Structure · a Light

Different cities counted the verses differently

Printed Qur'ans following the Cairo edition give 6,236 verses. Other totals circulate, and they come from old regional traditions of verse division associated with Kufa, Basra, Madinah, Makkah and Damascus, which differ from one another by a few dozen. The difference is never about the words. It is about where one verse stops and the next begins: whether a phrase closes one verse or opens the next, and whether the opening formula counts as a verse of the chapter. Reciters were trained in one system and transmitted it. Anyone comparing two translations that give different numbers for the same sentence is looking at the tail of an argument between early schools of recitation.

Kufan, Basran, Madinan, Makkan, Syrian

Source · The counting traditions differ, giving totals from about 6,200 to 6,236; the Cairo edition follows the Kufan count of 6,236, and none of the