Introduction to the Birmingham
Quran Manuscript and the Sanaa Quran:
In 2014, some
scientists of the University of Birmingham discovered that four folios
containing some ancient Quran manuscripts dated from the period of the
Prophet’s companions. In fact a radiocarbon analysis showed that there is a
95.4% chance that the parchment on which the Quran fragments were written can
be dated sometime between 568 and 645CE. This means that the animal from which
the skin was taken was living sometime between these dates. We recall that
another investigation on the Sanaa Quran, which was earlier discovered in the
city of Sanaa, indicated that the old parchment had a 95% probability of
belonging to the period between 578 CE and 669 CE. Furthermore, we know that
the Prophet lived between 570CE and 632 CE, which makes those discoveries quite
interesting, by showing that the Birmingham and Sanaa documents can be
considered among the oldest manuscripts in the world.
Consisting of two parchment
leaves, the Qur’an manuscript contains parts of sura (chapter) 18 to sura 20,
which were written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi. (al
kahf, Maryam, taha)
According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received
the revelations that form the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam, between the years
610 and 632 AD,
‘Muslims believe that the Qur’an they read today is the same
text that was standardised under Uthman and regard it as the exact record of
the revelations that were delivered to Muhammad. However, non-Muslims have
often questioned this traditional account. Some scholars have suggested that
the written text of the Qur’an was not completed until about a century after
the death of Muhammad. They therefore argue that it contains some added
elements that have nothing to do with the Prophet.’
he possibility of a palimpsest was later ruled out by
ultraviolet testing.[19] Saud's
criticisms have been backed by a number of Saudi-based experts in Quranic
history who deny that the manuscript could have been written during the
lifetime of Muhammad. They emphasise that while Muhammad was alive, Quranic
texts were written without any chapter decoration, marked verse endings or use
of coloured inks, and did not follow any standard sequence of surahs. Some
suggest the writing could date to the reign of caliph Uthman, while
others suggest a date as late as the Umayyad period.
The tests carried out on the
parchment of the Birmingham folios yield the strong probability that the animal
from which it was taken was alive during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad
or shortly afterwards. This means that the parts of the Qur’an that are
written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less
than two decades after Muhammad’s death. These portions must have been in a
form that is very close to the form of the Qur’an read today, supporting the
view that the text has undergone no alteration and that it can be dated to a
point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.
Palaeographic(history of writing
system study)
the handwriting
geometry suggests that it may have been created in the Hejaz area in the west
of the Arabian Peninsula, which includes the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina.
95.4% probability to be between 568 and 645 AD
The technical results were recently published in Datelist,
Archaeometry journal of Oxford University (Higham , 2018) and the date
calibration (figure 1) was obtained with Oxcal software (Ramsey, 2017).
. Introduction on the Sanaa Quran manuscript
In 1965 heavy rains damaged the roof construction of the
Western Library in the Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ. A single window was discovered
to contain a substantial cache of used Arabic manuscripts, almost all being
ancient manuscripts of the Quran spanning the first few Islamic centuries. The
same year Noseda’s visit to Ṣanʿāʾ was published, the researcher Razan Ghassan
Hamdoun submitted her master’s thesis titled “The Quranic Manuscripts In Ṣanʿāʾ
From The First Century Hijra And The Preservation Of The Quran” to Al-Yemenia
University (Hamdoun, 2004). She used images provided by her father Professor
Ghassan Hamdoun, and the main subject of her thesis was the analysis and
discussion of one early manuscript of the Quran located in al-Maktaba
al-Sharqiyya (i.e., the Eastern Library), the Great Mosque, Ṣanʿāʾ. She noted,
amongst other things, that the manuscript was written on parchment and
consisted of 72 plates (i.e., 40 folios). It had the approximate dimensions of
35 cm x 26.5 cm, though the size of each folio was variable across the
manuscript. On average there were 28 lines per page and across a selection of 5
folios there were 24-32 lines per page, but that could be even less or more on
some pages.
