Two pages of the oldest surviving texts of the Qur'an. Photo: Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
Cadbury connection with historic Qur’an
One of the oldest surviving texts of the Qur'an has been found in the Cadbury Research Library
The parchment of a section of the Qur’an in the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birming-ham has been radiocarbon dated to between AD 568 and AD 645.
It has been confirmed as one of the oldest surviving texts of the Qur’an in the world and the announcement of its discovery last week prompted widespread media interest.
The manuscript is part of the university’s Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern texts, which were among those collected by Assyrian theologian Alphonse Mingana on a series of trips funded by Quaker philanthropist Edward Cadbury between 1924 and 1929.
The collection was originally kept at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham.
The Qur’an manuscript contains parts of Suras (chapters) eighteen to twenty, written in Hijazi, an early form of Arabic script, and consists of two parchment leaves.
Its age and importance has only been discovered now because, for many years, the fragment had been mis-bound with leaves of a similar Qur’an manuscript, which is datable to the late seventh century.
Susan Worrall, director of special collections (Cadbury Research Library) at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘By separating the two leaves and analysing the parchment, we have brought to light an amazing find within the Mingana Collection.’
The analysis places the parchment close to the time of the Prophet Muhammad, who is generally thought to have lived between AD 570 and AD632, the university announced.
