Authenticity of the Quran – The First Chapter

maher Numerical Miraculousness, Supplements

مَـٰلِكِ يَوْمِ ٱلدِّينِ (4) ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ (3) ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ (2) بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ (1)

صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ ٱلْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا ٱلضَّآلِّينَ (7) ٱهْدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ (6) إيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ (5)

 

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ (1)

The first chapter of the Quran (The Opening الفاتحة) is a most important chapter, as it encapsulates some the basic tenets of Islam. The first four verses contain the most consequential attributes of God; the fifth verse is a pledge by the pious to serve God and seek His help. The sixth verse is an invocation by the pious for guidance to the “straight path” and the last verse describes the states of humans in their relationship with God. Because it is the quintessence of the whole of the Quran, it has been referred to as the “Mother of The Book” and is recited at the beginning of every cycle (rakʿah) of the daily formal prayers of Muslims.

The first chapter incorporates many counts involving the mystical numbers 7 and 19(1), which form the basis of numerous numerical relations and patterns in the Quran. The first verse of Chapter 1, and therefore the Quran, is the basmalah, which consists of 19 letters and itself embodies many miraculous relations(2).

The name of Chapter 1 in Arabic, al-fātiḥah (الفاتحة), consists of 7 letters. The Chapter has 7 verses and 29 words if the conjunctive wāw is not counted as a separate word and 31 words if it is so counted, in which case the number of words in each verse are: (1)4, (2)4, (3)2, (4)3, (5)5, (6)3, (7)10. If the numbers of words, verses, and chapter are concatenated, in the order of the chapter number on the right, the resulting number 3171 = 3×7×151 is a multiple of 7, and the digits of the largest prime factor, 151 sum to 7.

If the chapter number is concatenated with the verse numbers from 1 to 7, the resulting number 11,234,567 = 19×43×13751 is a multiple of 19. The digits of the number 43 sum to 7, and the digits of the prime number 13751 sum to 17, which is a special number that is the 7th prime number, the sum of the first four primary numbers (2, 3, 5, 7), and is also the number of mandated daily prayer cycles (ruka῾a رُكَع).

The number of words in the first and last verses of Chapter 1 are 4 and 10, respectively, counting the conjunctive wāw as a separate word. These two numbers sum to 14, a multiple of 7. The number of letters in the last verse of the Chapter is 43, whose digits sum to 7. If the numbers of letters in the first and last verses are concatenated, with the number of letters in the first verse on the right, the resulting number 4319 = 7×617 is a multiple of 7, and the digits 617 contain a 7 and sum to 14 = 2×7. The number of different letters in the first and last verses are 10 and 16, respectively. If these two numbers are concatenated in the same manner, the resulting number 1610 = 7×10×23 is a multiple of 7, and 23 is the number of years over which the Quran was revealed.

The first four verses of Chapter 1 explicitly mention five of the most consequential of The Exalted names of Allāh (أسماء الله الحسنى); two of these are repeated twice (The Most-Compassionate, الرحمن, and the Ever-Merciful, الرحيم), making a total of 7 mentions.

Verse 2, Chapter 1, contains a most hallowed phrase: “Praise to Allāh, the Sustainer of the Worlds” ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ. This phrase occurs in various forms in 7 verses of the Quran: (1:2), (6:45), (10:10), (37:182), (39:75), (40:65), and (45:36). The phrase consists of 17 Arabic letters, where 17 is a special number, as explained previously.

Chapter 1 has 139 letters in total, divided among the 7 verses as follows: (1)19, (2)17, (3)12, (4) 11, (5)19, (6)18, (7)43. If concatenated, with the number of letters in the first verse on the right, the resulting number 43,181,911,121,719 = 19×2,272,732,164,301 is a multiple of 19. The sum of the numbers of letters in the odd-numbered verses is: 19 + 12 + 19 + 43 = 93, whereas the sum for the even-numbered verses is 17 + 11 + 18 = 46 = 2×23, where 23 is the number of years over which the Quran was revealed. If these two sums as concatenated, the resulting number 4693 = 13×19×19 is a double multiple of 19. If the chapter number is concatenated with the numbers of letters in each verse, starting with the number of letters in the first verse on the left, following the chapter number, the resulting number 119,171,211,191,843 = 17×19×23×23×697,450,129, where 17 and 23 are special numbers, as previously explained, and the digits of the prime factor  697,450,129 sum to 43, which is again a primary number whose digits sum to 7.

