Some interesting facts about the Holy Qur'an

Article from 'Saudi Gazette' by Dr. Khaled Tawfik..

The Holy Qur'an is Allah's final word for the human beings. Reading the Qur'an is a source of pleasure for everybody, even for non-Muslims. This is why Arthur Arberry, one of the famous Orientalists, described the Qur'an as "a holy book of universal significance."

In this article, I will focus on basic statistics about the Qur'an, which, I hope, would be of interest to a lot of readers:

1) The Holy Qur'an consists of 6,236 verses in 114 Surahs (chapters) in 30 juz' (parts). Each juz' is divided into two hizbs (half a juz').

2) The Qur'an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in 23 years to match the diffent situations and circumstances the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) faced: 13 years in Makkah and 10 years in Madina.

3) The Surahs of the Qur'an are divided into two types: 86 Makkan Surahs (the ones revealed before migration of the Prophet (peace be upon him) to Madina and usually deal with monotheism and true faith) and 28 Madani Surahs (the ones revealed after the migration and usually deal with different aspects of people's life in the Muslim state).

4) All the Surahs of the Qur'an start with Bismillah (in the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate) except one, Surah al-Taubah (The Repentance).

5) There is only one Surah in the Qur'an that contains Bismillah, Surah an-Naml (The Ants).

6) The number of Prophets and Messengers (peace be upon them) mentioned in the Qur'an is 25.

7) The longest Surah in the Qur'an is al-Baqarah (The Cow) It has 286 verses and the shortest one is al-Kawthar (Abundance) with three verses.

8) The only one of Prophet Muhammad's companions whose name is mentioned in the Qur'an is Zaid Ibn Haritha, may Allah be pleased with him, in verse 37 in Surah Al-Ahzab, (The Confederates); "So when Zaid had accomplished his desire from her (i.e. divorced her), We gave her to you in marraige, so that (in future) there may be no difficulty to the Believers in respect of (the marraige of) the wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have no desire to keep them (i.e. they have divorced them)). And Allah's command must be fulfilled."

9) Verse No. 281 in Surah al-Baqarah, known as Ayat ad-dayn, (verse dealing with debt), is the longest one in the whole Qur'an.

10) Surah al-Mujadalah (The Woman Who Disputes) is the only Surah in the Qur'an which the word "Allah" is mentioned in every verse.