Shaytan and angel word count in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

This article lists all occurrences of the words ''shaytan(s)'' (sometimes transliterated as ''shaitan'' or simply ''Satan'') and angel(s) in the Qur'an and analyzes the "miracle" of both appearing 88 times.

In the islamic mythology, Allah created invisible beings called "jinns". Some of the jinns are muslims (they obey Allah) and others are ''shaytans'' (they disobey Allah). The most important ''shaytan'' is Iblees. Shaytans follow Iblees. The word ''shaytan'' has two meanings in the Qur'an, either it refers to a non-believing jinn(s) or it refers to Iblees himself. It depends on the context.

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So the word appears 70 times in its singular form, including one occurrence with a prefix (19:45).

This word count is questionable. Firstly, the word has two meanings "a regular ''shaytaan''" and "Iblees". Then, there is the question whether to count only the singular form and whether to include the words with prefixes and whether to include the words with suffixes.

Angels are supposed to be invisible beings who always obey Allah. There is actually a contradiction about Iblees, because in one verse (2:34) he seems to be an angel while in other verse (18:50) he is a jinn.

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So the word appears 13 times in the singular form, including 2 occurrences with a prefix (69:17, 89:22). (*) These two singular occurrences with a prefix are translated as "angel'''s'''".

This word count is also questionable there are dual and plural forms, forms with suffixes and prefixes. So if we want to find a nice number of repetitions we have a wide variety of possible word counts to use.

* The word ''shaytan'' in its basic form, that is in the singular form, without prefixes or suffixes, appears '''69 times''' and the word angel '''11 times'''.

* When counting all possible forms, then both have the word count 88. It's not a miracle, but it's true.

** In other word counts apologists excluded many words (words with suffixes, words with prefixes, dual and plural forms..), because they weren't "basic form" enough. But when all the occurrences have a nice number, then suddenly there is no need to count only the "basic form" and all words are counted. Also in the miracle "Righteous and wicked" the "righteous" had a double word count, because they are better. So why angels don't have a double word count over ''shaytans''? Shouldn't there be the same logic between righteous-wicked and angels-shaytans?

** Couldn't Allah make also the singular forms word count equal, so that we can be sure that this is not just a coincidence?

** Why believers-disbelievers and similar pairs don't have an equal word count?