The world’s oldest copy of the Holy Quran close to the time of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) have been found at the University of Birmingham.
The fragments of writing on animal skin what researchers say found to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.
PhD researcher Alba Fedeli noticed that particular calligraphy in a collection of other Middle Eastern documents and decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were “startling”.
According to British Library expert Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, the “exciting discovery” would have Muslims rejoicing.
Susan Worrall, university’s director of special collections said researchers had not expected “in our wildest dreams” that it would be so old.
“Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Quran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting.”
According to the BBC, the pages of the holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century.
“The tests carried out on the parchment yield the strong probability that the animal from which it was taken was alive during the lifetime of Mohammed or shortly afterwards,” said Professor David Thomas.
“According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death.”