Lots of great texts from antiquity have been found there. I think part of the reason we have so much literature from the Romans is the Catholic church and their use of Latin.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
World's oldest Quran fragments found; dating back to the founding of Islam
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
- Status
Well yeah, 1400 year old book contains 1400 year old morals. No surprise there.
Still a really cool find though.
Cool. Now what does this have to do with the discovery?
Khalifa Jayy
Banned
Awesome find!
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
I'm an atheist but a history nut
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL
No, but seriously, this is an interesting and really significant find. Old books were so beautiful, and arabic is imo the most beautiful script there is.
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL
No, but seriously, this is an interesting and really significant find. Old books were so beautiful, and arabic is imo the most beautiful script there is.
Recidivus Crimen
Member
Ironically, if it wasn't for the priest we wouldn't have been able to acquire such an old piece of the Qur'an. I wonder where exactly he got it from. Maybe the other parts are still out there although I doubt it.
As others have said this is off topic but how would you come close to understanding the Qur'an by just reading it four times and I'm guessing without any tafsir?
Yea I can imagine everyone is now going through their old archives searching for any hidden gems. Would be awesome if more discoveries like this happened.
Carbon dating suggests world's oldest Koran is even older than the Prophet Muhammad
Interesting to say the least.
Interesting to say the least.
shira
Member
Not really that shocking. Seems sorta how I imagine most religions came into being in a general sense. I remember the sort of parallels between the bible and some of the Mesopotamian religious stories.
This is very intriguing. I wonder if this will make some waves or just be ignored.
but where did the text come from then?!
Why would you use 100 year old parchment though?
stufte
Member
Parchment was considered valuable and often reused in the ancient world. The most infamous case that comes to mind:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest
I'm no expert, but I imagine availability of parchment might have made reusing parchment easier and cheaper than making new stuff to write on. I don't even know how they'd go about dating the ink though, since it's possible not all of it was even written at the same time. I bet they do a thorough hand-writing analysis and study the hell out of this Quran regardless. It's a possible crisis of faith for Islam.
I mean, carbon dating that shows the world is older than 6000 years never phased creationists so I don't think this will phase anyone.
Facts don't matter when it comes to faith.. so no, nothing will change except for maybe people who already questioned their faith and are on the verge of leaving the religion
I doubt it, they will probably find a way to dismiss it.
This pretty much.
I have family members who reject evolution, despite the fact there's a lot of evidence supporting it.
Common practice to use older parchment. Even today I might use a notebook I bought ten years ago. Also, the view doesn't really make sense considering the Quran was originally oral and the prophet and his earliest followers were illiterate. The surahs contained in the parchment are long continuous surahs which flow extremely well. If someone was just taking random pieces of writing from here and there and putting it together, you wouldn't get any kind of flow. For anyone to accept this, they'd have to be completely unfamiliar with Quranic text.
Oh, that makes more sense.
How shocking that it's not actually a message from God that was beamed into some dude's head...
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
so its like every religion from this area lol
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Okay, NOW ISIS will want to burn it.
TheRealTalker
Banned
Using older parchment at a time of when the followers were not the wealthiest of people makes sense seeing as the time of when the 3rd caliph Uthman was rounding up canonical pages there were a bunch of written verses by the companions who memorized it,written on anything they could find like shaved animal bone....
It is more likely this conclusion then a notion of collecting random scripts of old that they like (from a bunch of works) and tossing the written bits together since that would be a gigantic grammatical mess and even harder to make it flow and connect/reference each other in different chapters. I mean that option itself sounds like a gigantic struggle and would be a accomplishment in itself.
It is more likely this conclusion then a notion of collecting random scripts of old that they like (from a bunch of works) and tossing the written bits together since that would be a gigantic grammatical mess and even harder to make it flow and connect/reference each other in different chapters. I mean that option itself sounds like a gigantic struggle and would be a accomplishment in itself.
Hexa
Member
Plus the Quran talks about situations as they occur and about Muhammad pbuh a good amount. The argument is completely asinine.
It can be both. It could be an old text that was appended with extra narrative to fit the context of the events happening. We can't know for sure either way until the scientists perform more tests. Arguments from the text aren't really relevant here as facts will eventually prevail.
I might be overlooking something in the article, missing some crucial context about carbon dating or something, but does the possible time range not cover Muhammad's lifespan? The article is framed to emphasize that carbon dating shows it could have been written before Muhammad was born, but it seems to me it could have also been written after his death...no?
Strange article. I don't think the information is new, just the framing.
googleplex
Member
Yeah, Now they have something else in common with Jews and Christians.
Wow. Then again, the Arabian Peninsula was essentially a religious shopping mall with about a dozen known religious groups interacting with each other. Unless the Qur'an was written over an older parchment, I wouldn't be surprised if Muhammad co-opted a well-known text to promote his own cause.
Hell, maybe Muhammad actually found a text like this in the desert!
Within this short of a time frame, carbon dating is generally quite accurate. It gets less accurate when you look before 60,000 years.
