Responding to the Odd/Even Math Miracle of the Quran

Abdullah Sameer

One of the claims regarding the Quran is there is a checksum on it.

What is a checksum?  Well it’s an integrity check, a way for an author to sign or “seal the envelope” in order to indicate that the message has not been tampered with. A very simple checksum would be for example if I put the total word count at the bottom of this article.  When you get to the bottom you can see if the number matches the words in this article and you can confirm its correct.  However this wouldn’t be very tamper proof as you could change all of the words and maintain the same number in order to still pass the checksum. A better checksum would be to assign each letter a value (A is 1, B is 2 and so on) and then put the total at the end.  This would be better, but it’s still very weak as someone could tamper with it as long as they kept the same number of letter uses the same it would still pass the checksum.  Nevertheless the point should be clear.

To claim that the Quran has a type of checksum on it is quite weak. Let’s take a look at one particular claim about the Odd/Even Binary Miracle of the Quran as described here:

Performing A Checksum On The Quran – Maths Miracle

 

If Allah was intending to make this a checksum or integrity check, wouldn’t there have been far more clear and better ways to do it?

How impressive is this really?

First of all, why doesn’t the Quran simply have half the verses with odd number of ayat and half with even ayat?  This would be impressive, especially if it was every other surah being odd/even.

Why do we have to add the Surah Number to the Number of Ayat to get this result (Lets call this “magic numbers”)?  Seems arbitrary doesn’t it.  Let’s just say it’s because “Allah” wanted us to make sure the correct Surah Number had the Correct # of Ayat, so you have to add them.  Are we hunting for something here, or is this really the intention of the author?  Not sure how we were expected to figure out that we need to add these two seemingly arbitrary numbers together, but okay, whatever, let’s grant that.

Second of all, there is no rhyme or reason or pattern to the magic numbers.

The first few: 8, 288, 203, 180, 125, 171….  They are not even in a pattern

If this was really Allah trying to give us a message, what would have been impressive is if the verse counts (or “magic numbers”) were in Fibonacci sequence, or the Golden Ratio, or Prime numbers…

Fibonnaci by jbingaman

Even in nature we are able to find such beautiful patterns appearing.

But instead we see no such thing just arbitrarily scattered numbers, half of which are odd and half of which are even.  Given that each magic number must be odd or even and randomly distributed, you would expect approximately 50% to be odd and 50% to be even anyway.  It’s not that surprising.

Do you think the supreme creator of the universe couldn’t come up with a better way to sign his final revelation and protect it from corruption?  How about sending multiple identical copies to different Prophets – one to Australia, one to China, and one to the Middle East.  Checkmate atheists.

Third of all, there is nothing amazing about 6555 and 6236.  They are just the totals we come up with.  Which means that we don’t have to keep these totals, as long as if we change the ayah counts, the total remains.

The problem is that this so-called checksum is vulnerable to severe modifications.

1. For any of the 57 totals that are even, you can go ahead and change the number of ayat in there to an arbitrary number.  So for example for Surah 1, you can change the number of verses from 7 to 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, etc…
You can do the same for Surah 2, but using even numbers: 286, 288, 300, 302, 306, …
When you do this, you will modify the even total and the “checksum” is still intact.

2. You can shuffle around the surahs.  Infact there are billions and billions of possible changes you can make to these numbers and still make it work out.
The conditions are that you need to swap the odd totals with other odd totals.  For example, if you swapped the ayah count of Surah 1 (Fatiha) with Surah 6 (Al Anam) both the 6555 and 6236 total will still match.

If we break down the data into four groups, we have: odd surahs with odd number ayat, odd with even, even with odd, and even with even.  So looking at the total number of swaps we can perform using a basic permutations calculator in excel

Type Surahs Unique Ayah Counts Possible orderings
OddOdd 27 20 2.16049E+24
OddEven 30 28 1.32626E+32
EvenOdd 27 24 1.81481E+27
EvenEven 30 25 2.21044E+30

That last column that says E+ means that is how many zeros are in the number.
So the first one is saying there are 2,160,490,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities

So there are billions and billions and billions and billions of possible combinations that would lead to the exact same 6555 and 6236 totals.

This is not what you call a checksum.  It’s just begging the question.   

You can play along with the included Excel file and change the numbers to see how this works.

And I have published the source for a computer program that you can run that will shuffle the numbers or play around with my results.

I have included a list of 1000 results with different ayah counts which still give the exact same 6555 and 6236 total.   If someone runs this a million million times they will get a million million different results that still work.

