The history of numerology, complex as it is, can be traced to the ancient civilisations
of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece and India. This ancient art of numerology
went hand in hand with the development of mathematics, geometry and trigonometry.
One man who contributed most to this art was Pythagoras. In his view, all things
can be expressed in numerical terms because all the science of Gematria. The
Qabalist Gemetria is based on the combination of magic and philosophy which centred
on twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and its corresponding numbers to
discover hidden meaning in the Scripture by interchanging Hebrew words whose
letters have the same numerical value when added.
Some Muslim theological adventurers
who called it ABJAD borrowed this science of Gemetria. Thomas Patrick Hughes,
in his Dictionary of Islaam, explains ABJAD as "The name of an arithmetical
arrangement of the alphabets; the letters of which have different powers
from one to one thousand. It is in order of the alphabets as used by the
Jews as far as 400 AD, then six remaining letters being added by Arabians."
|
Numerical Values |
Arabic Letters |
Arabic Words |
|
1 |
|
ABJAD
|
|
2 |
|
|
3 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
5 |
|
HAWWAZ
|
|
6 |
|
|
7 |
|
|
8 |
|
HUTTI
|
|
9 |
|
|
10 |
|
|
20 |
|
KALAMAN
|
|
30 |
|
|
40 |
|
|
50 |
|
|
60 |
|
SA'FAS
|
|
70 |
|
|
80 |
|
|
90 |
|
|
100 |
|
QARSHAT
|
|
200 |
|
|
300 |
|
|
400 |
|
|
500 |
|
SAKHAZ
|
|
600 |
|
|
700 |
|
|
800 |
|
ZAZIGH
|
|
900 |
|
|
1000 |
|
The above group of letters spell the words: ABJAD, HAWWAZ, HUTTI, KALAMAN, SA'FAS, QASHAT, SAKHAZ AND ZAZIGH. The author of the Arabic lexicon, Al-Qamoos, is of the opinion that the first six words are the names of celebrated kings of Madyan (Midian) and the last two were added by the Arabians. Some scholars believe that they are the names of the eight sons of the inventor of the Arabic character, Muramir Ibn Murra.
Having borrowed the Qabalist science of Gematria, the Muslim theological adventurers, who had nothing else to do, got down to reducing the Qur'anic verses, and even the Soorahs, to numbers. The most commonly used number is 786, which is a normally found letterhead beginning of books, pamphlets, letters, etc. We are made to believe that 786 stands for BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM which is the very first verse of the Qur'an. It is my contention that 786 does NOT mean for BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM, for it has no meaning other than seven hundred and eighty-six units of anything.
Symbolic Numbers
The Qur'an is not a book of mathematics or a book of symbolic numbers. The absurdity of ABJAD numbers becomes clear if you reflect upon the following numbers 66, 92, 352, 296 and 62. What do these numbers stand for? What do they mean? They are the numerical values of Allah, Muhammad (pbuh), Qur'an, Rasool, and Nabi respectively. We all know that prisoners have numbers and those numbers normally call them, but can we dare to allocate similar numbers to Allah and His Messenger? The users of 786 have the arrogance to do so, but a God conscious Muslim (a Muslim with Taqwa) will not even dream of using such numbers!
Imagine if the beautiful names like Muhammad, Mahmood, Mustapha, Abdullah, Zahid, Sajid, Rahmaan, Ahmad, Shahid, Zainab, Fatimah, Khadijah and Aishah are transformed into numbers, 92, 98, 199, 142, 17, 68, 299, 56, 305, 69, 135, 622 and 376 respectively! How ridiculous these numbers sound does not require any imagination. Is it not and insult to call people by numbers, is it not, then, the height of arrogance to reduce the Qur'anic verses and Soorahs to meaningless numbers?
BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM, the first verse of the Qur'an has a message and a meaning, but the number 786 has no significance. Strange as it may appear, the numerical value of BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM is not 786 as is widely and positively believed but 787 as is apparent from the following:
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on Allah, Ar-Rahmaan and Ar-Raheem. With these, the numerical value would be even greater than 787!
. Even if we accept that the correct value of BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM IS 786, the number 786 remains MEANINGLESS! It could stand for or represent anything. With a little imagination, various alphabets can be grouped together to form a sensible or meaningless phrase containing a numerical value of 786. For example the following words have a numerical value of 786: