Zakah and blessing word count in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

This article contains a list of all occurrences of the words "zakah" (tax) and "blessing" in the Qur'an. The purpose is to analyze the claim that they both appear 32 times and that means Allah put a hidden message "taxes are blessings" into the Qur'an via the equality in word count.

The lists can also serve as a reference for people who want to know where the Qur'an speaks about the zakah or blessings.

Zakah

The zakah is a tax that Muslims should pay in Islam. The Arabic word زكاة (zakah) ends on the letter ة (ta marbuta), that means the "t" at the end is pronounced when reading the word in a context of an Arabic text, but it is not read when reading the word alone. So when using this Arabic word in English, it is sometimes transliterated as zakah and sometimes zakat, due to the letter ta marbuta at the end.

In the Uthmani Script this word is written as زَّكَوٰةَ, while in the Simple Script, it is written as زكاة. This list uses the Uthmani Script.

The word is derived from the root زكو (z-k-w) and this is the list of all the words derived from this root in the Qur'an. We will see that from this root, there are also other words derived, which have a different meaning.

• The verse 23:4 talks about the "doers" of "zakah", so it is not clear whether this is the "purity" meaning or "tax" meaning. Either they are "doers of (paying) the zakah" or "doers of the purification (works)". The word "paying" nor "works" is present, so this occurrence is not clear, but it won't matter for the conclusions about the whole list. In the list this word is counted as zakah tax.

So the word zakah does not appear 32 times, as some apologists like to claim, but it appears only 30 times. This word count includes the forms with prefixes, which were often excluded in other apologetic word counts, so if we used that counting method, than there is even less occurrences.

Apologists probably simply searched for the sequence of Arabic letters زكوة (or زكاة in the Simple Script) and got 32 results, but did not realize that in 2 of those occurrences the word means something else:

• 18:81 "So we desired that their Lord might give them in his place one better than him in purity (زَكَوٰةً, zakatan) and nearer to having compassion."
• 19:13 "And tenderness from Us and purity (وَزَكَوٰةً, wa-zakatan), and he was one who guarded (against evil),"

Blessing

This is the list of all the occurrences of the word blessing (بركة‎‎, barakah), as well as all other words derived from the same root (برك, b-r-k), in the Qur'an. The difference here is, that all the words derived from this root have the something to do with "blessing". There are no words with a completely different meaning derived from this root.

The word "blessing" in all its forms (including prefixes and plural forms appears 12 times.

The word count 32 can be achieved only by an absurd counting method of counting all the words derived from the root b-r-k, including adjectives and verbs! Actually the majority (17) of the words derived from this root are verbs!

Conclusions

• The word counts for the words "zakah" (Muslim tax) and "blessing" are not equal. Zakah occurs 30 times and blessing 12 times if we count all forms, that is including forms with suffixes and plural forms. If we exclude the forms which were excluded in other apologetic word counts for not being "basic form" enough, we get even less occurrences.
• The apologetic word count of 32 for zakah includes 2 occurrences (18:81 and 19:13), where the Arabic word zakah has a different meaning ("purity").
• The apologetic word count of 32 for "blessing" includes verbs and adjectives and most of the words in this word count are verbs!

See also

• Word Count Miracles in the Qur'an
• 365 days miracle in the Quran
• 12 months miracle in the Quran
• Paradise and hell word count in the Qur'an
• Iman and kufr word count in the Qur'an
• Man and woman word count in the Qur'an
• Dunya and akhira word count in the Qur'an
• Land to water ratio miracle in the Qur'an