Basmalah Word Count

This is the opening verse of the Quran. It occurs 114 times in the Quran (19×6) and appears at the beginning of 113 Suras of the Quran. This statement consists of exactly 19 letters and has been written this way since the earliest manuscripts.

Here is one of the oldest manuscripts from the University of Birmingham, which is carbon-dated to potentially during the prophet’s life.

If we split the letters of the Basmalah, we can more clearly see this.

Interestingly, Basmalah containing exactly 19 letters was not a point of contention until the discovery of the mathematical miracle of the Quran and its common denominator of the number 19. After its discovery, many individuals came out of the woodwork to attempt to discredit this miraculous finding, claiming that Bismillah did not contain 19 letters despite what anyone with eyes can see.

A simple proof that the number of letters of Basmalah was not disputed until the mathematical miracle of the Quran is that for generations individuals used to write 786 as an alternative to writing the actual text of Bismillah. They did this because, in Arabic, every letter represents a sound and a number, similar to Roman numerals. The number assigned to each letter is its “Gematrical Value.” The numerical values of the Arabic alphabet are shown below.

Here is how the gematrical value of Bismillah results in a total of 786.