LQX
Member
With the carbon dating not being 100% accurate, and scholars not being 100% when Muhammad was born, why then raise this theory knowing the fallout it may cause? I can understand if the carbon dating showed the book was like a century or more older than Muhammad but a decade or two when the accuracy of both dates is still up in the air? Seems like they just want to stir shit up.
Fenderputty
Banned
This seems odd if they want to find out when the fragments were actually written.
Agreed ... equally odd.
This article implies that this parchment is one of the original sources of the Quran and it predates Muhammad and therefore Muhammad obviously just stole text wholesale and glued it together to form the Quran. Ok, so let's look at the actual text from the parchment.
The first part is addressed directly to the Prophet. What the article is implying makes absolutely no sense.
The first part is addressed directly to the Prophet. What the article is implying makes absolutely no sense.
TheRealTalker
Banned
the assumption that they're trying to present is multiple text stitched together to serve a political narrative.... even if later events are added it still leaves the hole in the theory of trying to rhythmically connect it together
So you know standard basic Arabic is basically influenced by this book? Trying to rearrange things, add things and rhythmically connect things all while having solid grammar would be a ton of effort compared to starting from scratch. I mean doing something like that would require him to be highly skilled in writing.
Then there is the lack of reference of ever hearing about a similar script or scripts before that time which would be really hard to contain. Especially at the time of their persecution when they had no power at all.
yes the range is still there it is just that the parchment could be older then Muhammad's prime time or even before his birth... Like stated in my previous post there are a ton of speculation one can make of this. The article just goes for one the most unlikely with age of the parchment being it's only supporting pillar.
It is more trying to make a thrilling headline rather then actually creating a solid theory.
RustyNails
Member
Complete and utterly wrong. This story is sourced from Daily Mail, which basically extrapolates the carbon dating into a misleading headline. The parchment is cdated to be anywhere from 568 AD onwards. Muhammad was born in 570. Zomg, Quran before Muhammad! Here is some insight from reddit into this:
And
One more
I know. But this paragraph...
...shows that the fragment could have easily been written at any point of Muhammad's life, or even after his death. These are the same dates the original article in the OP gave us, but framed to emphasize a "what-if" scenario where the fragment was made earlier on in the possible time range. Just an odd article overall.
... Oh.
Skellig Gra
Member
Because Staples didn't exist 1500 years ago. Not that it is proof or disproof of anything.
lol
TheRealTalker
Banned
The anti Islam theory of saying Muhammad and co wrote the Quran via influence of other Abrahamic religions and/or the Caliphs conspired and wrote their own book is more creditable then this theory grabbing old text and adding it together like a Jigsaw puzzle.
Plus the fact that this theory is created via a parchment being overly old without any other underlining forms of evidence is reaching without more investigation and or other evidential points to back it up. That and the chapter that this parchment contains even makes the theory less creditable.... The theorist should've actually done their research before jumping the gun.
Plus the fact that this theory is created via a parchment being overly old without any other underlining forms of evidence is reaching without more investigation and or other evidential points to back it up. That and the chapter that this parchment contains even makes the theory less creditable.... The theorist should've actually done their research before jumping the gun.
This could be big if true, wow.
No, it's not. Read the posts that follow. It's just Islamophobic propoganda.
Ah, oh well.
Maninthemirror
Banned
Islamophobes are going to cling to anything that can negate Islam. Lets say Carbon dating has a range which this does. Islam formed within that range. the most early or the most latest are also possible, scientifically speaking. the earliest support the notion by orientalists that Muhammad (saw) learnt Quran from some previous texts, they will also support the notion that Quran was made up after Muhammad (saw) but they will never cling to the idea that maybe, possibly, miraculously that as the text timeframe is within what Muslims view as when the text was revealed, that it could be possible, because they will only cling to ideas that discredit, never to the idea that or even possibility that even if they don't believe in revelation, that Muhammad (saw) told this to his followers from his own mind, they wont even believe that if the other possibilities exist (because those discredits it more)
You are seeing examples of this clinging here as well and on twitter. Anything....anything to discredit even if logically, the other notion makes equal sense.
Here is the thought process when looking a tthe range
predates Islam = "Amazing discovery, this shows someone taught muhammad, forget the rest of the range"
during Islam = "who cares"
Post Islam "Amazing discovery, this shows someone made up the Quran, forget the previous range"
A muslim would look at the entire range while an ideologue orientalist critic would only be ignore the range and cling to extremities
You are seeing examples of this clinging here as well and on twitter. Anything....anything to discredit even if logically, the other notion makes equal sense.
Here is the thought process when looking a tthe range
predates Islam = "Amazing discovery, this shows someone taught muhammad, forget the rest of the range"
during Islam = "who cares"
Post Islam "Amazing discovery, this shows someone made up the Quran, forget the previous range"
A muslim would look at the entire range while an ideologue orientalist critic would only be ignore the range and cling to extremities
Hypemaster
Member
Great post, definitely gives some context before people jump the gun and start making assumptions.
Well, regardless, I hope more research is done on these parchments and we can see where the facts fall. Attacking the veracity of a person who is quoted in the article sensationally isn't really helpful though. The actual source for the news story is here: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4542663.ece
- Status