Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
news.discovery.com
Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
1–10 of 61 posts
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#2So if the parchment's carbon dating window contains the known date in reality, doesn't it make more sense to throw away the low end of the window?
(Unless of course, you just want to undermine the religion.)
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#3I'm very interested in how research into this will develop, but I'm also concerned about zealots going out of their way to slow down any such research. If this is true, it could be a major turning point for many of the Abrahamic religions, not just Islam.
Hopefully this encourages more skepticism than aggressive idealism.
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#4I'm very interested in how research into this will develop, but I'm also concerned about zealots going out of their way to slow down any such research. If this is true, it could be a major turning point for many of the Abrahamic religions, not just Islam. Hopefully this encourages more skepticism than aggressive idealism.
It almost certainly won't encourage scepticism, sadly. People just don't work that way (on the whole).
Example: http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want...
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#5The last paragraph says:
Small cautioned that the carbon dating was only done
on the parchment in the fragments, and not the actual
ink, but added "If the dates apply to the parchment
and the ink, and the dates across the entire range
apply, then the Koran — or at least portions of it
— predates Mohammed, and moves back the years that
an Arabic literary culture is in place well into
the 500s."
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#6> University of Oxford says the fragments were produced between the years 568 A.D. and 645 A.D. Muhammad is generally believed to have lived between 570 A.D. and 632 A.D.
Without a narrower range, it's ridiculous to say that it predates Muhammad. At most it predates the first known, fully assembled Qur'an from 653CE.
(Aside: I realize this story comes from Fox News but its listing of dates as "Anno Domini" is in poor taste, given the subject matter.)
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#7>The Times of London reported that radiocarbon dating carried out by experts at the University of Oxford says the fragments were produced between the years 568 A.D. and 645 A.D. Muhammad is generally believed to have lived between 570 A.D. and 632 A.D. The man known to Muslims as The Prophet is thought to have founded Islam sometime after 610 A.D., with the first Muslim community established at Medina, in present-day Saudi Arabia, in 622 A.D.
When they test the document, how do they know the difference of when the document was created versus when the actual document was written on?
For example, paper could be created before the paper is actually used to write on.
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#8So if the parchment's carbon dating window contains the known date in reality, doesn't it make more sense to throw away the low end of the window? (Unless of course, you just want to undermine the religion.)
i first read it the way you did, but after second reading i think they meant that fragments were produced over the period, with old fragments in the older date and more recent ones on the more recent one.
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#9So if the parchment's carbon dating window contains the known date in reality, doesn't it make more sense to throw away the low end of the window? (Unless of course, you just want to undermine the religion.)
You're right. If the range didn't overlap at all, that might be something. It's hard to believe that professional researchers would be this obnoxious, so I somewhat suspect that Discovery has the figures wrong.
Re: Fragments of World's Oldest Koran May Predate Muhammad
#10>The Times of London reported that radiocarbon dating carried out by experts at the University of Oxford says the fragments were produced between the years 568 A.D. and 645 A.D. Muhammad is generally believed to have lived between 570 A.D. and 632 A.D. The man known to Muslims as The Prophet is thought to have founded Islam sometime after 610 A.D., with the first Muslim community established at Medina, in present-day…
> Small cautioned that the carbon dating was only done on the parchment in the fragments, and not the actual ink