Interesting Numerical Findings in the Qur'an (or a hoax?):
A partial examination

 

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq

[September 30, 2005]

 

Search for miracles is a perennial quest of the believers. Muslims are not exceptions. Readers might already be familiar with the miracle of 19, as allegedly discovered by late Dr. Rashad Khalifa. He claimed that the pattern of 19, as weaved in the Qur'an, is nothing short of a miracle and it authenticates the divine origin of the Holy Qur'an. There was a hulabaloo about this claim. Ultimately, Dr. Khalifa ended up rejecting the entire hadith literature, since it does not meet such criteria of 19 and thus hadith literature, in his view, must have been interpolated by human beings. This was hardly a new finding, because Muslims accept hadith literature not as of divine origin, similar to the Qur'an, but as a source of Islamic knowledge, subject to scrutiny and verification. Some people claim that Dr. Khalifa also ended up claiming himself as a prophet of God.

 

Muslims, like adherents of most faiths, are quite fond of seeking such miracles. However, it is very important that they should search for miracles in a truth-seeking manner. They should do their due diligence in regard to any such claim of miracle or "interesting findings".

 

Recently, a friend of mine forwarded a copy of another such claim of "interesting numerical findings" in the Qur'an. Even al-Jazeerah picked up this story, already in circulation: "Interesting Numerical Findings From the Holy Qur'an." [August 9, 2004; Note #1] That, of course, gave the story quite broad dissemination. Through various internet forums and private lists, it became widely publicized.

 

 As reported in al-Jazeerah:

"Tariq Al Suwaidan discovered some verses  in the Holy Qur'an that mention one thing is equal to another, i.e. men are  equal to women. Although this makes sense grammatically, the astonishing fact is  that the number of times the word man appears in the Qur'an is 24 and the number  of times the word woman appears is also 24, therefore not only is this phrase correct in the grammatical sense but also true mathematically, i.e. 24 =  24.

Upon further analysis of various verses, he discovered that this is consistent throughout the whole Qur'an, where it says one thing is like another."

Since no Arabic equivalent was given for most of the words used by Dr.TaS, it is difficult to verify his numerical findings. For example, to look for "man", what was the word used? "Rajulun"? Was only the singular form included in the count, or plural as well? Were other variations (inflective forms and derivatives) included? Since no such information is given, nor have I been able to locate or contact Dr.TaS, I haven't been able to subject all the entries in his list of findings to appropriate scrutiny. However, there were two items on his list that I have been able to scrutinize and the result is categorically at variance with his claims.

 

For example, according to him, in the Qur'an, the number of time Salat (prayer) appears is 5. The number 5 is also suggestively presented as significant, because Muslims are required to pray 5 times a day. Readily I knew that there is a problem. Actually, the word "Salat" (not including any variations or derivatives) occur in the Qur'an not 5 times, but 60+ times. Here I am reproducing the entire list:

002.003 002.043 002.045 002.083 002.110 002.153 002.177 002.238 002.277 004.043 004.077

004.101 004.103 004.142 004.162 005.006 005.012 005.055 005.058 005.091 005.106 006.072

007.170 008.003 009.005 009.011 009.018 009.054 009.071 010.087 011.114 013.022 014.031

014.037 014.040 017.078 019.031 019.055 020.014 020.132 021.073 022.035 022.041 022.078

024.037 024.056 024.058 027.003 029.045 030.031 031.004 031.017 033.033 035.018 035.029

037.075 042.038 058.013 062.009 062.010 070.022 070.023 070.034 073.020 098.005 107.005

What I did is searched for the word "prayer" in MSA-USC Qur'an database [#2]. That database is based on English translation of the Qur'an. Also, the arabic words for prayer are more than one (Salat, dua, etc.). Therefore, after obtaining the search result for "prayer," I looked up each of the entries with Arabic-English Qur'an online [#3] for the exact word "Salat" only. Then, I further confirmed the result in a comprehensive "Arabic concordance of the words of the Qur’an." [#4] It appears that the word Salat occurs almost 66 times, not five times.

 

Dr.TaS also claims that the number of times the word "month" occurs is 12, which also appears as significant, because the number of months is 12. Once again, it is not clear as to what word has been used for that finding. Assuming "shahr or shahrun", it is still not clear whether any variation of the word was used in his finding. However, following the same procedure I used for "Salat," I could not come up with "month" or its variation exactly 12 times. If searched by the exact equivalent of "month", which is "shahr or shahrun", I could come up with only 10 times.

