One of ‘world’s oldest’ Quran manuscripts found in U.K.

Fragments of a Quran manuscript found in a British university library are from one of the world’s oldest surviving copies of the Islamic text and may even have been written by someone who knew the Prophet Muhammad, researchers said on Wednesday. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the parchment folios held by the University of Birmingham in central England were at least 1,370 years old, which would make them one of the earliest written forms of the Islamic holy book in existence.

They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam.

David Thomas, professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham

Researchers said the manuscript consisted of two parchment leaves and contained parts of Suras (chapters) 18 to 20 and that it was written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi. The university said for years it had been misbound with leaves of a similar Quran manuscript dating from the late seventh century.