Nassir H. Sabah
The basmalah: “In the name of Allāh, The Most-Compassionate, The Ever-Merciful” (بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ), is the first verse of the Quran. It consists of 4 Arabic words and the mystical number of 19(1) letters. It contains three of The Most Exalted Names of Allāh, His proper name in Arabic (Allāh) and two derivatives of His most consequential attribute: loving-mercy, or al-rahmah (الرَّحْمَة). The Most-Compassionate indicates the great intensity of His loving-mercy, and The Ever-Merciful signifies that His loving-mercy is incident at all times.
The basmalah is the most-often cited verse of the Quran: it is repeated in each of the daily prayers and is also uttered by pious Muslims in blessing, before embarking on an important action, and even before eating or drinking.
The first word of the basmalah بسم (in the name of) is repeated in the Quran 134 times, and the last word الرحيم (The Ever-Merciful) is repeated 227 times. The sum of the repetitions of these words, corresponding to The First and The Last, two of The Most Exalted Names of Allāh, is 361 = 19×19.
If the numbers of chapter (1), verse (1), words (4), and letters (19) of the basmalah are concatenated, with the number of letters, the smallest unit, on the right, the resulting number is 11419 = 19×601 is the product of the mystical number 19 and the prime number 601.
The number 601 is of special significance. The sum of its numerals is the mystical number 7(1). It includes 6, the first perfect number, that is, a number equal to the sum of all its proper divisors, which are 1, 2 and 3. 1 symbolizes The Oneness of God, which is mentioned 22 times in the Quran (eleven times as إله واحد, three times as إلاهاً واحداً, six times as الواحد القَهَّار, once as وإلاهكم واحد, and once as إلاهكم لواحد). 22 is twice 11, which is a double repetition (مَثْنَى جمعها مَثانِي) of 1, side-by-side. The 1 in 601 is preceded by “nothing” (a zero) and followed by “nothing”, which symbolizes “nothing is before Him and nothing is after Him”.
601 is also the 110th prime number, where 110 is the 10th repetition (مَثانِي) of the previously encountered number 11, which is a special number. It is a super-prime number that is part of one of only three known pairs of Brown numbers. Moreover, each row in Pascal's triangle is represented by a power of 11, starting with a power of 0 for the first row.
The basmalah, contains 10 different Arabic letters (ا – ب – ح – ر -س – ل -م – ن – ه – ي). The letter ra’ (ر) is the 10th letter in the basmalah and is also the 10th letter in the conventional Arabic Alphabet. The number 10, which can be written as 010, also symbolizes “nothing is before Him and nothing is after Him”.
The 4 words of the basmalah consist of 3, 4, 6, and 6 Arabic letters, respectively, starting with the first word. If the numbers of letters in each are concatenated, with the number of letters of the first word on the right, the resulting number 6643 = 91×73, where 91 is a multiple of 7 and is also the reverse number of 19. If only the first and last numerals of the number 6643 are concatenated, similar to what was done with the repetitions of the first and last words of the basmalah, the resulting number 63 is a multiple of 7. The two numerals on the right of 6643, that is 4 and 3, add to 7, whereas the two numerals on the left are 66 = 6×11, whose significance was previously mentioned.
If the cumulative sums of the numbers of letters of the basmalah are concatenated, starting with 3 for the first word on the right, then 7 for the first two words, 13 for the first three words, and ending with 19, the resulting number 191373 = 3×91×701, where 91 is encountered again, and 701 can be interpreted in a manner similar to that of the previously considered 601. If the procedure is reversed starting with the number of letters in the fourth word, which is 6 on the left, the resulting number 6121619 = 7×7×271×461 is the product of two 7s and two prime numbers.
The name Allāh uses three different Arabic letters (‘alif – lām – hā’). If the number of occurrences of any number of these different letters in each of the 4 words of the basmalah are concatenated, with the largest number on the right, the resulting number 0224 = 2×7×16, where the two digits of 16 add to 7. If the number of occurrences is ordered in the same order as the words, with the number in the first word on the right, the resulting number 2240 = 2×7×10×16. The reverse of 0224 is 4220 = 2×10×211, and the reverse of 2240 is 0422 = 2×211, where the prime number 211 occurs in both, as signified by the 2 multiplier, and consists of 11 concatenated with 2, which indicates the double repetition of 1s.
The basmalah occurs 19×6 = 114 times in the Quran, the same as the number of chapters. It occurs at the beginning of 113 chapters: at the beginning of Chapter 1 as a numbered verse and at the beginning of 112 chapters as unnumbered verses. Chapter 9 is the only chapter that does not start with a basmalah at all. But a second numbered basmalah verse, which brings the total number of basmalahs to 114, is Verse 30, Chapter 27 (The Ants النمل), which states: “It is from Suleiman and is, ‘In the name of Allāh, The Most-Compassionate, The Ever-Merciful’” إِنَّهُۥ مِن سُلَيْمَـٰنَ وَإِنَّهُۥ بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ. The sum of the verse and chapter numbers is 27 + 30 = 57 = 3×19, where 57 is also half of 114.
The number of chapters from 9 to 27, inclusive, is 19, and the total sum of the chapter numbers from 9 to 27, inclusive, 9 + 10 + … + 27 = 342 = 19×18, which is also the number of words between the unnumbered basmalah at the beginning of Chapter 27 and Verse 30 in this chapter.
The Arabic name of Chapter 27 consists of the following 5 letters: ‘alif – lām – nūn – mīm – lām. The occurrences in the chapter of these letters are: alif (767), lam (528), nūn (422), mīm (396), lam (528). The sum of these 5 numbers as they occur in the chapter’s name is: 767 + 528 + 422 + 396 + 528 = 2641 = 19×139, where 19 is the number of letters in the basmalah and 139 is the number of letters in Chapter 1.
The first disjointed phrase in the Quran is at the beginning of Chapter 2 and consists of the three Arabic letters ‘alif – lām – mīm. The number of occurrences of these three letters in the basmalah are 3, 4, and 3, respectively. When concatenated, the resulting number is 343 = 7×7×7.
And all this in just the first four words of the Quran?! So, how can the Quran be of other than Divine origin?
(1) For the significance of the numbers 7 and 19 see the article “Mystical and perfect numbers in the Quran” on this website under “Insights/Supplements/Numerical Miraculousness”.
