---------- forwarded message ----------
From: feifei2899 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 3 Mei 2007 08:07
Subject: [debat_antar_agama] The Mysterious 19 in the Quran A Critical
Evaluation
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In the last few years Muslims have been made acutely aware of a new
proof for the divine content of the Quran:
"Using the ultimate in scientific proof namely mathematics, the
physical examinable evidence is provided that the Quran is the
infallible word of God." ("Al-Quran: the Ultimate Miracle" by Ahmed
Deedat)
Dr. Rashad Khalifa, a Muslim scholar living in the United States
wrote a book entitled "The Perpetual Miracle of Muhammad." According
to his testimony he was taken up by a verse in the Quran (Sura 74:30)
which reads:
"Over it are nineteen."
This verse does not make any sense in its context. This is no
isolated case, for many of the Suras have been composed of several
revelations over a period of time and are not in chronological
sequence. Many of these revelations can be understood only in the
light of certain happenings involving the person of Mohammed which are
at least partially recorded in the Hadis. Nevertheless, there are
passages that provide problems for the interpreter and one such verse
is Sura 74:30. Now Dr. Khalifa has tried to solve this riddle by means
of an "electronic wizard" or "magic beast", as Mr. Deedat in his
booklet "Al-Quran The Ultimate Miracle", chooses to call a computer.
He discovered a number of combinations of letters and words to which
the number 19 is the key. To him this is such breathtaking evidence of
God's authorship of the Quran that he shares it with the readers of
his literature:
"Everyone whether he has seen a computer or not, has heard about the
magic and marvel of this machine and his life is affected by it. And,
astonishingly, it always gives you the right answer, whether
Christian-owned or Communist-owned. If you ask the computer even with
your own preconceived notions - `What is one plus one plus one?' the
unerring answer will always be `Three'. If you ask a Roman Catholic
owned computer, `God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost -
How many gods do they make?' It will immediately respond `Three'
without blushing. It has no feeling or sympathy for its owners, who
desire to hear `one'."
Perhaps it is necessary to point out that a computer is neither magic
nor, on the other hand, is it a beast that can answer any given
question on its own. The computer is rather an instrument that is able
to store data on any specified subject and makes the given information
and combinations thereof available in almost an instant when an answer
is requested. It presupposes that the basic information is fed into
the computer and a programmer draws up a programme that will enable
this computer to provide the necessary combinations on demand. There
exist, for instance, computers that are programmed to play chess. It
is almost impossible for even a chess master to beat such a computer
because it is able to review all the possibilities of all the
following moves of that game and so devise the best possible move in
an instant. The computer draws on the wealth of information that was
"fed" into it by a mathematician - chess master, who worked out all
the possible combinations beforehand.
It is here that we have to state that if you ask that computer any
opinion about the Quran or space travel or cybernetics or any other
subject, it can and will not give an answer until a programme
providing for such an answer plus the necessary information has been
fed into it. When Dr. Khalifa began to investigate the mystery of the
number 19 in the Quran, he needed, first of all, to feed the Quran
into the computer. He could then, with the appropriate programme ask
for instance: "How many A's, L's, M's, R's etc. are in such and such a
Sura" or "the whole Quran" and he would get an instant answer without
any effort time-wise. He could also be informed about all combinations
of letters that in some way bear a relationship to the number 19. He
could, for instance, ask: "Which letters in a given Sura sum up to a
number that is divisible by 19?"
Using such methods, he has been able to single out all combinations
that enable him in turn to produce figures that appear to constitute
such a phenomenal chance, that it cannot be regarded as chance
anymore. These combinations, so it is argued, provide logical proof by
their intricacy and the obvious innability of Mohammed to have devised
them, that the origin of the Quran is divine.
Our basic comments on this approach are as follows:
A message claiming to be divine and apparently proved to be so
because it contains a startling combination of numbers should still
not be accepted if the historical and moral content of such a message
or book fails to confirm its divine origin. Christians have rightly
perceived that if the sources of the information in the Quran are
found to have been in existence before the time of Mohammed, as indeed
they were; and if its content offers personal advantages to its
Apostle (pp. 108-123) and if its historical information is faulty (pp.
49-65); then the Quran cannot be accepted as divine. We thus find the
"proof" offered by this type of numerology to be simply deceptive.
We find it difficult to accept that God would use a system of proof
that excludes all the people who needed it during the 1400 years of
the Quran's existence and who groped in the dark when puzzled by
unintelligible verses. Although, as we shall discover later, the
presence of the number 19 in the Quran as presented by Dr. Khalifa, is
impressive, it nevertheless lacks the persuasiveness that divine
intervention would have provided. Mr. Deedat in his booklet (page 69)
says:
"If the electronic wizard was asked `What are the possibilities of a
book being written and by 'chance' successfully weaving an
interlocking system based on the number 19?' the computer's reply is -
`The odds of such happening are: 626 Septillions to one against such a
happening.'"
