Carbon dating: Fragmant of Quran older than Prophet Muhammad

[Jazzbot]

Unnecessary fuss is being created as usual to malign Islam. They are predicting a date 1400 years ago, the amount of error nullifies the case.

 

[My-Analogous]

Koran thought to be the oldest in the world could predate Muhammad | Daily Mail Online

The 'Birmingham Koran' fragment that could shake Islam after carbon-dating suggests it is OLDER than the Prophet Muhammad

• Fragments of the oldest Koran were discovered last month in Birmingham
• Carbon dating found the pages were produced between 568AD and 654AD
• But several historians now say that the parchment may predate Muhammad
• They believe that this discovery could rewrite the early history of Islam

By Jennifer Newton for MailOnline

Published: 03:02 GMT, 31 August 2015 | Updated: 09:33 GMT, 31 August 2015

Fragments of the world's oldest Koran, found in Birmingham last month, may predate the Prophet Muhammad and could even rewrite the early history of Islam, according to scholars.

The pages, thought to be between 1,448 and 1,371 years old, were discovered bound within the pages of another Koran from the late seventh century at the library of the University of Birmingham.

Written in ink in an early form of Arabic script on parchment made from animal skin, the pages contain parts of the Suras, or chapters, 18 to 20, which may have been written by someone who actually knew the Prophet Muhammad - founder of the Islamic faith.

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Discovery: Fragments of what is believed to be the world's oldest Koran. Several historians have said it could even predate the Prophet Muhammad

The pages were carbon-dated by experts at the University of Oxford, a process which showed the Islamic holy book manuscript could be the oldest Koran in the world.

The discovery was said to be particularly significant as in the early years of Islam, the Koran was thought to have been memorised and passed down orally rather written.

But now several historians have said that the parchment might even predate Muhammad.

It is believed that the Birmingham Koran was produced between 568AD and 645AD, while the dates usually given for Muhammad are between 570AD and 632AD.

Historian Tom Holland, told the Times: 'It destabilises, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Koran emerged - and that in turn has implications for the history of Muhammad and the Companions.'

Keith Small, from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library, added: 'This gives more ground to what have been peripheral views of the Koran's genesis, like that Muhammad and his early followers used a text that was already in existence and shaped it to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than Muhammad receiving a revelation from heaven.

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The pages were carbon dated by experts at the University of Oxford, which showed it could be the oldest Koran in the world




HOW DID IT GET TO BIRMINGHAM?
The ancient pages were found bound alongside those of a younger copy of the Koran from the seventh century AD.

It is thought they had been put together because the Hijazi script on the parchment was similar.

They had been collected during the 1920s by a Chaldean priest called Alphonse Mingana who put together a huge collection of documents from the Middle East.

His expeditions to the Middle East were sponsored by Edward Cadbury, from the chocolate dynasty.

A special library was built at Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, a group of colleges set up by a group of Quakers led by George Cadbury.

When the colleges were merged with the University of Birmingham in the 1990s, the collection was brought under the care of the Cadbury Research Library at the university.

The fragments of the Koran then lay undiscovered until they were sent for radio carbon dating at the University of Oxford.

However, these claims are strongly disputed by Muslim scholars, with Mustafa Shah from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London also telling the paper: 'If anything, the manuscript has consolidated traditional accounts of the Koran's origins.'

The Prophet Muhammad is thought to have founded Islam sometime after 610AD and the first Muslim community was founded in Medina in 622AD.

During this time the Koran was memorised and recited orally but Caliph Abu Bakr, the first leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad's death, ordered the Koranic material to be collected into a book.

The final authoritative written form was not completed until 650AD under the third leader Caliph Uthman.

Professor Nadir Dinshaw, who studies interreligious relations at the University of Birmingham, described the discovery as 'startling'.

When it was found last month he said: 'This could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam.

'According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Qur'an, the scripture of Islam, between the years AD 610 and 632, the year of his death.

'At this time, the divine message was not compiled into the book form in which it appears today. Instead, the revelations were preserved in 'the memories of men'.

'Parts of it had also been written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels.

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Muslims believe that the Koran they read today is the same text that was standardised under Uthman and regard it as the exact record of the revelations that were delivered to Muhammad

THE FOUNDER OF ISLAM: WHO IS THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD?
The Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in Saudi Arabia in 570AD.

