There is a great deal that is questionable about this “discovery,” as I showed in this article. Nonetheless, the mainstream media is making a big deal of it, and this effusion of unbridled New York Times front page enthusiasm warrants closer examination. Clearly mainstream media outlets see this as a chance to write positively about Islam — a chance they seldom, if ever, pass up — and to present their favorite religion in a favorable light, and so who cares if the story is full of holes? Obviously they don’t, as you will see below.
“A Find in Britain: Quran Fragments Perhaps as Old as Islam,” by Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, July 22, 2015:
…The ancient pieces of manuscript, estimated to be at least 1,370 years old, offered a moment of unity, and insight, for the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. Professor Thomas said it provided tantalizing clues to help settle a scholarly dispute about whether the holy text was actually written down at the time of the prophet, or compiled years later after being passed down by word of mouth. The discovery also offered a joyful moment for a faith that has struggled with internal divisions and external pressures.
Oh, and international jihad terrorism carried out in its name and in accord with its teachings, but the Times doesn’t see fit to mention that.
Muslims believe Muhammad received the revelations that form the Quran, the scripture of Islam, between 610 and 632, the year of his death. Professor Thomas said tests by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit indicated with a probability of more than 94 percent that the parchment dated from 568 to 645….
568 to 645. Muhammad is supposed to have lived between 570 and 632, and as the Times says, to have received the Qur’anic “revelations” between 610 and 632. So if this fragment dates from between 568 and 645, it could just as easily be part of a pre-Islamic source of the Qur’an as of the Qur’an itself — particularly because suras 18-20, the portion covered in this fragment, contain a great deal of material derived from the Jewish and Christian traditions, and from other sources as well. This is an extraordinarily intriguing and important possibility, but the Times gives no hint of it whatsoever.
Tom Holland, the author of “In the Shadow of the Sword,” which charts the origins of Islam, said the discovery in Birmingham bolstered scholarly conclusions that the Quran attained something close to its final form during Muhammad’s lifetime.
No, it doesn’t. The only thing it actually establishes is that this portion of suras 18-20 existed near or during the time Muhammad is supposed to have lived. That it was part of the Qur’an at that time is taken for granted by Holland and the Times, but there is actually no evidence for it: there isn’t even any mention of the Qur’an’s existence in the contemporary literature until some fifty years after the outer-limit date of 645 for this fragment — a fact that is extremely uncomfortable for those who accept the canonical Islamic account that has the Qur’an complete by 632 and collected and circulating by 653. If it was known in this period, why does no one ever quote or even refer to it?
He said the fragments did not resolve the controversial questions of where, why and how the manuscript was compiled, or how its various suras, or chapters, came to be combined in a single volume.
Consisting of two parchment leaves, the manuscript in Birmingham contains parts of what are now Chapters 18 to 20. For years, the manuscript had been mistakenly bound with leaves of a similar Quran manuscript.
Saud al-Sarhan, the director of research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said he doubted that the manuscript found in Birmingham was as old as the researchers claimed, noting that its Arabic script included dots and separated chapters — features that were introduced later. He also said that dating the skin on which the text was written did not prove when it was written. Manuscript skins were sometimes washed clean and reused later, he said.
This is one of the very few dissenting notes in the entire Times piece. It is exactly the point I made yesterday: the parchment could have been reused, so that it dates from between 568 and 645 but the writing on it doesn’t. And we learn here another salient detail: “its Arabic script included dots and separated chapters — features that were introduced later.” The Guardian reported yesterday that “the significance of Birmingham’s leaves, which hold part of Suras (chapters) 18 to 20, was missed because they were bound together with another text, in a very similar hand but written almost 200 years later.”
A very similar hand. What is the likelihood of this: that these manuscript pages get bound up with another text, and that text is not only written in a “very similar hand,” but the ancient pages contain features that weren’t introduced until later? Handwriting styles change over time; how likely is it that this text from the seventh century that was so far-seeing as to contain features that weren’t introduced until the ninth century was also written in a handwriting style that was for years taken as coming from 200 years later?
Professor Thomas said the text of the two folio pages studied by Ms. Fedeli, who received her doctorate this month, corresponded closely to the text of the modern Quran. But he cautioned that the manuscript was only a small portion of the Quran and therefore did not offer conclusive proof.