Miracle?  Hardly

Also see The so-called mathematical miracle of the Quran post.
Further Reading: Debunking the Odd/Even Miracle in the Quran

Quran Odd/Even Data:

6555 6236 6555 6236
Surah  Number of Verses Surah+Verses Odd Total Even Total
1 7 8 0 8 EVEN
2 286 288 0 288 EVEN
3 200 203 203 0 ODD
4 176 180 0 180 EVEN
5 120 125 125 0 ODD
6 165 171 171 0 ODD
7 206 213 213 0 ODD
8 75 83 83 0 ODD
9 129 138 0 138 EVEN
10 109 119 119 0 ODD
11 123 134 0 134 EVEN
12 111 123 123 0 ODD
13 43 56 0 56 EVEN
14 52 66 0 66 EVEN
15 99 114 0 114 EVEN
16 128 144 0 144 EVEN
17 111 128 0 128 EVEN
18 110 128 0 128 EVEN
19 98 117 117 0 ODD
20 135 155 155 0 ODD
21 112 133 133 0 ODD
22 78 100 0 100 EVEN
23 118 141 141 0 ODD
24 64 88 0 88 EVEN
25 77 102 0 102 EVEN
26 227 253 253 0 ODD
27 93 120 0 120 EVEN
28 88 116 0 116 EVEN
29 69 98 0 98 EVEN
30 60 90 0 90 EVEN
31 34 65 65 0 ODD
32 30 62 0 62 EVEN
33 73 106 0 106 EVEN
34 54 88 0 88 EVEN
35 45 80 0 80 EVEN
36 83 119 119 0 ODD
37 182 219 219 0 ODD
38 88 126 0 126 EVEN
39 75 114 0 114 EVEN
40 85 125 125 0 ODD
41 54 95 95 0 ODD
42 53 95 95 0 ODD
43 89 132 0 132 EVEN
44 59 103 103 0 ODD
45 37 82 0 82 EVEN
46 35 81 81 0 ODD
47 38 85 85 0 ODD
48 29 77 77 0 ODD
49 18 67 67 0 ODD
50 45 95 95 0 ODD
51 60 111 111 0 ODD
52 49 101 101 0 ODD
53 62 115 115 0 ODD
54 55 109 109 0 ODD
55 78 133 133 0 ODD
56 96 152 0 152 EVEN
57 29 86 0 86 EVEN
58 22 80 0 80 EVEN
59 24 83 83 0 ODD
60 13 73 73 0 ODD
61 14 75 75 0 ODD
62 11 73 73 0 ODD
63 11 74 0 74 EVEN
64 18 82 0 82 EVEN
65 12 77 77 0 ODD
66 12 78 0 78 EVEN
67 30 97 97 0 ODD
68 52 120 0 120 EVEN
69 52 121 121 0 ODD
70 44 114 0 114 EVEN
71 28 99 99 0 ODD
72 28 100 0 100 EVEN
73 20 93 93 0 ODD
74 56 130 0 130 EVEN
75 40 115 115 0 ODD
76 31 107 107 0 ODD
77 50 127 127 0 ODD
78 40 118 0 118 EVEN
79 46 125 125 0 ODD
80 42 122 0 122 EVEN
81 29 110 0 110 EVEN
82 19 101 101 0 ODD
83 36 119 119 0 ODD
84 25 109 109 0 ODD
85 22 107 107 0 ODD
86 17 103 103 0 ODD
87 19 106 0 106 EVEN
88 26 114 0 114 EVEN
89 30 119 119 0 ODD
90 20 110 0 110 EVEN
91 15 106 0 106 EVEN
92 21 113 113 0 ODD
93 11 104 0 104 EVEN
94 8 102 0 102 EVEN
95 8 103 103 0 ODD
96 19 115 115 0 ODD
97 5 102 0 102 EVEN
98 8 106 0 106 EVEN
99 8 107 107 0 ODD
100 11 111 111 0 ODD
101 11 112 0 112 EVEN
102 8 110 0 110 EVEN
103 3 106 0 106 EVEN
104 9 113 113 0 ODD
105 5 110 0 110 EVEN
106 4 110 0 110 EVEN
107 7 114 0 114 EVEN
108 3 111 111 0 ODD
109 6 115 115 0 ODD
110 3 113 113 0 ODD
111 5 116 0 116 EVEN
112 4 116 0 116 EVEN
113 5 118 0 118 EVEN
114 6 120 0 120 EVEN

What do you think?

 

18 thoughts on “Responding to the Odd/Even Math Miracle of the Quran”

  1. Err yeah sure that’s exactly what I was thinking lol. Bro I don’t know where you find the time to research this but it’s great work keep it up. We need people like you to take a pragmatic logical and commonsense approach to all issues religious to make transparent the fallacies of the Quran being of divine origin.