1. 002.185 (twice)
2. 002.194 (twice)
3. 002.217
4. 005.002
5. 005.097
6. 034.012 (twice)

7. 097.003 

Using "months" and the variations, one finds the additional following:

1. 002.197(ash-hur)
2. 002.226 (ash-hur)
3. 002.234 (ash-hur)
4. 004.092 (shahrain)
5. 009.002 (ash-hur)
6. 009.005 (ash-hur)
7. 009.036 (2; Shuhur; Ash-har)
8. 046.015 (shahran)
9. 058.004 (shahrain)
10. 065.004 (ash-hur)

In neither case, the number count adds up to 12.

 

Let us now turn to one of the primary "findings" of Dr.TaS. He found equality between man and woman in the Qur'an, because "the number of times the word man appears in the Qur'an is 24 and the number  of times the word woman appears is also 24." Let's see how does this hold up our scrutiny.

As I have mentioned, the specific Arabic word(s) for man and woman used by Dr.TaS is not provided in the essay. Nor is available the complete list of verses, where these 24 and 24 counts of man and woman occurred in the Qur'an. Regardless, this is what the readers can find out for themselves. There are four separate words for man: rajulun, bashar and insan. Rajulun occurs 16 times (variation rajulan 8 times, al-rajulu 16 times, rijalan 9 times). Bashar occurs 16 times (variation basharan 10 times). Insan occurs 66 times. Zakar occurs 12 times. Therefore, none of these words in any of these combination agree with the count 24. What about woman? The singular for woman is imra'atun and it occurs 11 times. If the plural an-Nisa'a is considered, it occurs 39 times. Untha occurs 18 times. Once again, none of these combinations actually agree with the "interesting finding" of 24 count.

Imra'atun (woman)	Nisa (women)	Rijal (man)	Bashar (man)	Zakar (man)	Insaan (man)
003.035 004.012 004.128 012.030 012.051 027.023 028.009 033.050 066.010 066.010 066.011	002.222 002.231 002.232 002.235 002.236 003.014 003.042 004.001 004.003 004.004 004.007 004.011 004.019 004.022 004.024 004.032 004.034 004.043 004.075 004.098 004.127 004.127 004.129 004.176 005.006 007.081 024.031 024.060 027.055 033.030 033.032 033.032 033.052 033.059 037.048 048.025 049.011 049.011 065.001	002.282 004.012 007.063 010.002 011.078 023.025 023.038 028.020 033.004 034.007 034.043 036.020 039.029 040.028 043.031	003.047 003.079 005.018 006.091 014.034 014.034 015.033 016.103 018.110 019.020 019.026 021.003 021.034 023.024 023.033 026.154 026.186 030.020 036.015 041.006 042.051 064.006 074.025 074.029 074.031 074.036	003.036 003.195 004.011 004.124 004.176 016.097 040.040 049.013 053.021 053.045 075.039 092.003	004.028 010.012 011.009 012.005 014.034 015.026 016.004 017.011 017.011  017.013 017.053 017.067 017.083 017.100 018.054 019.066 021.037 022.066 023.012 025.029 029.008 031.014 032.007 033.072 036.077 039.008 039.049 041.049 041.051 042.048 043.015 043.031 044.014 046.015 050.016 053.024 053.039 055.003 055.014 059.016 070.019 075.003 075.005 075.010 075.013 075.014 075.036 076.001 076.002 079.035 080.017 080.024 082.006 084.006 086.005 089.015 089.023 090.004 095.004 095.004  096.002 096.005 096.006 099.003 100.006 103.002

I haven't spent additional time to scrutinize other words that show up as findings of Dr.TaS. However, my partial examination demonstrates that the claim does not hold up at least in two cases. Readers are invited to verify my findings on their own. If they are able to confirm any other entries in the list of Dr.TaS, I will be interested to learn further. That al-Jazeerah picked up such a story, especially about the Qur'an, without an iota of scrutiny, does not reflect well on al-Jazeerah.

By the way, that the claim of "interesting findings" does not hold up in light of my partial examination does not have anything to do with the issue of equality between men and women. The Qur'an categorically asserts that they are mutual AWLIYA (guardian, patron, friend, protector) of each other. [9/at-Taubah/71]

 

I personally do not need such numerical findings to be a Muslim. However, believing mind often lend itself to such findings, almost blindly. That does not speak very well of the real foundation of one's faith. When there are so many competing claims of the Truth, one has to be a truth-seeking person to avoid falsehood and hoaxes. That requires an inquiring mind, not merely a believing mind.

 

 

Reference:

1. Al-Jazeerah. "Interesting Numerical Findings From the Holy Qur'an"  
2. MSA-USC Qur'an Search Database  
3. Arabic-English Qur'an Online 
4. Muhammad F. ‘Abd al-Baqi. Al-Mu'jam al-Mafahras li-Alfaz al-Qur'an al-Karim [Cairo: Dar al-Hadith, 1988]

 

[The author is a faculty of economics and finance at Upper Iowa University. Personal homepage: http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm]

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