Koran fragments found in UK library are among world's oldest, says university

The University of Birmingham in central England may be the proud owner of fragments of one of the world's oldest surviving copies a Koran manuscript which may even have been written by someone who knew Prophet Mohammad, researchers said on July 22nd.

Muslim tradition says the prophet received the revelations of the Koran  between 610 and 632 — but it wasn't written down immediately. The first leader of the community after Muhammad's death, Caliph Abu Bakr, ordered the book to be written and it was completed by the third leader, Caliph Uthman, in 650.

Radiocarbon dating indicated that the parchment folios were at least 1,370 years old, which would make them one of the earliest written forms of the Islamic holy book in existence.


The manuscript was part of the university's collection of 3,000 Middle Eastern documents which was acquired in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in Iraq.

His trips to acquire the manuscripts were funded by Quaker philanthropist Edward Cadbury, whose family made their fortune in chocolate, to raise the status of Birmingham as an intellectual centre for religious studies.

"The parts of the Koran that are contained in those fragments are very similar indeed to the Koran as we have it today,"

David Thomas, professor of Christianity and Islam, said.

 "This tends to support the view that the Koran that we now have is ... very close indeed to the Koran as it was brought together in the early years of Islam,"

"(These fragments) give us glimpses into potentially how something which we now call the Koran might have been used in this early period and how it might have been recorded,"

said Sajjad Rizvi, Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.


The leaves, held in the university's Mingana Collection, contain parts of chapters 18 to 20, written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi.

"This is indeed an exciting discovery,"

said Muhammad Isa Waley, lead curator for Persian and Turkish manuscripts at the British Library in London.

"A lot of people from Birmingham and all over the country will love to see it,"

said Muhammad Ali, the administrator at Birmingham Central Mosque.

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Christian clergyman defiling book which did not belong to him

Like there are many misconception about different Muslims there are also many wrong ideas about Christians. Not all people who receive a correction on what they are saying on the others like that reaction.

Adnan Masih, 26 is a young Christian clergyman accused of blasphemy after he sought to correct misconceptions about Christianity in a Muslim book.
The Islamic extremist Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) and the police from Lahore, Pakistan are searching for him because they do find this man did something terrible against the prophet and the Pakistani judicial system, makes blasphemy against Islam’s prophet punishable by death.

The story began on 7 October with a misunderstanding. Adnan Masih was replacing his brother at an eyeglass store, the Diamond Glass, where the latter worked. Whilst there, the Christian clergyman saw a book on a shelf by a Muslim leader who heads an outlawed extremist organisation, the Jamat-ul-Dawa. He noted errors in the book about the Bible and penned corrections in it. He then left the store.

The next day Abid Mehmood, a colleague of his brother, filed a complaint against Masih at a police station, accusing him of blasphemy (under Article 295, sections A, B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code). When he heard about the complaint against him, the Christian man denied the accusations.

However, he became the subject of death threats from Jamat-ul-Dawa and eventually a fatwa. Fearing for himself and his loved ones, on 8 November, he turned himself in to local police, asking for protection.

"We're scared," family members said. "Adnan has not written anything against Islam. He only corrected some things about Jesus Christ."

"This is the third case of persecution against Christians based on the blasphemy law in just two months," Fr Arshed John, from the Diocese of Lahore, told AsiaNews. "I hope the police is able to protect him. I call on everyone, without distinction of religion, to pray for this man and his family. "

What the christian family does not seem to understand that first of all you can not write something in a book which you do not buy and is not your own. He should have bought it, read it and returned it with his corrections. But now just writing in something which did not belong to him we can not justify.

The man writing in the book has also doctrinal teachings which are not justifiable with the Biblical teachings. According to him the Old Testament demonstrates a plurality in the Godhead that is a united One, and this distinction is reaffirmed in the New Testament, but that is not at all so. According to the Holy Scriptures, which we consider to be the word of God, there is only One God.

The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most venerated of Orthodox Christian icons of the Virgin Mary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some may say "Because of Mohammed’s misunderstanding of what

Christians believed and practiced, Islam teaches that the Christian belief of the Trinity is a polytheistic teaching of  “three gods”, characterized as the “Father”, and the “Son” and the “Virgin Mary”. " They overlook that the Islamic prophet recognises the Jews and Christians who follow good teachings but also see the Jews and Chrisitians who follow false teachings. One of those false teachings of that group of Christians which went the wrong way according Muhammad is the Holy Trinity. That is not about a virgin Mary being God, though at his time and also still today there are Christians, like several Catholics who honour Myriam the mother of Jeshua as Maria or Mary, mother of Jesus and mother of God.

Text of "Our Father" prayer with Trinity in central column (God the Father, dove of the Holy Spirit, Jesus) and Biblical and symbolic scenes in left and right columns. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The “Virgin Mary” has nothing to do with the Trinity (it is the Holy Spirit, not Mary) which is according many Christians a person or figure. Those Christians do forget that God Himself is only One and is Spirit, not anything of flesh and blood, male or female in the strict sense like they see a human being. Lots of Christians do have 1 God the Father + 1 god the son + 1 god the Holy Spirit, and to our and to the Muslim mathematical thinking 1+1+1= 3. for that we can not say the prophet of that religious group had a wrong impression of those Christians who believe in a Tri-une God. Such a teaching is totally against the Words of God which can be found in many old writings, older than the quran.

Archaeological discoveries have repeatedly confirmed what Christians have already believed, that Biblical manuscripts and fragments dated even hundreds of years before Mohammed are virtually identical to the canonized Biblical texts we have today. From those old textfragments we can see that in later  centuries some alterations may have been brought in the Bible Translations, like the taking away of God His name and putting 'Lord' everywhere the tetragram or the Name of God was written, so that people could not figure out any more who it was that was been spoken of, god or Jesus. This alteration made to fit specific doctrinal teaching could not erase the essence of the real message, which each person still can find when he reads the whole assembly of 66 books.

The Biblical Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew Name for God the Father. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those who read the bible and compare the many translations with the old manuscripts will see how much conformity they still have.

When Muhammad recited the Qur’an, he clearly stated that he did not believe that the Bible was corrupt at that time and called upon Christians to adhere to the Scriptures that they already possessed.

Today, looking at some fundamentalist Muslims and hearing what they say about the Christian Scriptures, comparing them with the texts archeologist found until now, we could question them: "Since the Scriptures we have today are the same Scriptures that Christians had even well before the time of Muhammad, when do you believe the Bible could have possibly been corrupted, who corrupted it, and how was it corrupted?"

It is true that there are many Christians believe in something wich is nowhere noted in the Scriptures. We still offer 1000 € to the first Christians who can show us where in the original bible texts was written the word 'Trinity'.

The Muslims, like many Christians, Jews and gentiles should know that there are Christians who do not believe in a Tri-une God, but believe the Only One God, who does not tell lies and said about the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, whom we believe to be Jesus Christ the Messiah: "This is my only begotten beloved son". Jesus is the son of God and not god the son, nor the god the sun, nor god the light which we should honour. Jesus prayed unto his Father and told us to do likewise. We only should believe in One God only and One God that is not Triune.  Not three gods.

Islamic picture of Annunciation (Mariam) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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