham in central England were at least 1,370 years old, which would make them one of the earliest written forms of the Islamic holy book in existence. Reuters

A university in United Kingdom has unveiled the world’s oldest copy of the Qur’an. The University of Birmingham found an Islamic manuscript held in the university library for almost a century was made between the year 568 and 645 AD, and researchers say may have been transcribed by a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad.

Scholars were unaware of the significance of the said ancient manuscript kept in the university’s library for nearly a century, researchers said, until Alba Fedeli, a researcher studying for her doctorate at that time, recognised the calligraphy of the fragment was different from another Qur’anic manuscript from a later date.

According to a press release posted on Wednesday, Fedeli’s observations prompted the university to submit the manuscript to Oxford University for radiocarbon testing. The university added that the manuscript was kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents for many years at the time of the discovery, attached to a similar Qur’an manuscript made in the late seventh century.

The fragments, according to Oxford’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, were written on a sheep or goat skin, and the results of the tests showed that it was among the oldest surviving texts of the Qur’an, aged at least 1,370 years old. The researchers also believe the two parchments contain parts of Suras or chapters 18 to 20 of an ancient Islamic book written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi.

The Oxford laboratory uses carbon dating to accurately determine the age of the goat or sheep whose skin was used as the parchment. Radiocarbon dating is used to provide a range of dates of archaeological specimens, and identifying human and wildlife tissues. The methods works in determining how long an object has been existent.

But recent reports show radiocarbon dating is under question in classifying new materials from artefacts that are hundreds of years old because of the growing emissions of fossil fuels in the atmosphere. The emissions dilute radioactive carbons that make modern materials age hundred years older.

Professor David Thomas, a professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham, said the tests conducted by the Oxford laboratory indicated the probability of 95 percent the ink in the parchment was written between 568 and 645 AD. The researchers then opined that the manuscript may be created close to the time of Prophet Mohammed, who is generally thought to have lived between AD 570 and 632 AD. The prophet Mohammed is considered in Islam as the messenger and prophet sent by God to guide humanity.

The ancient manuscript, as noted by Thomas, has text very similar to what is found in the present-day Qur’an, adding that it may link to the actual founding of Islam. "This tends to support the view that the Qur’an that we now have is more or less very close indeed to the Qur’an as it was brought together in the early years of Islam," he said.

After the discovery, the university decided to put in Otober the Qur’an manuscript on public display at Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

To contact the writer, email: darwin.malicdem@ibtimes.tunemedia.biz

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