With about 95% certainty the team at the Coranica Project, part of the University of Tübingen, have placed a manuscript of the Qu’ran to between 649-675 AD.

Using carbon-14 dating on select samples of the manuscript parchment researchers conclude that the manuscript, which is written in Kufic script, one of the oldest forms of Arabic writing, originated between 20-40 years after the death of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad making it one of the earliest known copies.

The Coranica project, is a collaboration between the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Paris and the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Academy of the Sciences and Humanities. It is sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and France’s Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR).

Taking a sample from the manuscript for dating. Photo: Dr. Wilfried Lagler/Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen

Full manuscript digitized here

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