Land to water ratio miracle in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

According to some apologists, the Qur'an describes the ratio of land to water on Earth. That is approximately 71% water and 29% land.<ref>http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8o.html</ref> This ratio isn't stated anywhere in the Qur'an, but according to apologists, the ratio is supposed to be hidden in a ratio of word counts.

The counted words are ''al-barr'' (ٱلْبَرّ) for "land" and ''al-bahr'' (ٱلْبَحْرِ) for "water", but the word ''al-bahr'' actually means "the sea".

The trilateral root of the word بَرّ (barr) is برر (b-r-r). From this root we can derive many words. Besides "land", there is the meaning of "righteousness" and "kindness". ''Al-Barr'' (The Most Kind) is one of [[the names of Allah]].<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Islam</ref> The word ''barr'' consists of only two letters ب (b) and ر (''r''), but there is a ''shadda'' sign above the ر, which makes it double length in pronunciation (رّ - ''rr''). Above the ب is a ''fatha'' sign which determines the ''b'''a'''rr'' vowel (بَ).

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" class= "wikitable sortable"

There is no question about this word count. There are clearly '''12 occurrences''' of this word. They are all exactly the same forms. There are no prefixes, no plural and dual forms, no differences in diacritics, like in word counts for other words. And all other words from the same root have a totally different meaning. Rarely the word count is so clear.

Some apologists also count the word "creature" (ٱلْبَرِيَّةِ, ''al-bariyyati'')<ref>http://www.answering-christianity.com/land_sea_ratio_miracle.htm</ref> in these two verses:

Now the question is, why do apologists count the word "creature" as the word "land"?

Well, they translate the word ٱلْبَرِيَّةِ (''al-bariyyati'') as "land-creatures", although as we've seen, all the major translations translated it simply as "creatures". Apologists try to make it seem that the word ''al-bariyyati'' is derived from the same root برر (b-r-r) as the word ''al-barr'' (land) and therefore their meanings are somehow connected. And this is not the case. The word ٱلْبَرِيَّةِ (''al-bariyyati'') doesn't have the double ''r'' for a reason. It is derived from a completely different root برا (b-r-a) <ref>http://corpus.quran.com/wordmorphology.jsp?location=(98:6:16)</ref>! These words are not connected in meaning. ''al-bariyyati'' has nothing to do with land. Also when we consider the verse 98:6 to mean "christians and jews are the worst of land-creatures" and the verse 98:7 to mean "muslims are the best of land-creatures", then does it mean that in the sea, there are sea-creatures worse than christians and better than muslims?

Also it is worth to mention that even when they do count these occurrences, they still fail to get the ratio of 29% land and 71% water!

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" class= "wikitable sortable"

|6||6:63||وَٱلْبَحْرِ||''wal-bahri'||and the sea||singular 6

|38||52:6||وَٱلْبَحْرِ||''wal-bahri''||and the sea''||singular 33

* The ''-i'', ''-u'' and ''-a'' endings in the transliteration just determine the case:

** ''-u'' nominative

** ''-i'' genitive

** ''-a'' accusative

This word count is questionable, because there are dual and plural forms. Should the dual be counted as 2?

One way is counting only the singular forms of the word "sea", that is 33 occurrences. In that case, the "land":"sea" word count ratio is 12:33. And 12+33=45. The first question is why is it not 100? Why is it not already in percentage? Wouldn't it seem to be less of a coincidence if there were 71 occurrences of "water" and 29 occurrences of "land"?

* 12/45 = 0.2667 that means approximately 27% land

* 33/45 = 0.7333 that means approximately 73% water

Well, as it turns out, there is no miracle at all. Not even a coincidence! 27:73 is the word count ratio and 29:71 is the actual land to water ratio. They are clearly not the same.

But we found 41 occurrences of the word "sea" in all its forms. So let's give it another chance with the number 41. And 12 + 41 = 53.

* 12 / 53 = 0.2264 that means approximately 23% land

* 41 / 53 = 0.7736 that means approximately 77% water

The only match is that there is more of the words "'''sea'''" than "land", just like there is more '''water''' than land on earth.

==Conclusions==

** How did Muhammad's companions figure out this information about the land to water ratio? If they counted various ratios of word counts, how did they recognize which word count ratio has a significance? And how did they know which counting method to choose, when they didn't know (no modern scientist told them) which number they want to get?

** Also the word ''al-bahr'' means "sea" and not water. Does the word "sea" include oceans, lakes or rivers? And the Qur'an talks about rivers (أَنْهَٰرٌ, ''al-anharun'') a lot. So shouldn't we add the word counts for "sea" and "river" to get the "water" percentage?

* There are floods, icebergs melting.. the ratio of land to water is always changing. But the ratio of the word counts will never change. So even if the Qur'an described the ratio and it was 100% accurate, then it was wrong somewhere in history and will be wrong in the future. Shouldn't the Qur'an rather describe physical or mathematical facts, that are not changing with time? And preferably describe them in a verse and not in word counts, so that we know this is not a coincidence?

* The word counts for "land" and "sea" are not in the same ratio as land and water on earth. Apologists try absurd counting methods and even then they fail to get the desired result. There is absolutely nothing miraculous.

* [[Word Count Miracles in the Qur'an]]

* [[365 days miracle in the Quran]]

* [[12 months miracle in the Quran]]

* [[Iman and kufr word count in the Qur'an]]

* [[Dunya and akhira word count in the Qur'an]]

* [[Man and woman word count in the Qur'an]]

* [[Paradise and hell word count in the Qur'an]]