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[Descan]

That doesn't automatically mean it's automatically safe to say it predates his life, though.  Two years out of a range of almost eighty is a pretty narrow possibility.

Except the idea being that the first Qur'an wasn't compiled until 650 :V

[MarcAFK]

I'm sure the parchment predates that though. There was probably a yard sale somewhere in medina where any aspiring prophet could pick up a second hand copy of 'how Judea got it's groove back' which was just begging for recycling.

[Sheb]

Also, how does that "The original community was not wealthy enough to hang on some hide" make any sense? Keeping a bit of parchment in a corner ain't exact expensive. And they manage to hang on this bit just fine.

[MarcAFK]

Religious texts would certainly get priority use of your goatskins.

[Helgoland]

Also, how does that "The original community was not wealthy enough to hang on some hide" make any sense? Keeping a bit of parchment in a corner ain't exact expensive. And they manage to hang on this bit just fine.

Well, the stockpiling itself isn't - but you do need enough money to just buy hides in order to stockpile them. Considering that the community in question wasn't exactly rich, it's safe to assume they've bought the hides whenever they were needed, not before.

[Sheb]

Oh, yeah, but if anything, it feeds into the "they just re-used some old parchment when needed". If you can't afford new hides, then it makes sense to erase Grandma's Grandiose Goatsteak recipes to replace it with the Holy Q'ran.

[Helgoland]

I dunno - there's loads and loads of Q'rans, but Grandmas' recipes are notoriously hard to come by.

[Sheb]

Plus, it's not like erase the Holy Q'ran to re-use the parchment for a new recipe. Once you go Surat, you never go back.

[Culise]

That doesn't automatically mean it's automatically safe to say it predates his life, though.  Two years out of a range of almost eighty is a pretty narrow possibility.

Except the idea being that the first Qur'an wasn't compiled until 650 :V

Ah.  From the statement of it dating to "around the age Muhammed's been born, [so it] predates" with no different statement on just what other thing it predates, my immediate assumption was that LW was claiming that it predates the founder of Islam. This, needless to say, confused me quite a bit.  My apologies if that was an incorrect assumption.  Yes, though, it is the earliest extant example, though we do run into the question of how accurate the parchment dating is to when the present text was actually written on it.

[Sheb]

Plus, AFAIK it's not like the text on it differs from the more recent versions, so who cares?

[Loud Whispers]

Ah.  From the statement of it dating to "around the age Muhammed's been born, [so it] predates" with no different statement on just what other thing it predates, my immediate assumption was that LW was claiming that it predates the founder of Islam. This, needless to say, confused me quite a bit.  My apologies if that was an incorrect assumption.  Yes, though, it is the earliest extant example, though we do run into the question of how accurate the parchment dating is to when the present text was actually written on it.

Plus, AFAIK it's not like the text on it differs from the more recent versions, so who cares?

This assumption would contradict most known accounts of Muhammad's life and legacy and may significantly alter the tradition of Islam.

If the years provided by the carbon-dating are correct, the Birmingham Quran was written even before the first formal text of the Islamic holy book is supposed to have been organized.

This is equivalent to discovering a copy of Christian gospel sayings that pre-date the infancy of Jesus.

The dates would also make the existence of the Birmingham Quran contradictory to many beliefs held by Islam's Salafist branch.

According to historian Tom Holland, there is mounting evidence that suggests that traditional accounts regarding the origins of Islam are either wrong or unreliable.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/80962/20150902/fragments-from-worlds-oldest-quran-may-predate-muhammad.htm

At any rate the lack of significant differences itself is important, it weighs heavily against centuries of accusations that Abu Bakr had gotten things wrong or deliberately changed bits of the Quran for political benefit, especially stringent since this was when he was facing off against the Persian and Roman Empires at the time and needed to motivate his men into invading foreign lands. #1 jihad my man

In summation, it's basically going down to did Islam originate with Muhammed or did it have some preexisting form that was molded and codified

[Sheb]

Not really, it boils down to "maybe someone did write a copy earlier than we though". It'd still post-date Muhammad.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I mean, we already knew Islam had things predating Muhammad. Both the indigenous Bedouin religion and the by that point fairly popular Christian spread had demonstrable contributions. It's doubtful that one man personally synchronized all of that to develop Islam by himself.

[smjjames]

Ah.  From the statement of it dating to "around the age Muhammed's been born, [so it] predates" with no different statement on just what other thing it predates, my immediate assumption was that LW was claiming that it predates the founder of Islam. This, needless to say, confused me quite a bit.  My apologies if that was an incorrect assumption.  Yes, though, it is the earliest extant example, though we do run into the question of how accurate the parchment dating is to when the present text was actually written on it.

Plus, AFAIK it's not like the text on it differs from the more recent versions, so who cares?

This assumption would contradict most known accounts of Muhammad's life and legacy and may significantly alter the tradition of Islam.

If the years provided by the carbon-dating are correct, the Birmingham Quran was written even before the first formal text of the Islamic holy book is supposed to have been organized.

This is equivalent to discovering a copy of Christian gospel sayings that pre-date the infancy of Jesus.

The dates would also make the existence of the Birmingham Quran contradictory to many beliefs held by Islam's Salafist branch.

According to historian Tom Holland, there is mounting evidence that suggests that traditional accounts regarding the origins of Islam are either wrong or unreliable.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/80962/20150902/fragments-from-worlds-oldest-quran-may-predate-muhammad.htm

At any rate the lack of significant differences itself is important, it weighs heavily against centuries of accusations that Abu Bakr had gotten things wrong or deliberately changed bits of the Quran for political benefit, especially stringent since this was when he was facing off against the Persian and Roman Empires at the time and needed to motivate his men into invading foreign lands. #1 jihad my man

In summation, it's basically going down to did Islam originate with Muhammed or did it have some preexisting form that was molded and codified

In a way, you can say that Judaism is a pre-existing form of Christianity that was molded and codified. Christianity didn't arise out of a vacuum and neither did Islam.

One could say that Mohammed played the same kind of role as Christ did.

Also, this is going deeply offtopic and into the topic of religion.

[scriver]

I think it's fair to say Judaism is a pre-existing form of Islam as well.

By the by.