The 'Birmingham Koran' fragment that could shake Islam after carbon-dating suggests it is OLDER

[Warren Stupidity]

than the Prophet Muhammad.

* Fragments of the oldest Koran were discovered last month in Birmingham
* Carbon dating found the pages were produced between 568AD and 654AD
* But several historians now say that the parchment may predate Muhammad
* They believe that this discovery could rewrite the early history of Islam

Fragments of the world's oldest Koran, found in Birmingham last month, may predate the Prophet Muhammad and could even rewrite the early history of Islam, according to scholars.

The pages, thought to be between 1,448 and 1,371 years old, were discovered bound within the pages of another Koran from the late seventh century at the library of the University of Birmingham.

Written in ink in an early form of Arabic script on parchment made from animal skin, the pages contain parts of the Suras, or chapters, 18 to 20, which may have been written by someone who actually knew the Prophet Muhammad - founder of the Islamic faith.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3216627/Koran-Birmingham-thought-oldest-world-predate-Prophet-Muhammad-scholars-say.html#ixzz3kU8YjcCp
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The dates at the moment simply overlap, with the low end for the book making it impossible for the text to have come from the alleged prophet.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I'm going to guess that at best it will be treated as a fraud.

At worst, it will get a fatwa or two going against those who found it and dated it...

[Warren Stupidity]

2. the book is unlikely to be a fraud

but yes of course the true believers are immune to evidence. That is not the way religious belief works. It starts from knowledge, revealed knowledge, and then adds layers of explanation onto the original revelations to accommodate inconvenient facts.

[Human101948]

3. This was an early draft...

Allah never meant it to be published.

[trotsky]

4. No facts can ever overturn deeply-held religious beliefs.

One of the most brilliant defense mechanisms the meme of religion ever developed. Belief is greater than facts.

[brush]

5. How could it pre-date Muhammad if written by someone who knew Muhammad?

"Written in ink in an early form of Arabic script on parchment made from animal skin, the pages contain parts of the Suras, or chapters, 18 to 20, which may have been written by someone who actually knew the Prophet Muhammad - founder of the Islamic faith."

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. I speak Daily Mail. I'll translate it for you:

Some historians believe the text predates Muhammad. Others believe it to have been written by Muhammad's friend.

[trotsky]

7. Hahaha

Well done.

[brush]

8. Well that clears that up.

[Thor_MN]

15. Muhammad is generally believed to have been illiterate.

It's likely to be a case of Medina Parchment, Inc. not rotating their stock.

"Dammit Ali, I told you to clear the warehouse. I just found blank parchments whose "best by" date was 150 freaking years ago!!"

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Rule #1: if a story is anything other than straightforward, don't accept the Mail's version

They can be quite slapdash, and when Islam is involved, they can also be biased. What we need is a report from a reliable news organisation, or a random blogger (one picked at random is more likely to be reliable than the Mail, unless they get their information from the Mail).

Here's what the University of Birmingham said:

Consisting of two parchment leaves, the Qur’an manuscript contains parts of Suras (chapters) 18 to 20, written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi. For many years, the manuscript had been misbound with leaves of a similar Qur’an manuscript, which is datable to the late seventh century.
...
‘According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam, between the years AD 610 and 632, the year of his death. At this time, the divine message was not compiled into the book form in which it appears today. Instead, the revelations were preserved in “the memories of men”. Parts of it had also been written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels. Caliph Abu Bakr, the first leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad, ordered the collection of all Qur’anic material in the form of a book. The final, authoritative written form was completed and fixed under the direction of the third leader, Caliph Uthman, in about AD 650.

‘Muslims believe that the Qur’an they read today is the same text that was standardised under Uthman and regard it as the exact record of the revelations that were delivered to Muhammad.

‘The tests carried out on the parchment of the Birmingham folios yield the strong probability that the animal from which it was taken was alive during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad or shortly afterwards. This means that the parts of the Qur’an that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad’s death. These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Qur’an read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.’

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2015/07/quran-manuscript-22-07-15.aspx

Abu Bakr died in 634. So it's quite possible for these 2 pages to be a product of his decision to get something written in a book. Unless the Islamic tradition says that Uthman's version contradicted Abu Bakr's, this seems a non-controversy.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. That appears to be not updated.

This story broke yesterday. The dating range now extends to a period of time that would make the source not Mohammed. I agree the mail sucks. The times sucks only slightly less and is behind a paywall. Hopefully better information will be forthcoming.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The only addition in the Mail story is comments from historians

and as far as I can tell, that's all The Times added too - someone saying "these time periods are tight". It took them a month to notice, or to notice and get a newspaper to bother printing what they said.

" The dating range now extends to a period of time that would make the source not Mohammed. "

In what way? The Mail still said "between 568AD and 645AD" (it had a misprint of '654AD' in its bullet points, but that's the Mail for you - Birmingham University confirms the dating said 568 to 645, with 95.4% accuracy). That leaves at least 11 years from Abu Bakr saying 'write it down' to the animal to be killed (and thus stop eating carbon 14 from respiring plants, which is where the date comes from), and maybe a bit more time for the parchment to get written on.

All the historians are saying is "well, it's also possible this was written while he was alive". Well, yes, that was possible before this measurement, as well. This measurement has excluded (or cut down to a one in 20 or so chance) that the parchment comes from before 568, or after 645.

[Leontius]

13. There is also the problem of if the writing is the original and only thing on the parchment.

Reuse was common the original text may have been scraped off and the parchment recopied with its current text.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. I would imagine that if they got around to C14 dating, they would have examined it

for signs of scraping too.

[gcomeau]

11. Meh

Saw this yesterday elsewhere, and while I like a good religious debunking as much as anyone this seems like a non-event.

The reported dates are the 2 sigma confidence level, so still 5% chance the real date falls a little outside them. And even if it doesn't they're not dating when the book was written but rather setting an early limit on when the materials that the book was written on were created... and for that the dates reported aren't terribly problematic.

If they'd been another 100 years back I'd say Islam had issues (On this particular point, not that it doesn't have *plenty* of other issues). This? Not even a speedbump.

[edhopper]

16. Islam will simply do

What Christianity did with the Gospels they didn't like,ignore it.