Last November we reported that a German University had discovered what was then one of the earliest known copies of the Qur’an. The folks at the Coranica Project, part of the University of Tübingen, had placed a manuscript of the Qu’ran to between 649-675 AD.
Now researchers at the University of Birmingham have unearthed a copy that according to radiocarbon testing was written on parchment that originated between 568-645 AD, making it easily one of the oldest known fragments. It is quite possible that the author of these fragments actually knew the Prophet Muhammad.
The first Qur’an collected in book form was completed in about 650.
The manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq.
Much more at BBC News: ‘Oldest’ Koran fragments found in Birmingham University
Previously on Book Patrol: German university unveils what may be the world’s oldest Qur’an