At a glance
countedQAC morphology over the Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim text (Tanzil quran-uthmani). Counting unit: word tokens carrying the root ظ-ل-م.
315×
the root ظ-ل-م
129×
ẓālim — the wrongdoer
23×
ẓulumāt — darknesses
The verse that holds both directions
interpreted· quran by quran2:257 is the only āyah in the Qurʾān that states the movement out of darkness and the movement back into it — the two clauses set against each other inside one verse.
ٱللَّهُ وَلِىُّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ يُخْرِجُهُم مِّنَ ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِ وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ أَوْلِيَآؤُهُمُ ٱلطَّٰغُوتُ يُخْرِجُونَهُم مِّنَ ٱلنُّورِ إِلَى ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلنَّارِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
Allah is the ally of those who believe. He brings them out from darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve - their allies are Taghut. They take them out of the light into darknesses. Those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein.
God brings believers out of the darknesses into the light; the ṭāghūt brings its followers out of the light into the darknesses. Both directions, one āyah — and nowhere else does the Qurʾān say the second one.
Seven times out, once in
countedExact-phrase search over all 6,236 canonical verses (Tanzil quran-uthmani), matching «مِنَ ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِ» and its reverse, normalised for orthographic variants only.
7×
«out of the darknesses into the light»
1×
«out of the light into the darknesses»
0
other verses stating the reverse
The formula is one of the most repeated images in the Qurʾān, and it runs almost entirely one way. Deliverance is announced seven times: by the Book 14:1, by the Messenger 65:11, by God's own guardianship 2:257, by the angels' blessing 33:43, by clear signs 57:9, along the ways of peace 5:16, and once by Mūsā to his people 14:5. The opposite movement — being led out of light into dark — is stated once, and only inside the verse that has just stated the forward movement. The Qurʾān gives the ruin no sentence of its own.
Where ẓ-l-m lives in the Qurʾān
countedWord occurrences per sūrah, QAC morphology over the Ḥafṣ/Tanzil text. Revelation order is the traditional Egyptian chronology, not a computed fact.
ظ-ل-م315 occurrences · 59 of 114 sūrahs
Counted from the QAC morphology over the Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim (Tanzil) text — hover a bar for the sūrah. The Makkī/Madanī labels and the revelation ordering follow the traditional chronology: an inherited scholarly ordering, not a computed fact.
One root, two lives
countedThe derived-form counts are computed from the QAC morphology. The grouping of the forms into a moral sense and a physical sense is an editorial reading of the lexicon.
The moral sense — wrong, injustice
الظلم292 of the 315 tokens. ẓālim the wrongdoer (129×), ẓalama to wrong (110×), ẓulm the wrong itself (20×), aẓlam «who does greater wrong» (16×).
Before you scroll
interpreted· quran by quranA retrieval pause, not a score. The answer is the next block.
Test your reading
The root ظ-ل-م means both wrongdoing and darkness. How often does the Qurʾān put the two senses in the same āyah — an act of injustice named alongside a physical dark?
The senses stay apart
countedVerse-level intersection over the QAC morphology: verses whose ẓ-l-m token is a moral form, against verses carrying nūr/munīr. Counting unit: the verse.
267
verses with moral ẓulm
39
verses with nūr (light)
1
verses with both
13
verses pairing ẓulumāt with nūr
The one verse where they meet
interpreted· quran by quran39:69 is the single āyah carrying both the moral sense of ẓ-l-m and the word nūr.
وَأَشْرَقَتِ ٱلْأَرْضُ بِنُورِ رَبِّهَا وَوُضِعَ ٱلْكِتَٰبُ وَجِا۟ىٓءَ بِٱلنَّبِيِّـۧنَ وَٱلشُّهَدَآءِ وَقُضِىَ بَيْنَهُم بِٱلْحَقِّ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ
And the earth will shine with the light of its Lord, and the record [of deeds] will be placed, and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought, and it will be judged between them in truth, and they will not be wronged.
The earth shines with its Lord's light, the record is laid open, judgement is given in truth — and they will not be wronged. In the one place light and wrongdoing occupy the same verse, the wrong is not being described. It is being ruled out.
This is a place where an honest count trims a favourite sermon. Injustice is darkness is a fine sentence, and the shared root invites it — but the corpus does not build it. Where the Qurʾān sets dark against light, it uses the ẓulumāt sense and pairs it with nūr thirteen times. Where it condemns wrongdoing, it reaches for other opposites: qisṭ and ʿadl, ḥaqq, the straight path. The metaphor is available to the reader; it is not asserted by the text. Recording that gap is more useful than smoothing it over.
