Sentenious and Brisk Surats
klei...@astound.net
Makkan surats is how "wordy" the surat is. So I have created the
following table. The first column is the surat number, the second is
the number of ayats in the surat, the third is the number of lines of
text in the surat and the fourth is the third divided by the second -
that is, the average number of lines of text in each surat. The entries
are in descending order of the fourth column.
60 13 53 4.1
48 29 101 3.5
57 29 100 3.4
58 22 75 3.4
5 120 410 3.4
65 12 40 3.3
66 12 40 3.3
2 286 912 3.2
4 176 565 3.2
24 64 206 3.2
49 18 56 3.1
59 24 74 3.1
9 129 389 3.0
13 43 129 3.0
6 165 471 2.9
46 35 103 2.9
33 73 203 2.8
62 11 31 2.8
63 11 31 2.8
3 200 544 2.7
22 78 204 2.7
35 45 122 2.7
8 75 194 2.6
14 52 137 2.6
41 54 138 2.6
42 53 137 2.6
61 14 37 2.6
7 206 525 2.5
10 109 277 2.5
11 123 305 2.5
12 111 276 2.5
28 88 222 2.5
31 34 84 2.5
34 54 137 2.5
39 75 189 2.5
16 128 301 2.4
18 110 264 2.4
40 85 207 2.4
17 111 253 2.3
29 69 161 2.3
30 60 136 2.3
64 18 41 2.3
47 38 85 2.2
25 77 162 2.1
45 37 79 2.1
27 93 190 2.0
32 30 61 2.0
67 30 59 2.0
19 98 182 1.9
73 19 36 1.9
20 135 237 1.8
21 112 209 1.7
36 83 139 1.7
43 89 149 1.7
23 118 186 1.6
38 88 141 1.6
98 8 13 1.6
71 28 41 1.5
72 28 41 1.5
50 45 63 1.4
15 99 121 1.3
54 55 63 1.3
76 31 41 1.3
110 3 4 1.3
51 60 72 1.2
52 49 60 1.2
53 62 74 1.2
68 52 63 1.2
70 44 47 1.2
26 227 261 1.1
37 182 192 1.1
44 59 63 1.1
55 78 85 1.1
69 52 56 1.1
74 56 59 1.1
All the remaining surats have a one-line per ayat structure. The surats
with ratio 1.0 ahead of surat 75 are 1 and 56. Beginning with 75 all
the surats have ratio 1.0 except 76, 98 and 110.
What can be learned from this data? Nothing really conclusive, so far
as I can tell. But it does support other surat classifications. I am
intrigued by how many pairs of adjacent surats have the same briskness.
Or even triple in the case of 10, 11 and 12.
I believe there are more pairs and triples than would occur if the
arrangement was purely random.
The more sentenious surats are, of course, those traditionally
considered Madinan. If I divide the list at surat 22 (commonly
considered mixed Madinan and Makkan) I observe that two traditionally
Makkan surats - 6, 46 - are more sententious than 22 and four
traditionally Madinan surats - 8 (but just barely), 47, 61 and 64 are
brisker than 22.
Another striking observation is that 3 is much brisker than 2, 4 or 5.
This seems odd to those of us who feel the message in 2, 3, 4 and 5 is
very similar.