"12 months miracle" in the Qur'an
This article contains a list of all the occurrences of the word "month" (شهر - transliterated as "shahr") in all its forms in the Qur'an. It also counts the total number of occurrences, number of occurrences in singular/plural/dual separately and the number of occurrences, where the word consists only of the three arabic letters شهر (regardless of diacritics). The purpose is to refute the apologist argument, that: The word appears 12 times in the Qur'an, just like there are 12 months in a year, which "cannot be a coincidence" (although it could be a coincidence even if it was true), and therefore the Qur'an must be from god.
List
Apologists often (always) don't show the words and their context[1], but there it is:
| Total count | Verse | Word in arabic (شهر counted) | Translation | Number (counted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2:185 | شَهْرُ 1 | the month [of Ramadan] | singular 1 |
| 2 | 2:185 | ٱلشَّهْرَ | (in) the month | singular 2 |
| 3 | 2:194 | ٱلشَّهْرُ | the month [Sacred] | singular 3 |
| 4 | 2:194 | بِٱلشَّهْرِ | for the month [Sacred] | singular 4 |
| 5 | 2:197 | أَشْهُرٌ | months | plural 1 |
| 6 | 2:217 | ٱلشَّهْرِ | the month [Sacred] | singular 5 |
| 7 | 2:226 | أَشْهُرٍ | [four] months | plural 2 |
| 8 | 2:234 | أَشْهُرٍ | [four] months | plural 3 |
| 9 | 4:92 | شَهْرَيْنِ | two months | dual 1 |
| 10 | 5:2 | ٱلشَّهْرَ | the month [Sacred] | singular 6 |
| 11 | 5:97 | وَٱلشَّهْرَ | and the month [Sacred] | singular 7 |
| 12 | 9:2 | أَشْهُرٍ | [four] months | plural 4 |
| 13 | 9:5 | ٱلْأَشْهُرُ | months [sacred] | plural 5 |
| 14 | 9:36 | ٱلشُّهُورِ | (of) months | plural 6 |
| 15 | 9:36 | شَهْرًا | [twelve] months | plural 7 * |
| 16 | 34:12 | شَهْرٌ 2 | a month | singular 8 |
| 17 | 34:12 | شَهْرٌ 3 | a month | singular 9 |
| 18 | 46:15 | شَهْرًا | [thirty] months | plural 8 * |
| 19 | 58:4 | شَهْرَيْنِ | two months | dual 2 |
| 20 | 65:4 | أَشْهُرٍ | [three] months | plural 9 |
| 21 | 97:3 | شَهْرٍ 4 | [thousand] months | plural 10 * |
- (*) In these 3 cases the word itself seems to be in the singular and that is how apologists get to the number 12, but the arabic language allows to construct the plural with a singular word and from the context we can clearly see that it is meant to be plural.
- 9:36 - .. ٱثْنَا عَشَرَ شَهْرًا .. - ..tweleve months..
- 46:15 - .. ثَلَٰثُونَ شَهْرًا .. - thirty months ..
- 97:3 - .. أَلْفِ شَهْرٍ .. - thousand months ..
Conclusions
Main
- The word شهر does not appear in the Qur'an 12 times, but 21 times.
- The word شهر appears 9 times in the singular.
- The word شهر in its basic form (consisting only of the trilateral root ش - ه - ر (ra - ha - shin) without any suffix/prefix letters and while ignoring the differences in diacritics) appears 4 times in the Qur'an.
Other
- Apologists used a different method of word counting for the "12 months miracle", then for the "365 days miracle", because otherwise they wouldn't get those "miraculous" numbers.
- They didn't count the word day with ب ("bi-") prefix in the "365 days miracle", but now they do count the word month with the bi- prefix
- They didn't count the word day with و ("waw-") prefix in the "365 days miracle", but now they do count the word month with the waw- prefix.
- In the verse 9:36, apologists count one occurence of the word as singular and the other as plural, although they are clearly both reffering to the same set of months:
- "Surely the number of *months* [counted as plural] with Allah is twelwe *months* [counted as singular]..."
- "...*إِنَّ عِدَّةَ *ٱلشُّهُورِ* عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ٱثْنَا عَشَرَ *شَهْرًا
- If we accept that there are 12 singulars, 2 duals and 7 plurals, then what is the miracle about the numbers 2 and 7? Or 9 (2+7)? Are there 7 months of something? Isn't Allah enough powerful to make all the numbers miraculous? And thus make it undeniable that this is a miracle and not a coincidence?