How Can Quran Predate Islam When It Talks about Events in Early Islamic Era?
Fragments of what is said to be the oldest version of the Quran were found in Birmingham inside another Quran from the late seventh century.
Oxford University researchers used carbon dating to find the pages were from 14 centuries ago.
Some historians have asserted that if Oxford’s dating is correct, the “Birmingham Quran” was created between 568 AD and 645 AD, while Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lived between 570 AD and 632 AD.
“It destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Quran emerged — and that in turn has implications for the history of Muhammad and the Companions,” historian Tom Holland told The Times.
Speaking to IQNA, Ayatollah Yaqub Jafari dismissed the idea as baseless, saying that the Quran talks about the battles and events that took place during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet and the years after he was called to prophethood.
“So how can the Quran predate Islam” as some Western historians claim, he wondered.
Ayatollah Jafari stressed that those making such assertions are either ignorant about the Quran or have ill intentions.
These people seek to create doubts among Muslims and undermine their faith, he stated.
Earlier, another Iranian scholar Hojat-ol-Islam Seyed Mohammad Ali Ayazi rejected the accuracy of carbon dating, saying experts know that carbon dating has a margin of error of 50 to 100 years.
Moreover, he stated, the dating can roughly show when the skin was removed from the animal not when the text was written on the parchment.
Hojat-ol-Islam Ayazi also noted that in the past, parchments were reused several times, that is, things were inscribed on them and then old texts were replaced by new ones.
Many other Muslim and non-Muslim scholars have also disputed the claims that the ancient fragments predate Islam.
Confessing that the carbon dating was not always reliable, Keith Small, from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, said that dates announced last month applied not to the ink but to the parchment.
http://iqna.ir/fa/News/3358457
