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.

Paradise - الجنة (al-jannah)

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:

• garden (جَنَّٰتٍ, jannatin in verse 2:25)
• over-shadowed (جَنَّ, janna in verse 6:76)
• jinns (ٱلْجِنَّ, aljinna in verse 6:100)
• madness (جِنَّةٍ, jinnatin in verse 7:184)
• madman (مَجْنُونٌ, majnoonun in verse 51:39)
• a snake (جَآنٌّ, jannun in verse 27:10)

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".

There are 3 forms of الجنة:

• ٱلْجَنَّةُ (al-jannatu) - nominative
• ٱلْجَنَّةِ (al-jannati) - genitive
• ٱلْجَنَّةَ (al-jannata) - accusative

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

• ٱلْجِنَّةِ (al-jinnati)

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

• 1) Verse 11:119 "... Certainly I will fill hell with the jinn (ٱلْجِنَّةِ, aljinnati) and the men, all together."
• 2) Verse 32:13 "... I will certainly fill hell with the jinn (ٱلْجِنَّةِ, aljinnati) and men together."
• 3,4) Verse 37:158 "And they assert a relationship between Him and the jinn (ٱلْجِنَّةِ, aljinnati); and certainly the jinn (ٱلْجِنَّةُ, aljinnatu) do know that they shall surely be brought up;"
• 5) 114:6 "From among the jinn (ٱلْجِنَّةِ, aljinnati) and the men."

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?
• Include or exclude the verse where the word appears with a prefix?

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.

Garden - جنة (jannah)

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 list also includes words, that have a different meaning, other than "garden". The purpose is not that it makes sense to count them, but to understand how apologists got to the number 77.

Hell - جهنم (jahannam)

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:

• جَهَنَّمُ (jahannamu) - nominative
• جَهَنَّمَ (jahannama) - genitive

Unlike most Arabic words, the word jahannam has 4 (not 3) root letters (ج-ه-ن-م, j-h-n-m).