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Different accounts have been said about the numbers of the verses, which are evidences for the miraculous and the uniqueness of our holy book, the Quran, within the surah and throughout the Qur’an. This situation has been handled with a science titled ‘Add al-Āyy among the Qur’anic sciences, which is a science whose rules and principles are determined in a way that does not allow for distortions such as addition to or incompleteness for the Qur’an and this has been dealt with an uninterrupted chain to the Prophet and the companions. In this science, which examines the number of the letters, words, verses and surahs in the Qur’an, Islamic scholars have dealt with this issue in detail and put forward different opinions. Although the number 6666 stands out generally, this is not an accurate number and the exact number of verses in available Muṣḥaf is 6236.
The Companions, the successors and later scholars have expressed different views. From the Companions, Ali (d. 40/661) gave the number 6236 as well as Abdullah Ibn al-Mes’ud (d. 32/652) 6218, Ubeyy b. Ka’b (d. 33/654) 6210 and Abdullah Ibn Abbas (d. 68/687) 6216. The number given by Ali is equal to the number for available Mushaf in our hands. From the successors, Sa’id b. Jubeyr (d. 95/714) gave the number 6216 as well as Muhammed İbn Sîrîn (d. 110/729) 6216, Atâ İbn Abû Rebâh (d. 115/732) 6177 and Humeyd al-Tavîl (d. 142/759) 6212. Among the imams of Qira'at, the Medinan with the number 6127, the Mekkan with 6219, the Basran with 6205, the Kufan with 6236, and Damascene with 6220 gave their different opinions. There are not disputes in all 114 surahs, but only in 75 ones. However, there is no discussion in the verse numbers of some surahs, only a discussion about which verses are detached within the same text.
There are some reasons for the different opinions. Recitations made by the Prophet (pbuh) in the teaching of the Qur’an or in some events that occurred may be one of the main reasons for the dispute in the number of verses. Because, in all these, Prophet taught the places for waqf. Over time, The Prophet was reading some verses with wasl. The Companion, who witnessed this situation, believed that this reading, which was made by combining several verses, was only a single verse. As a result, different numbers were reported in the narrations of the Companions. Whether basmalahs and al-Hurûf al-Muqatta’a at the beginning of the suras were regarded as a separate verse also caused different views about the number of verses. In addition to these reasons, it was another reason for the dispute regarding the number of verses that some verses going as a single verse in Mushafs we have were counted as more than one verse or the fact that some verses in a single unit are combined and counted as one verse.
Because Qiraat studies concentrated more in Mecca, Madinah, Kufa, Basra and Damascus in the first centuries, some of al-qurras became famous in the towns where they lived and came to mind with the names of these towns. When evaluating verse numbers, these cities were mentioned instead of these al-qurras. Madaniyy al-Awwal and Madaniyy al-Akhir came to mind with the word al-Madani as well as Madinah and Makkah with al-Hijaz; Basrah and Kufah with Iraq; Madinah and Makka with al-Haramiyy and also Damascus and al-Hımsiyy with al-Şham. al-Jaberi accepted “al-Himsiyy” as a separate school.
Our scholars have written different works related to the number of verses since the early periods. However, the works written by Abu Amr al-Dânî and Burhân al-Din el-Jaberî about this subject have been accepted as the main source by our scholars and their views on the number of verses have always been in the foreground. In this article, we will take into account, by utilizing also other related works, the two prominent works in this field, al-Bayan fi ‘Add Ay al-Quran by al-Dani and Husn al-Madad fi Fenn al-‘Aded by al-Jaberi, and evaluate the disputes in the number of verses, and will state the verses in question one by one.