Some people claim there are mathematical miracles to the Quran in terms of number of times words appear to be the same. This is such a weak argument. It was never used historically and is has several problems.

Just because you find some patterns in the book does not mean it had a divine author. Can we find these same patterns in other books? Yes! There are such coincidences as written here about Moby Dick). If anyone actually spent the time to count the words you would see it’s really a case of cherrypicking and stretching the data to fit the narrative.

Not just that, all these “miracles” depend on a very specific reading of the Quran which is the Hafs en Asem. If you read the Warsh or any other variant these counts would be totally different!

If we look at any text that is sufficiently long, we can find things that add up.

I ran a word counter on Romeo and Juliet which is around 2900 lines and found some interesting and funny coincidences:

Time and Old 33 times

Lord and God 31 times

Eyes and Dear 27 times (like the phrase Qurata Ayun – Coolness of my eyes)

Word and Scene 27 times

World and Earth 20 times

Peace and Married 19 times

Faith and Blood 18 times

Grave and Rest 16 times

Pray and Slain 17 times

Marriage and Gentleman 11 times

I’m sure if I spent more time, I could find some more funny coincidences. Not just word counting but looking at the n-th word and trying to attach meaning to it. Or counting the even and odd instances. The more time you spend, the more you will find.

We can do this with any book with some sort of results. Some people also claim the Bible has such “miracles” too in it.

The Quran is 6236 verses, which means there are far more possibilities for this to happen. So it should not be surprising if we find this occurring sometimes.

When it comes to Arabic text, it’s more complicated. Because a word can appear in many forms. For example the arabic word for day yawm (يَوْم) can be written as alyawm (today) or ayyam (أَيَّامٍ ) days or in the dual form two days yawmayn (يَوْمَيْنِ).

Regarding the miracle claim that day appears 365 times in the Quran, lets discuss this. First of all, there are 365.24 days in a year, but 365 is a useful approximation. In the Islamic Calendar, it doesn’t match at all, its closer to 354. Second of all, we will see how this 365 number is so inconsistently arrived at.

The question is, when we look for these patterns, are we applying the same consistent rules throughout the text? Or do we pick and choose specific instances in order to “make the miracle work” ?

The actual occurrence of the general word yawm is 475 times. This includes singular, dual and plural cases. There are 27 plural (days), 3 that are dual form (two days) and singular occurrences occur 445 times with all forms. This doesn’t give anything useful for this claim so the apologist continues on. Now the trick here is to add up basic versions which occur 274 times and those prefixed as al-yawm (today) which occur 75 times but leave out suffix forms. You might notice that adding these two together doesn’t result in 365 but 349, that’s because they include suffixed forms of yawn that are in the accusative form (which is written with a suffixed alif). This occur 16 times and they add it in to give them what they want. (Source: MobySac on Reddit)

There we go. Pick and choose the ones we like to make the miracle work. Seems like a lot of work to prove Allah right! Trust me, if I was an all knowing God, I am sure there is a better way I could have encoded the text with a checksum. I might even send two identical copies to two different parts of the world. But no such thing ever happened.

Another problem with this claim is that we know that there are multiple readings of the Quran. In this hadith in Bukhari, Umar hears Hisham reading the Quran differently than he remembers and gets angry and drags him to Muhammad to verify. Muhammad then says that the way he was reading it is approved by Allah as well.

Umar said: I heard Hisham reciting Surat Al-Furqan during the lifetime of Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) and I listened to his recitation and noticed that he recited in several different ways which Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) had not taught me. I was about to jump over him during his prayer, but I controlled my temper, and when he had completed his prayer, I put his upper garment around his neck and seized him by it and said, “Who taught you this Sura which I heard you reciting?” He replied, “Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) taught it to me.” I said, “You have told a lie, for Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) has taught it to me in a different way from yours.” So I dragged him to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) and said (to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ)), “I heard this person reciting Surat Al-Furqan in a way which you haven’t taught me!” On that Allah’s Apostle said, “Release him, (O `Umar!) Recite, O Hisham!” Then he recited in the same way as I heard him reciting. Then Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “It was revealed in this way,” and added, “Recite, O `Umar!” I recited it as he had taught me. Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) then said, “It was revealed in this way. This Qur’an has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever (way) is easier for you (or read as much of it as may be easy for you). (Bukhari 4992, Emphasis mine)

So already we have a big problem. We already have shown that there isn’t one exact text of the Quran. Here are some different recitations:

Hafs bin Asem (the most common one)

Warsh

And others

In these recitations, different words are used sometimes, or different forms of the same word, and even sometimes the verse numbering and count is different.

