Numbers
Frequency and distribution insights from the corpus. Each card ends with its verification status.
Earth and sea
Root a-r-ḍ (earth, land): 461. Root b-ḥ-r (sea): 42.
Verified root counts from the Leeds Quranic Arabic Corpus (Dukes 2009–2017). A widely cited surface-form count (13 "land" / 32 "sea") uses specific noun senses only; see counting note above. Nuanced on the popular interpretation.
Top 5 most frequent roots
| Root | Count |
|---|---|
| a-l-h (God) | 2,851 |
| q-w-l (say) | 1,722 |
| k-w-n (be) | 1,390 |
| r-b-b (Lord) | 980 |
| a-m-n (believe) | 879 |
Verified all five from the Quranic Arabic Corpus at corpus.quran.com (Leeds, Dukes 2009–2017). Full top-10 table with verification status on Roots.
Day, month, year
Day (y-w-m, root): 405 occurrences (Leeds corpus); broader counts including compound forms such as yawma-idhin reach 475. Singular form yawm: 365 by one widely cited counting. Month (sh-h-r, root): 21. Singular shahr: 12 by common counting method. Year: not a single canonical word in the Qur'an.
● root counts from Leeds. ~ for y-w-m: the 405/475 difference turns on whether compound forms are included; both are defensible. See Roots for detail.
Concept frequency
| Concept | Count |
|---|---|
| Justice (ʿ-d-l) | 28 |
| Patience (ṣ-b-r) | 103 |
| Knowledge (ʿ-l-m) | 854 |
| Gratitude (sh-k-r) | 75 |
| Taqwa (w-q-y) | 258 |
● root counts from the Leeds Quranic Arabic Corpus (Dukes 2009–2017).
Surah length
Mean: 54.7 verses. Median: 39. Longest: al-Baqarah (286). Shortest: al-Kawthar, al-'Asr, al-Nasr (3 each).
● from Tanzil (114 surahs, 6,236 verses by Cairo numbering).
Verse length by band
| Band | Avg. words/verse |
|---|---|
| Early Meccan | 4.5 |
| Middle Meccan | 10.1 |
| Late Meccan | 11.7 |
| Medinan | 18.5 |
● from Leeds word counts + Cairo 1924 chronological classification. The increasing-length pattern across periods is widely observed in academic literature.
Hapax legomena
12,004 surface forms (out of 18,993 unique forms) occur exactly once. 395 roots (out of 1,642) occur exactly once.
● from Leeds corpus word-form and root counts.
Roots unique to one period
547 roots appear only in Meccan surahs (zero Medinan occurrences). 198 roots appear only in Medinan surahs.
● from Leeds + Cairo 1924 four-period classification. ~: a handful of surahs have mixed-period classification in some traditions; the boundary roots may shift by a few in other schemes.
Fawatih (opening particles)
29 surahs open with disconnected letters (al-muqatta'at). 14 unique letter combinations across these 29 surahs.
List all 29
● from Tanzil text. ~ on interpretation; meaning is discussed across the tafsir tradition. ● The 29/14 count is computed directly from the bundled morphology, not asserted — see it listed above.