Although Muslims believe that Islam is a faith that has always existed and was gradually revealed to humanity by a number of prophets, Muhammad is the one said to have made the complete revelation in the seventh century.

The traditional story of the Koran tells how one night in 610 Muhammad, a deeply spiritual and religious man, was meditating in a cave on Mount Hira when he was visited by the angel Jibreel who ordered him to recite.

Once Jibreel mentioned the name of Allah, Muhammad began to recite words which he came to believe were the words of God.

These revelations continued for 23 years and are collectively known as the Koran.

When he began to recite the Koran, Muhammad and his small group of followers suffered persecution from unbelievers. In 622 God gave them the command to migrate from Mecca to the city of Medina, some 260 miles to the north, which marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

After several years, Muhammad and his followers returned to Mecca and forgave their enemies.

Shortly before Muhammad died, at the age of 63, the majority of the Arabian Peninsula had become Muslim. Within a century of his death Islam had also spread to Spain in the west and as far east as China.

Islam is now the second largest religion in the world with over one billion followers. The 2011 census recorded 2.71million Muslims in the UK, around 4.5 per cent of the total population.

'Muslims believe that the Koran they read today is the same text that was standardised under Uthman and regard it as the exact record of the revelations that were delivered to Muhammad.

'The tests carried out on the parchment of the Birmingham folios yield the strong probability that the animal from which it was taken was alive during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad or shortly afterwards.

'These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.'


Read more:

• Koran discovery could rewrite Islamic history | The Times

Read more: Koran thought to be the oldest in the world could predate Muhammad | Daily Mail Online
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It is not correct that during Prophet Mohammad time Koran was memorized and recited orally and every know that how Hazrat Umar become muslim and how her sister hide Quranic Ayah from Hazrat Umar on that time and Quran compilation was started in Hazrat Abu Bakar time and was completed in Hazrat Usman time. The article is written by very ill informed person.

 

[Mrc]

It is not correct that during Prophet Mohammad time Koran was memorized and recited orally and every know that how Hazrat Umar become muslim and how her sister hide Quranic Ayah from Hazrat Umar on that time and Quran compilation was started in Hazrat Abu Bakar time and was completed in Hazrat Usman time. The article is written by very ill informed person.

they are purposefully trying to twist the facts....that also shows varsity of their research and how reliable these guys are...

 

[Falcon29]

Fragments of the world's oldest Koran, found in Birmingham last month, may predate the Prophet Muhammad and could even rewrite the early history of Islam, according to scholars.
............
which may have been written by someone who actually knew the Prophet Muhammad -
.........

........... Huh?

 

[untitled]

this is interesting find could change a lot of "things"

Would you believe them if they say the Quran is older than the Bhagwat Geeta?
Interesting

 

[Steve781]

"between 568AD and 645AD, while the dates usually given for Muhammad are between 570AD and 632AD."
Huh? This is a controversy?

 

[Pandora]

Some PomsY researcher with zero knowledge of History of Quran making claim about its history. Did he even for a second think that script might be written on a very old material? Carbon dating cant exactly tell you how old something is as various factors can accelerate the process of decay in a material.

 

[GURU DUTT]

Would you believe them if they say the Quran is older than the Bhagwat Geeta?
Interesting

why not .... if sience can proove it we should be open minded to any thing ... shount we

 

[Maarkhoor]

Carbon dating is not reliable.
The Bible and Radiometric dating
(The Problem with Carbon 14 and other dating methods).
Many people are under the false impression that carbon dating proves that dinosaurs and other extinct animals lived millions of years ago. What many do not realize is that carbon dating is not used to date dinosaurs.

The reason? Carbon dating is only accurate back a few thousand years. So if scientists believe that a creature lived millions of years ago, then they would need to date it another way.

But there is the problem. They assume dinosaurs lived millions of years ago (instead of thousands of years ago like the bible says). They ignore evidence that does not fit their preconceived notion.

What would happen if a dinosaur bone were carbon dated? - At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Scientists dated dinosaur bones using the Carbon dating method. The age they came back with was only a few thousand years old.

This date did not fit the preconceived notion that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. So what did they do? They threw the results out. And kept their theory that dinosaurs lived "millions of years ago" instead.

