Paradise and hell word count in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

This page lists all forms of the words ''jannah'' (paradise, garden) and ''jahannam'' (hell) in the Qur'an. The purpose is to analyze the claim that they both appear 77 times.

The word paradise (الجنة, ''al-jannah'', literally means "the garden". The root of this word is جنن (j-n-n). Other words derived from this word, used in the Qur'an are:

This word appears only in the singular form and it is a feminine word - it ends on ''ta marbuta'' (ة). When a word is alone (not in a context of an Arabic text), the ''ta marbuta'' at the end is not pronounced, so it is read as ''jannah'', not ''jannat'', so when using this word in English it is basically always read as ''jannah''. But when reading whole sentences from the Qur'an in Arabic, the ''ta marbuta'' would be read as "t".  

And sometimes this exactly same word (only with differences in diacritics) actually refers to the jinns and not paradise:

As we can see, this word does not appear 77 times and in 5 cases refers to the jinns:

In the verse 41:30 the word appears with a prefix:

* "Indeed, those who have said, "Our Lord is Allah " and then remained on a right course - the angels will descend upon them, [saying], "Do not fear and do not grieve but receive good tidings '''of Paradise''' (بِٱلْجَنَّةِ, ''biljannati''), which you were promised."

So this word count is already very questionable. Not only we didn't get to the number 77, but it's hard to say even to which number we have arrived, because there are many ways of counting:

* Include or exclude the verses where the word refers to the jinns?

 

Logically, if the miracle is supposed to be that the word count for "paradise" is 77, just like it is for "hell", then we should exclude the cases where it means something else. So the word "paradise" is mentioned '''52 times''' in the Qur'an and the miracle claim is false.

Trying to count ''al-jannah'' didn't bring the result 77. But maybe it will get to 77 if we consider "paradise" to be synonymous with "garden", because they are basically the same word and heaven is described as "gardens under which rivers flow", repeatedly, in the Qur'an.

The word "garden" doesn't always mean the garden where good Muslims are supposed to end up. In many verses the word just refers to a garden that is on earth. Or the word is used allegorically. So in the Translation column, the context is specified.

* The column "Gardens in paradise number" counts singular, dual and plural forms separately, only from the words, which refer to the gardens paradise.

* (*) In the verse 42:22 the word appears with the ''al-'' prefix. ''Al-Jannah'' usually refers to the paradise and not to the gardens in paradise. But the word is plural and that would mean that there are many paradises. So this word probably means "gardens". However, even if we add this word to the ''Al-Jannah'' (paradise) word count, it still doesn't get to the word count 77. And for the total word count (paradise + paradise gardens) it doesn't matter in which category this word is.

* (**) In the verse 71:12 "And help you with wealth and sons, and make for you ''gardens'', and make for you rivers.", Noe promises his people that Allah will give them gardens. It is not clear whether he meant gardens on earth or in heaven. So the plural for "gardens in heaven" might be actually 59 and not 58.

The list showed that the word "garden" in the context of "gardens in paradise" appears '''71 times''' including '''10 singular forms''', 3 dual forms and 58 plural forms. If we count the (plural) occurrence in the verse 71:12, then we get 72 occurrences.

It seems that there is no way of getting the number 77, so how did apologists get to the number 77? They took the 57 occurrences of the Arabic word الجنة, regardless if it is the word paradise (''al-jannah'') or jinn (''al-jinnah''). Then they took the 24 singular forms of جنة, regardless if it is the word garden (''jannah''), madness (''jinnah'') or cover (''junnah''). So now they have 57 + 24 = 81 words. And now comes the biggest absurdity. They excluded 4 clearly singular forms in these verses, because they appear with a suffix:

* 1) 18:35 (جَنَّتَهُۥ) - his garden

* 2) 18:39 (جَنَّتَكَ) - your garden

* 3) 18:40 (جَنَّتِكَ) - your garden

* 4) 89:30 (جَنَّتِى) - my garden

The suffixes just make the form possessive. But it is still garden. A singular form of the word garden! The words with a prefix are counted and the words with a suffix are not counted!

List of occurrences of the word "hell" (جهنم, ''jahannam''). All occurrences are in the singular. This word sometimes occurs with some prefix. The forms without prefix appear in two forms:

The word count for hell is easier. But there is still the question whether to count the words with prefix? In English these Arabic prefixes would be expressed with another word, so the word count would be 77. The word count 77 for "hell" makes sense in Arabic as well. But it should be mentioned that apologists didn't count the word "day" with these prefixes in the [[365 days miracle in the Quran]] so now there is an inconsistency in the counting methods. There are 5 occurrences with a prefix so another possible word count would be 72.

* When counting the word "hell" without prefixes, we get 72 occurrences. Exactly the same number as the number of virgins muslims are supposed to get in heaven. Is this just a coincidence? What if this numerical miracle means that kafirs actually get the [[72 virgins]] in hell? Another possible interpretation might be that Muslims who want to go to heaven to get the virgins, might actually get 72 hells as a punishment for their lust.