'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University

[Rayaan]

There are already manuscripts that do not match with the modern version, so I wouldn't be surprised either way.

I explained that in an earlier thread:

Unlike New Testament manuscript traditions, things here are different when it comes to the Quranic manuscript tradition. That is because, thanks to the parallel oral transmission, the variations which come about at the secondary copying stage are limited and restricted to specific manuscripts. They are easily identifiable and do not spread like wild fire once a manuscript is copied and recopied. In sharp contrast, due to a lack of a rigid oral transmission tradition, mistakes in NT manuscript spread rapidly from one to another, with new mistakes coming about in the copying stage. In the case of the Quran, however, that is less likely to happen because of the widespread memorization of the Quran.

One has to remember that written manuscripts are over-rated. There is a book called "Misquoting Jesus" and it addresses the issue of common misconceptions about old manuscripts, which are: (1) Just because a manuscript is older, does not mean that it is more authentic and (2) if there is a variation, then there is no way to tell which is more authentic.

So, the main problem with manuscripts is that they are written by a single person or two. It will always be susceptible to error in writing and error in reading (in addition to the potential for forging). So, it is in this light that the Muslim system of preservation of knowledge shines. It never depended on written documents only and always depended on the dual system of both writing and mass memorization. In the case of hadiths, there was also writing and memorization as well, but not on the mass scale.