Short answer
Yes. The oldest Qur'an manuscripts read as the Qur'an reads today. Two leaves at the University of Birmingham were carbon dated in 2015, most likely to between 568 and 645 CE. The Prophet (ﷺ) lived from about 570 to 632. Apart from small points of spelling, their text is today's text. Other early copies differ from today's text only in spelling, verse numbering and the odd copyist's slip. They include a large codex (hand-copied book) in Istanbul, and early leaves in Paris and Berlin. None has a chapter or a verse that today's Qur'an lacks. One parchment in Sanaa has an older text washed off beneath today's. It differs in small words, chapter order, one swapped pair of verses and one missing verse. Its editors judge it a companion's private copy, and today's text the more faithful. This fits the Qur'an's promise that God (﷾) will guard it.
Full explanation
The Birmingham leaves
Two leaves in the University of Birmingham's collection carry parts of three suras (chapters). They are written in the early Hijazi script, an old style of Arabic writing. Radiocarbon dating in 2015 placed the parchment, with about 95 per cent probability, between 568 and 645 CE. That range overlaps the life of the Prophet (ﷺ), who died in 632. The test dates the animal skin, not the writing. Writing comes after the parchment is made, so the leaves fit a copy from the Prophet's (ﷺ) time or soon after. The writing on them reads as the same passages read in any printed Qur'an today.
Two parchment leaves carrying parts of Surahs 18 to 20 in early Hijazi script. In 2015 the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit dated the parchment to between 568 and 645 CE, with 95.4 per cent probability, a span that covers the Prophet's (ﷺ) lifetime (c. 570-632). Apart from small points of spelling, the text on the leaves is the text of those surahs as the Qur'an has them today.
The other early copies
The large codex in the Topkapi Palace Museum has been published in full. It has been checked word by word against the standard text. The differences are of spelling and of copyists' slips, such as a letter or word left out by mistake. Any hand-copied book has these. The codex has the same suras, with the verses in the same order. The early codex kept in Tashkent, once linked with Uthman, likewise carries the standard text. Photographs of early leaves in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere are published online. So anyone can check them against a printed Qur'an.
A full facsimile of the large early Qur'an codex kept in the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, with a study comparing its text word by word against the standard printed text. The differences it lists are of spelling and of copyists' slips. Its suras and the order of verses within them are those of the standard text.
A long-term research project that publishes photographs and descriptions of early Qur'an manuscripts from libraries around the world, with radiocarbon results where they exist, so that anyone can compare them with the printed text verse by verse.
The Sanaa palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript whose first writing was washed off and written over. One found in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, has two layers. The upper text is the standard Qur'an. Beneath it is an older, washed-off text that differs in small words and phrases. Scholars who edited it argue that it is a companion's personal codex. The Muslim sources say codices of that kind existed before Uthman made his standard copy. Within each sura the lower text has the same verses in the same order, with two exceptions. One pair of verses is swapped, and one verse that almost repeats another is missing. The chapters are in a different order. Its editors concluded that the standard text is the more faithful to the Prophet (ﷺ).
A study of the Sanaa palimpsest (Sanaa 1), a manuscript whose first, erased text lies under a later standard text. A leaf was radiocarbon dated, with high probability, to before 671 CE. The authors argue that the erased lower text is a companion's codex of the kind the early Muslim sources say existed before Uthman's standard copy, and that the evidence supports the report that the standard text goes back to Uthman. They conclude that the standard text reproduces the Prophet's (ﷺ) recitation more faithfully than the lower text does.
An edition and study of the Sanaa 1 lower text. Its differences from the standard text are mostly small variants in words and phrases, of the kind the early sources report for the companions' own codices. Within each sura the surviving lower text has the same verses as the standard text, in the same order, with two exceptions: verses 20:31-32 are swapped, and verse 9:85 (which almost repeats 9:55) is missing. The order of the suras differs.
