The Qur’an

The Birmingham and Sana’a manuscripts

Two discoveries have shaped the modern study of the Qur’an’s text: leaves in Birmingham that may come from the Prophet’s own generation, and a rewritten manuscript in Sana’a with an earlier text beneath it. What do they show?

1The question

What do the earliest Qur’an manuscripts show about the text?

2What Christians believe

Christian scholars point to the Sana’a manuscript, a palimpsest found in 1972 in the Great Mosque of Sana’a in Yemen. Its lower, erased text differs in places from the standard Qur’an, which they see as evidence that the text once varied before it was standardised.

Keith E. Small (<cite>Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts</cite>, 2011) argues that the manuscripts show the Qur’an was edited and standardised, rather than preserved unchanged from the start.

3What the texts say

The Bible’s own concern about copying

How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.
Jeremiah 8:8 · KJVRead in context →

Testing what we receive

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 · KJVRead in context →

God’s word in heaven

For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.
Psalm 119:89 · KJVRead in context →

4What scholars say

In 2015 two parchment leaves in the Mingana collection at the University of Birmingham were radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645, within or close to the Prophet’s lifetime. Their text matches the standard Qur’an.

Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi (“Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān”, Der Islam 87, 2012) studied the Sana’a lower text. They found differences mostly in wording and word order within verses, and argued that it is a companion’s copy that supports the early stability of the text. Asma Hilali (The Sanaa Palimpsest, 2017) suggests the lower text may have been written for teaching.

Scholars agree that the Sana’a lower text has real differences from the standard text, and that the same surahs and content are present.

5The Islamic perspective

The Qur’an invites its readers to test it, and says that falsehood cannot reach it from any side:

Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.
Qur’an 4:82 · PickthallRead in context →
Falsehood cannot come at it from before it or from behind it. (It is) a revelation from the Wise, the Owner of Praise.
Qur’an 41:42 · PickthallRead in context →

Muslims see the manuscripts as confirming what tradition taught: a text fixed very early, recited by many, and copied with great care. The small differences in Sana’a sit alongside a standard text that, as the Birmingham leaves show, existed in the first generation.

6Objections and responses

“The Sana’a palimpsest proves the Qur’an was changed.”

Response: Its differences are in wording and order inside verses, not in new teachings or missing surahs. Scholars who studied it closely read it as a companion’s copy, or as a teaching text, and Sadeghi concluded that it supports the standard text going back to the Prophet’s time.

“Radiocarbon dates the animal skin, not the writing.”

Response: That is true; the writing could be somewhat later than the parchment. But parchment was not usually stored for decades before use, and the style of script is also very early. Together they point to the first generations after the Prophet ﷺ.

7Conclusion

Both sides agree that the Birmingham leaves are very early and match today’s text, and that the Sana’a lower text has small differences. Christians see evidence of early variation and editing. Muslims see evidence of a text fixed in the first generation, with only small differences in early copies.

Look up images of the Birmingham Qur’an online and compare a few lines with a printed Qur’an.

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