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I agree that the fact that it might be during the lifetime of Mohammed is amazing. That should be the headline. On the other hand, I know that Muslims believe that Mohammed received the Quran after a visit to heaven, and I know that non-Muslim scholars instead claim a 'genesis' from Judaeo-Christian traditions. As a non Muslim, I am more inclined to the latter, but to suggest that a C14 date 'suggests' that the manuscript pre-dates Mohammed is simply headline-grabbing rather than serious historical/archaeological research. Now if the C14 date had given a range wholly before Mohammed, that would have been a story! PS I don't think Keith Small is a professor! A quick bit of research suggest that he's a Manuscript Consultant to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.

The biggest non-story for a long time. C14 dates are notoriously non-precise, and the dates given for the parchment lie within the dates for Mohammed. So there is no validity to the claim that the parchment 'could predate Mohammed'. Just a knee-jerk reaction from jounalists and 'historians' trying to make a name for themselves.