The Coranica Project, at the German University of Tübingen, is one of the most advanced and comprehensive projects dedicated to research the origins of the Quran. It is led by a team of Orienatlists who specialize in Quranic manuscripts. Earlier this century, they acquired a few dozen manuscripts from Sana, Yemen, dating to the first centuries of Islam. Although they have been working on this project for decades, I have been told off the record from my grapevine in academia that not much has been published since they have not discovered anything significant that would radically alter the standard theory of the Qurans preservation. What little has come out only seems to prove that the Quran has been preserved as accurately as possible, from the beginning of Islam. Today, they announced that one of their earliest Qurans in their collection has been authentically dated via Carbon-14 techniques to around 20-40 years after the death of our Prophet (salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam). The entire Quran is online, and here is a sample of it: idb.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/diglit/MaVI165/0001?sid=cda73f55687fb0817f7b09d86c19783f This is a passage that begins with the final words of verse 35, Surah 17, Dhalik khayr wa ahsan tawila. It is difficult to read for most of us (since it is written in ancient Kufic script, the first script with which the Quran was written), but it is possible to follow along if you try. Notice that there are no dots for the various letters - at this stage the Arabic alphabet did not have such dots, and people knew by context what the word was. Also notice the red dots. Those are the vowel sounds, added a century or so later, by another scribe. A dot above the letter represents a fatha (so you see it on the first kaaf - dhalika); a dot after the letter represents a damma (so you see in on the noon in the word ahsanu - first line middle); and a dot under a letter represents a kasra (and you see it on the third to last word in the top line tamshi). Truly, We have revealed this remembrance, and We shall, for sure, preserve it. [al-Hijr; 9]
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 16:19:23 +0000
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