Manuscripts · a Light

Two leaves in Birmingham dated to within a lifetime of revelation

On 22 July 2015 the University of Birmingham announced the results of radiocarbon dating on two parchment leaves that had sat in its Mingana Collection, uncatalogued alongside another manuscript, since the 1920s. The parchment dated to between 568 and 645 CE with 95.4 per cent probability. The text, parts of chapters 18 to 20 in an early Hijazi script, matches the standard Qur'an in use today. The date is of the animal skin rather than the ink, so it gives an upper limit rather than an exact age, and scholars continue to discuss what that means. The leaves are among the oldest Qur'anic manuscripts known, and they were found by a doctoral student looking properly at a box.

University of Birmingham · 22 July 2015