However, these numerical concordances do occur in the Qur’an 2 independent of the context of a verse or narrative. It is true that Islamic propagandists like Yahya and Taslaman fabricate many scientific and historical miracles and attach them to the Qur’an through misinterpretation and every other sort of distortion.
How numerical miracles are fabricated from the Qur’anĪn objective reader having a look at the section of the mathematical miracles of the Qur’an on Caner Taslaman’s website may feel surprised to find the concordance 1 of so many numbers and wonder how these claims can be easily refuted. However, it is necessary to have a general look at Yahya and Taslaman’s mathematical miracles and expose their weak points before presenting my rebuttal to the claim about the 309 th word in Surah 18. As this supposed numerical miracle is related to Surah 18 and the sleepers, on which I wrote a comprehensive article and presented the possibilities for the occurrence of the number 309 in it ( *), I am selecting this particular miracle claim for a detailed refutation. In one particular miracle claim entitled “The 309th Word”, Taslaman reveals a rather interesting link between the story of the sleepers in the cave in Surah 18 and the number of words this narrative contains ( *). For example, Taslaman sometimes focuses on word repetitions throughout the Qur’an and asserts that these recurrences have a specific purpose, such as indicating similarity/contrast or thematic relevance. Caner Taslaman, another Turkish Islamic writer, attaches even more significance to this issue and tries to convince his audience that the Islamic scripture has several mathematical miracles of different categories ( *). Obviously, Harun Yahya is not the only modern Muslim writer who is addicted to applying the art of counting to the Qur’an and discovering many “numerical codes” in it.
Despite this fact, Yahya has a separate and particular section dedicated to the so-called mathematical miracles of the Qur’an ( *) on his website as he believes that the Islamic scripture is based on a system of numbers and full of mathematical codes. That was the first time I became familiar with modern Islamic propagandists’ flirting with numbers and I demonstrated through a humorous example that dependence on numbers sometimes causes disappointment as their aid is mostly coincidental. While refuting Harun Yahya’s false miracle claim about the descent of iron in the Qur’an, I had shown how Yahya attempted to make use of numerology and force an association between the number of Surah Iron in today’s Qur’an and the total numerological values of the letters of the word “iron” in Arabic ( *) in accordance with the system of calculation known as abjad. Thus, a new realm is added to the Muslim tactics in the promotion of Islam: mere numerical coincidences in the Islamic scripture are discovered and presented as if they are parts of a great mathematical system and meant to function as codes fascinating the believers and leading infidels back to faith.
Many of today’s Islamic propagandists rely not only on pseudo-scientific and historic miracles, but also some numerical miracles in order to prove the supposed divine origin of the Qur’an. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world.Supposed Numerical Miracles of the Qur’an: The 309th Word It is a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only for the religion, but also for the believers and the countries in which they live. The Third Edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam is an entirely new work, which sets out the present state of our knowledge of the Islamic World and reflects the great diversity of current scholarship. Fairchild Ruggles, Ignacio Sánchez, and Ayman Shihadeh. With Roger Allen, Edith Ambros, Thomas Bauer, Johann Büssow, Ruth Davis, Ahmed El Shamsy, Maribel Fierro, Najam Haider, Konrad Hirschler, Nico Kaptein, Alexander Knysh, Corinne Lefèvre, Scott Levi, Roman Loimeier, Daniela Meneghini, Negin Nabavi, M'hamed Oualdi, D. Edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson.