What may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.
Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.
The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century.
The British Library’s expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, said this “exciting discovery” would make Muslims “rejoice”.
The manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the world.
Oldest texts
When a PhD researcher looked more closely at these pages it was decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were “startling”.
The university’s director of special collections, Susan Worrall, said researchers had not expected “in our wildest dreams” that it would be so old.
“Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting.”
The University of Birmingham’s manuscript was in a collection brought back from the Middle East
The tests, carried out by the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, showed that the fragments, written on sheep or goat skin, were among the very oldest surviving texts of the Koran.
These tests provide a range of dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.
“They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam,” said David Thomas, the university’s professor of Christianity and Islam.
“According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death.”
Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
“The person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him preach. He may have known him personally – and that really is quite a thought to conjure with,” he says.
First-hand witness
Prof Thomas says that some of the passages of the Koran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels – and a final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650.
Prof Thomas says the writer of this manuscript could have heard the Prophet Muhammad preach
He says that “the parts of the Koran 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 Koran 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.”
Susan Worrall says the university wants to put this internationally significant discovery on public display
The manuscript, written in “Hijazi script”, an early form of written Arabic, becomes one of the oldest known fragments of the Koran.
Because radiocarbon dating creates a range of possible ages, there is a handful of other manuscripts in public and private collections which overlap. So this makes it impossible to say that any is definitively the oldest.
But the latest possible date of the Birmingham discovery – 645 – would put it among the very oldest.
‘Precious survivor’
Dr Waley, curator for such manuscripts at the British Library, said “these two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, almost certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs”.
The first three caliphs were leaders in the Muslim community between about 632 and 656.
The fragments of the Koran are still clearly legible
Dr Waley says that under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, copies of the “definitive edition” were distributed.
“The Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran required a great many of them.”
Dr Waley suggests that the manuscript found by Birmingham is a “precious survivor” of a copy from that era or could be even earlier.
“In any case, this – along with the sheer beauty of the content and the surprisingly clear Hijazi script – is news to rejoice Muslim hearts.”
Muhammad Afzal of Birmingham Central Mosque said he was very moved to see the manuscript
The manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq.
He was sponsored to take collecting trips to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty.
The local Muslim community has already expressed its delight at the discovery in their city and the university says the manuscript will be put on public display.
“When I saw these pages I was very moved. There were tears of joy and emotion in my eyes. And I’m sure people from all over the UK will come to Birmingham to have a glimpse of these pages,” said Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque.
Prof Thomas says it will show people in Birmingham that they have a “treasure that is second to none”.
In separate attacks last week, ISIS terrorists killed thirty-nine tourists at a beach resort in Tunisia, and close to thirty worshippers at a Shia Mosque in Kuwait. The onslaught came shortly after the group called on its militant Jihadi sympathizers to expand operations in the month of Ramadan.
ISIS has demonstrated an unflinching determination to take out anyone that dares to disagree with it. Its members have slaughtered Yazidis and Christians, but the vast majority of their victims have been Muslims who resist them and refuse to acknowledge their authority. They have even executed Sunni clerics who refused to swear allegiance to them, and Muslim women who did not submit to their worldview.
This feature is shared across all terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam. The vast majority of the victims of the Taliban, for instance, are also Muslims. Hundreds of Shia Muslims have been killed just in the last few years. And I have lost many close friends in similar attacks on the Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and even in America.
So when some anti-Islam critics keep doggedly associating the faith of us Muslims with the acts of our tormentors, we call them out for their insensitivity.
I do not disagree that part of the motivation for religious extremism is rooted in perverted interpretation of scripture by radical extremists. However, it is dishonest to label the vast majority of Muslims who reject such interpretations as non-devout or ‘nominal.’
An honest study of the Quran shows that groups like ISIS act in complete defiance of the injunctions of Islam. The Quran, for instance, equates one murder to elimination of the whole human race (5:32), and considers persecution and disorder on earth as an even worse offense (2:217). It lays emphasis on peace, justice and human rights. It champions freedom of conscience and forbids worldly punishment for apostasy andblasphemy.
A study of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad also demonstrates that he warned us of the rise of religious extremism in this age in astonishing detail.
1400 years ago, he had prophesized that a time would come when nothing would remain of Islam but its name, nothing of the Quran but its word, and that many “Mosques would be splendidly furnished but destitute of guidance” (Mishkatul Masabih). In these latter days, the true spiritual essence of Islam would be lost, and religion, for the most part, would be reduced to a ritualistic compulsion. He foretold that the clergy would be corrupt and be a source of strife during these times.
How true this is of the extremist clerics in parts of the Muslim world that abuse the pulpit to preach division and hate.
He also went on to describe terrorist groups such as ISIS that would try to hijack the Islamic faith. At this time of dissension, he said there would appear “a group of young people who would be immature in thought and foolish.” They would speak beautiful words but commit the most heinous of deeds. They would engage in so much prayer and fasting that the worship of the Muslims would appear insignificant in comparison. They would call people to the Quran but would have nothing to do with it in reality. The Quran would not go beyond their throats, meaning they wouldn’t understand its essence at all, merely regurgitating it selectively. The Prophet then went on to describe these people as “the worst of the creation.”
As if this outline wasn’t clear enough, another tradition in the book Kitaab Al Fitan reported by Caliph Ali, the fourth successor to Prophet Muhammad, describes these people as having long hair and bearing black flags. Their “hearts will be hard as iron,” and they would be the companions of a State (Ashab ul Dawla). Interestingly, ISIS refers to itself as the Islamic State or Dawla. The tradition further mentions that they will break their covenants, not speak the truth and have names that mention their cities. The ISIS caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi comes to mind.
Prophet Muhammad furiously and painfully described these evildoers, and admonished Muslims to beware of their evil and fight it. “Whoever fights them is better to Allah than them,” he proclaimed.
Reflect on this critical point. Whenever ISIS kills in the name of Islam, claims to follow the Quran, or uses the Holy month of Ramadan to spread anarchy across the globe, know that Prophet Muhammad explicitly warned us of these imposters, and entrusted us to root them out.
The only people who refuse to reflect on this point are ISIS, ISIS sympathizers, and anti-Islam extremists who want the world to believe that ISIS is legitimate. Intelligent people, meanwhile, see Prophet Muhammad’s prophetic wisdom and thus remain united against both ignorance and extremism.
I received a message from a Tipah who is trying hard to promote LKY. According to this Tipah (who claims to study at UIA)
“i done my homework…and sy dapati beberapa perkataan LKY yg sama dgn cara Nabi awak….yg paling ketara ketika Nabi masuki Madinah Baginda menukarkan sistem ekonomi Madinah dari pertanian dan penternakkan kpd perniagaan…tidakkah itu ucapan LKY di city hall tahun 1965??”
Dah kena tipu gila.
LKY pun tukar sistem ekonomi Singapura dari pertanian/ penternakan ke perniagaan juga?
Wahai Tipah. Singapura sejak zaman nenek moyang memang pusat perniagaan.
Singapura’s location and harbour made it an ideal centre for sea trade.
And when the British came, they did not develop an agriculture based economy. They focused on trade.
There were gambier and pepper plantations prior to British colonization and there were attempts to promote a rubber industry but none of these industries stood close to the entrepôt trade that Singapore conducted.
The British developed the trade system that is still applied in Singapura today. Not LKY.
Will you now claim the British colonization of Singapura is based on Islam?
These Tipah keep insulting Rasulullah by saying a man who is known for his zalim model his governance after Rasulullah.
Ada segilintir orang Melayu yang cuma pertahankan claim bahawa Lee Kuan Yew mentadbir Singapura berlandaskan Islam.
Tak perlulah cuba nak tegakkan benang yang basah. Benang ni bukan kena air sikit…dah kena celup dan berpintal-pintal.
