Tongue and sermon word count in the Qur'an

From WikiIslam, the online resource on Islam
Revision as of 13:12, 22 November 2016 by Prekladator (talk | contribs) (→‎Tongue)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This article analyzes the claim that the words "tongue" and "sermon" both appear 25 times in the Qur'an.

Tongue

The word "tongue" (لِسَانِ, lisaan) is derived from the root لسن (l-s-n). The Qur'an speaks quite a lot about tongues, because it often describes "speaking" as "moving with the tongue". From the same root there are also other words derived besides "tongue". This is the list of all occurrences of words from the root بسن in the Qur'an:

Count Verse Word in Arabic Translation Number
1 3:78 أَلْسِنَتَهُم their tongues plural 1
2 4:46 بِأَلْسِنَتِهِمْ with their tongues plural 2
3 5:78 لِسَانِ tongue singular 1
4 14:4 بِلِسَانِ with the language [of his people] singular 2
5 16:62 أَلْسِنَتُهُمُ their tongues plural 3
6 16:103 لِّسَانُ language singular 3
7 16:103 لِسَانٌ [Arabic] language singular 4
8 16:116 أَلْسِنَتُكُمُ your tongues plural 4
9 19:50 لِسَانَ a mention singular 5
10 19:97 بِلِسَانِكَ in your tongue / language singular 6
11 20:27 لِّسَانِى my tongue singular 7
12 24:15 بِأَلْسِنَتِكُمْ with your tongues plural 5
13 24:24 أَلْسِنَتُهُمْ their tongues plural 6
14 26:13 لِسَانِى my tongue singular 8
15 26:84 لِسَانَ a mention singular 9
16 26:195 بِلِسَانٍ in [Arabic] language singular 10
17 28:34 لِسَانًا speech singular 11
18 30:22 أَلْسِنَتِكُمْ your languages plural 7
19 33:19 بِأَلْسِنَةٍ with tongues plural 8
20 44:58 بِلِسَانِكَ in your tongue / language singular 12
21 46:12 لِّسَانًا [Arabic] language singular 13
22 48:11 بِأَلْسِنَتِهِم with their tongues plural 9
23 60:2 وَأَلْسِنَتَهُم and their tongues plural 10
24 75:16 لِسَانَكَ your tongue singular 14
25 90:9 وَلِسَانًا and a tongue singular 15

As we can see, this word count is problematic. This word has many meanings. Also there are 25 words derived from the root لسن, so if we exclude any of the words, then the claim that this word occurs 25 times is refuted. And excluding words from this list is very logical. Obviously all the cases where it means something else than "tongue" should be excluded. But also in other apologetic word counts, apologists often excluded words with suffixed possessive pronouns like "their" or "my", so if we exclude these cases, then we get even less occurrences. And the word count would still be questionable, because there are cases, where the word could be translated as both "tongue" and "language".

Sermon

The Arabic word for "sermon" is خطبة (khutbah) [1]. When you search for the word "sermon" in the English translations, you will find exactly 0 occurrences [2]. And when you search through the Arabic Qur'an it doesn't get any better. The word is derived from the root خطب (kh-t-b). When we search for all words derived from this root, we get this list:

Count Verse Word in Arabic Translation
1 2:235 خِطْبَةِ marriage proposal
2 11:37 تُخَٰطِبْنِى address me
3 12:51 خَطْبُكُنَّ your affair
4 15:57 خَطْبُكُمْ your business
5 20:95 خَطْبُكَ your case
6 23:27 تُخَٰطِبْنِى address me
7 25:63 خَاطَبَهُمُ address them
8 28:23 خَطْبُكُمَا matter of you
9 38:20 ٱلْخِطَابِ the speech
10 38:23 ٱلْخِطَابِ the speech
11 51:31 خَطْبُكُمْ your mission
12 78:37 خِطَابًا addressing

There are nouns and verbs together and only two cases which are close to the meaning of "sermon". These are the verses 38:20 and 38:23, but in the context, they are not talking about a sermon. And even if we counted all the words from this root we would get max 12 occurrences.

Admonition

If you want to know the Arabic word for this miracle, you will probably have to search through the Arabic internet for the word repetition miracles in the Qur'an and you will find that the two words are "tongue" and "admonishment" [3] (not "sermon").

Count Verse Word in Arabic Translation
1 2:66
2 2:231
3 2:232
4 2:275
5 3:138
6 4:34
7 4:58
8 4:63
9 4:66
10 5:46
11 7:145
12 7:164
13 10:57
14 11:46
15 11:120
16 16:90
17 16:125
18 24:17
19 24:34
20 26:136
21 26:136
22 31:13
23 34:46
24 58:3
25 65:2

Conclusions

a

See Also

a

References

  1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khutbah
  2. ↑ http://www.searchtruth.com/search.php?keyword=sermon&chapter=&translator=2&search=1&start=0&records_display=10&search_word=all
  3. ↑ http://vb.tafsir.net/tafsir2551/#.WDLqkn30eCQ
    • "اللسان تكررت 25 مره والموعظه تكررت 25 مره"
    • "The "tongue" (اللسان) is repeated 25 times and the "admonition" (الموعظه) is repeated 25 times."
Retrieved from "http://wikiislamica.net/index.php?title=Tongue_and_sermon_word_count_in_the_Qur%27an&oldid=116646"