Ghabban now believes Muhammad's close associates and early followers "stripped Qur'ans of diacritical marks" in order to permit "Muslims to read the Qur'an as it was revealed to Muhammad in the various dialects of the Arabs, and allowing the skeleton of the word to bear all the meanings which appear in it."

Hoyland added that, "this would mean that Western scholars would have less excuse to change the text as we have it now."

Without diacritical marks, for example, a sentence such as, "I took with my whole hands," can also be interpreted as, "I took with my fingertips."

The first known Islamic inscription, whose carver might have made his own mark while walking down a Syrian pilgrimage road, may solve yet another Arabic history mystery: When did noted Islamic leader Umar ibn al-Khattab die?

According to tradition and other historical accounts, a Persian soldier assassin stabbed Umar in public as the caliph was leading prayers in a mosque. Zuhayr, who may have witnessed the violent crime, recorded that Umar died in "four and twenty," which means 644 A.D.