If the verse number, the number of words in the verse, and its number of letters are concatenated, with the verse number on the right, the resulting numbers for the seven verses are: 1941, 1742, 1223, 1134, 1955, 1836, 43107, respectively. If these numbers are concatenated, with the numbers for the first verse on the right, the resulting number 43,107,183,619,551,134,122,317,421,941 = 3×3×7×47×1,455,831,935,817,329,757,5926,181 is a multiple of 7.

The number of letters in each of the words at the ends of the 7 verses of Chapter 1 are, respectively: 6, 7, 6, 5, 6, 8, 7. If concatenated in the order of the number of letters in the word at the end of the first verse to the right, the resulting number 7,865,676 = 6×6×7×7×7×7×7×13 is a quintuple of 7. If the same count is repeated, but counting the unrepeated letters in each word, the resulting number 5,755,666 = 2×7×411,119 is a multiple of 7, and 411,119 is a prime number whose two least significant digits are 19 and whose digits sum the special number 17, as previously explained. The number of letters in each of the words at the beginnings of the 7 verses of Chapter 1 are, respectively: 3, 5, 6, 3, 4, 5, 3. If concatenated in the order of the number of letters in the word at the beginning of the first verse to the right, the resulting number 3,543,653 = 239×14,827, where the two most significant digits of 239 are 23, the number of years over which the Quran was revealed, and both the sum of its digits, as well as the two most significant digits of 14,827, are 14 = 2×7. The sum of the two numbers 7,865,676 and 3,543,653 is 11,409,329 = 17×19×35,323, which is a multiple of 19; 17 has special significance, as mentioned previously, and the two least significant digits of 35,323 are also 23.

Out of the 139 letters in Chapter 1, 119 are repetitions of all the 14 = 7×2 disjointed letters that appear at the beginnings of 29 chapters of the Quran [ي – ه – ن – م – ل – ك – ق – ع – ط – ص – س – ر – ح – ا]. The number 119 = 7×17 is the concatenation of two significant numbers, 1(2) and 19, and 119 is a multiple of 7 and 17, where the significance of 17 was mentioned before and 119 (7×17) is the number of weekly cycles of obligatory prayer. Moreover, the reverse of 139 is 931 = 7×7×19.

Chapter 1 uses 21 = 7×3 letters of the Arabic alphabet of 28 (7×4) letters: [ذ(1) – ق(1) – ض(2) – غ(2) – ط(2) – ص(2) – ت(3) – ك(3) – س(3) – و(4) – د(4) – ب(4) – ح(5) – ه(5) – ع(6) – ر(8) – ن(11) – ي(14) – م(15) – ل(22) – ا(22)], in the order of increasing number of occurrences in the Chapter, as shown in parentheses, where the numbers of occurrences are based on the original Quranic script. If these numbers are concatenated, with the largest number on the right, the resulting 26-digit number 11,222,233,344,455,681,114,152,222 = 2×7×13×61,660,622,771,734,511,616,221 is a multiple of 7.

If the numbers of occurrences in Chapter 1 of each of the seven letters of its name in Arabic, al-fātiḥah (الفاتحة) are concatenated, with the number for the first letter on the right, the resulting number 5532202222 = 2×19×53×2,746,873 is a multiple of 19, where the zero is for the letter fā’, which is not used in the Chapter. If this letter is ignored, the resulting number 553222222 = 2×7×39,515,873 is a multiple of 7

The first letter of Chapter 1, bā’ (ب), occurs 4 times, and the last letter, nūn (ن), occurs 11 times. If concatenated, with the occurrences of the first letter on the right, the resulting number is 114, the number of chapters, and the number of basmalahs, in the Quran.

Chapter 1 contains 14 = 7×2 diacritical connection marks over the letter ˈalif (همزات الوصل ٱ) and 14 = 7×2 diacritical accentuation marks (شدّات ّ) over various letters that are distributed over the seven verses of the Chapter as follows: 1(3), 2(2), 3(2), 4(1), 5 (2), 6 (1), 7 (3). If these numbers of occurrences are concatenated, in the order of the first verse on the right, the resulting number 3,121,223 = 7×47×53×179 is a multiple of 7; the digits of 47 and 53 sum to 19, and the number 179 consists of the digits of 7 and 19 in the order of the larger digit on the right. If the number of occurrences of the diacritical accentuation marks in each of the 31 words of the Chapter are concatenated, in the order of the first word on the right, the resulting 31-digit number 2,000,000,010,010,010,011,001,101,101,110 = 7×10×28,571,428,714,428,714,442,872,872,873 is a multiple of 7.