Why the copies agree
The Qur'an says God (﷾) will guard it. Zayd ibn Thabit, the Prophet's (ﷺ) scribe, gathered it into one volume within two years of the Prophet's (ﷺ) death. He used written pieces and the men who knew it by heart. Less than twenty years after the Prophet's (ﷺ) death, the caliph Uthman had that volume copied and sent to every province. The manuscripts are what that history leads one to expect.
“We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption).”
Zayd ibn Thabit reports that after many who knew the Qur'an by heart were killed at Yamama, Abu Bakr asked him to gather the Qur'an into one volume, reminding him that he used to write down the revelation for the Messenger of Allah. Zayd collected it from written pieces and from the memories of men, and the finished copy passed from Abu Bakr to Umar and then to Hafsa.
Anas reports that Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, alarmed at how the soldiers of Syria and Iraq differed in reciting the Qur'an, urged Uthman to save the community before it differed over its Book as the Jews and Christians had. Uthman borrowed the collected sheets kept by Hafsa, had Zayd ibn Thabit and three men of Quraysh copy them, telling the three that wherever they differed with Zayd they should write in the dialect of Quraysh, in which the Qur'an was revealed, returned the sheets to her, sent a copy to every province, and ordered all other written Qur'anic material to be burned.
- His lifetime
Learned by heart and written down
The Qur'an was learned by heart and written down while the Prophet (ﷺ) was alive.
- Within 2 years
Gathered into one volume
Zayd ibn Thabit, the Prophet's scribe, gathered it into one volume from the written pieces and from the men who knew it by heart. He added nothing of his own.
- Within 20 years
Copied for every province
Uthman, the third leader after the Prophet, had that volume copied and sent to every province.
- Oldest leaves
The Birmingham leaves
A scientific test of age (radiocarbon dating) places their parchment between 568 and 645, a range that overlaps the Prophet's life. Their words read as the same passages read in any printed Qur'an today.
- Early copies
Istanbul and Tashkent
Large early copies kept in Istanbul and Tashkent carry the same text. Where they differ, it is in spelling or a copyist's slip, the kind any hand-copied book has.
- Today
No such footnotes
No printed Qur'an carries a note saying the oldest copies lack a passage, because the oldest copies give no grounds for one.
The Qur'an says God (﷾) will guard it. The manuscripts are what that history leads one to expect.
A contrast with the Bible's copies
Many modern Bibles carry notes saying that the oldest manuscripts lack certain passages, such as the last twelve verses of Mark. No printed Qur'an carries a note of that kind. The early copies of the standard text differ from it only in spelling and copyists' slips.
On Mark 16:9-20, reports that the last twelve verses are absent from the two oldest Greek Bibles that survive in large part, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, and from other early witnesses; that Eusebius and Jerome state the verses were missing from almost all the Greek copies known to them; that some manuscripts carry a different, shorter ending instead; and concludes that the Gospel as we have it from the earliest evidence ends at 16:8.
The critics' claims
Birmingham Qur'an manuscript (Mingana 1572a)
Two parchment leaves carrying parts of Surahs 18 to 20 in early Hijazi script. In 2015 the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit dated the parchment to between 568 and 645 CE, with 95.4 per cent probability, a span that covers the Prophet's (ﷺ) lifetime (c. 570-632). Apart from small points of spelling, the text on the leaves is the text of those surahs as the Qur'an has them today.
Cited for
The Birmingham parchment may be older than Muhammad (ﷺ), since its date range starts in 568 CE. So the text could be older than him.
The response
The test dates the animal skin, not the writing. Writing comes after the parchment is made. The range also covers the whole life of the Prophet (ﷺ). The leaves carry parts of three suras as the Qur'an has them today.
Where it lands — The date is of the skin, not the writing, so it cannot show that the text is older than the Prophet (ﷺ).
Quranic Studies (1977)
Argues that the Qur'an reached its fixed, canonical form only gradually, over about two centuries, and was not finalised until around the end of the eighth century CE.