We would object to such an answer because the question is formulated
in far too general a way: 'a book being written', 'an interlocking
system based on the number 19', 'successfully weaving'. No exact
figure other than extreme odds could be given by any computer in reply
to such a vague question. We have to realize that coincidences do
occur. It is reported from Britain that two trains were passing each
other. The brake-lining of one engine came loose, was hurled through
the air and hit the driver of the other train on the head killing him.
Brake-linings of trains do not normally come loose, and if they do
come loose, what would be the chance of hitting the driver of an
oncoming train so as to kill him? It can be worked out, and the chance
would be equally slim, yet this freak accident did actually occur. In
a photograph that once appeared in a newspaper three cars were shown
parked behind one another, - the same make, model and colour. All
three had identical registration numbers but all came from different
cities. They belonged to different owners, who were totally unaware of
this. Coincidence! These things do happen don't they? What are the
odds against their happening? Are all such happenings necessarily the
result of divine intervention? Definitely not! Finding a system of
numerics like the one mentioned in Dr. Khalifa's and Mr. Deedat's
books is, in the opinion of this writer, possible for any piece of
literature, or music if you wish. Any piece of literature will have
combinations of letters perhaps in relation to the title, that will
allow a computer, properly fed and programmed to find a system of
combinations that will prove equally surprising. If so, would the
piece be of divine origin?
Not being a computer scientist I cannot substantiate the above
reasoning, but am convinced that it could be done. Certainly Mr.
Deedat's claim - that it is unlikely that a writer in his lifetime
would be able to find a sentence consisting of 19 letters with which
to start a book - is nonsense.
To prove my point, here are just ten quickly composed sentences of 19
letters each:
"Beware, false prophets!" "There is deceit in lies." "Seek first His
Kingdom." "Prepare like a wise man." "Do not lay up treasures." "Jesus
forever the same." "I am a loving Christian." "Love is patient, is
kind." "Truth and love will win."
We would have no problem combining any number of sentences each
containing 19 letters and if we did not wish to waste time we could,
by using a computer, be even more successful still. We find,
therefore, the over-dramatic presentation of this matter to be highly
suspicious and inappropriate. The statement by Dr. Khalifa that there
is no other book extant with any similar numerical system, is untrue.
The Bible is one such book. Let us select only one number and one
verse to illustrate what we mean.
We shall investigate the presence of the number seven - a number used
very often with the symbolic meaning of divine completeness - in the
first verse of the Bible.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
The verse consists of 7 Hebrew words and 28 letters (7 x 4). There
are three nouns: `God, heavens, earth.' Their total numeric value
(Hebrew has no numbers but these are represented by letters: the sum
of the number letters being the numeric value) is 777 (7 x 111). The
verb 'created' has the value 203 (7 x 29). The object is contained in
the first three words - with 14 letters (7 x 2) The other four words
contain the subject - also with 14 letters (7 x 2). The Hebrew words
for the two objects - "the heavens and the earth" - each have seven
letters.
The fourth and fifth words have 7 letters. The value of the first,
middle and last letters in the verb 'created' is 133 (7 x 19) the
numeric value of the first and last letters of all the words is 1393
(7 x 199) and the value of the first and last letters of the verse is
497 (7 x 71). The Hebrew particle 'eth' with the article 'the', used
twice, has the value 407 (7 x 58) and the last letters of the first
and last words equal 490 (7 x 70).
In all, there are over 30 different numeric features related to 7 in
this verse. The odds against the above features occurring by chance
are 33 Trillions:1.
But the number seven is also interwoven throughout the Bible.
Creation took 7 days; Naaman had to wash 7 times in the Jordan to be
cleansed from leprosy; the Israelites had to march around Jericho 7
days and 7 times on the 7th day; they had to set aside one day in 7
for rest and worship. There was a 7-armed lampstand in the temple,
etc. In the last book, Revelation, we find mentioned 7 spirits, 7
lampstands, 7 churches, 7 stars, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 vials, 7
thunders, 7 plagues, 7 mountains and 7 kings. The tribulation period
is to be 7 years being the last "week of years" of Daniel's 70 weeks
(Dan 9:24 ff).
Beyond this we know that the incubation period of the human embryo is
280 days (7 x 40). In Genesis we are told that man was formed from the
dust of the ground. The "dust of the ground" contains 14 (7 x 2)
elements, and so does the human body. Every cell in the human body is
renewed every 7 years and every 7th day the pulse beats slower. In
certain diseases the critical days are the 7th, 14th, 21st, etc. and
the female cycle is 28 (7 x 4) days. Light is made up of 7 colours,
the moon completes its orbit around the earth in 28 days (7 x 4) and
the earth is 49 (7 x 7) times larger than the moon. (This information
is taken from "The Seal of God" by F.C. Payne. The actual numerics
were compiled by Ivan Panin).