“Corresponded closely” — that is, the correspondence is not exact. That again calls into question whether this is really a Qur’an manuscript at all, and not that of a source of the Qur’an, but the Times barrels on, quoting Omid Safi, an extremely arrogant and puffed-up pseudo-academic who once stooped so low as to claim I threatened to kill him and his family (have me arrested if what you say is true, Omid):
Omid Safi, the director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center and the author of “Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters,” said that the discovery of the manuscript provided “further evidence for the position of the classical Islamic tradition that the Quran as it exists today is a seventh-century document.”
Once again, this is assuming that the fragment came from a Qur’an, and not from a source of the Qur’an. But don’t expect as dishonest an Islamic supremacist ideologue as Safi to acknowledge that.
The manuscript is in Hijazi script, an early form of written Arabic, and researchers said the fragments could be among the earliest textual evidence of the holy book known to survive.
A manuscript from the University of Tübingen Library in Germany was found last year and sourced to the seventh century, 20 to 40 years after the death of the prophet. Fragments from Tübingen were radiocarbon-tested by a lab in Zurich and determined with 95 percent certainty to have originated from 649 to 675, making the Birmingham text a few years older.
The Tübingen manuscript shows signs of heavy editing; see the photo here.
…Graham Bench, director of the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, concurred, and added a caveat: “You’re dating the parchment,” he said. “You’re not dating the ink. You’re making the assumption that the parchment or vellum was used within years of it being made, which is probably a reasonable assumption, but it’s not watertight.”
Indeed.
…Professor Thomas said that the discovery could make Birmingham a draw for Muslims and scholars. But he noted that Muslims did not require a text to feel close to the Quran because for many, it was essentially an oral experience to be recited, memorized and revered.
“The Quran,” he said, “is already present in the minds of Muslims.”
And for those who take seriously its commands to kill or subjugate unbelievers, beat disobedient women, take Infidel sex slaves, etc., that’s precisely the problem.
Pedter Buckley says
Which Quran?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91AM7665cbo
http://www.answering-islam.org/Nehls/Ask/collect.html
mortimer says
What’s this? “a joyful moment for a faith that has struggled”…struggled as in JIHAD or as in Mein Kampf (my struggle).
Struggle…jihad…bloodshed…killing…conquest…murder…subjugation…enslavement…supremacism…
“Struggled” means all those things. We are not impressed, but appalled by the word “STRUGGLED”.
Moa says
Thanks for the link Pedter. The following video is an even stronger damnation of the man-made Koran:
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9lIuUjPs0
They also give satellite imagery that show early mosques pointing to Petra, which destroys the false Islamic narrative that Islam came from Mecca.
The cult came from the Nabatean city of Petra, and “Allah” (a title) is actually the Nabatean chief god Dushara, not YHWH. See Koran 53:19-20 where Mohammed worships the daughters of Dushara. This also explains why Dushara/Allah is the “Greatest of Deceivers” according to Islam, while YHWH is ever faithful can cannot lie.
Islam is completely man-made and provably false.
Brian says
It was even big news on Ireland’s national TV news channel…I could barely believe it!
Don McKellar says
So — somebody was having a go at copying and altering the stories from other religions between 568 to 645. Maybe. That’s if the thing hasn’t been altered. Or the material reused to try and fake an older document by somebody 200 years later. Which appears quite likely. As far as evidence goes, this document is toilet paper.
Cecilia Ellis says
“[T]his document is toilet paper.”
In that case, it won’t be used . . . now had it been carved in stone, that would be a whole different matter.
mortimer says
Tom Holland is not a Koran textual scholar, but an historian. Big difference.
Until Gerard-R. Puin (the scholar of the Saana fragments) looks at the Birmingham fragments, all speculation is premature.
I predict that other Koranic textual scholars will demolish the hasty conclusions of the Birmingham cash-seekers.
Zimriel says
This text was investigated by Alba Fedeli, for her PhD. Her earlier work has been published by Puin – see “The Hidden Origins of Islam” – so she’s the next best thing.
The reason we’re all dealing with this poo-‘nado now is because of lousy radiocarbon dates. Fedeli isn’t a radiochemist and neither is Puin.
I’d like to pipe in that it’s not now-Dr. Fedeli’s fault that the media is running laps around this joke of a story. If you have “Hidden Origins” then you know that Fedeli isn’t an Islamist clown. Fedeli’s now got to be feeling like Brian in that Monty Python sketch…
mortimer says
From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Quran_manuscript
“Dr Fedeli has identified the two Birmingham leaves as belonging to the same codex as the 16 manuscript Quran leaves catalogued as BnF ar. 328(c) in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris;[1] which are known be from the oldest mosque in Egypt, the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As.”
It could be these texts were copied in Egypt during the late Umayyad dynasty. Apparently, French researchers discovered as many as five different scribes were involved in writing the text. Whatever is discovered about the Birmingham fragments will apply to the ones in Paris and vice versa.
The Paris MS called arabe 328 has already been dated to the Arabe 328c from the second half of the 1st century hijra…that is from fifty to one hundred years after Mohammed…between 680 and 730AD. That would be during or after the time of Caliph Abd al Malik who claimed to have collected the Koran.
Moa says
It was Caliph Abd al-Malik who invented Islam. For details, such as satellite imagery and Koranic analysis please see here:
An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9lIuUjPs0
Islam is the cult of Dushara (see Koran 53:19-30 where the daughters of the Nabatean god Dushara are worshipped by Mohammed) and the cult was centered at Petra – which is why all the early mosques of the Arab Empire point to Petra. It was only later that Caliph abd al-Malik erased the past and made a new cult centered at Mecca,
Islam is completely man-made and false, and we have the satellite imagery to prove it.
Zimriel says
BnF ar. 328(c)? That’s ringing some bells. I’d looked up some of Déroche’s stuff about Codex Parisino-petropolitanus… [googles] Huh. That text was 328(ab).
I hadn’t known there was a third part to it.
328ab is a Syrian Qur’an, probably Himsi (Ibn ʻĀmir recension), laid out in the canonical sequence – like 328c is laid out. 328ab has a few interesting points in that it (usually) spells “Abraham”, “Abraham”; rather than “Ibraheem” like the canon today.
(For the gentiles amongst us: in Semitic alphabets, it’s the long vowels that get written down, so Abraham / Ibraham look the same but ‘braham / ‘braheem look different.)
That 328c is Egyptian is interesting to me. I’d thought that the Egyptians were more into papyrus. 328c is, I think, parchment. Maybe it was brought to Egypt from Hims along with those others.
mortimer says
Saud al-Sarhan, the director of research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh is speaking with integrity when he advises caution in reaching conclusions.
He is to be praised for stating the obvious: the orthography does not match the time period touted by the Birmingham cash-seekers.
Orthography style changes roughly every 25 years.
The Muslim says
The Saudi scholar is wrong, wrong, dots were used as early as the 640s CE. Here is a document written in Greek and Arabic with the exact date of 25th of April 642 CE, it’s known as PERF No. 558: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/PERF558.html
Notice the dots
Jack Holan says
Robert, Would the NYTimes take an interest if this were a manuscript of a Non-Muslim religion or would it be 4 lines on page 12?
Georg says
Correct.
Angemon says
Like, for example, whether muslims should support the islamic state and go join the jihad or try to achieve domination through other means (like demographics), all while keeping the kuffar from getting their number.
Those they they can handle – any attempt to discuss the islamic inspiration for the islamic state is met with cries of “islamophobia”.
Nathan says
It’s almost like all the muslims think their religion is a load of made up rubbish and is in fact a crock of s**t, and are looking for validation that’s it’s not. Well I’m sorry to say ….THIS ISN’T IT!
A lie told 1,370 years ago is still a lie.
It’s not even the full lie only part of it… a tiny part of it, a part that doesn’t even tell the right lie.
Looks to me like the previous owners ripped it up.
Georg says
If nothing else, it’s evidence there weren’t septic tanks back then as it’s made of leather.
Nathan says
That’s why in islam you can’t use toilet paper…. there wouldn’t be any qur’ans left!
Moa says
The lie is even newer than you think. Please see:
An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith
vlparker says
The only faith in the world the NY Times cares about and it is the biggest force of evil in the world. Leftists are truly deranged.
Baucent says
Yes, some good points from Robert. The Birmingham scholars have thrown out objectivity in their eagerness to have “the earliest fragment”. I think the comments by the Saudi scholar regarding the chapter division and dots, being a later invention and that washing and reusing manuscript skins was common practice, throw huge doubts about linking the carbon dating to the text.
Furthermore the fact that the two pages were linked to a collection of other writings in a “similar hand” raises the possibility that the writer was making a “scrapbook”, copying down things that interested him. These two pages may not have ever been part of a complete Koran.
The fact that the Birmingham scholars have apparently ignored all these questions and breathlessly talk of the “writer may have heard the prophet preach” is unscholarly and unjustified by what they have.