The following 7 letters of the Arabic alphabet are not used in Chapter 1: [ث(4) – ج(5) – خ(7) – ز(11) – ش(13) – ظ(17) – ف(20)], where the number associated with each letter is its order number in the conventional Arabic alphabet. The sum of these numbers is 77 = 7×11, where 7 is the number of letters and 11 is a special number(2) and is also the number of diacritical dots on these letters. There are 8 dotted letters in Chapter 1, also having 11 dots [ب(2) – ت (3) – ذ(9) – ض(15) – غ(19) – ق(21) – ن(25) – ي(28)], where the number associated with each letter is its alphabetical order, as before. The sum of these numbers is 122 = 8 + 114, where 8 is the number of dotted letters and 114 is the number of chapters in the Quran. The total number of diacritical dots in Chapter 1 is 56 = 7×8, where 8 is again the number of dotted letters in the Chapter.

It should be noted that diacritical marks, including the aforementioned connection marks over the letter ˈalif, the accentuation marks, and the dots, were not in the original Quranic script but were added many decades after the Quran was revealed to facilitate its reading by nonnative Arabic speakers. Yet, they involve the same types of miraculous numerical relations as the original script.

There are 13 undotted letters in the Arabic alphabet, all of which occur in Chapter 1, and whose numbers of occurrences in the Chapter are shown in parentheses: [ا(22) – ح(5) – د(4) – ر(8) – س(3) – ص(2) – ط(2) – ع(6) – ك(3) – ل(22) – م(15) – ه(5) – و(4)]. The sum of these numbers is the prime number 101, which symbolizes three of The Most Exalted Names of Allāh: The One (الواحِد), The First (الأوَل), and The Last (الآخِر).

There are only 2 labial consonants (حروف شفوية) in Chapter 1, bāʼ(ب) and mīm (م). The number of occurrences of these letters in the 7 verses of Chapter 1 are 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, and 5, respectively. These numbers sum to 19.

7 of the 14 disjointed letters are repeated in Chapter 1 an odd number of times [ح(5) – س(3) – ق(1) – ك(3) – م(15) – ن(11) – ه(5)], and 7 are repeated an even number of times [ا(22) – ر(8) – ص(2) – ط(2) – ع(6) – ل(22) – ي(14)].

The first disjointed phrase in the Quran (الٓمٓ) is at the beginning of Chapter 2, immediately following Chapter 1, and consists of three letters ˈalif – lām – mīm. The number of repetitions of these letters in Chapter 1 are: 22, 22, and 15, respectively. If these numbers are concatenated in any of the three possible orders, the resulting number is a multiple of 7: 152222 = 7×41×263, where 41 and 263 are also primary numbers; 221522 = 2×7×15823, and 15823 is a prime number whose two least significant digits are 23 and whose digits sum to 19; and 222215 =5×7×7×907, and 907 is a prime number whose least significant digit is 7 and whose digits sum to 16, which again sum to 7. If the numbers of occurrences of these three letters in each of the 31 words of the Chapter are concatenated, with the number for the first word on the right, the resulting 31-digit number 4,202,302,220,422,020,022,123,340,233,331 = 7×600,328,888,631,717,146,017,620,033,333 is a multiple of 7.

Verse 87, Chapter 15, states: “And We have indeed given thee the seven oft-repeated (verses), and the great Quran” وَلَقَدْ ءَاتَيْنَـٰكَ سَبْعًا مِّنَ ٱلْمَثَانِى وَٱلْقُرْءَانَ ٱلْعَظِيمَ, where the seven oft-repeated verses are generally understood to refer to Chapter 1. The number of words in this verse is 9, counting the conjunctive wāw as a separate letter. When concatenated with the number of 31 words in Chapter 1 on the right, the resulting number is 931 = 7×7×19.

The name Allāh (ٱللَّهِ) uses three different Arabic letters: hā’ (ه) – lām (ل) – ‘alif (ا). The number of occurrences of these letters in Chapter 1, according to the original Quranic script, is 22 times for each of ‘alif and lām, and 5 times for hā’, which add up to 49 occurrences, that is, 7´7 and could be another interpretation of the seven oft-repeated in Verse 87, Chapter 15. Consider the number of occurrences of any of the three letters of the Arabic word Allāh in each of the 31 words of the Chapter. The first word (بِسْمِ) has zero occurrences of these three letters; the second word (ٱللَّهِ) has 4 occurrences; the third word (ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ) has 2 occurrences, and so on. If the number of occurrences in each of the 31 words are concatenated, with the number for the first verse on the right, the resulting 31-digit number 4,202,202,120,223,020,022,012,230,322,240 = 7×10×32×1,875,983,089,385,276,795,541,174,251 is a multiple of 7.