This is common practice.

They then use potassium argon, or other methods, and date the fossils again.

They do this many times, using a different dating method each time. The results can be as much as 150 million years different from each other! - how’s that for an "exact" science?

They then pick the date they like best, based upon their preconceived notion of how old their theory says the fossil should be (based upon the Geologic column).

So they start with the assumption that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, then manipulate the results until they agree with their conclusion.

Their assumptions dictate their conclusions.

So why is it that if the date doesn't fit the theory, they change the facts?

Unbiased science changes the theory to support the facts. They should not change the facts to fit the theory.



A Dinosaur carbon dated at 9,890 and 16,000 years old NOT millions of years old like evolutionists claim

I have documentation of an Allosaurus bone that was sent to The University of Arizona to be carbon dated. The results were 9,890 +/- 60 years and 16,120 +/- 220 years.

"We didn't tell them that the bones they were dating were dinosaur bones. The result was sample B at 16,120 years. The Allosaurus dinosaur was supposed to be around 140,000,000 years. The samples of bone were blind samples."

This test was done on August 10, 1990

Comment from a reader:
"Of course carbon dating isn't going to work on your Allosaurus bone. That method is only accurate to 40,000 years. So I would expect to get some weird number like 16,000 years if you carbon date a millions of years old fossil. 16.000 years by the way is still 10,000 years before your God supposedly created the Earth."
Amy M 12/11/01

My response:
I explain the limits of Carbon dating below. One thing you might want to ask yourself though, is how do you know it is millions of years old, giving an "incorrect" date (one that you think is too young) or if it actually is only a few thousand years old.

As far as your comments that 16,000 years is older than when God created the earth, we know that there is more carbon in the atmosphere than there was a thousand years ago. So a date of 9,000 or 16,000 years is more likely to be less. Perhaps only 6,000 years old.



30,000 year limit to Carbon dating

Carbon dating is a good dating tool for some things that we know the relative date of. Something that is 300 years old for example. But it is far from an exact Science. It is somewhat accurate back to a few thousand years, but carbon dating is not accurate past this. Thirty thousand years is about the limit. However, this does not mean that the earth is 30 thousand years old. It is much younger than that. (1)

Because of the earth’s declining magnetic field, more radiation (which forms C14) is allowed into the earth’s atmosphere.

Willard Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) and his colleagues discovered the technique of radiocarbon dating in 1949. Libbey knew that atmospheric carbon would reach equilibrium in 30,000 years. Because he assumed that the earth was millions of years old, he believed it was already at equilibrium. However each time they test it, they find more c14 in the atmosphere, and have realized that we are only 1/3 the way to equilibrium. (1)

- What does this mean? It means that based on c14 formation, the earth has to be less than 1/3 of 30,000 years old. This would make the earth less than 10,000 years old! (1)

Carbon dating is based on the assumption that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere has always been the same. But there is more carbon in the atmosphere now than there was 4 thousand years ago. (1)

Since carbon dating measures the amount of carbon still in a fossil, then the date given is not accurate. Carbon dating makes an animal living 4 thousand years ago (when there was less atmospheric carbon) appear to have lived thousands of years before it actually did.



What was the original amount of Carbon in the atmosphere?

A great book on the flaws of dating methods is "Radioisotopes and the age of the earth" (edited by Larry Vardiman, Andrew Snelling, Eugene F. Chaffin. Published by Institute for Creation Research; December 2000)

Dating methods are based on 3 unprovable and questionable assumptions:

1) That the rate of decay has been constant throughout time.
2). That the isotope abundances in the specimen dated have not been altered during its history by addition or removal of either parent or daughter isotopes
3) That when the rock first formed it contained a known amount of daughter material
("Radioisotopes and the age of the earth" pg v)

We must recognize that past processes may not be occurring at all today, and that some may have occurred at rates and intensities far different from similar processes today.
( "Radioisotopes and the age of the earth" pg vii)

To know if carbon dating is accurate, we would have to know how much carbon was in the atmosphere in the beginning, and also how long it has been increasing, or decreasing. Since no one was there, no one knows for sure. It's like trying to figure out how long a candle has been burning, without knowing the rate at which it burns, or its original size.




