رابط لنفس الخبر , عن إكتشاف نسخة القرآن الكريم , في صحيفة النيويورك تايمز:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/wo...=top-news&_r=0
Quran Fragments, Said to Date From Time of Muhammad, Are Found in Britain
By DAN BILEFSKYJULY 22, 2015
LONDON — Fragments of what researchers say are part of one of the world’s
oldest manuscripts of the Quran have been found at the University of
Birmingham, the school said on Wednesday.
The global significance of the ancient fragments, which sat in the
university’s library for about a century, became apparent after a Ph.D. student
noticed their particular calligraphy. The university sent a small piece of the
manuscript, written on sheep or goat skin, to Oxford University for
radiocarbon dating.
David Thomas, a professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of
Birmingham, said that when the results had come back, he and other
researchers had been stunned to discover that the manuscript was probably at
least 1,370 years old, which would place its writing within a few years of the
founding of Islam. He said the author of the text may well have known the
Prophet Muhammad.
“We were bowled over, startled indeed,” Professor Thomas said in an
interview. The period when the manuscript was produced, he added, “could
well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam.”
Professor Thomas said that, according to Muslim tradition, Muhammad
received the revelations that form the Quran, the scripture of Islam, between
610 and 632, the year of his death. Tests by the Oxford Radiocarbon
Accelerator Unit provided a range of dates and showed, with a probability of
more than 94 percent, that the parchment dated from 568 to 645.
Consisting of two parchment leaves, the manuscript contains parts of
suras, or chapters, 18 to 20. For many years, the manuscript had been
mistakenly bound with leaves of a similar Quran manuscript.
During the time of Muhammad, Professor Thomas said, the divine
message was not compiled into the book form in which it appears today.
Rather, the revelations were preserved in the “memories of men,” and parts of
it were written on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of
camels.
Professor Thomas said the discovery could help resolve a longstanding
debate between Muslims who believe that the Quran was completed by the
time Muhammad died and some scholars who contend that the Quran was
changed or expanded in the century after his death.
He said the text of the two folio pages discovered in Birmingham
corresponded closely to today’s Quran, supporting the more traditionalist view
of the holy book’s inception.
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 Islamic holy book known to survive. Susan Worrall, the director of special
collections at the Cadbury Research Library of the university, said the
discovery was significant for Muslim heritage and for the study of Islam.
Professor Thomas said the manuscript would be put on public display,
although the fragments were organic and extremely delicate. He said the
university had no intention of parting with the manuscript.
The manuscript is part of a collection of more than 3,000 documents from
the Middle East amassed in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a theologian and
historian who was born in what is now Iraq. His documentgathering
expeditions to the Middle East were funded by Edward Cadbury, a member of
the famous chocolatemaking family.
In Birmingham, which has a large Muslim population, the discovery of the
ancient manuscript was greeted with joy.
Appearing moved, Mohammad Afzal, chairman of the Birmingham
Central Mosque, said he had been granted access to the manuscript. “I am
honored to see this manuscript, which is unique,” he said. “This goes back to
the very early stages of Islam. All the Muslims in the world would love to see
this manuscript.”
Muhammad Isa Waley, curator for the Persian and Turkish Section at the
British Library in London, said it was an “exciting” discovery.
“We know now that these two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible
Hijazi hand, almost certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs,” he
said. He added that, according to classic accounts, it was under the third
caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, that the Quranic text was compiled and the suras
edited into the order familiar today.
Professor Thomas predicted that the discovery would make Birmingham a
draw for Muslims and scholars. But he noted that Muslims did not require a
physical manifestation such as a manuscript 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.”