As well, we know that after Muhammad died, all the other copies of the Quran were burnt and only Uthman’s was saved and became the official “Quran” that we read today. We have to assume and trust that the companions didn’t mess this up. And there are also hadith in Bukhari stating that some verses were lost.

Harun Yahya’s site Mathematical Miracles of the Quran makes the following claim:

Apart from the miraculous characteristics of the Qur’an which we have looked into so far, it also contains what we can term “mathematical miracles.” There are many examples of this fascinating Qur’anic aspect. One example of this is the number of repetitions of certain words in the Qur’an. Some related words are surprisingly repeated the same number of times. Below is a list of such words and the number of repetitions in the Qur’an.

I decided to pick some of them and find out if these are actually true:

The statement of “seven heavens” is repeated seven times. “The creation of the heavens (khalq as-samawat)” is also repeated seven times

Okay lets take a look and see the 9 references to seven heavens in the Quran:

sabaa samawat هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ لَكُم مَّا فِي الْأَرْضِ جَمِيعًا ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ فَسَوَّاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ ۚ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

It is He who created for you all of that which is on the earth. Then He directed Himself to the heaven, [His being above all creation], and made them seven heavens, and He is Knowing of all things. (2:29) sabaa samawat هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ لَكُم مَّا فِي الْأَرْضِ جَمِيعًا ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ فَسَوَّاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ ۚ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

The seven heavens and the earth and whatever … (17:44) sabaa samawat فَقَضَاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِي كُلِّ سَمَاءٍ أَمْرَهَا ۚ وَزَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَحِفْظًا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ

And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired … in each heaven its command. And We adorned … the nearest heaven with lamps and as protection … (41:12) sabaa samawat اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ وَمِنَ الْأَرْضِ مِثْلَهُنَّ يَتَنَزَّلُ الْأَمْرُ بَيْنَهُنَّ لِتَعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَحَاطَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عِلْمًا

It is Allah who has created seven heavens and of the earth, the like of them. [His] command descends among them so you may know that Allah is over all things competent and that Allah has encompassed all things in knowledge. (65:12) sabaa samawat الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا ۖ مَّا تَرَىٰ فِي خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ مِن تَفَاوُتٍ ۖ فَارْجِعِ الْبَصَرَ هَلْ تَرَىٰ مِن فُطُورٍ

[And] who created seven heavens in layers. You do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. So return [your] vision [to the sky]; do you see any breaks? (67:3) sabaa samawat أَلَمْ تَرَوْا كَيْفَ خَلَقَ اللَّهُ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا

Do you not consider how Allah has created seven heavens in layers (71:15) samawati assabaah قُلْ مَن رَّبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ السَّبْعِ وَرَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْعَظِيمِ

Say, “Who is Lord of the seven heavens and Lord of the Great Throne?” (23:86) sabaa tariqan وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا فَوْقَكُمْ سَبْعَ طَرَائِقَ وَمَا كُنَّا عَنِ الْخَلْقِ غَافِلِينَ

And We have created above you seven layered heavens, and never have We been of [Our] creation unaware (23:17) sabaa shidadan وَبَنَيْنَا فَوْقَكُمْ سَبْعًا شِدَادًا

And constructed above you seven strong [heavens] (78:12)

Well. That’s 6 times actually, using the specific phrase! To make it 7, you have to allow 23:86 which has the words in reverse order

The words “paradise” and “hell” are each repeated 77 times

Somewhat true if we pick and choose which forms of the noun to use. I used Quran Corpus search engine to help me with this as it can find all uses of a word in the original Arabic

Jahanam (hell): 77 times (proper noun)

Janat (heaven): 147 times

الْجَنَّتَيْنِ (Janatayn – dual form) occurs 8 times.

