According to the BBC, which could be the oldest Koranic fragments, in the world have just been found at the University of Birmingham. The pages of the Sacred Muslim text slept incognito in the university library for almost a century, between various books and documents from the Middle East.
According to the dating to the radiocarbon, the date of the creation of the manuscript is between 568 and 645. This would give it the venerable age of 1370 years. The fragments are written on a sheep or goat skin. The writing used is the “hijazi”, a previous form of written Arabic.
University researchers even think that those who wrote these fragments may well have known the Prophet Mohamed and heard his sermons live.
According to David Thomas, professor in Islam and Christianity, this parchment could go back to the very beginning of the foundation of Islam since the Prophet Mohamed received the revelations which form the Koran between the years 610 and 632. It is therefore possible that the person who wrote them lived in the Prophet’s era.
For Professor Thomas, the parts of the Koran who are written on this parchment can, with certainty, be dated less than two decades after the death of the Prophet.
“These fragments are very close to the Koran read today worldwide, which confirms that the Koranic texts have undergone very little or no modification. »»
