Friday Notes From The Quran (16/9/2022) : How Many Verses Are There In The Quran.

 

This is my Friday Notes From The Quran again (16/9/2022). This is also technical. So non-Muslim readers can skip this. 

The Quran is made up of chapters and verses. The chapters are called 'surah' or 'sura' in English spelling. There are 114 chapters or surahs. 

Each surah also has a name. For example the first surah is called Surah al Fatiha. The second surah is called Surah al Baqarah etc.

Some surahs are known or have been known by more than one name.

For example Surah al Taubah (Surah No. 9) is also known as Surah Bara'ah. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-Tawbah).

Surah al Muhammad (Surah No. 47) is or was also known by some people as Surah al Qital. (Someone has published an audio book about this here : https://www.amazon.in/Quran-Surah-Muhammad-aka-Al-Qital/dp/B079VRSWCK).

Today lets discuss how many verses are there in the Quran? 

The quick answer is 6,348 verses. 

To double check this figure just take any Quran that you have and a calculator and just add up the number of the last verse in each of the 114 surahs or chapters. Then add 112 "unnumbered bismillahs" which I will explain herewith. You should get 6,348 verses. 

Then it gets a little bit more interesting. Some people say that the Quran has only 6,236 verses. There is simple logic for this. 

Out of the 114 chapters or surahs, there is a 'bismillah . . ' (in the name of Allah..) found at the beginning of 113 of these chapters.  

In just one surah ie Surah at Taubah (Surah No. 9) there is no 'bismillah' found written at the beginning of that surah.

Then in 112 more surahs, there is a bismillah found at the beginning of each of the 112 surahs but the 112 bismillahs are not numbered.  The 112 bismillahs are not numbered as verse No. 1.

Thats only 113 surahs. One more surah is not accounted for. That surah is Surah al Fatiha ie the very first surah. In Surah Fatihah the bismillah is indeed numbered. The bismillah in Surah Fatihah is also the verse No. 1.  (There are a total of SEVEN verses in Surah Fatihah and the bismillah is counted as verse No. 1).

So if you count ONLY the verses with numbers  (including the bismillah in Surah Fatihah) then there are only 6,236 'NUMBERED VERSES' in the Quran.

But if you count ALL the verses in the Quran, including those 112 un-numbered bismillahs at the beginning of those 112 surahs, then you get back 6,348 verses.

So because there is no bismillah at the beginning of Surah Taubah it looks like the Quran only has 113 bismillahs.

However in Surah 27:30 (Surah al Naml) in the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba there is indeed a mention of another bismillah. The Queen of Sheba received a letter from Solomon which began with the bismillah.

Therefore there are 114 bismillahs in the Quran.  

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.