Divine Pronouns
Who speaks in the Qurʾān, and to whom

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In about one verse in five, the Qurʾān does not speak about God but as God: in the first person, as “I” or “We.” Elsewhere, the Prophet is commanded to speak in his own voice, with the word qul, “say.” This site presents the complete text of the Qurʾān with these voices marked, so they can be read, searched, and studied across the whole text.

 

 Open the search

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What you can do

• Read the full text in muṣḥaf order or in the traditional chronological order of revelation, with all 1,276 verses in which God speaks in the first person marked in place.

• Filter the divine voice by “I” or “We,” by direct or quoted speech, by whether Allāh, Rabb, or al-Raḥmān is named in the same verse, by addressee, by commands, and by period of revelation.

• Follow shifts between the divine first person and other divine references within a single verse.

• Search divine verbs: about 1,500 acts God performs as “I” or “We.” Search by verb or root, by tense, by object (“you” or a third person), and by whether the act is affirmed, negated, restricted, or hypothetical.

• Explore the Prophet’s voice: all 306 qul verses. See where he speaks as “I,” where he speaks as “we” with his community, and where the divine voice appears inside the words he is commanded to say.

• Search the Arabic with vowel marks ignored, or go straight to any verse by its reference.

• Share any view by link, or download the results as a spreadsheet.

How verses are marked

Verses in which God speaks in the first person appear in blue. Grey marks the nineteen verses where another canonical reading removes the first person, and red the twenty-two where another reading adds it. Each verse lists its codes and a plain description of who speaks, to whom, and how. Where scholars differ on who is speaking, the verse says so.

The research behind it

The annotation comes from Divine Pronouns: Unlocking the Definitive Quran, a four-volume study that identifies and classifies every verse in which God speaks in the first person and checks each against the ten canonical readings. Its companion, What He Actually Said, studies the other voice the Qurʾān commands: the words the Prophet is told to speak with qul. Both have since been refined verse by verse for this site.

Corrections

If you find an error in the text or the coding, please write through the contact page. Every reported correction is checked and applied.

Sources

• Annotation: Omar Imady.

• Arabic text: the Uthmani text of the King Fahd Complex (Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim), as published by the Noble Qurʾān Encyclopedia (QuranEnc.com).

• Verb data: the morphological annotation of the Quranic Arabic Corpus, under the GNU General Public License, with speakers attributed verse by verse.

• Typefaces: Scheherazade New and Gentium Book Plus, SIL International.