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The Earliest Qur’an Manuscript and the Myth of Perfect Preservation | The Sana Palimpsest

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Is the Qur’an really perfectly preserved, letter-for-letter, since the time of Muhammad? Hatun look at what the Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest means for the claim of perfect

Is the Qur’an really perfectly preserved, letter-for-letter, since the time of Muhammad?
Hatun look at what the Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest means for the claim of perfect preservation.
One of the earliest Qur’anic manuscripts ever discovered — the Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest (DAM 01-27.1) — tells a very different story.
This palimpsest (erased and rewritten manuscript) preserves two Qur’ans on the same pages: The lower text (7th century): about 40% of a codex, with chapters out of order, missing verses, and even the Basmala at the start of Sūrah 9, later corrected with a note saying “do not say bismillah.” The upper text (early 8th century): a standardized Qur’an written over the erased text, within just a few decades.
Scholars like Asma Hilali and Éléonore Cellard have shown that the lower text preserves hundreds of verses with variants after variants — clear evidence that the Qur’an was not preserved without change.
The Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest (DAM 01-27.1): What It Means for “Perfect Preservation
Earliest Qur’an Evidence: Two Qur’ans on One Page (Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest)