“Scholars split by claim that Koran scrap rewrites story of Islam”

Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for sharing this with me:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scholars-split-by-claim-that-koran-scrap-rewrites-story-of-islam-10487474.html

For the record: I’m strongly inclined to the more conservative view of the significance of this fragment.

I can well imagine that it dates to soon after the making of the so-called “‘Uthmanic rescension” of the Qur’an.  That would already be a remarkably valuable find.

I would be extremely surprised to learn that it dates to the lifetime of Muhammad himself — even though I’m among those who think (contrary to tradition) that he was probably literate and that the Qur’an began to be written down early.

But it would take an almost inconceivably huge new discovery to convince me that it predates him.  That would undo virtually everything we think we know about the origins and early history of Islam, and it seems to me extraordinarily unlikely to be the case.