Word Count Miracles in the Qur'an

In an attempt to prove the divine origins of Islam, there are many Islamic websites promoting "word count miracles" in the Qur'an. The basic claim here is that certain words in the Qur'an are repeated a specific and in some way miraculous number of times.

In general there are two main ways of manipulating data and doctoring a "miracle".

Selective Choice of Words Used

The first one is the selective choice of words to interpret as miracles. If for a certain word there exists a nice number of repetitions, then it is mentioned and included as a miracle. If no nice number of repetitions exist, it is not mentioned and discarded. By only mentioning the instances where there are "nice repetitions" one gets the impression that there is something special about it, while statistically the same probability of finding similar "miracles" exists in all texts.

Selective Choice of Grammatical Forms Counted

The second way of manipulating data is the selective choice of which Arabic grammatical forms are to be counted. Are just singular forms counted? Or also plural forms? Duals? Forms with or without prefix? And so on. By choosing different ways of counting, you get a lot of different results. Of course, those who claim there are "word repetition miracles in the Qur'an" will not tell you that they have chosen a specific way of counting words to get the desired result.

One of the most popular claims is that the word "yawm" (singular of day) is repeated 365 times in the Qur'an, its plural and dual forms "days" (ayyam and yawmayn) together are repeated 30 times, while the number of repetitions of the word "month" (shahar) is 12.

Islamic Miracle Using Christian Calendar

The first flaw with this claim is the fact that the Islamic calendar consists of 354 or 355 days a year,^[1] so these apologists are effectively favoring Christianity by their use of the Gregorian calendar, which consists of 365 or 366 days.

Manipulated Data

These counts are manipulated, generally in unstated ways, to produce the desired totals. Most individuals will not take the time needed to count and verify the claim themselves, so they may assume on good faith that it is true.

When you check with word count software, the total "yawm" concordance finds 475 mentions, not 365. However, this includes the dual and plural forms. Of all the different forms of "yawm," 3 are in the dual and 27 are in the plural.^[2] If you have a database program with easy formats you can easily counter this lie too and find out that all forms with suffixes are discarded on Islamic websites.

Furthermore, the word yawm in most of its occurrences in the Qur'an does not mean a 24 hour day. For example, the Day of Judgment is mentioned a very large number of times in different ways.

Burden of Proof

We could claim that the word "Allah" has been mentioned 666 times on WikiIslam and therefore Islam is false (since in some cultures, 666 represents the number of the devil). If we cannot list all the occurrences of the word by showing where it occurs for each of those 666 times, then our claim is unproven. There is not a single website that lists all the occurrences of the word "day" in the Qur'an showing it to be 365 times.

There is no miracle to be found here. Apologists have manipulated data and used an un-Islamic method of counting days within a year to make the (unverified) numbers "fit".

But let's say for a moment the 365 occurrences of the word "yawm" is a mathematically sound citation. If this was discovered at a time when people did not know how many days there were in a year then it may be considered a miracle, but calenders have existed since 3000 BC, and the Julian calendar (which consisted of 365 or 366 days) began in 45 BC.^[3]

This is one of the most oft-quoted but there are more such dubious mathematical claims but they are equally deceitful. But putting that aside, even if day or yawm was mentioned 365 times in the Qur'an, would that mean it is from Allah?

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