    Reply

      1. Well you said it would be impressive if the surah totals were in a golden ratio and i showed u how they were if you take repeating totals divided by non repeating totals….. Anyways ill leave you with this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR3Ti2eLoFI
        1.You can see Makkah is the golden ratio point of the world
        2.the city of Makkahs golden ratio point is at the kaaba
        3.original rectangular dimensions of the kaaba (with hatim) correspond to the golden ratio and they are also 2 consecutive prime numbers in the fibonachi sequence
        4.many other golden ratio findings which an athiest should find interesting
        its less than 2 hours so ideal for your commute

        Reply

        1. You spend so much energy on this? What about all the other issues in the Quran? Did you ever look into them? Its been two weeks and you are still responding to this. Honestly H…

          Reply

        2. Yet Muslims pray towards Mecca but on a round earth (the one created by this god character) clearly if you face ‘east’ you are actually facing straight out into space. On a sphere you can’t orientate yourself towards a particular compass point because you will always be going off on a tangent. So how come something as basic as this mathematically is overlooked, when claims for far more complex situations are presented?

          Reply

          1. So what do u propose we do? all face haphazardly in different directions?
            or maybe pray with our faces on the floor?

            i remember talking to a flat earther once…… he said if the earth were round how is it that with telescopes we can see regions of the earth we should not be able to see if the earth were round….
            Obv he didnt understand gravity and how light bends…..

            Dont take our facing of Mecca in our prayers so literal…..think of it as a way we unify the ummah…..
            If you were to be so literal your next question may be if someone were to pray without a compass and turn a few inches more to a side than he should literally he would literally miss Mecca by miles

  4. Offcourse ive come across the other so called issues… to me most are subjective …..ive researched them all throughout the years and am frankly bored of spending time on the same issues over and over….frankly im sure there are stuff ive come across that ud love to know as someone who speaks out against islam….i think you mentioned slavery in your latest video which is supposed to exist in islam with captives of war ONLY if at all…. but even with these issues a person who believes can interpret and rationalise them away or even embrace it… i mean its not something most will loose faith over and not everyone is motivated to embrace secular humanist values…

    I glanced at your next article and you talked of imam ahmed and shafi and their views as if they are both infalliable in islam ….. i mean if you were a salafi as i heard u say you should already now how we tackle these issues… i spent loads of time on theology (aqeedah) and jurisprudence (fiqh) already so why start researching it again….

    the fundamental difference between you and me i think is i spent years trying to understand Quranic arabic and trying to memorize the Quran with the meaning ….so id already experienced the miraculous patterns and structure of the Quran before i started researching all this stuff you seem to have issues with. So im firmly grounded… i mean maybe you were probably bored in taraweeh prayers, for me its like a 2 hour movie where the time just flies by in minutes…..

    When i research a topic i like to do a thorough job and explore all angles of it which is why 2 weeks later im still on this topic. I chose to engage with you on this topic and honestly i hadnt spent alot of time on it before….. SInce your initial blog ive focused my free time on it, researching the mathematical wonders in the Quran and even literary wonders such as described in the work of Dr. Raymond Farrin as well as the 4 parts here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVfybIQzTU ….

    it just so happens this is something that im interested in at the moment and ive learnt alot as a consequence of your blogs….so in a weird way ive kind of benefited from the exchange… Been busy with google earth these last few days as you probably might if you watch the video i sent before…..

    Reply

  5. The supposed miracle about the golden ratio in Surah+Versenumber is false. The golden ratio is 7905 and 4886 and not like the quran states 7906/4885. Is the Quran debunked now? Or does it change your percption since it would have been really easy to get a golden ratio there.

    Reply

  6. Abdullah, your analysis is missing the point that the checksum was unknown to any would-be modifications that someone would have attempted. Your working backwards now that you know the formula. The other thing ur missing is that if you make these changes while still respecting the formula, you are still breaking other checksums. It’s more intricate than your excel file in isolation.

    Reply

    1. exactly. he’s just trying to trick people. besides he used a computer and he didn’t write the quran using those random numbers because otherwise, it wouldn’t even make any sense

      Reply

  7. it works but that doesn’t mean anything. you used a computer and you already knew the formula. you seem to forget that the quran was revealed throughout a long period which would make this imposssible

    Reply

  8. 1) Your calculation of the probability is wrong .. You would not expect to 57 odd 57 even numbers in a list of 144 numbers that are randomly distributed with probability %50.
    The probability of seeing 57 odd and 57 even number is given by : C(144, 72) / 2^144 = % 0.06 .

    2) What you do in second part is simply generating numbers that fit into the checksum formula. You can do this for any kind of checksum if you have the formula. It doesn’t mean anything. This does not invalidate that Qur’an has a checksum in any way.

    3) Finally, note Qur’an 89/3 which says: And [by] the even [number] and the odd. So given that there exists a verse in which God swears to even and odd numbers, I would say it’s quite interesting to see this pattern.

    Reply

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