452. Why weren’t the numbers mentioned accurately?
While talking about the number of members in the community of Prophet Yunus the Almighty says in verse (37:147) ‘We sent him to a community of 100,000 or more’ instead of mentioning a definite number.
People who are bent on finding out mistakes in the Quran point out, quoting approximate numbers by humans is acceptable, but not by the Almighty.
But this question is meaningless. Because sending a messenger to a community is not a task that gets over in seconds, his task continues for years together. The population is bound to increase during the period.
At the time of sending Prophet Yunus to his community their population would have been around 100,000 and he still remains a prophet for the increased population.
If a person has been elected a president by a population of seven crores, he remains the same for the increased population of seven and half crores till the end of his term.
When the thinking goes on these lines we will come to comprehend and appreciate the wonder in these phrases.
Had the Almighty quotes of having sent Prophet Yunus to a community of 100,000 people, then critics of the Quran would counter the phrase by asking a question, whether no one in the community of Prophet Yunus ever gave birth to babies. Hence, the phrase about the population of the community of Prophet Yunus is confirmed hereby to be the word of God Almighty.