God cursed the ground (the rocks too!)

See my commentary on Genesis 3 verse 17 "..cursed is the ground for your sake"

When this happened there was a burst of radioactity that made the rocks appear older than they were.

Wouldn't this make all the rocks appear the same age?

"The rock question is fairly simple and has to do with the basic elements which made up these rocks in the beginning. When each of these elements, uranium, potassium, radium etc. were switched on, it would only be natural for them to behave according to their individual properties, eventually acquiring stable half-lives of decay, at different rates. Let's say initially every radioactive element was "exploded" into existence from pre-existent elements. None of these early faster half-lives would be the same as they are today.

As time progressed each would begin to acquire its slower modern-day stable half-life, but would they all acquire these stable rates in a uniformity which would keep them all in synchrony? I doubt it. If they did, all would give the same ages, you are right. Each would probably arrive at equilibrium at different times.

Look at biological breakdown everywhere, it proceeds at different rates. Look at the world from a devolutionary viewpoint and see how perfection has been lost and breakdown has proceeded in spurts and stasis periods. Some of us have lost more information than others, that's why some are at Harvard, but others, more unfortunate, [the same] age struggle with debilitating genetic degenerative diseases like Lupus, MS, ALS, Crohn's and many other autoimmune diseases. The keys of which are locked in the "vault of degeneration knowledge" that evolutionists are unwilling to open for fear that we creationists might be correct."
Jack Cuozzo 3/02

Carbon Dating: Why you cant trust it or other radiometric dating methods. creation evolution young earth evidence old earth bible


ERRORS ARE FEARED IN CARBON DATING
Since 1947, scientists have reckoned the ages of many old objects by measuring the amounts of radioactive carbon they contain. New research shows, however, that some estimates based on carbon may have erred by thousands of years.

It is too soon to know whether the discovery will seriously upset the estimated dates of events like the arrival of human beings in the Western Hemisphere, scientists said. But it is already clear that the carbon method of dating will have to be recalibrated and corrected in some cases.

Scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Laboratory of Columbia University at Palisades, N.Y., reported today in the British journal Nature that some estimates of age based on carbon analyses were wrong by as much as 3,500 years. They arrived at this conclusion by comparing age estimates obtained using two different methods - analysis of radioactive carbon in a sample and determination of the ratio of uranium to thorium in the sample. In some cases, the latter ratio appears to be a much more accurate gauge of age than the customary method of carbon dating, the scientists said.

In principle, any material of plant or animal origin, including textiles, wood, bones and leather, can be dated by its content of carbon 14, a radioactive form of carbon in the environment that is incorporated by all living things. Because it is radioactive, carbon 14 steadily decays into other substances. But when a plant or animal dies, it can no longer accumulate fresh carbon 14, and the supply in the organism at the time of death is gradually depleted.

Since the rate of depletion has been accurately determined (half of any given amount of carbon 14 decays in 5,730 years), scientists can calculate the time elapsed since something died from its residual carbon 14.

Dating Subject to Error

But scientists have long recognized that carbon dating is subject to error because of a variety of factors, including contamination by outside sources of carbon. Therefore they have sought ways to calibrate and correct the carbon dating method. The best gauge they have found is dendrochronology: the measurement of age by tree rings.

Accurate tree ring records of age are available for a period extending 9,000 years into the past. But the tree ring record goes no further, so scientists have sought other indicators of age against which carbon dates can be compared. One such indicator is the uranium-thorium dating method used by the Lamont-Doherty group.

Uranium 234, a radioactive element present in the environment, slowly decays to form thorium 230. Using a mass spectrometer, an instrument that accelerates streams of atoms and uses magnets to sort them out according to mass and electric charge, the group has learned to measure the ratio of uranium to thorium very precisely.

The Lamont-Doherty scientists conducted their analyses on samples of coral drilled from a reef off the island of Barbados. The samples represented animals that lived at various times during the last 30,000 years.

Uranium-Thorium Dating

Dr. Alan Zindler, a professor of geology at Columbia University who is a member of the Lamont-Doherty research group, said age estimates using the carbon dating and uranium-thorium dating differed only slightly for the period from 9,000 years ago to the present. ''But at earlier times, the carbon dates were substantially younger than the dates we estimated by uranium-thorium analysis,'' he said. ''The largest deviation, 3,500 years, was obtained for samples that are about 20,000 years old.''