Cited for
The Qur'an was not fixed until about two centuries after Muhammad (ﷺ).
The response
Radiocarbon dating has since dated the Birmingham leaves to between 568 and 645 CE. It dated a leaf of the Sanaa parchment, with high probability, to before 671 CE. The Birmingham leaves carry today's text. The Sanaa parchment carries the same suras, with their verses almost always in the same order. The theory was built before these results existed.
Where it lands — The physical evidence shows today's text in use within the first century of Islam, so the late-origin theory fails.
San'a' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an (2012)
An edition and study of the Sanaa 1 lower text. Its differences from the standard text are mostly small variants in words and phrases, of the kind the early sources report for the companions' own codices. Within each sura the surviving lower text has the same verses as the standard text, in the same order, with two exceptions: verses 20:31-32 are swapped, and verse 9:85 (which almost repeats 9:55) is missing. The order of the suras differs.
Cited for
The erased text of the Sanaa palimpsest shows an earlier, different Qur'an.
The response
Its editors argue that the lower text comes from a companion's personal codex. It is of the kind that existed before Uthman's standard copy, exactly the kind of copy the Muslim sources say existed and were withdrawn. Its differences are mostly small words and phrases within the same verses. The chapters come in a different order. There is also one swapped pair of verses, and one missing verse that nearly repeats another. Its own editors concluded that the standard text is the more faithful to the Prophet's (ﷺ) recitation.
Where it lands — The Sanaa lower text confirms the Muslim account of how the text was standardised. It does not show a different Qur'an.
Corpus Coranicum
A long-term research project that publishes photographs and descriptions of early Qur'an manuscripts from libraries around the world, with radiocarbon results where they exist, so that anyone can compare them with the printed text verse by verse.
Cited for
The oldest manuscripts have few dots. Many Arabic letters share one shape, so no one can know how the text was first read.
The response
It is true that the earliest copies mark only some of the dots that tell apart letters of the same shape. Anyone can see this in the photographs on Corpus Coranicum, an online archive of early manuscripts. But the Qur'an was never kept by ink alone. Its name means recitation, and it was learned by heart and heard aloud more than it was read. The Qur'an calls itself "Signs self-evident in the hearts of those endowed with knowledge" (29:49). The written copy helped people who already knew the words. Where a word without dots can be read in more than one way, only certain readings are recited. Each must fit Uthman's copies, be sound Arabic and come down by a sound chain of reciters from the Prophet (ﷺ). A detailed study of two readings recited today, Hafs and Warsh, found that nearly all their differences lie in vowels and dots. Very few make any real difference to the meaning.
Where it lands — Missing dots did not leave the words to guesswork. Memory carried them, and each reading is known by its chain.
Perspectives
Late-origin theory
A school of critics in the 1970s argued that the Qur'an took shape slowly, long after the Prophet (ﷺ).
John Wansbrough, a scholar writing in the 1970s, argued that the Qur'an's fixed text emerged over about two centuries. He placed it around the end of the eighth century.
Rebuttal
Wansbrough wrote before the radiocarbon tests. They dated the Birmingham leaves, which carry today's text, to between 568 and 645 CE. A leaf of the Sanaa parchment was dated, with high probability, to before 671 CE. That is also far earlier than the end of the eighth century.
The Islamic perspective
The Qur'an was memorised and written down in the Prophet's (ﷺ) lifetime, gathered soon after his death, and copied out for every province. The oldest manuscripts match that account.
The Birmingham leaves, whose parchment dates to between 568 and 645 CE, carry the text of today's Qur'an.
The Topkapi codex, compared word by word, differs from the standard text only in spelling and copyists' slips.
The Sanaa lower text comes from a companion's codex of the kind that existed before Uthman's copy. Its editors judge the standard text the more faithful.
The text was gathered from writing and memory within two years of the Prophet's (ﷺ) death. Under Uthman it was copied for every province.
The agreement of the manuscripts fulfils the Qur'an's promise that God (﷾) will guard it.