Notes on the ancient Arabic handwriting
The earliest Quran
manuscripts were probably written in the 7th century. Its script represents a
very early Quran text written on a single large sheet of parchment and folded
in half. This primitive script is known as hijāzi script, which is originated from
the Arabian Peninsula around Mecca and Medina. The hijāzi script is
characterized by tall and sloping letters representing the consonants. Also,
one can find few dots and other markings indicating pronunciation or pauses.
Kufic script
It probably dates
from the 9th century. The Kufic Quran is written on parchment and distinguished
by lettering with very short vertical and elongated horizontal strokes.
the books were
written without any hamzahs, dots or vowel marks (tashkeel). This was the traditional
manner of writing at that time
Hence, the ancient Arabic characters are a bit different
from what we are used to write nowadays..
Note on the "silent
alif":
We noticed that in the ancient
manuscripts, the silent alif (elongated A) was not very used as it is the case
in the recent Arabic text.
Analysis
of the Birmingham Quran:
By
comparing the two sets of verses in folio 1, we obtain the following
statistics.
- Number of lines: 24
- Number of verses: 7
- Number of words: 158
-
Number of Characters: ~678
- Difference in words: 0%
- Difference in Characters without considering
the “silent alif”: 0/ 678 = 0%
-
Difference in Characters by considering the “silent alif”: 13 /678 = 1.92
By
comparing the two sets of verses in folio 2, we obtain the following
statistics.
- Number of lines: 23
-
Number of verses: 9
-
Number of words: 164
-
Number of Characters: ~632
-
Difference in words: 0%
-
Difference in Characters without considering the “silent alif”: 0/ 632 = 0%
-
Difference in Characters by considering the “silent alif”: 8/632 = 1.26%
Folio
3:
-
Difference in Characters without considering the “silent alif”: 0/600 = 0%
-
Difference in Characters by considering the “silent alif”: 3/600 = 0.005 =0.5%
Folio4:
-
Difference in Characters without considering the “silent alif”: 0/633 = 0%
-
Difference in Characters by considering the “silent alif”: 9/633 = 0.014 =1.4%
Overall
considering the silent alif, there is a difference of only 1.2%, however not
one word, character or line is different.
Analysis
of the Sanaa Quran
Folio3:
Difference
in characters without considering the “silent alif”: 0%
Difference
in characters by considering the “silent alif”: 12/1289 = 0.93%
Folio4:
Difference
in characters without considering the “silent alif”: 0%
Difference
in characters by considering the “silent alif”: 2/1207=0.16%
Overall comparison between all
the manuscripts : Birmingham folios, Sanaa folios and the present Uthmanic
Quran
- The two analysed manuscripts:
Birmingham and Sanaa folios, appear similar in terms of characters and in terms
of words;
- The corresponding texts (end of
chapter 19 and beginning of chapter 20) appear identical to the present
Uthmanic Quran, with regards to the skeletal morphology of the analysed texts;
- The old
parchments, corresponding to chapter 19 and 20, show that the consonantal morphology of the Quran
has been safely preserved for those chapters, during the last 14 centuries.
Conclusion:
The two ancient scriptures
corresponding to chapters 19 and 20, from Birmingham and Sanaa, were found to
be similar to the present Uthmanic Quran compilation, in their basic
morphology, as written in the old Arabic scripture. This result involves that
the Quran chapters 19 and 20 have been safely preserved during the last 14
centuries without alteration. Statistically speaking,
this result suggests that the Quran, and not only chapters 19 and 20, should
have been safely preserved during the last 14 centuries as well. Now, the
raising question is: how could it be possible to have two different old
parchments, coming from two different regions and dating from 14 centuries,
which present a so great similarity with the present Uthmanic Quran
compilation? The only interpretation, one can derive, is that the holy
scripture has been delicately preserved by the Quranic scholars, by means of
memory (i.e. learnt by heart) and by means of writing (i.e. written on
parchments), and all that was probably controlled with a great rigour.
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