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Quran is made of chapters (surah), each of which is made of verses (ayah). But there are some places that it seems some ayats are in fact one ayah, for example verses 16 and 17 of surah 35. The question is, how do we know this structure? Is this structure revealed to Muhammad by God? I mean, has God revealed that "Muhammd, this sentence I'm sending you is verse X of surah Y"? Or is it something that we just invented to categorize a body of texts that has been sent upon our prophet?

Update: Let's for a moment picture a Quran without verse numbers, and without chapter classifications. Just a continous body of text, like a story. It still has the same meaning and nothing is changed. So, what is the philosophy/why behind splitting Quran into chapters and verses? Is it something that God himself has revealed to Muhammad, or is it that men were assigning numbers to what Muhammad would say whenever he would have said it.

update2: For another example, consider verses 11, 12, and 13 of Chapter 2. Verses 11 and 12 are exactly the same as verse 13 in structure, but they are two different verses, while 13 is one verse.

Verse 11 => Command, rejection
Verse 12 => Fact
Verse 13 => Command, question (rejection in nature), fact

In other words, I would be pretty content with having verse 13 being split into 13 and 14, and mimic the structure of 11 and 12.

Saeed Neamati
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  • Perhaps you meant to say some ayaat are one sentence, not one ayah. Ayah does not mean sentence. This is in several places, not just the example you mention. Ayah can be multiple sentences and can be part of sentences. – The Z Dec 05 '19 at 04:07
  • No, I simply meant how do we know that ayah is what God has revealed to Muhammad, and it's not man-made? – Saeed Neamati Dec 05 '19 at 04:22
  • As it has already been shown to you, the Sahaba did not change the Quran or add to it, nor even changing the order of the verses. The Surah were classified by the Prophet himself. Here is another evidence of the Prophet himself referencing a Surah showing that it was a classification from his time: https://sunnah.com/muslim/6/311. It wasn't invented later. The Prophet himself classified the Quran into Surahs. – The Z Dec 07 '19 at 07:58
  • Furthermore, even if there were no marks on the page, it is not possible to take away the distinction between the Surahs because it is so obvious in most cases. For example, take Surah Shams. Taking away the Surah separations around it isn't going to fool anyone. The rhyme scheme is different, the tone is different, the topic is different, and anyone can and will recognize that. – The Z Dec 07 '19 at 08:01

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The qur'an was revealed in pieces to Muhammed () for about 20-21 Years (with interruptions: time periods where Muhammed neither received a revelation nor the angel Jibreel()).

When a verse (or more) was (were) revealed Muhammed () used to dictate it to his scribes and asked them to put it in order so basically the strongest opinion about the Chapters or surahs is that they are done by divine instruction (Due to the ahadith that mentioned the procedure see for example in Musnad Ahmad (Arabic only), in Sahih al-Bukahri, and other used evidences such as in Sunan ibn Majah and Sahih Muslim).
As to their order one may hear different opinions, but the strongest is that they are also ordered by divine instruction (See for example in here Jami' at-Tirmidhi).

When it comes to the verse count the matter is much more relaxed: Basically there are only a few surahs of which an amount of verses is known the most known of these are surat al-Fatihah (7 verses) and surat al-Mulk (30 verses however some verse counters changed these amount in some locations). The verse counters followed the following instruction: a verse ends at the location where the qari' (who follows one of the accepted qira'at) makes a pause. Following the description of Umm Salamah () of the recitation of our prophet ():

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) used to recite: "In the name of Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds; most Gracious, most Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment," breaking its recitation into verses, one after another.

Abu Dawud said: I heard Ahmad (b. Hanbal) say: The early reading is: Maliki yawmi'l-din. (Sunan abi Dawod)

Therefore one can safely say that the matter of verse count -in general- is a matter of ijtihad (unless there's a consensus about the amount of verses of a surah) .

Let's for a moment picture a Quran without verse numbers, and without chapter classifications. Just a continuous body of text, like a story.

In my family we actually have such a moshaf!