What surrounds the charge
interpreted· quran by quranThe rhetorical setting of the root's most characteristic move: the Qurʾān rarely names a wrong without first clearing God of it.
- Before10:44
God is cleared first
The negation comes before the accusation. God does not wrong people in the least — and only then the charge lands. In 10:44 the two clauses sit in one breath, the second turning on the first.
- The charge7:23
The wrong returns to its doer
The Qurʾān's most frequent construction for wrongdoing is reflexive: ẓalamū anfusahum, they wronged themselves. Ādam and his wife say it as a confession 7:23; it is offered as the door to forgiveness 4:110.
- After18:49
The ledger, not the verdict
What follows is an accounting, and it is scrupulous about not overcharging: nothing small or great is left out, and your Lord wrongs no one 18:49. The measure named is an atom's weight 4:40.
What the intensive is used for
countedThe intensive forms ẓallām and ẓalūm occur 7× in total. Every occurrence of ẓallām — 3:182, 8:51, 22:10, and in the first person at 50:29 — appears inside a negation about God.
ذَٰلِكَ بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَيْسَ بِظَلَّامٍ لِّلْعَبِيدِ
That is for what your hands have put forth and because Allah is not ever unjust to [His] servants."
The intensive ẓallām — «one who wrongs greatly» — is never used to describe a human being. It appears only to be denied of God.
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ وَإِن تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُضَٰعِفْهَا وَيُؤْتِ مِن لَّدُنْهُ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
Indeed, Allah does not do injustice, [even] as much as an atom's weight; while if there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives from Himself a great reward.
The measure the text chooses for the smallest possible injustice is mithqāl dharrah, an atom's weight — and it is denied, then answered with multiplication.
In the ʿAdliyya reading — the Shia and Muʿtazilī position that divine justice is a rational attribute and not merely a name for whatever God does — verses like 4:40 and 18:49 are not reassurance but premise: injustice is something the intellect can recognise, and revelation denies it of God in terms the intellect already understands. The grammar cooperates. The strongest available form of the word exists in the Qurʾān almost entirely to be negated.
129 wrongdoers, one wronged
countedForm counts from the QAC morphology. The active participle ẓālim occurs 129×; the passive participle maẓlūm occurs once. Passive verb tokens («was wronged») add 23, against 88 active ones.
The one who wrongs
ظالِمNamed, counted, and addressed. The wrongdoer is the Qurʾān's grammatical subject: 129 participles, 88 active verb tokens, plus 16 uses of the superlative *aẓlam* — «and who does greater wrong than…».
The one who is wronged
مَظْلُومOnce. The passive participle appears in a single āyah — and when it does, the text immediately grants the victim's heir authority, then fences that authority against excess.
One reading from the tradition
interpreted· Qurʾān Ḥakīm (Persian margin-commentary, Makārim edition)Translated from the Persian «نکات و توضیحات» note on 2:257. A compiled margin-commentary — quoted, not load-bearing.
Commenting on 2:257, the Qurʾān Ḥakīm margin note makes an observation that the morphology confirms: «nūr is always brought in the Qurʾān in the singular, and against it ẓulumāt in the plural. This points to the truth that the straight path and the way of right are one and not several — like the straight line drawn between two points — and for that reason the people of truth are always united. But the false way is many and countless, and for that reason those in falsehood are not in agreement even among themselves.» The count is checkable: nūr, 43 occurrences, singular every time; ẓulumāt, 23 occurrences, plural every time. A grammatical fact and a theological reading, arriving at the same place from different directions.
The theme in full
interpreted· quran by quranA curated set: the darkness/light pairs, the reflexive wrong, and the negations about God.
ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ وَٱلنُّورَ ثُمَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ بِرَبِّهِمْ يَعْدِلُونَ
[All] praise is [due] to Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light. Then those who disbelieve equate [others] with their Lord.
Darknesses and light named together as things God made — the plural and the singular side by side in the opening āyah of al-Anʿām.
