An Umayyad Fragment of the Qur'an and its Dating

Abstract

In the absence of clearly dated manuscripts, the problem of dating early Qur'ans has long since exercised the minds of scholars and continues to do so today. In the present paper, we investigate the dating of one early fragment of the Qur'an, which has been dated by radio-carbon dating, and can be dated by art-historical methods, to the middle of the Umayyad period, that is, the latter years of the first century and/or the first years of the second century AH. In addition to questions of dating, a study of the textual variants and the verse-numbering represented in this fragment and in two further folios from what must be the same manuscript enables us to build up a picture of the reading and the verse-numbering system represented. This leads to the conclusion that this particular manuscript was written according to the Meccan reading tradition represented in the later sources by readers such as Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Muḥayṣin and their associates and/or predecessors. A further comparison of this manuscript with other, similar manuscripts also allows us more certainty about what were otherwise provisional datings for these other manuscripts, while at the same time allowing us a clearer picture of the characteristics of the so-called ‘Kufic’ script in its earliest stages in the first and early second centuries AH, and a better understanding of its overall development.