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A 1,500 - year - sometime sheepskin could be one of the oldest have sex copies of the Quran , possibly date back to a time that overlapped with the life of the Prophet Muhammad , according to researchers who recently dated the manuscript fragments .
The text edition underwent radiocarbon date , which measured the age of the find ’s organic materials . researcher at the University of Birmingham , in the United Kingdom , see that the leaves of parchment date back to A.D. 568 and A.D. 645 .
The recently radiocarbon dated copy of the 7th-century Qur’an at the University of Birmingham.
" The carbon 14 dating has fork up an exciting result , which contributes significantly to our understanding of the earliest spell copy of the Quran , " Susan Worrall , director of exceptional collection at the University of Birmingham , said in a program line . [ The Holy Land : 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds ]
TheProphet Muhammadis thought to have exist between A.D. 570 and A.D. 632 , and according to Muslim tradition , he received the revelations that make up the Quran between A.D. 610 and A.D. 632 . The divine message was not written at that prison term , though . " Instead , the revelations were preserved in the ' computer memory of human race , ' " said David Thomas and Nadir Dinshaw , both spiritual professors at the University of Birmingham .
The carbon 14 date from the parchment indicate that the animal that provided the parchment lived during or right after the life-time of Muhammad . " This entail that the part of the Quran that are written on the parchment can , with a degree of authority , be see to less than two decennary after Muhammad ’s death , " Thomas and Dinshaw said .
Theparchmentlikely came from the tegument of a calf , goat or sheep , the investigator say . The skin would have been first cleaned of any hair or physique and then stretched on a wooden frame . As the pelt is stretch , the lambskin manufacturing business junk the open with a curved knife , wet the cutis and dries it in rotation several clip to bring the sheepskin to an ideal thickness and concentration .
Researchers date stamp the parchmentby measuring theradioactive decayof carbon-14 , a common way to define the age of ancient papers and parchments . C isotope , or C atoms of depart weightiness , be adrift around in relatively unvarying proportions in Earth ’s ambiance , and all survive things have the same ratio of static C to radioactive carbon-14 . When an organism dies , the radioactive carbon copy decays at predictable rate over clock time , which intend investigator can see the remaining point of carbon-14 to make age estimates .
Ancient text
The Quran manuscript compensate two parchment parting and stop parts of the sura ( chapters ) 18 through 20 , publish with ink in an other var. of Arabic script call Hijazi . The manuscript had been improperly bound with leaves of a like Quran manuscript that dated to the late 7th century . That text was kept in the University of Birmingham ’s Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern ms , hold in the Cadbury Research Library .
Although most of the divine revelations get by the Prophet Muhammad were committed to memory , persona were write down on parchment , rock , palm leave of absence and the berm blade of camel , the investigator said . " Caliph Abu Bakr , the first leader of the Islamic community after Muhammad , ordered the aggregation of all Quranic material in the form of a book , " Thomas and Dinshaw said .
The final written version , turn over the definitive account , was completed under the direction of Caliph Uthman ibn Affan , the third loss leader of the Moslem residential area , in about A.D. 650 , and was distributed to the master cities under Islamic rule .
" Muslims believethat the Quran they read today is the same text that was standardized under Uthman , and regard it as the accurate record of the divine revelation that were delivered to Muhammad , " Thomas and Dinshaw say .
" This is indeed an exciting uncovering , " say Muhammad Isa Waley , lead conservator for Iranian and Turkish manuscripts at the British Library . " The Muslim communitywas not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for 10 , and to produce a all over Mushaf , or written matter , of the Holy Qur’an required a keen many of them , " he impart .
" This — along with the sheer ravisher of the subject matter and the amazingly clear Hijazi script — is news to triumph Muslim middle , " Waley said .
