Iman and kufr word count in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

This article lists all occurrences of the words iman (إِيمَٰن) and kufr (كُفْر) in the Qur'an. The purpose is to analyze the claim (miracle) that they both appear 25 times without the genitive form.

Arabic grammar

In order to count genitive forms we have to know how to determine whether a word is in the genitive.

Trilateral root

Most Arabic words have a trilateral root.

• iman has the root امن (i-m-n)
• kufr has the root كفر (k-f-r)

From these roots we can derive many words by adding (or sometimes dropping) letters like:

• kuffar - "disbelievers"
• mumineen - "believers"
• amanna - "we believe"
• nakfuru - "we disbelieve"

Genitive

Whether the word is in the nominative, accusative or genitive form depends on diacritics on the third letter of the root. So r (ر) in kufr and n (ن) in iman.

To put it very simply:

• و above the letter (looks like this: نُ, رُ or رٌ) mean it is nominative and the vowel after the letter is "u"
  • ٱلْإِيمَٰنُ - al-imanu - the faith
  • إِيمَٰنُهُمْ - imanuhum - their faith
• line(s) above the letter (نَ, رَ, رً) mean it is accusative and the vowel after the letter is "a".
  • ٱلْكُفْرَ - al-kufra - the disbelief
• line(s) under the letter (رِ, نٍ, نِ) mean it is genitive and the vowel after the letter is "i" ("ee")
  • ٱلْكُفْرِ - al-kufri - the disbelief
  • بِكُفْرِهِمْ -- bi-kufrihim - for their disbelief

Suffixes of possession

Words like "her", "my", "their" in Arabic are suffixed to the word. For example the suffix -him (هم) means "their". So kufrihim (كُفْرِهِمْ) is "their disbelief". The word بِإِيمَٰنِهِنَّ (bi-imaanihinna, "of their faith") is genitive, because the root letter is in the middle and the -hinna is just a suffix meaning (feminine) "their". This word ended on -na, but it had -ni- in the middle (the root letter) and it is genitive, so don't just look at the last letter of the word to determine whether it is genitive.

Iman

The genitive form is actually not needed here to be recognized. In fact, we will see that apologists didn't exclude the genitive form for this word count. They excluded the words with the suffixes like "their", "her" and "his" and they just call them "genitive".

We have 45 forms, when we exclude the 24 genitive ones, we get 21 occurrences.

However when we exclude the 20 forms with possessive suffixes, we get 25 occurrences. 33:72?

Kufr

• (*) This occurrence (39:7) is sometimes translated as "ungratefulness"^[1]

We have 36 forms. When we exclude the 17 genitive forms, we get 19 occurrences.

However when we exclude the 11 forms with possessive suffixes we get 25 occurrences. 17:89, 17:99

Conclusions

• The word iman appears 45 times in all its forms and the word kufr appears 36 times in all its forms
• When the genitive form is not counted, iman appears 21 times and kufr 19 times.
• When the forms with suffixes like "their", "her", "his" are excluded, then both iman and kufr have 25 occurrences.
  • In this word count, the words with various prefixes are counted, and also the words with the letter ا (alif) at the end of the word, are counted. So these occurrences cannot be called "basic forms" in any way and this method of counting and excluding words is very specific and questionable.
  • The prefixes, that were counted in this miracle, were not counted in the 365 days miracle. So the counting methods for these miracles are inconsistent.
  • This word count includes the occurrence in the verse 39:7 which is sometimes translated as "ungratefulness" and not "disbelief"

References