Evolvution says
Anyone else think it’s funny that the headline can also be read as:
Qur’an manuscript discovery “a joyful moment for a faith that has jihad” ?
Since “jihad” sort of means “struggle”.
Dallas says
Entirely possible. There is evidence that Islamic slave traders were in the area of the North Atlantic many hundreds of years ago. Not much of a cause for celebration, if correct. It’s a you tube documentary called Atlantic Jihad – the Untold Story of White Slavery
gerard says
“the holy text” “the prophet” “a joyful moment for a faith that has struggled with internal divisions and external pressures.”
What disgraceful, lick-spittle grovelling! Imagine an early copy of Mein Kampf, (that’s right: My Struggle!) discovered. Would they report it as a “joyful moment” for Nazis everywhere? Would they refer to the “holy text” and to the Fuhrer in terms of admiration? It would seem so! And what “external pressures” have Muslims suffered? Is it not rather the case that others have suffered these “pressures” from Islamic Jihad?
voegelinian says
The reason the mainstream doesn’t do that is two-fold:
1) the equation in the Western mainstream perspective, saturated as it is with PC MC, is not —
Muslims = Nazis
— but rather that
Muslims = a) German people, and b) a Tiny Minority of Nazis.
Thus, to the PC MC majority (and to many of their milder asymptotic cousins in the Counter-Jihad), we cannot “tar Muslims with a broad brush”. In their anxiety to protect the Vast Majority of Muslims Who are Decent Moms & Pops Like the Rest of Us and Who Just Wanna Have a Sandwich, they have fabricated a fantasy Tiny Minority of Extremists Who are Twisting Islam (or Have Nothing To Do With Islam).
Back to reality: the Counter-Jihad (at least much of it) knows all too grimly that we cannot so sweepingly exempt so many Muslims from our scrutiny, suspicion, criticism, and condemnation for enabling such a pernicious and deadly ideology.
2) Why do PC MCs do this? Why do they indulge such a massive irrationality with regard to such an important issue connected to unprecedented evils and violence around the world, including increasingly our own Western world? They don’t anxiously exempt Muslims from scrutiny for no reason. They do it because they racialize Muslims. The PC MC paradigm is riddled with irrationally excessive amplification of the two Western virtues of Respect for the Other and Self-Criticism, which kicks in when PC MCs perceive Muslims as non-Western and non-white. It has then become further amplified — to grotesque proportions — because unlike all other ethnic minorities, Muslims are astronomically violent and have in myriad ways shown themselves to be fanatically motivated to attack and kill, and assiduously obsessed to do so with internatonally networking capabilities to make good on their threats of violence.
Angemon says
voegelinian posted:
“They don’t anxiously exempt Muslims from scrutiny for no reason. They do it because they racialize Muslims.”
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/f8/f887973fed0916bdc5fbf432a63b3261ec6f83da3445340720fdef1076a00689.jpg
Try expanding your horizons a little more rather than offering a one-note explanation that fails to account for all the facts and information.
kilfincelt says
I read Tom Holland’s book “In the Shadow of the Sword”. It was more a history of Persia than about Islam’s origins although the last chapters do add something to the conversation. However, Holland, like many other scholars, accepts the stories about Muhammad even though they were written more than 125 years after he supposedly died and the actual source material is lacking.
Furthermore, concluding that the Qur’an came close to reaching its final form during Muhammad’s lifetime based on three Suras shows a lack of academic rigor on the part of Holland. He didn’t ask any of the questions that a real scholar,like Robert Spencer, would ask.
Moa says
Check out the satellite imagery and the new Koranic analysis – they show the founding story of Islam is completely man-made and fake:
An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9lIuUjPs0
ps. Sorry to spam this thread with this link, but if you haven’t seen this video you will be amazed at how Western scholarship has now completely destroyed the Islamic fable. So I wish as many Counter-Jihad people to see and understand how thoroughly Islam is now destroyed by things like satellite imagery. Please watch the video, you will be well-armed to defeat any Muslim you encounter in debate.
Angemon says
Have you seen the documentary he did on the subject?
Goat Pimp says
There is an implication in the article that if the fragments date to the time of mohamed then that is evidence that Islam is true. Pure hogwash.
afrostreetwise says
There must be something about islam that obligates media and most goverments to white wash it.
