England – Professor David Thomas described the nine pages of the Holy Qur’an written on goatskin parchment, discovered on July 22, 2015, which is the oldest manuscript of its kind discovered, as “an unparalleled treasure.”
The precious manuscript, which consists of parts of the Holy Qur’an, was found among manuscripts that were stored at the University of Birmingham in Britain. This amazing discovery was at least a hundred years late, as this manuscript had been kept in the university library for nearly a century. It is part of a collection consisting of about 3,000 Eastern books and documents, which was transferred by the Assyrian theologian Alphonsus Mangana in 1920 to the University of Birmingham, and preserved there in the library. Mangana was the patron of the Chaldean Monastery located near the Iraqi city of Mosul.
The Qur’anic verses in this manuscript were written in the Hijazi script, which is considered the first Arabic script. The manuscript remained in the library’s warehouses until it caught the attention of a graduate student at the university. The surprise that astonished everyone came from the results of the radiocarbon analysis.
A study conducted at the Department of Radiocarbon Technology at the University of Oxford showed that the Qur’anic text was written on pieces of sheep or goat skin. This examination determined the age of the manuscript with 95 percent accuracy, showing that it was written in the period between 568 and 645 AD, making it perhaps the oldest Qur’anic copy in the world to date.
British Library manuscript expert Dr. Muhammad Issa Wali commented on this exceptional event by saying, “This amazing discovery will bring happiness to the hearts of Muslims.”
Professor David Thomas, a specialist in Christianity and Islam, said at the time that “these texts can take us back to the early years of Islam,” pointing out that the biography of the Prophet Muhammad indicates that the revelation was sent down to the Messenger between the years 610 and 632 AD, and that the possible age of the Birmingham manuscript means that it was written. In the time of the Prophet.
The specialist professor also pointed out that “these parts of the Qur’an that were found can be dated with a certain degree of certainty to less than two decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.”
Experts point out that radiocarbon technology does not determine the exact date, but it gives a possible time range for writing the text, and therefore it is impossible to say with certainty that this or that document from ancient manuscripts is the world’s oldest copy of the Holy Quran. However, the Birmingham version, which analyzes have shown to date back to 645 AD, is one of the oldest copies of the Qur’an.
The famous expert on Persian and Turkish manuscripts at the British Library, Dr. Muhammad Issa Wali, points out that copies of the “final version” of the Holy Qur’an were distributed during the reign of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, and that the manuscript discovered in Birmingham is a precious preserved remnant of those initial copies, and perhaps even Before that era.
On the other hand, experts, including Saudis, doubt that the Birmingham manuscript was written during the life of the Prophet Muhammad, given that it was written with a chapter design indicating the end of the verses and using colored ink.
Moreover, given its appearance, researchers from the Islamic world suggest that this manuscript was written in the Umayyad era. In this context, Suleiman Berk, a Turkish specialist in Islamic art, points out that the writing style in the Birmingham manuscript dates back to the Umayyad era, the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century, adding that many samples of manuscripts from that period are found in museums.
Source: RT
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2024-04-10 15:27:55