Some related posts:

For further information refer also to fatwa islamqa #3214

Medi1Saif
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  • so basically the strongest opinion about the Chapters or surahs is that they are done by divine instruction, I mean, how Muhammad knew that the revelation that he's receiving right now is the verse X of chapter Y for example? – Saeed Neamati Dec 06 '19 at 11:00
  • Simply because Jibreel told him. – Medi1Saif Dec 06 '19 at 11:01
  • For example, consider two scenarios in in the first revelation. Scenario one: Read by the name of your Lord who has created the human from .... Scenario two: Muhammad, what I'm reading to you belongs to a chapter that God has name as Alhagh. OK, here we go. Now listen to the first verse, which is "Read in the name of your Lord". Got it? Now let's move to the second verse. It goes "Created human from ... ". – Saeed Neamati Dec 06 '19 at 11:04
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    How do we know that Jibreel told him? Do we have any historical evidence that Muhammad would pass these metadata (chapter and verse) to his scribes? – Saeed Neamati Dec 06 '19 at 11:05
  • Well I've already told you that the surahs are divine and if you checked my linked posts you'll find evidences. It seems to me you didn't read the answer as all you ask now is inside. – Medi1Saif Dec 06 '19 at 11:06
  • I actually read your answer, and the links you sent. Of course non of them contains accurate information. It's all based upon seems to. I'm asking a very simple question and you can answer we don't know for sure and we guess it's divine. – Saeed Neamati Dec 06 '19 at 11:11
  • You've asked a more or less simple infirmativ question (which could easily become too broad if you are looking for details) and didn't ask for specific evidences. If you are looking for detailed answers you should ask these questions separately. So far you are interpreting my summary -which gives an overview of the many questions- as you like. – Medi1Saif Dec 06 '19 at 11:23
  • As to the two scenarios you've quoted above in reality none of them applies as the first verses of surat al-'Alaq (more exactly only the last few verses were revealed later) were revealed in one piece, so the procedure here would simply be: Muhammad recites the verses, then tells his scribes to write them down, maybe ask others of the audience to repeat them (hufadh). – Medi1Saif Dec 14 '19 at 20:36
  • So, how do we know that Muhammad said "OK people, write down these three sentences, but hey, wait, they belong to 3 different verses" or he said "OK people, this is what has come to me last night, write it down, it's one sentence" and then later one guy broke it into 3 verses. – Saeed Neamati Dec 15 '19 at 09:41
  • It seems you can't read or simply don't get it Muhammad,recited, people memorized and wrote down (both at once). The verse count as stated above is ijtihad this means Muhammad rarely said I'll recite "x verses" or surat "y" has "z verses". The conclusion and ijtihad is based on the hadith of Um Salamah which in short means when ever the reciter needs to take a breath a verse ends. But as we are recommended to do as Muhammad did not any recitation can be taken as a basis for that but only those who follow the qira'at which have a high level of trust. – Medi1Saif Dec 15 '19 at 09:52
  • Of course I can both read and I get it. You don't understand the difference between data and metadata. Quran's text is data. Quran's verse number, chapter name, chapter number, whether it's madani or maki, juz number, those are metadata. I'm asking a simple question. How do we know metadata of Quran is true? In your last comment I realized that we don't know. We simply take "pauses" as verse numbers. Stupid. Because Ayatulkursi is 9 sentences and almost no normal person can read it without getting out of breath, and so many small ayats can be read with one breath. – Saeed Neamati Dec 15 '19 at 09:58
  • Well this shows that you don't understand the simple rules of logic "ex falso quodlibet". the only Meta data from the qur'an are surah and revelation date/period and they may differ in the same surah. Your questions were how do we know when a verse ends and how were verses put into chapters and how were these chapters ordered. All of this is answered above either you accept it and ask a new question asking about the details you are adding in your comments or you start understanding without any prejudices. – Medi1Saif Dec 15 '19 at 10:27
  • At least I don't think I have the time to answer each extra comment as all of them would be a good question on the site which requires a detailed answer. I tried to be as brief as possible but you toke this as a hint that there's no evidence for what I'm saying. Note that in Islam truth is one but the paths toward ls it are many so we should accept that scholars may differ on many things, but that should be fine as long as their goal is to teach the truth of Islam. My goal is to answer as objective as possible when I say there are other opinions then there are: they might be very weak. – Medi1Saif Dec 15 '19 at 10:30
  • Maybe you should ask first what are the Meta data of the qur'an! That hopefully would lift most of you confusion. In that case I'd recommend you to add your own definition and stop asking extra questions in comments. I'm aware that you might have a different question or answer in mind but I'd wonder if anybody comes to a different conclusion from you question post. – Medi1Saif Dec 15 '19 at 10:31