“And thus We have made you a middle [i.e., just] nation that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you… ”

– Qur’an 2:143

One “miracle” of the Qur’an I grew up hearing about is this Ayah¹ of the Qur’an. So what’s special about this? Well, in this Surah², there are 286 Ayahs. Where is this one? In the 143th Ayah. Right in the middle.

Now one can say that anyone can do that. After all, great books have gems hidden in them. However, the Qur’an wasn’t a book in its original form. It was all spoken by Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). It is well known that he didn’t know how to read or write. 

And when he recited the Qur’an till its completion, it was over a period of 23 years. To make matters more complicated, Surahs were not revealed by God all at once. Some were also revealed in parts and not necessarily in chronological order. Not til some Surahs were fully revealed did Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) know truly what the order what. Lastly, the Qur’an did not have a number scheme until after it was written down in a book form.

So Muslims ask – how is it possible that an unlettered man in 14th century Arabia put this Ayah right in the middle of a long Surah, even though the Surah was not revealed at once, nor was there a number scheme? In fact, was this Ayah even “necessary” for the impact of its message during his time? No. Perhaps early Muslims didn’t even realize the fact that it was in the middle. So doing this would have made Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) job even harder if he was somehow the author. So it begs the question – how did it get there?

• This was taken from Nouman Ali Khan’s explanation of this Ayah, as explained beautifully in this video –

---

1. “Verse” is a rough translation for Ayah.
2. “Chapter” is a rough translation for Surah. Both will be explained in a future article.