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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Of course, like all religions, those that are adherence to Islam will deny that this is possible, just like Christians deny real facts about the time of 2100 years ago.
Carbon dating the pages found in an British Museum, so that excerpts from the Quran existed earlier then what Muslims consider Mohammad to have had his revelations.
Obviously, that would turn that religions perspective upside down.
Seems to be a fair bit of hedging in the article with the use of words like "suggest" and "may." I think unless they can pin down the date with a smaller margin of error it'll make for a short-lived ripple in the theological pond.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,922,771 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TroutDude
Seems to be a fair bit of hedging in the article with the use of words like "suggest" and "may." I think unless they can pin down the date with a smaller margin of error it'll make for a short-lived ripple in the theological pond.
The fact that they're even indications that the segments that they have are older then Muhammad, is significant.
Just like the Shroud of Turin, this will likely be argued for decades to come.
The best indicator of the age is the script used. Arabic did not have a written script until the 6th Century. At which time various alphabets began evolving. If the picture is an actual picture of the fragment the Script is late Hijazi the fragments are from Surah Ta-Ha and is Meccan revealed in the 5th year of Muhammad(saws) revelation of the Qur'an. which would be the year 614 CE.
The flowing form of the letters are very late Hijazi script almost certainly after 610 CE but before the use of the Kufic script which did not come into use until the mid to late 7th century.
The Time of the script is well within the time frame of 568 A.D. and 645 A.D and the script does indicate a date after 610 AD but before 700 AD
Radiocarbon analysis carried out by experts at the University of Oxford dated the parchment on which the Koran text was written to the period between 568 A.D. and 645 A.D. with an estimated accuracy of 95.4 percent, according to a release by the University of Birmingham.
This means that the “Birmingham Koran” fragment, part of the Cadbury Research Library’s Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, could be the oldest Koran manuscript known.
The two parchment leaves consist of parts of Suras (Chapters) 18 to 20 of the Koran written with ink in Hijazi, an early form of Arabic script. The two parchment leaves, made from animal skin, were discovered bound with leaves of a Koran manuscript from the seventh century. Researchers believe that a scribe put the separate scripts together because the Hijazi script on the parchment was similar to the script on the more recent copy.
Surah Ta-Ha is surah 20, The start of it is right after the separation line on the fragment.
Notice the last line in the quote above. The library initially thought it was in the later Kufic script. the Hijazi script from AFTER 610 to about 645 is very difficult to differentiate from the Kufic, which was used from about 650-900 AD
Hijazi before 600 had no flowing lines it was written in straight lines with few Curves. It is quite difficult to read until the later versions which is very similar to the Kufic which became the common script for the Qur'an until the development of the more flowery Thuluth. script which most of today's Qur'ans use. If you can read Thuluth you can read Kufuic and the late era Hijazi is very similar to Kufic.
While I will accept the script as being very late Hijazi, it actually resembles some of the scripts much later than the Kufic it was mistaken for. To the point it could be mistaken for 12th century Andalusi
But it almost certainly was not written before 610.
Side note:
Parchment was quite expensive. I suspect it is probable that blank sheets would have been passed on generation to generation until somebody found something worth writing on them. I believe it is probable some writings were done on parchment that was over 100 years old.
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