Dunya and akhira word count in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

This article lists all occurrences of the arabic words ''ad-dunya'' (ٱلدُّنْيَا) and ''al-akhira'' (الآخرة) in the Qur'an. The translation of these words to English is complicated and is discussed in the article. These words do not appear in the dual or plural forms, so this word count will be easier than others.

To make it clear for non-speakers of arabic:

* The ''al-'' (ال) prefix represents the definite article, like the "the" in English

* The letter د (d) in ''dunya'' is from a group of letters called ''sun letters''. If a word starts with a sun letter, then the "l" in the al- prefix is replaced with the first letter of the word in pronunciation. So Al-Dunya is read as Ad-Dunya. Just like Al-Salam (peace) is read as As-Salam. The "s" here takes double time in pronunciation.

Here is the list of occurrences of the word ''dunya'':

This word, unlike the first one, appears in the Qur'an with different prefixes. The list also counts the basic form الآخرة separately.

* The word Al-Akhira appears 115 times, when we count all the forms of this word and 71 times if we count only pure Al-Akhira. This word also doesn't always mean "hereafter".

** What is the message behind these numbers being equal? Worldly life is the same as hereafter? They are equally important? Are they equally long? Shouldn't the hereafter be much more important and have a double word count?

** The correct way of describing the miracle: The word ''ad-dunya'' (ٱلدُّنْيَا), meaning either "this world" or "nearer" or "lower" and so on, appears 115 times in the Qur'an and the word ''al-akhira'' (الآخرة) meaning either "hereafter" or "second" or "latter" and so on, appears 71 times in the Qur'an and if we count also the words with prefixes like bi- (ب) or waw- (و) the word appears 115 times. So the same amount of times as the word ''ad-dunya''.