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Al-Anbiyaa الأنبياء

In plain wordsEditorial

An editorial summary of the translations. Not a translation or tafsir.

One hundred and twelve verses of prophets in quick succession, most given only a few: Abraham among the broken idols answering that the largest one did it, Job calling out, the man of the fish crying out in the darkness, Zachariah, the woman who guarded her chastity, David and Solomon judging a field of crops. It takes its name from them collectively.

AALAMIN Editor · signed 29 August 2026

not a scholar — what this signature means

I am not a scholar, and nothing here asks you to treat me as one. The plain words on this site are my restatement of what the five translations shown above say, together with counts derived from the text itself — nothing more. I sign them so that a named person is accountable for every sentence, not so you'll take my word for anything. The authority on this page is the text and its translators. If my words don't match theirs, mine are the ones that are wrong.

Read the surah Go to a verse

Every verse as a number; tap one to open it. Shaded numbers mark verses where the translations differ most.

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worded differently

Where the translators differDerived

The verses of this surah whose wording differs most, most differently worded first. Under each, the two renderings that share the fewest words are quoted in full under their translators' names; every rendering is on the verse's own page. This measures wording, not meaning.

21:1
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.78. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.97.

Talal Itani · 2012

Mankind's reckoning has drawn near, but they turn away heedlessly.

George Sale · 1734

The time of giving up their account draweth nigh unto the people of Mecca; while they are sunk in negligence, turning aside from the consideration thereof
21:85
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.77. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.95.

Talal Itani · 2012

And Ishmael, and Enoch, and Ezekiel; each was one of the steadfast.

George Sale · 1734

And remember Ismael, and Edris, and Dhu'lkefl. All these were patient persons
Show all verses the translators word differently
21:34
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.77. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.85.

Talal Itani · 2012

We did not grant immortality to any human being before you. Should you die, are they then the immortal?

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

At no time have we granted to man a life that shall last for ever: if thou then die, shall they live for ever
21:100
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.77. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.88.

Talal Itani · 2012

In it they will wail. In it they will not hear.

Edward Henry Palmer · 1880

for them therein is groaning, but they therein shall not be heard
21:17
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.76. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.86.

Talal Itani · 2012

If We wanted amusement, We could have found it within Us, were We to do so.

Edward Henry Palmer · 1880

Had we wished to take to a sport, we would have taken to one from before ourselves; had we been bent on doing so
More about this surahDerived
Verses
112
Words
1,169
Place
Meccan
Revelation position
73th of 114 in an ordering its source does not name
Opening letters
None
Bismillah
Carried by the surah, unnumbered
Word-by-word breakdown
57.7% of 1,169 words carry an analysis
  1. 96
  2. 68
  3. 73
  4. 74
  5. 1
  6. 111
  7. 81
  8. 87
  9. 92
  10. 89
  11. 93
  12. 94
  13. 103
  14. 100
  15. 108
  16. 102
  17. 107
  18. 109
  19. 105
  20. 113
  21. 114
  22. 112
  23. 53
  24. 80
  25. 97
  26. 91
  27. 85
  28. 95
  29. 106
  30. 101
  31. 75
  32. 104
  33. 77
  34. 50
  35. 90
  36. 86
  37. 54
  38. 38
  39. 7
  40. 72
  41. 36
  42. 25
  43. 35
  44. 19
  45. 20
  46. 56
  47. 26
  48. 27
  49. 28
  50. 17
  51. 10
  52. 11
  53. 12
  54. 15
  55. 6
  56. 37
  57. 31
  58. 34
  59. 39
  60. 40
  61. 41
  62. 42
  63. 43
  64. 44
  65. 45
  66. 46
  67. 51
  68. 88
  69. 18
  70. 16
  71. 71
  72. 14
  73. 21
  74. 23
  75. 32
  76. 52
  77. 67
  78. 69
  79. 70
  80. 78
  81. 79
  82. 82
  83. 84
  84. 30
  85. 29
  86. 83
  87. 2
  88. 8
  89. 3
  90. 33
  91. 60
  92. 4
  93. 99
  94. 57
  95. 47
  96. 13
  97. 55
  98. 76
  99. 65
  100. 98
  101. 59
  102. 24
  103. 22
  104. 63
  105. 58
  106. 49
  107. 66
  108. 64
  109. 61
  110. 62
  111. 48
  112. 5
  113. 9
  114. 110

Meccan Medinan

Counted from the text and the spine at build time, not written into the page. Opening letters are derived from the edition's orthography: an opening token of at most five letters carrying none of its vocalisation marks. The revelation position is reproduced from Revelation order as encoded by the Tanzil metadata, which does not name whose ordering it is.

Analysis detailsDerived

These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.

Mean score across this surah
0.59 across 112 scored verses

The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.

The cut
0.644
Share of measured verses above it
33%
Verses above it
2,079
Verses measured
6,236
Method Wording differences — derived 13 September 2026
Method
Mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the cleared translations of each verse. A verse is marked as worded differently when its score falls in the top third of the corpus — the cut set out in Analysis details.
Scored
6,236 verses
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Sources for this page

Surah metadataTanzil Qur'an metadata ·quran-data.xml v1.0·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution — version not specified by the source·retrieved 24 Aug 2026

Surah metadata from Tanzil Qur'an metadata (quran-data.xml, version 1.0), Tanzil Project, tanzil.net. (C) 2008-2009 Tanzil.info. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution; the source does not state a version. Values are reproduced unchanged; this site selects and arranges them, and derives verse ranges from the division start points. https://tanzil.net/res/text/metadata/quran-data.xml