Counting the Quran
There has been a lot of violence perpetrated by Islamic adherents. Because of this, I chose to read the Quran to see if the Islamic holy book included any text in support of this violence. There are four primary things I noticed as I read through the Quran. These are:
- I could find very little real meaning in the writings of the Quran.
- Almost half of it is retellings of Old Testament stories attributed to “Allah.”
- It is highly repetitive.
- There are very, very few mentions of love and peace.
After my first reading, I decided to dive in a second time and count some of the phrases I saw repetitively. There was one phrase I didn’t count during the second reading that in retrospect I wish I had, but I’m not too keen on reading the Quran a third time just to get this count. The phrases I left out were different versions of “fearing Allah.” It’s mentioned numerous times, but I don’t know how many.
One thing to mention before getting into the actual count. I chose to use an older translation by M.H. Shakir from 1986. I chose this because I thought it could be a more accurate translation. I thought it could be possible that recent translations might be “softened” a bit for Westerners with many people having some interest in learning more about Islam. I don’t know how popular this translation was at the time, or if it’s still read today, but I’m reasonably confident that this translation reflects the true intent and meaning of the Quran. There were 424 pages to this version, and 114 “chapters,” or “surahs.”
The counts that follow are most likely approximate, rather than exact. I may have missed a few here or there, and at times I combined sequential sentences into one count with the “punishment” count since it came up so often. Here are the phrases and counts:
Things “Allah” loves 21
Any mention of peace: 26
Punishment from “Allah”: 538
“Allah” is beneficent/forgiving/merciful: 346
Believers will be rewarded: 192
(half of those rewards involve “Gardens”)
Things “Allah” destroyed: 67
“Allah” sanctioned fighting/killing of unbelievers: 34
Mentions of retribution or retaliation: 18
Things “Allah” hates: 12
In addition, many of the things that the radicals are doing are indeed mentioned directly in the Quran – such as beheading non-believers. You can come to whatever conclusion you wish to, but mathematically the mentions of punishment from “Allah” are over twenty times more numerous than mentions of peace. Religion of peace, or religion of punishment? You decide.
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