A Comparative Study of the Literal and Symbolic Meaning of the Numbers in Qur’anic Verses about Creation

چکیده

The number words in the Qur’an are generally considered to have numerical meanings, while other meanings of these words have been reported under some verses (especially the creation verses). There are diverse cultural-ritual symbols of the number words employed by the people living in different geographical regions of the world from ancient centuries to the present. The peresent research aims to conduct a comparative study of the non-numerical meanings of number words and their numbered objects in the Qur’an and different rituals and cultures, using the method of ritual-cultural symbology, in order to discover and analyze the relationship between the literal meanings of Qur’anic numbers and their symbolic meanings. According to the results of this research, it seems that the non-numerical meanings of number words in the verses of Creation are not metaphors, ironies and parables, and they are possibly symbolic. Moreover, there is a close relationship between the ritual-cultural symbology and the literal meanings of numbers and their associations in the Creation Verses, so it can be suggested that there is a kind of language that all people can understand regardless of culture and geography.