جَنَّاتِ (Janaat – plural form) occurs 69 times.

So in order to get 77, we have to add these two up. Seems a bit… arbitrary? If we wanted this to make the most sense, shouldn’t we look at the proper noun – janatin (جَنَّةٍ) ? Well no, because it only comes 51 times.

So what we find here is that we have to yet again pick and choose in order to make this work.

Instances like this one:

وَسَارِعُوا إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ أُعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a garden as wide as the heavens and earth, prepared for the righteous (Quran 3:133)

So in this case Allah is describing paradise, but since its using the singular, its not counted! There are 70 such examples where “janah” is not counted. In order to make this work, we have to again cherrypick the instances we allow, by only picking “gardens” (plural) and not the singular forms.

“Sun” (shams) and “light” (nur) both appear 33 times in the Qur’an.

Nur: 43 times as the noun nūr (نُور)

The words “man” and “woman” are also employed equally: 23 times.

Man: 29 times as the noun rajul (رَجُل)

Woman: 26 times as the noun im’ra-at ( ٱمْرَأَت )

(Also appears in other forms describing female believers, idolators etc.: Imraatun, Ajuzun, Dhati, Hamlin, Mushrikatan, Muminatan but these are not described as part of the “miracle” as it would be more than “rajul” then).

What does imraat mean anyway? It has various meanings – but in most cases its connected to another noun and refers to “wife of so and so.” For example:

إِذْ قَالَتِ امْرَأَتُ عِمْرَانَ رَبِّ إِنِّي نَذَرْتُ لَكَ مَا فِي بَطْنِي مُحَرَّرًا فَتَقَبَّلْ مِنِّي ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ [Mention, O Muhammad], when the wife of ‘Imran (Imraatu Imran) said, “My Lord, indeed I have pledged to You what is in my womb, consecrated [for Your service], so accept this from me. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing.” (Quran 3:35)

So is Allah saying “a man is equal to a wife” here? Shouldn’t it “man and woman” or “husband and wife?”. Yet another example of cherrypicking to make this work.

Shall I go on? There you have it. This is the fallacy called “Begging the Question“.. You already assume there is a miracle, and then you go and make the facts fit your narrative. This is not a fair or impartial.

The web site QuranMiracles.com (Also interestingly a Turkish site, just like the above) states:

In the Quran the word “balance” (mizan) and all its derivatives are used 23 times. In the Quran, “transgression” (israf) means the decline of the balance and is being condemned. The word “transgression” and all of its derivatives are also used in the Quran 23 times

16 times as the noun mīzān ( مِيزَان )

( ) twice as the form IV verbal noun is’rāf ( إِسْرَاف )

( ) 15 times as the form IV active participle mus’rif ( مُسْرِف )

Now over here its close. But you see how arbitrary things are picked and then they try to make patterns out of it? It’s so silly.

Devil and Angel again, lets take a look:

Angel:

Singular (مَلَكًا) Malakan Around 9 times

Dual ( الْمَلَكَيْنِ) Malakayn Two Angels – 1 time

Plural (الْمَلَائِكَةُ) Malaikah Around 78 times

Devil: This one appears in many different forms with prepositions, sometimes referring to a single devil, or sometimes to “The devil” (Iblees).

شَيْطَانٍ – Literally Shaytan – proper noun –

شَيَاطِينِهِمْ – shayāṭīnihim – Their devils

الشَّيْطَانِ – Ash-Shaytan – The Devil

“Devils” appears 18 times, “devil” 70 singular. To make this work, we have to add up the sums of all the forms of shaytan and malaikah. While it is interesting that it adds up, it really does seem like a coincidence here, with no real meaning.

Dunya (world): 74 times, Akhirah (hereafter): 133 times – no match

Also see Debunking the Odd/Even “Miracle”

Additional resources: