London – Scholars said on Wednesday in London that tests has suggested that the pages from the Holy Qur’an held by a British university could be the oldest surviving copy of the religious text.
They said this would give it global significance to Muslim heritage and the study of Islam.
A team from the University of Birmingham said Radiocarbon analysis found the parchment on which the text was written dated from 568 to 645, with 95 per cent accuracy.
Susan Worrall, Director of the University’s Special Collections, said the tests had “delivered an exciting result, which contributes significantly to our understanding of the earliest written copies of the Holy Qur’an.
“We are thrilled that such an important historical document is here in Birmingham, the most culturally diverse city in the UK’’.
Worrall said the two parchment leaves, which have text written in an ancient Arabic script known as Hijazi, had been mistakenly bound with other pages dating back to the late 7th century.
Brian Thomas, a Professor of Inter-Religious Relations at the University, said the findings could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam.
He said according to Muslim tradition, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) received the revelations of the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam, between the years AD 610 and 632, the year of his death.
Thomas said the Prophet’s teachings were initially transmitted orally, but some of them were recorded on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels.
He said the authoritative written form of the Qur’an was fixed around 650 under Caliph Uthman, the third religious leader after Muhammad (PBUH).
“Muslims believe that the Qur’an they read today was the same text that was standardised under Uthman and regard it as the exact record of the revelations that were delivered to Muhammad (PBUH).
The university plans to put the manuscript on public display in October. (dpa/NAN)