Rasulullah tidak zalim. Bahkan, Rasulullah rahmatul alamin.
Baca sejarah LKY dan lihat betapa zalim orang ini. Dia robohkan masjid, menuntut agar orang Islam jangan amalkan Islam, kutuk Islam, kutuk Melayu..
He imprisoned and made fitnah on anyone who posed a threat to his power.
He promotes the demand for Muslims to relinquish Islam from our daily lives. Not only was it the views of a racist, Islamophobe, it became an institutional conduct.
Ini pentadbiran Rasulullah ke?
Sejak bila Rasulullah zalim?
Jangan burukkan nama Rasulullah dengan mengaitkan makhluk yang termulia dengan seorang yang benci Islam dan yang zalim.
Two gunmen have been shot dead and a security guard injured at a contest for cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad in a Dallas suburb.
The gunmen were said to have driven up to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland on Sunday afternoon where the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) had been hosting the exhibition and contest.
According to city authorities a guard at the event was shot at before the men who appeared to be driving a red truck were engaged by police.
Authorities immediately locked down the center, evacuating participants in the event and sealing off large areas.
The bomb squad was called in after reports of a possible incendiary device at the scene of the incident.
An officer dressed in Swat gear took to the stage at the Curtis Culwell Center and told attendees, including an Associated Press reporter, that a shooting had occurred. He said one officer and two suspects were shot.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the shooting was related to the event.
However a statement from the City of Garland read:
As today’s Muhammad art exhibit event at the Curtis Culwell Center was coming to an end, two males drove up to the front of the building in a car. Both males were armed and began shooting at a Garland ISD security officer. Garland police officers engaged the gunmen, who were both shot and killed.
Police suspect the vehicle may contain an incendiary device and the bomb squad is on the scene. The surrounding businesses including Academy Sports, Walmart and Sam’s are being evacuated. Event participants are also being evacuated from the Curtis Culwell Center for their safety.
The Dallas Morning News also reported that two men pulled up in a car near the event and shot at a security officer. The men were killed and their bodies were reported to be on the street near to the center.
The security officer involved who had been shot at received injuries that were not life-threatening.
The shootings were also reported by a local NBC reporter near the event.
The AFDI’s contest was attended by Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right populist politician who gave a speech to the audience.
Wilders, 51, heads the Party for Freedom, and has been accused of inciting racial hatred after pledging in 2014 to ensure there would be “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands.
He later tweeted his praise for the efforts of police during the incident.
After an alert was raised at the event in Garland, about 75 attendees at the controversial event were taken to another room.
Later, a group of 48 people were escorted to a school bus. Authorities told attendees they would be taken to a nearby high school. A second group was set to be moved shortly after.
Johnny Roby of Oklahoma City, was attending the conference.
He told Associated Press he was outside the building when he heard about 20 shots that appeared to be coming from the direction of a car passing by. Roby said he then heard two single shots.
He said he heard officers yell that they had the car before he was sent inside the building.
The New York-based AFDI was hosting a contest that would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad at the venue.
Such drawings are deemed insulting to many followers of Islam and have sparked violence around the world. According to mainstream Islamic tradition any physical depiction of the prophet Muhammad, even a respectful one, is considered blasphemous.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders speaks at the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest. Photograph: Mike Stone/Reuters
In January, 12 people were killed by gunmen in an attack against the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had lampooned Islam and other religions and used depictions of the prophet.
Pamela Geller, the president of the AFDI, said she planned the Sunday event to make a stand for free speech in response to the outcries and violence over drawings of the prophet.
After the incident, Geller posted an angry statement on her website: “This is a war. This is war on free speech. What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?
“Two men with rifles and backpacks attacked police outside our event. A cop was shot; his injuries are not life-threatening, thank Gd. Please keep him in your prayers.
“The bomb squad has been called to the event site to investigate a backpack left at the event site.
“The war is here.”
Geller’s group is known for mounting a campaign against the building of an Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center site and for buying advertising space in cities across the US criticizing Islam.
