Oldest surviving Qu'ran fragments found?

Frank Grimes

Thought this might be of interest to some readers here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ancient-koran-found-at-birmingham-university-may-have-belonged-to-prophet-mohammed-s-friend-and-a6783886.html

I remember reading something about this over the summer when it was unearthed in the university, they knew it was old but if the radiocarbon dating is accurate it is really old.

The Independent wrote:

An ancient copy of the Koran found at the University of Birmingham this summer may have belonged to Abu Bakr, one of the world’s first ever Muslims.

Radiocarbon dating carried out in July found the fragments to be at least 1,370-years-old, raising the possibility that it could be the oldest copy of the Islamic holy book in existence.

Tom Dunne

Fascinating find, they think it might be part of the same Koran that's in a library in France.

One note on the radiocarbon dating- the BBC pointed out that the dating is of the hide on which the words were written, not when the words themselves were written.

However, on the balance of probabilities, chances are there can't be much of a time difference.

Frank Grimes

Tom Dunne wrote: »

One note on the radiocarbon dating- the BBC pointed out that the dating is of the hide on which the words were written, not when the words themselves were written.

However, on the balance of probabilities, chances are there can't be much of a time difference.

I was thinking about this earlier; whilst I don't have any knowledge of writing methods/practices in Arabia at that point in time I would be curious to know if they kept stocks of hides/parchments/whatever (thus making the dating of the document more problematic) or would have just 'made to order' thus making the radiocarbon dating putting it around the time of the actual writing of the document.

Given what is known via the traditional accounts of the lead up to the codifying of the Qu'ran under Uthman (i.e. when any of it was written down it seemed to be on anything they had to hand) I would hazard a guess (but that's all it is, a guess) that they didn't have such stocks available to them, in great quantities at least. I think this will be a diversion for me over the weekend; I must do a search through the academic journals, there is bound to be research on this.