Thanks for your patience, dhimmi no more

Submitted by jennifer solis (United States), Apr 14, 2008 at 00:31

The oldest partial Qur'an is dated around 900 CE, just as you say - of course, you are right!

I was looking up "Tashkent Quran" - and I found this site - from BBC News -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4581684.stm

It states that the Tashkent Qur'an was "completed in 651 CE, 19 yrs after Mohammed's death". I found this particular article repeated all over Islamic websites, including "Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc."

I finally found a reference to the carbon dating of the Tashkent Qur'an -

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/samarqand.html

It states, "The carbon-dating of a folio from this manuscript was carried out at Oxford. The results show....a 95% probability of a date between 595 CE and 855 CE. Commenting on this result, Rezvan noted that the paleographic dating of this manuscript also indicated a date at the turn of the eight/ninth centuries."

Thanks for your patience - I know you explained in your previous letter that editing by the Ulama occured in the late second and third century of Islam by Persians and Mesopotamians, and that Wansbrough points to the fact that the Muslim masora is an activity of the third century (of Islam) and not any earlier.

I was looking for the oldest rasm of the Qur'an when I came across the b.s. about the Tashkent Qur'an.

Thanks again.

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