Historical reliability of the Quran

Historical reliability of the Quran concerns the question of the historicity of the described or claimed events in the Quran.
The Quran is viewed to be the scriptural foundation of Islam and is believed by Muslims to have been sent down by Allah (God) and revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jabreel (Gabriel). Muslims have not used historical criticism in the study of the Quran, but they have used textual criticism in a similar way used by Christians and Jews. It has been practiced primarily by secular, Western scholars such as John Wansbrough, Joseph Schacht, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook, who set aside doctrines of the Quran's divinity, perfection, unchangeability, etc., accepted by Muslim scholars, and instead investigate the Quran's origin, text, composition, and history.
In the Muslim world, scholarly criticism of the Quran can be considered an apostasy. Scholarly criticism of the Quran, is thus, a beginning area of study in the Islamic world.
Scholars have identified several pre-existing sources for the Quran. The Quran assumes its readers' familiarity with the Christian Bible and there are many parallels between the Bible and the Quran. Aside from the Bible, the Quran includes legendary narratives about Dhu al-Qarnayn, apocryphal gospels, and Jewish legends.
Textual history.
Early manuscripts.
In the 1970s, 14,000 fragments of Quran were discovered in the Great Mosque of Sana'a, the Sana'a manuscripts. About 12,000 fragments belonged to 926 copies of the Quran, the other 2,000 were loose fragments. The oldest known copy of the Quran so far belongs to this collection: it dates to the end of the 7th–8th centuries.
The German scholar Gerd R. Puin has been investigating these Quran fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsests which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.
In 2015, some of the earliest known Quranic fragments, dating from between approximately AD 568 and 645, were identified at the University of Birmingham. Islamic scholar Joseph E. B. Lumbard of Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar has written in the "Huffington Post" in support of the dates proposed by the Birmingham scholars. Professor Lumbard notes that the discovery of a Qur'anic text that may be confirmed by radiocarbon dating as having been written in the first decades of the Islamic era, and includes variations in the “under text.” recorded in the Islamic historiographical tradition . 
Quran and History.
Creation narrative and the Flood.
The Quran contains a creation narrative and may refer to the world being created in six days (The word يوم yawm which in some places is translated as day, refers to other meanings as well depending upon in which context it is being used. Stages, period, or phases are some other meanings of the same word), although this is highly debatable. In Sūrah al-Anbiyāʼ, the Quran states that "the heavens and the earth were of one piece" before being parted. God then created the landscape of the earth, placed the sky above it as a roof, and created the day and night cycles by appointing an orbit for both the sun and moon. Some Muslim apologists, like Zakir Naik and Adnan Oktar advocate creationism. Some British Muslim students have distributed leaflets on campus, advocating against Darwin's theory of evolution and contemporary Islamic scholar Yasir Qadhi believes that the idea that humans evolved is against the Quran. It has to be noted, however, that not all Muslims are against the theory of evolution, Some Muslims point to a verse in the Quran as evidence for Evolution “when He truly created you in stages ˹of development˺?” Verse 71:14. Evolution is taught in many Islamic countries, and some scholars have tried to reconcile the Quran and evolution.
Quran also contains the flood narrative. According to the Quran, Noah was a prophet for 950 years, and he built an ark where he filled it with pairs of animals. People who did not believe him, including one of his own sons, are said to have drowned.
Samiri.
Quran recounts a story of the golden calf, where it mentions that Samiri, a rebellious follower of Moses, created the calf while Moses was away for 40 days on Mount Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments. Due to the fact that "as-Samiri" can mean the Samaritan, some believe that his character is a reference to the worship of the golden calves built by Jeroboam of Samaria, conflating the two idol-worshiping incidents into one.
Death of Jesus.
Quran maintains that Jesus was not actually crucified and did not die on the cross. The general Islamic view supporting the denial of crucifixion was probably influenced by Manichaenism (Docetism), which holds that someone else was crucified instead of Jesus, while concluding that Jesus will return during the end-times.
Despite these views, Most scholars maintain that the Crucifixion of Jesus is a fact of history.
The view that Jesus only appeared to be crucified and did not actually die predates Islam, and is found in several apocryphal gospels.
Irenaeus in his book Against Heresies describes Gnostic beliefs that bear remarkable resemblance with the Islamic view:
Irenaeus mentions this view again:
He appeared on earth as a man and performed miracles. Thus he himself did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross for him. It was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, being transfigured by him, so that he might be thought to be Jesus. Moreover, Jesus assumed the form of Simon, and stood by laughing at them. Irenaeus, "Against Heresies".
Another Gnostic writing, found in the Nag Hammadi library, Second Treatise of the Great Seth has a similar view of Jesus' death:
and also:
Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, likewise, reveals the same views of Jesus' death: