The Quran is the religious book of the Muslims. They believe it to be God's exact word to us in his last revelation. The Quran is split in to suras (chorus) and the suras are made up from ayaats (or verses).

Numerology, meanwhile, is the ancient art of divining meaning from numbers.

The Quran and the Number 19

Sura Al Muddaththir - the cloaked one (74:30) - simply says 'above it are 19'. What is this '19' it talks about? Well in this entry we will be dealing with one of two meanings. On prophet Muhammad's first visit to the cave, where the ayaats and suras where revealed to him, he was given five ayaats; on his second visit he was given 14 ayaats, making 19 ayaats so far. After uttering the word '19' of the above ayaat, a sura of 19 ayaats was completed. The first ayaat of the very first revelation (96:1-5) has just 19 words. These 19 words consist of exactly 76 letters. 19x4=76. If we started counting backwards from the last sura (114) we will find that sura 96 is the 19th sura from the end of the Quran. There are 114 suras, which is 19x6. Many people say this is just coincidence. So far we have five 'coincidences' - there are more to come.

The Seal of the Suras

Each sura has a 'seal', which is found at the beginning of each sura. All the suras have to rhyme in Arabic with the 'seal'. The seal is a phrase, Bismillah-Rahmanir-Rahim which means 'In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful'. In Arabic it is spelled with 19 letters (not including repetitions). Have you tried writing a book of poetry with each poem starting with the same sentence, which is exactly 19 letters long?

The Quran has 114 suras, all of which start and rhyme with this 19-letter sentence. The Arabic words for 'name', 'god', 'his most gracious' and 'the most merciful' make up the 'seal'. As we know in Arabic, the seal has 19 letters in it but each individual word appears in the Quran a number of times: 'Name' appears 19 times; 'God' appears 2698 times (19x142); 'The most gracious' appears 57 times (19x3); 'The most merciful' appears 114 times (19x6).

Is this coincidence? The fact is, Muhammad could not write, so how could he keep track of all this.

The Missing Seal

As already noted, this 'seal' appears on every sura, apart from one - sura 9. This is because sura 9 describes severe grievous penalties to those who reject faith. If the seal had been used on that sura, it would, in effect, contradict itself. But not including it means that the Quran is short by one, meaning it's not a multiple of 19. This quota is, however, made up elsewhere, in sura Naml ayaat 30, which reads:

It is from Solomon, and is (as follows): In the name of god, most gracious, most merciful.

So the 'seal' is repeated in another sura to make up the 114 needed.

Muqataat

The holy Quran is the only book that has certain chapters (suras) that have specific initials - called 'muqataat'. These initials seemed to have no meaning. Only 14 of the Arabic letters of the alphabet are used. These 14 letters are constituted into 14 different combinations. Only 29 suras have these letters on them. 14+14+29=57. 57=19x3

Bismillah - the section of the seal that refers to the name of God, is made up of ten letters in Arabic, not including repetitions, of which nine are common with the muqataat. The Arabic letter for 'B' is not used. 10+(10-1)=19.

Sura al qalam (68) contains a muqataat letter, 'nun' or 'n' in English. If you count how many times 'nun' appears in that sura, you will find there are 133 of them - 133=19x7.

Suras 50 and 42 contain the letter 'qaf'. Sura 42 has a five-letter combination ending with qaf. Lets just look at this sura first. If we add all the 'ha's, 'mmin's, 'ain's, 'sin's and 'qaf's we get a total of 570. 570=19x30).

Now, let's focus on 'qaf'.

Suras 42 and 50 have 'qaf' as a common denominator. There are 57 'qaf's in sura 50 and 57 'qaf's in sura 42. 57=19x3. 57+57=114=19x6. Scholars think that 'qaf' may mean 'Quran', hence 114 as that are one for every sura. There is an average of one use of the word 'god' (Allah) for every 2.5 ayaats; if one sentence is deleted or added then this preserving system would be for nothing. This is one of the ways historians can prove the Quran remains the same as it was the day it was first written down.

We have, without doubt, sent down the message, and we will assuredly guard if (from corruption).
Al hijr the rocky tract (15:9).

Suras 7,19 and 38 have the common dominator 'sad'. The total numbers of 'sad's in these three ayaats is 152. 152=19x8.

In fact, every one of the muqataat letters can be reduced to a domination of 19. Even on suras that contain four or five of these letters.

Sura 7 contains 'alif' (2529 times), 'lam' (1530 times), 'mim' (1164 times) and 'sad' (97 times). Add them all up and you get 5320, which is 19 x 280.

Sura 19 contains 'kaf' (137 times), 'ha' (175 times), 'ya' (345 times), 'ain' (117 times) and 'sad' (26 times). Add them all together and you get 796, or 19x42.

Six suras have 'alif', 'lam' and 'min' as initials.

Add them together and you get 19874 = 19x1076. Oh, and remembering the six suras as well, 6x19=114.

How can Muhammad, the busiest man of his time, a man who could neither read nor write, work out such an intricate mathematical code for the Quran? It is surely beyond the limits of mere coincidence.

This entry has only given you one half of the Quran's mathematics, as the 19 figures elsewhere too....

More Maths on a lower scale

After dealing with the above we come across another interesting thing in the Quran. That is, it balances out what it says. For instance, the word 'sermon' is mentioned 25 times and, as the sermon is spoken, the word 'tongue' is also mentioned 25 times. This could be put down to coincidence but the list is quite extensive to be occur just by chance. For example:

• 'Desire' eight times - 'Fear' eight times.
• 'Speaking publicly' 18 - 'Publicising' 18 times.
• 'Hardship' 114 - 'Patience' 114 times.
• 'Mohammad' four - 'Shariah'¹ four times.
• 'Man' 24 - 'Woman' 24 times.
• 'Dunia' (one word for life) 115 - 'Aakhira' (one word for the hearafter) 115 times.
• 'Malayika' (angels) 88 - 'Shaytan '(Satan) 88 times.
• 'Life' 145 - 'death' 145 times.
• 'Benefit' 50 - 'corruption' 50 times.
• 'People' 50 - 'messengers' 50 times.
• 'Magic' 60 - Fitnah (misdirection) 60.
• 'Zakat' (Tax on Muslims given to the poor) 32 - 'Baraka' (increasing the blessing of wealth) 32.
• 'Mind' 49 - 'Nur' (light) 49.

The word 'Salat' (or 'prayer') appears five times in the Quran and it is compulsory to do five prayers a day. 'Month' appears 12 times, 'Day' appears 365 times.

Even more oddly than that the word sea appears '32' times, while the word 'land' appears 13 times.

• 32+13= 45
• Percentage of sea = 32/45 x 100 = 71.1 percent
• Percentage of land = 42/32 x 100 = 28.9 percent.

Modern science has only discovered comparatively recently that water covers 71.1 percent of the earth and that land covers 28.9 percent. Weighing up every thing said so far, can it all be put down to coincidence? Many feel that this goes some way to proving that the Quran is the word of God.

May Allah be pleased with this humble effort.