Here in Kenya we have one tv channel (QTV) running an advert portraying ordinary activities as jihad. Eg a motorbike rider saying ” i transport poeple. Thats my jihad”.
Another (woman) says. “My jihad is to cook buns” etc. Robert and others in this blog have taught me to recognise takkya at a national level.
Another way also of telling us ‘ dont worry those guys killing you and your children have nothing to do with islam. Or have misunderstood the islamic textd’.
I wish you guys had seen our presidents about turn when he nearly ( to me he did). Admitted islam is the problem during our 1june madaraka day speech.
The Muslim says
Robert Spencer is wrong, dots were used as early as the 640 CE. Here is a document written in Greek and Arabic with the exact date of 25th of April 642 CE, it’s known as PERF No. 558: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/PERF558.html
Notice the dots
Tim says
I’ve noticed one dot already. You refer to it as your brain…
Baucent says
Actually a search of the internet on the issue of the use of “dots” in Arabic writing would tend to support the Saudi scholars view. The PERF 558 fragment displaying a use of dots seems to be regarded by most scholars as an anomaly and that they were rarely used in that era, becoming obligatory much later in the 9th and 10th century AD.
The Muslim says
False they were also used in the Zuhayr inscription dating to 644 CE: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/kuficsaud.html
As well as in P. Berol. 15002 dating 642-643 CE: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/PBerol.html
Keep in mind that not many documents from this era survive, but this is more than sufficient to prove that dots found on letters such as: ba, ta, tha were used since the 640s. I’m NOT referring to dharma, fatha, kasra which originate from a later date.
Mirren10 says
Dots, shmots.
It’s still a load of repulsive and evil tripe.
Baucent says
Not so, my friend, most scholars back the later dating. The Birminghan fragments are probably 8-9th century AD.
The Muslim says
8th to 9th century? Why so late? Let’s look at the inscription On the Dam Built By Caliph Muʿāwiya in Ṭa’if, Saudi Arabia in the year 58 AH / 678 CE: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/muwinsc1.html
Notice the dots, this is the 670s CE.
Also how about the inscription on the dome of the rock, which was built by Abdel Malik in 692 CE: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/DoTR.html
Notice the dots, this is 692 CE
So why would you date it as late as the 8th-9th centuries?
Tim says
Why it’s so difficult to date the inks (Greg Hodgins, AMS Laboratory) :
“It would be great if we could directly radiocarbon date the inks, but it is actually really difficult to do. First, they are on a surface of only trace amounts” Hodgins said. “The carbon content is usually extremely low. Moreover, sampling ink free of carbon from the parchment on which it sits is currently beyond our abilities. Finally, some inks are not carbon based, but are derived from ground minerals. They’re inorganic, so they don’t contain any carbon.”
CPH says
The last thing Birmingham needs is more Muslims.
duh_swami says
‘Holy Quran’…Holy Moley Batman…The Quran is a dark and evil fairy tale whispered into the ear of a psychotic Arab by a incoherent angel named Gabriel, who never showed Mahound any kind of ID or a badge.
‘Holy Smoke’, if those are the words of Allah, there is something seriously wrong with Allah…
Tim says
The Birmingham Qur’an is digitised here (check Arabic 1572):
http://vmr.bham.ac.uk/Collections/Mingana/part/Islamic_Arabic/
duh_swami says
If Islam didn’t start until the 600’s sometime, then Adam and Eve could not have been Muslims as some claim. I don’t see any evidence that the first couple did salat 5 times a day or performed wudu or any Islamic ritual. Adam was too busy naming the animals while Eve was having an affair with a snake. That’s hardly Islamic…Of course when confronted by Allah over the apple, Adam hid behind Eve’s fig leaf and said, ‘The woman made me do it’…Now ‘that’s’ Islamic…
Paul Rinderle says
Tom Hollands book was written before the links below were published in the Wall Street Journal
His book was written under Muslim intimidation as reflected in the WSJ article. Time moves on & so did Holland. Thus look at what he says now coming up with the courage to say so & tell the Muslims to shove their intimidation/death threats.
Tom Holland a Historian raised doubts of traditional account origins of Islam:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-i-questioned-the-history-of-muhammad-1420821462?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird …
“Islam: The Untold Story,”
Satch1 says
Never the less it still is from Satan himself who deceived Muhammad into believing he was Gabriel and shared a lot of the words in the Koran being a late coming book of ideologies to hinder Gods works. Islam is a made up god to back up the lies of Muhammad!