Chapter 15 begins with the disjointed phrase (الٓر) consisting of the letters ‘alif – lām – rāʼ, whose number of occurrences in Verse 87 are 7, 4, and 1, respectively. When concatenated in the order in which they occur in the disjointed phrase, from right to left, the result is 147 = 3×7×7. The number of occurrences of these same three disjointed letters in chapter 1 are 22, 22, and 8, respectively. When concatenated in the same order as before, the resulting number is 82222 = 2×7×7×839, where 839 is a primary number.

The occurrences of double 7s in the preceding four examples should be noted.

The 5th verse of Chapter 1 is an important invocation by the pious: “You (alone) we worship and from You (alone) we seek help” .إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ In Arabic, the verse consists of 5 words, counting the conjunctive wāw as a separate letter. The numbers of letters in each word from left to right, as these occur in the Arabic verse, are: 6, 4, 1, 4, 4, which add up to the mystical number of 19(1) letters. If these numbers are concatenated, they give: 64144 = 16×19×211, where the two digitss of 16 add to 7 and 211 is a special number(2). If the chapter number 1 is written on the right, followed to the left by the numbers of the verse, its words, and its letters, the resulting number is 19551 = 3´7´7´7´19, which is a triple (first number3) multiple of 7 and 19. The word “we worship” in Arabic (نَعْبُدُ) occupies a central position in Chapter 1; it is preceded by 14 = 7×2 words and is followed by 14 words.

The word Quran in Arabic consists of the four letters qāf – rāʼ – ʼalif – nūn. The numbers of occurrences of these letters in Chapter 1 are: 1, 8, 22, and 11, respectively, totaling 42 = 6×7. The definite form, “The Quran”, adds the two letters ʼalif and lām, at the beginning. If the numbers of occurrences of each of the six letters are concatenated, with that of the first letter on the right, the resulting number 1122812222 = 7×80,200,873, is a multiple of 7 and the digits of the prime number 80,200,873 sum to 28 = 4×7. The digits of the number 1,122,812,222 sum to 23, the number of years over which the Quran was revealed The word “revelation” in Arabic (وَحي) consists of the three letters wāw – ḥāˈ – yāˈ. The number of occurrences of these letters in Chapter 1 are: 4, 5, and 14, respectively, also totaling 23.

In Arabic gematria, the value of all 139 letters of Chapter 1 is 10143 = 7×7×207. The number 207 symbolizes the double repetition of 7 and equals 9×23, where 23 is the number of years over which the Quran was revealed.

In the preceding examples of numerical relations involving the number of words in Chapter 1, the conjunctive wāw was counted as a separate letter, which made the number of words equal to 31. If the conjunctive wāw is not so counted, a new set of numerical relations is formed based on a number of words of 29 in Chapter 1. For example, if the numbers of letters in each word are concatenated, with the number in the first word on the right, the resulting 29-digit number 73,573,555,385,565,445,336,672,356,643 = 7×17×618,265,171,307,272,649,888,002,997 is a multiple of 7. The 29 words can be divided into 7 groups, the number of letters in each group being 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 letters. Even when the basmalah is not considered part of Chapter 1, the preceding number, minus the 4 least significant digits, becomes: 7,357,355,538,556,544,533,667,235 = 5×7×1471471107711308906733447, which is still a multiple of 7.

If the conjunctive wāw is not counted as a separate letter:

1.   The number of words in the last verse of Chapter 1 becomes 9, and if the numbers of letters in each word are concatenated, with the number in the first word on the right, the resulting 9-digit number 735,735,553 = 7×105,105,079.

2.   The number of words in the aforementioned Verse 87, Chapter 15, is 7 instead of 9. The number of letters in the verse is 35 = 5×7.

3.   The number of words in each of the 7 verses of Chapter 1 is: (1)4, (2)4, (3)2, (4)3, (5)4, (6)3, (7)9. If the verse number is added to the number of words in the verse, the total is 5 + 6 +5 + 7 +9 +9 +16 = 57 = 3×19.

4.   The last 4 verses contain the last 19 words of the Chapter and consist of 11 + 19 +18 +43 = 91 letters, where 91 is the reverse of 19. The sum 4 + 19 +91 = 114, the number of chapters of the Quran as well as the total number of basmalahs(2).

5.   The number of words in each of the odd-numbered verses of Chapter 1, Verses 1, 3, 5, 7, is 4, 2, 4, 9, respectively, which sum to 19, whereas the numbers for the even verses 2, 4, 6 are: 4, 3, 3, which sum to 10. If the two sums are concatenated, the resulting number is 1019, whose reverse 9101 = 19×479 is a multiple of 19.

Can all this be coincidental?

References

(1)  See the article: “Mystical and perfect numbers in the Quran” 

(2)  See the article: “Authenticity of the Quran – The Basmalah”