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Word Count Miracles in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions
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Word Count Miracles in the Qur'an (view source)
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==The Deceptive Tactics== | ==The Deceptive Tactics== | ||
There are many tactics for manipulating data and doctoring a "miracle". | |||
===Selective Choice of Words Used=== | ===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. | 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. | ||
====Adding word counts of similar words==== | |||
Sometimes they even add more word counts together to get an interesting word count. | |||
* Like in the "Mind and light both appear 49 times", where they counted both the words ''noor'' and ''muneer'' as "light" (although the word ''muneer'' is rather translated as "illuminating"). | |||
===Selective Choice of Grammatical Forms Counted=== | ===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. | 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. | ||
The Arabic language has conjunctions as prefixes and possessive pronouns as suffixes. | |||
* For example the word "their day" (''yawmi'''him''''') is expressed by a single word in Arabic. And although it is just a simple word "day", apologists don't count this occurrence, only because in Arabic, the word "their" is suffixed. | |||
* In the same way, the word "and a day" ('''''wa'''yawma'') has the "and" prefixed to the word day (''yawm'') and is not counted. | |||
====Calling the Selected Grammatical Form "the simple form"==== | |||
Apologists often say, that the miracle works only when counting the "simple form" of the word, but the definition of a simple form changes from miracle to miracle. | |||
===Ignoring the Meaning of the Arabic Words=== | |||
Some Arabic words have more than one meaning. For example the word الجنة means "paradise", but it can also mean "jinn" (like in the last verse of the Qur'an <ref>Quran 114:6 | |||
* "From among the jinn and the men." | |||
* من -الجنة- والناسِ </ref>). But apologists just search for the word الجنة and they don't worry at all that this word has other meanings as well. | |||
Or in other cases, when the word count is not interesting, they start excluding the words with other meanings to get a more interesting number. | |||
====Presenting the list only in Arabic==== | |||
When the word has other meanings, then it is misleading to show the list just in Arabic and let people who don't understand Arabic think that this word has always the same meaning. | |||
===Selective Choice of the Form of the Miracle=== | |||
There are many forms of "miracles" in word counts. When the word count itself for some word is not interesting, then apologists try comparing this word count with others. When there is not some equal word count found, they try finding a double word count. They are changing the form of the miracle, until they find some form in which the word count fits. | |||
Some of the forms of miracles are these: | |||
* The meaning of the word occurs in the real world the same number of times as the word count | |||
** Like in the "The 365 days miracle" | |||
* The ratio between two word counts is the same as the ratio of occurrences of the meanings of the words in the real world | |||
** The land/water ratio miracle | |||
* Two words are related and they have the same word count | |||
** Like the "wine and intoxication both mentioned 6 times" | |||
* Two words are opposite to each other and they have the same word count | |||
** "Paradise and hell both mentioned 77 times" | |||
* Two words are opposite to each other and the "good" one has a double word count | |||
** "Righteous mentioned 6 times and wicked 3 times" | |||
Also for every form of a miracle there might be a lot of ways for the word count to be "interesting". For example, when counting the word "day": | |||
* 6 occurrences would be interesting, because god created the world in 6 days | |||
* 7 occurrences would be interesting, because 7 days make a week | |||
* 29/30 occurrences would be interesting, because they make a month | |||
* 100 occurrences would be interesting because it is a nice number | |||
* 354 occurrences would be interesting, because that is the number of days in the lunar year | |||
* 365 occurrences would be interesting, because that is the number of days in a year | |||
===Reliance on the Gullibility of the Audience=== | |||
These counts are manipulated, generally in unstated ways, to produce the desired totals, but 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. | |||
===Not presenting the actual list=== | |||
Most people don't know the Arabic language and it is hard for them to check the number of occurrences, even if they wanted to. Even when they use a search software, they can't tell whether it is a singular form.. or whether it is the genitive form, which they are supposed to count. Also when the miracle claim is completely in English, people who don't know Arabic, don't even know which Arabic word they are supposed to search for. | |||
==The 365 days Maths Miracle== | ==The 365 days Maths Miracle== | ||
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===Manipulated Data=== | ===Manipulated Data=== | ||
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.<ref>Abdulrahman Lomax - [http://www.answering-islam.org/Religions/Numerics/365hoax.html ON THE CLAIM THAT THE WORD "DAY" OCCURS IN THE QUR'AN 365 TIMES] - Answering Islam, February 22,1996</ref> 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. | 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.<ref>Abdulrahman Lomax - [http://www.answering-islam.org/Religions/Numerics/365hoax.html ON THE CLAIM THAT THE WORD "DAY" OCCURS IN THE QUR'AN 365 TIMES] - Answering Islam, February 22,1996</ref> 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. | ||