This information was available for many years, long before the advent
of computers. It never persuaded a single Muslim, to our knowledge, to
accept the challenge of receiving the Bible as the Word of God -
although the evidence is more convincing than the findings of Dr.
Khalifa. Why?
Despite the superiority of this presentation over the one figured out
by Dr. Khalifa, we can and would not suggest that anyone accept
numerics alone as a basis for faith in the Bible. It is at best a
crutch.
Evaluation
Dr. Khalifa, unlike Mr. Deedat, exposed himself to criticism by
providing a table in order to illustrate the system on which his
findings are based. His main theme is to show that exactly half (we
are not quite sure what "exactly half" in this instance is supposed to
prove) of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, i.e. fourteen letters,
are used - some of them repeatedly - as "Mystic initials" at the
beginning of 29 Suras. According to many old commentators, these
initials (called "al-Mukkataat") are the initials of the scribes of
the Suras concerned: ALM, ALMS, ALR, ALMR, KHYAS, TH, TSM, TS, YS, S,
HM, HMASQ, Q, N. ALM, for example, stands for Amar Li Muh.
Dr. Khalifa, with the aid of his computer, discovered, however, that
in certain Suras the sum of all the letters that are represented in
the initials above the Sura are divisible by the mysterious 19. To
give an example: Three initials (ALR) stand at the head of Sura 15. In
the text of this Sura, the sum of the L's is 323 and this figure
represents 17 x 19. In the case of Sura 68 which has the initial N
above it, the sum of all the N's in the Sura is 133, i.e. 7 x 19. Then
again if one were to add up all the letters of all Suras that have the
initial A at the top, we would again have a number divisible by 19.
Similarly the totals of all the letters of the initials above each
individual Sura when added up are divisible by 19. In Sura 36, for
instance, where the initials are Y and S, there are 48 S and 237 Y.
Though neither of these sums can be divided by 19, the combined total
is 15 x 19. In Dr. Khalifa's table we have, therefore, 14 vertical
columns and their totals, representing the sums of each individual
letter; and 29 horizontal columns where the totals are given of all
letters as represented in the initials of each individual Sura.
Of the 121 figures given in toto in this table, including the 43
totals, 22 are divisible by 19, which is roughly one in
six-and-a-half. Of the 78 figures that are given in the table
(excluding the totals), six are divisible by 19. This is one out of
every 13, which is hardly above average odds. We have to reject this
as proof of divine action having been involved. Coming to the vertical
totals (i.e. the sums of all letters represented by the initials of
each individual Sura) we find a more spectacular result:
Eight of the twenty-nine totals are divisible by 19 which is about
one in three-and-a-half. Much more convincing still are the totals of
each individual letter represented in the 29 Suras: 8 of the 14 sums
are divisible by 19. Do these figures constitute evidence of divine
intervention? Bearing in mind the arguments contained in points 1 to 7
above, we would say impressive, yes; divine, no.
How impressive in fact are these findings? We realize firstly that
the method is based on manipulation. If we used a critical method of
programming, our results would be average because we would reduce the
combinations in our system that show evidence of 19. We note that Dr.
Khalifa (and Mr. Deedat p. 67-68) has tried his best to improve his
results by stating for example that in all Suras with the initials ALM
at the top, the respective letters in the three Suras combined add up
to a figure that is divisible by 19. In his case the sum of all A's
and L's and M's in Suras 2,3,7,13,29-32 add up to 26676, which is
equal to 19 x 1404. In order to make this total divisible by 19, he
had to leave the initials out in the case of Sura 7. The reason is
that this Sura has the initials ALMS, which disqualifies it from being
included, because it is not a Sura with the initials ALM. So in order
to produce a number divisible by 19, he included Sura 7 but excluded
the 98 S's. The same applies to the use of Sura 13 (ALMR) in this
context. The same type of manipulation was used in the set of Suras
10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 which begin with the initials ALR (except 13
which has the initials ALMR). Adding up all the ALR's of these six
Suras, Dr. Khalifa arrives at the sum of 9709 (= 19 x 511) but my
computer shows that the sum is 10813 which is not divisible by 19. Dr.
Khalifa arrived at this figure by adding all the letters indicated by
the initials ALR of these Suras excepting Sura 13 (which begins with
ALMR) and adds from this Sura only the figure 137, i.e. the number of
times the initial R occurs, conveniently leaving out the A's and L's
for otherwise the sum (10813) would not be divisible by 19, as we have
shown. He does not expect his readers to check on his data, and
perhaps we are the first to do so. It is so much easier simply to be
impressed by the "divine" touch and to be strengthened in faith by a
manipulation which is needed as a crutch to support a religion without
other evidence. Other manipulations can be seen in Sura 42. Here the
sum of all the letters as represented in the initials HMASQ is 570 or
19 x 30, but it is divided into 361 + 209 to fit the first sum into
the total of all HM's. In order to increase his successes, Dr Khalifa
gives the final figure for Sura 68 as 152, which is already reflected
in the vertical column of the letter N and is therefore a duplication.