قُلْ مَن رَّبُّ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ قُلْ أَفَٱتَّخَذْتُم مِّن دُونِهِۦٓ أَوْلِيَآءَ لَا يَمْلِكُونَ لِأَنفُسِهِمْ نَفْعًا وَلَا ضَرًّا قُلْ هَلْ يَسْتَوِى ٱلْأَعْمَىٰ وَٱلْبَصِيرُ أَمْ هَلْ تَسْتَوِى ٱلظُّلُمَٰتُ وَٱلنُّورُ أَمْ جَعَلُوا۟ لِلَّهِ شُرَكَآءَ خَلَقُوا۟ كَخَلْقِهِۦ فَتَشَٰبَهَ ٱلْخَلْقُ عَلَيْهِمْ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ ٱلْوَٰحِدُ ٱلْقَهَّٰرُ
Say, "Who is Lord of the heavens and earth?" Say, "Allah." Say, "Have you then taken besides Him allies not possessing [even] for themselves any benefit or any harm?" Say, "Is the blind equivalent to the seeing? Or is darkness equivalent to light? Or have they attributed to Allah partners who created like His creation so that the creation [of each] seemed similar to them?" Say, "Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Prevailing."
A rhetorical pair: is the blind equal to the seeing — or are the darknesses equal to the light? Plural set against singular again.
أَوْ كَظُلُمَٰتٍ فِى بَحْرٍ لُّجِّىٍّ يَغْشَىٰهُ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِۦ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِۦ سَحَابٌ ظُلُمَٰتٌۢ بَعْضُهَا فَوْقَ بَعْضٍ إِذَآ أَخْرَجَ يَدَهُۥ لَمْ يَكَدْ يَرَىٰهَا وَمَن لَّمْ يَجْعَلِ ٱللَّهُ لَهُۥ نُورًا فَمَا لَهُۥ مِن نُّورٍ
Or [they are] like darknesses within an unfathomable sea which is covered by waves, upon which are waves, over which are clouds - darknesses, some of them upon others. When one puts out his hand [therein], he can hardly see it. And he to whom Allah has not granted light - for him there is no light.
The image at full stretch: darknesses layered on darknesses in a deep sea, wave over wave, cloud above — «and he to whom God has granted no light has no light».
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ ٱلنَّاسَ شَيْـًٔا وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱلنَّاسَ أَنفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ
Indeed, Allah does not wrong the people at all, but it is the people who are wronging themselves.
The reflexive turn, stated as a principle: God does not wrong people at all; it is people who wrong themselves.
وَإِذْ قَالَ لُقْمَٰنُ لِٱبْنِهِۦ وَهُوَ يَعِظُهُۥ يَٰبُنَىَّ لَا تُشْرِكْ بِٱللَّهِ إِنَّ ٱلشِّرْكَ لَظُلْمٌ عَظِيمٌ
And [mention, O Muhammad], when Luqman said to his son while he was instructing him, "O my son, do not associate [anything] with Allah. Indeed, association [with him] is great injustice."
Luqmān to his son: association with God is ẓulm ʿaẓīm — the root at its heaviest, applied not to a crime against a person but to a misplacement of worship.
فَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلُوا۟ فَأْذَنُوا۟ بِحَرْبٍ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ وَإِن تُبْتُمْ فَلَكُمْ رُءُوسُ أَمْوَٰلِكُمْ لَا تَظْلِمُونَ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ
And if you do not, then be informed of a war [against you] from Allah and His Messenger. But if you repent, you may have your principal - [thus] you do no wrong, nor are you wronged.
The end of the ribā passage: you do no wrong, nor are you wronged — the active and passive of the same root in one clause.
What the Qurʾān attaches to it
interpreted· quran by quranEach outcome is anchored on a verse where the Qurʾān itself states the consequence.
It lands on the doer
10:44The wrong is described as done to one's own self, not merely to another.
It is recorded exactly
18:49Nothing small or great is omitted from the record — and no one is wronged in the reckoning.
It remains forgivable
4:110Whoever wrongs himself and then seeks forgiveness finds God forgiving.
It costs the wrongdoer the light
24:40The one God grants no light has none — the darkness sense of the root, at the end of the parable.
The neighbourhood
interpreted· quran by quranEdges the page develops: the root's two senses, the opposites the Qurʾān actually pairs with wrongdoing, and the two named wrongs.
A last look
interpreted· quran by quranThe counting gets us surprisingly far. It shows that the deliverance is stated seven times and the ruin once; that the strongest word for injustice exists mostly to be denied of God; that the wrongdoer is named 129 times and the wronged once. What it cannot tell us is why that last number is one. A reader may hear indifference in it, or may hear the opposite — that the Qurʾān addresses the person who can still stop, and that a text spoken to wrongdoers is a mercy toward the wronged. The morphology does not decide between those. It only makes sure we are arguing about something the text actually says.