One reason the group believes the uranium-thorium estimates to be more accurate than carbon dating is that they produce better matches between known changes in the Earth's orbit and changes in global glaciation.

According to carbon dating of fossil animals and plants, the spreading and receding of great ice sheets lagged behind orbital changes by several thousand years, a delay that scientists found hard to explain. But Dr. Richard G. Fairbanks, a member of the Lamont-Doherty group, said that if the dates of glaciation were determined using the uranium-thorium method, the delay - and the puzzle - disappeared.

The group theorizes that large errors in carbon dating result from fluctuations in the amount of carbon 14 in the air. Changes in the Earth's magnetic field would change the deflection of cosmic-ray particles streaming toward the Earth from the Sun. Carbon 14 is thought to be mainly a product of bombardment of the atmosphere by cosmic rays, so cosmic ray intensity would affect the amount of carbon 14 in the environment at any given time. #30,000-Year Limit The Lamont-Doherty group says uranium-thorium dating not only is more precise than carbon dating in some cases, but also can be used to date much older objects. Carbon dating is unreliable for objects older than about 30,000 years, but uranium-thorium dating may be possible for objects up to half a million years old, Dr. Zindler said. The method is less suitable, however, for land animals and plants than for marine organisms, because uranium is plentiful in sea water but less so in most soils.

But even if the method is limited to marine organisms, it will be extremely useful for deciphering the history of Earth's climate, ice, oceans and rocks, Dr. Fairbanks said.
ERRORS ARE FEARED IN CARBON DATING - NYTimes.com

 

[OldenWisdom...قول بزرگ]

One has to be an idiot or a historian to say something like that since you'd have to put the whole early Islamic history on the side and then run with this. As a matter of fact early Islamic history has been noted down not only by Muslims but people of the period. The Arabs did a great job of preserving history by writing it down!

Interestingly the western academia has taken a position that when 2 positions are available one Muslim and the other non Muslim go with the non Muslim position and in cases where there is only Muslim historic evidence take it with a grain of salt.

The problem is that so many of historical Islamic manuscripts are in fact in the west and that itself is a problem that Muslims no longer have direct access to their own history and must come from an inherently biased western source.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

Interesting.

 

[v9s]

The Daily Mail strikes again!

Look at the SOURCE people! The Daily Mail is a WELL KNOWN tabloid rag paper which twists news and comes up with stupid sensationalist headlines. I can't believe that people are seriously discussing this crap.

I propose any member quoting the Daily Mail be banned from this site.

 

[lighthouse]

Enemies of Islam have been doing this since centuries.Fooling themselves and trying to deceive others.
House of Windsor and british and Zionists intelligence agencies are a party in this.If you think otherwise then you are a ignorant.They have set up secret institutions along with illuminati in their countries were they make such plans.

Bottom line is if you do baighairati then you get "spark of baighairati/shamelessness " in your eyes.This is one thing common in all enemies of Islam, that they have spark of baighairati in their eyes.

Salman Rushdi with "spark of haramzadgi and baighairati" in his eyes.

French who committed blasphemy with "spark of haramzadgi and baighairati" in eyes.

commander of indian pagan army who has committed genocide of Muslims in Kashmir with "spark of haramzadgi and baighairati" in eyes.

Pagan with spark of tantric baighairati in eyes.

Yogi sri sri ravi Shankar who teaches tantric sex and tantric yoga with "spark of tantric baighairati" in eyes.

Another pagan with spark of baighairati in his eyes.

Tom Holland of BBC who is known for spreading lies against Islam with "spark of baighairati and haramzadgi" in his eyes.

Two people who hold soft corners for one another's fraud and are enemies of muslims, with "spark of baighairati and haramzadgi" in their eyes.

 

[lighthouse]

more people with "spark of baighairati" in their eyes.

another guy with "spark of baighairati" in his eyes.

I can go on and on and on................................................

you very well know what "spark of baighairati/shamelessness" is.

another indian with "spark of baighairati " in this eyes

another guy who was spreading insurgency and terrorism in Baluchistan,Pakistan with spark of baighairati in his eyes.