These are findings that strike the eye of a superficial reader who is
totally unacquainted with statistics or mathematics. We would still
have to check whether the figures given for the A's, L's, M's, etc. in
the various chapters do in fact correspond with the number of times
they occur in the Quran. It is beyond the scope of this investigation
to undertake such checking. However, as the given figures that can be
easily checked were found to be unreliable, we may well assume that
those that we cannot check without great effort are hardly likely to
be any more trustworthy.
A rather striking statement in addition to the table we have just
investigated is that the
"key to Mohammed's perpetual eternal miracle is found in the very
first verse of the Quran which says: `In the name of God, the
compassionate, the merciful' or as it reads in the Arabic: `Bismillah
al-Rahman al-Rahim.'"
When we count the Arabic letters that make up this verse we find they
total 19. Dr. Khalifa discovered that every word in this verse is
mentioned a number of times in the Quran and these numbers are
multiples of nineteen.
The first word "name" is allegedly found exactly 19 times in the
entire Quran. The second word "Allah" in mentioned in the Quran 2698
times (19 x 142); the third word of the verse, "al-Rahman", is found
in the Quran 57 times (3 x 19); and finally, the fourth word in the
first Quranic verse, "al-Rahim", is mentioned 114 times (6 x 19) in
the entire Quran. (so far Dr. Rashad Khalifa).
We are amazed at this statement, because every child in the Madressa
school is aware that of the 114 Suras of the Quran, 113 begin with
this verse "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful." We
do not understand how Dr. Khalifa can state that the word name is
found in the whole Quran exactly 19 times or "al-Rahman" 52 times or
"al-Rahim" 114 times. We suspect that the so-called "Bismillahs", i.e.
the opening verses of almost all Suras have been expediently left out
by Dr. Khalifa. Had he included them, his totals would no longer have
been divisible by 19. We must conclude that Dr. Khalifa has purposely
tried to mislead his readers when he states that the whole Quran is
meant. He has left out the Bismillahs to suit his own purpose of
providing divinity through deception.
We should like to conclude this chapter by repeating in our own words
a statement in this connection made by John Gilchrist:
Surely if 19 were a divinely chosen seal on the Quran, Sura 19:19
would give the ultimate message of the Quran. What does it say there?
It speaks about the "holy son," Jesus. Surely this is significant when
we compare it with verse 19 of Sura 47 where it states that Mohammed
should "ask forgiveness for his fault."
In his booklet Mr. Deedat claimed regarding the very first
revelations that Muhammad received that the first five verses of Sura
96 were followed by verses 17-30 of Sura 74 which ends "over it are
19." He concludes that 5 verses plus 14 verses add up to 19 verses;
hence the verse "over it are 19." We state that it is by no means
historically established that the sequence of the revelations was as
Mr. Deedat claims. According to J M Rodwell, a Quranic translator and
chronologist, Sura 74 was second in sequence after Sura 96 although no
verses are indicated. Jalalu'd-din, a Muslim chronologer, names Sura
74 as being the fourth one revealed. Sir W. Muir estimates it to be
the 21st.
Apart from that, we are aware that the division of verses in the
Quran is based on five different systems:
the Kufah system, following the tradition of Ali; the Basra system,
following Mohammed's companion Asim ibn Hajjaj; the Shami system of
Syria used by Mohammed's companion Abdu'lla-h ibn Umar the Makkah
system and the Madinah system.
This makes it obvious that Mohammed did not undertake the division
into verses. As far as the ordering of the Suras is concerned this was
done by Khalif Uthman and thus the whole of Mr. Deedat's argument
falls flat. (Information from "Dictionary of Islam", pages 489-492)
In order to check Dr. Khalifa's data we wrote to ask him to supply us
with the mathematical methods of research he used so as to enable us
to repeat his experiments.
We also asked for the mathematical formula which he had used to
calculate the probability of the pattern occurring by chance; a copy
of the magnetic tape of the whole Quran that he used as information
for the computer; as well as the computer programme that was used to
analyse the text to determine the numerical pattern he had discovered.
The reply to this letter was most surprising. Dr. Khalifa wrote:
"To repeat the work, all you need to is count the letters in a Quran
written according to the original Uthmani method. Most of the facts
are simple and need no mathematics.
We wonder what the extensive use of a computer, as mentioned in his
book, was all about. Perhaps you, dear reader, have arrived at your
own conclusion by now. (See chart pages 140 & 141)
Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
