Grammatical Errors in the Quran

A picture of a man reading the Islamic Quran

The Qur'an contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning, adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number- illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent- and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects ... To sum up, more than one hundred Qur'anic aberrations from the normal rules and structures have been noted... ( Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Muhammad [Costa Mesa, Ca. 1994; Mazda Publishers], pp. 48, 50)

A few examples include the following passages:

7:56 - "The mercy of Allah is near"

Arabic - "inna rahmata Allahi qaribun min al-mohseneen."

The word qaribun is the predicate of rahmata Allahi, and as such should match in gender. Since rahmata is feminine the word qaribun (which is masculine ) should be qaribah, its feminine form.

7:160 - "We divided them in twelve tribes"

Arabic - "wa qata'nahom 'ethnata 'ashrata asbatan."

In Arabic, any noun which is counted by a number above ten should be singular, as is the case in 7:142; 2:60; 5:12; 9:36; 12:4. As such the Arabic asbatan should be sebtan.

5:69 - "Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Sabians, and the Christians, whosoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, and works righteousness- no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow."

Arabic- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu was-Saabi'uuna wan-Nasaara man'amaana bilaahi wal-Yawmil Aakhiri wa 'amila saali-hanfalaa khaw-fun 'alay-him wa laa hum yah-zanuun."

According to scholars, the Arabic Saabi'uuna has been wrongly declined. Compare the same grammatical structure found in the following suras:

2:62- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu wan-Nasaara was-Saabi'iina..."

22:17- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu was-Saabi'iina wan-Nasaara..."

In the last two suras the term was declined correctly, Saabi'iina, as opposed to Saabi'uuna. This is due to the word inna found in the beginning of the sentence causing a form of declension called "nasb" (as in the cases of accusative or subjunctive) with the "yeh" being the "sign of nasb". But the word Saabi'uuna is given the case of 'uu, a sign of "rafa" ( as in cases of nominative and indicative ). Accordingly, the verse in 5:69 is wrong.

91:5 - "By the heaven and that which built it."

Arabic- "was-samaaa-i wa maa ba-naahaa."

The word ma is impersonal in Arabic. Yet, the subject of the verse is Allah, heaven's Creator. As such the word man, meaning "him who", should have been used instead of the impersonal ma.

It should be pointed out that it is not only Arabic scholars who have discovered dozens of grammatical mistakes within the Quran, but Muhammad's very own companions in the past have also admitted this fact. The Muslim scholar Ibn al-Khatib in his book al Furqan quotes Muhammad's wife Aisha as saying:

"There are three grammatical errors in the Book of Allah, they are the fault of the scribe: In 20:63 ... And in 5:69 ... And in 4:162." (Muhammad M. abd al-Latif Ibn al-Khatib, Al-Furqan [Dar al-Kutub al-Elmiyah, Beirut], p. 91)

After seeing the first standard copy of the Quran, Islam's third Caliph Uthman proclaimed, "I see grammatical errors in it, and the Arabs will read it correctly with their tongues." (Ibid., p.90)