Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:41 pm · Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes
The earliest known portion of a Qur’an manuscript is housed in the library of the University of Birmingham.
Description
These are two folios that treasure hunters collected from the Middle East in the 1920s. Carbon dating of the folios has confirmed that the animal on whose skin this manuscript is written was alive between 568 CE to 645 CE.1
Dating
As the folios have marks separating ayah and surah, it is clear that the said Quran was a codified book. If we consider the carbon dating only, this manuscript could be part of a Quran in the form of a book being used two decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, i.e., Abu Bakr’s Text. If we take into consideration its style as well, it could be a Uthmanic Text and should be used soon after 650 CE.2 The academic discussion around the Birmingham Quran Manuscript makes one point very clear. Exact dating of the earliest manuscripts of the Quran is not that easy. Yet, it can be safely believed that the Birmingham Quran Manuscript was in public use during the Rashidun Caliphate period.
Further Reading
https://islamichistory.com/advent-of-islam/transmission-of-the-quran
https://historyofislam.org/sources-of-advent-of-islam
Endnotes
- For the description of the folios, see: Alba Fedeli, “Early Qur’ānic Manuscripts, Their Text, And The Alphonse Mingana Papers Held in the Department of Special Collections of the University of Birmingham,” (PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014), 47–56.; For the carbon dating of the folios see: T. F. G. Higham, Bronk Ramsey, D. Chivall, J. Graystone, D. Baker, E. Henderson, and P. Ditchfield, “Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford AMS System: Archaeometry Datelist 36,” Archaeometry 60, no. 3 (2018): 634.; For initial cataloguing of these folios see: H. L. Gottschalk (ed.), Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts: Now in the Possession of the Trustees of the Woodbrooke Settlement, Selly Oak, Brmingham and Preserved at the Selly Oak Colleges Library, Volume IV – Islamic Arabic Manuscripts, (Birmingham: The Selly Oaks Colleges Library, 1948), 2.; Mingana 1572a; Inventory No. Arabe 328c, Mingana Collection, Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
- For the dating see: H. Sayoud, “Statistical Analysis of the Birmingham Quran Folios and Comparison with the Sana’a Manuscript,” HDSKD International Journal 4, no. 1 (December 2018): 101 – 126.; Stephen J. Shoemaker, Creating the Quran: A Historical Critical Study (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), 78-82.