Posted 01 March 2013 - 08:36 PM
Your last post In Arabic was quite long for my level of Arabic, especially when one considers the Saudi newspaper article. I draw from them that the re-occurrence of number 19 is special to Muslims, because it seems to indicate a miracle from God and thus indicates that the Qur’an must be true.
This is based on the opening verses of the Qur’an, which are at the beginning of each Sura throughout the Qur’an. بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم This sentence has 19 letters in Arabic. Personally I think that this proves nothing. There are Christians who have done this with the Bible, and Jewish groups who have done it with the Torah. In the end no one is convinced.
But let’s look at the main example.
The claim is that each of the letters of this verse appear in the Qur’an a multiple of 19 times. For instance the Arabic word بسم appears 19 times in the Qur’an. The word الله appears 2698 times which is 19 time 142, الرحمن appears 57 times which is 19 times 3, الرحيم appears 114 times which is 19 times 6.
When I count the word ism, it appears many more times in my Qur’an. The first sentence of each Sura says: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم , so that is 114 times. But maybe you don’t count those.
When I did a rough search for the word ism, I found it appeared at least 33 times in the Qur’an. How do you get 19? Perhaps you only choose the word ism when it is a noun in the majruur? In that case you should state that you are picking and choosing specific instances of the word “ism”.
Here is the list of references where I found the word ism in its various forms: 1:1 bism, 11:41 bism, 13:33 sumuhum, 19:7 Ismahi, samian, 2:114 ismahu, 22:28 ism allah, 22:34 ism allah, 22:36 ism allah, 22:40 Ism allah, 22:36 ismahu, 22:40 ismahu, 24:36 ismahu, 27:30 bism allah, 3:45 ismahu, 49:11 al ism, 5:4 ism allah, 53:27 liyesamun, tusamihi, 55:78 isma rubak, 56:74 bism rubak, 56:96 bism rabak, 6:118 ismu allah, 6:119 ism allah, 6:121 ismu allah, 6:138 ism allah, 61:6 ismahu, 69:52 bism rabak, 73:8 ism rabak, 76:25 ism rabak, 87:1 ism rabak, 87:17 ism rabihi, 96:1 biism rabak
Even if it were true that ism was found 19 times, what does this prove? The term بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم was used much earlier than Islam, and is borrowed from the church. I checked with the Syrian scholars who said that according to Roggema, P. 259 note 36, many copies of the Old Testament from Mount Sinai begin with the بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم . The term is even used in the liturgy of the Syriac church. (Prof. Pietre Yousif , at the Oriental Institute in Rome,Patrologia Syriaca, 2010)
The term, however, is older than the Christian writings, it is found in the Old Testament, in Hebrew. The oldest of these being in the writings of Moses.
The original Semitic name for God was El, or Eloha, which became Allah in Arabic. Below is a list of a few of the occurrences in the Bible.
Exodus 34:6 El The Lord God is merciful and gracious
2 Chronicles 30:9 Elohim God is gracious and merciful
Nehemiah 9:17 Elowah God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful
Nehemiah 9:31 El A gracious and merciful God
Psalm 86:15 El A gracious and merciful God
Joel 2:13 Elohim God is gracious and merciful
Jonah 4:2 El A gracious God, and merciful
When I read other articles on the number 19, they often refer to Sura 74:30. The way I read that verse is that the number 19 refers to something feminine: alayha. This would have to be the burning that is mentioned in the previous verses. There is nothing in this Sura to indicate that it is talking of the Qur’an. So it seems to me that the number 19 refers to burning and hell.
In the end, I cannot accept that the occurrences of certain mathematical possibilities in any text is not proof of it being divine.