WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The discovery of numerical structures within the scriptures and the divinely instituted liturgies have resulted in a number of important conclusions. Some of these conclusions appear in STUDIES IN JEWISH MYSTICISM (Ibid., p. 92):

1. No change can be tolerated in the text of the prayers, not even a minute one, because every change-even of one letter-would destroy the numerical harmony inherent in the text....
2. The liturgy received new importance and new meaning within the framework of religious practice. A completely new dimension was added in this way to the daily prayer service; it stopped being just a reciting of requests and praises of God in ancient formulas, and became a vehicle for becoming a participant in a mystical, divine harmony. The prayers suddenly received a new depth of meaning and importance, which was undreamed of in the thousand years that had passed since they were formulated.

Joseph Dan reports that "the fierce polemical tone of Rabbi Judah's criticism of the changes introduced by the `Frenchmen' in the prayers can therefore be explained as a result of his fear that the prayers may be regarded as completely human in origin and meaning, making them secular and meaningless in religious and mystical practices." Rabbi Judah was also fearful that changes to the prayer would disrupt the mystical dimension and break the connection with God that they created:

According to him [Rabbi Judah], even if the context and meaning of the prayer is religious, expressing love and devotion to God, it still will be just "a secular song like that of the non-Jews" if it does not have the added mystical dimension of hidden truth [the mathematical composition], which cannot be revealed by the literal meaning of the words alone. In his polemic, Rabbi Judah does not defend only the specific tradition of prayer which he received from his parents and teachers; he also defends prayer as an elevating force, forming a connection between man and God, a connection that no mere words can achieve. (STUDIES IN JEWISH MYSTICISM, pp. 92-93)

The divinely instituted liturgies, in their original, unaltered words, are so numerically composed that they can be compared to the combination of a locked safe; we need to dial that specific combination to establish contact with our creator. This is probably why the daily prayers were called in Aramic and Hebrew SLA and in Arabic SALA which means "contact" or "connection."

Because of this understanding, Rabbi Judah warned his neighbors in France and England that if they allowed any change in the text of the prayers, their prayers would become "like the songs of the uncircumcised non-Jews." Free expression of feelings, religious or secular, was regarded by Rabbi Judah as a non-Jewish song, which has no place in the framework of worship. Obviously, the slightest change, even of one letter, would destroy the divinely composed numerical system and thus, the "combination" to open the lock and establish contact with God would not work.

IMPORTANCE TO OUR SUBJECT The discovery of mathematically authenticated scripture provides a totally unexpected opportunity to explore the validity of our understanding regarding religious disputes such as divinty of Christ or Moses parting the red sea. If there were a scripture which was proven to be unaltered by human beings, it would give us a safe point of reference for our study.

The idea of mathematically composing a literary work is certainly novel to human thinking, and unique to the scriptures. The numerical pattern serves both as an authenticating tool and as a guard to protect and preserve the scripture. Obviously, finding original, unaltered scripture is of crucial importance. The slightest change in the text of a mathematically coded literary work would disrupt or utterly destroy such a code; the mathematical pattern would simply disappear. As pointed out by Rabbi Judah, "every addition or omission of a word, or even of a single letter...destroys the religious meaning of the prayer as a whole and is regarded as a grave sin." From a purely mathematical point of view, the slightest change renders the pattern non-existent; 76, for example, is a multiple of 19, but 77 or 75 is not.

ORIGINAL SCRIPTURE

There is proof that one scripture is completely intact, and perfectly preserved. Unlike other known scriptures, this one still exists in its original, untranslated language-just as it was revealed 1400 years ago. It is known to be complete, with no loss of any of the original revelation.

Western access to this scripture has been limited by the fact that the people to whom it was originally delivered have all but buried it with their cultural tradition. They believe that it is the basis of their religious belief, when in fact, what they practice generally goes contrary to its teachings. This scripture is the Quran.

In a recent translation of the Quran, the translator emphasizes the role of the number nineteen as an authenticating code for the Quran. In 1968, through computer decoding, and totally independent of the work of Rabbi Judah the Pious, Dr. Rashad Khalifa discovered that an extremely intricate 19-based numerical structure encodes and guards every aspect of the Quran.

In the second edition of his translation QURAN: THE FINAL TESTAMENT (Islamic Productions, 1989), Khalifa refers to Rabbi Judah's work, and suggests that nineteen represents God's own signature on everything He created. He also provides the first plausible explanation for the prominence of the 19-based mathematical pattern throughout the scriptures, as well as the universe. In his appendix entitled "19: The Creator's Signature" (Ibid., p. 709) Khalifa writes:

The scriptures are not the only mathematically composed creations of God where the number 19 is the common denominator. It is profound indeed that Galileo made his famous statement: "Mathematics is the language with which God created the universe." A plethora of scientific findings have now shown that the number 19 represents God's signature upon certain creations. This divine stamp appears throughout the universe in much the same manner as the signatures of Michelangelo and Picasso identify their works. For example:

1. The sun, the moon, and the earth become aligned in the same relative positions once every 19 years (see the ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA under "Calendar").
2. Halley's comet, a profound heavenly phenomenon, visits our solar system every 76 years, 19x4.
3. God's stamp on you and me is manifested in the fact that the human body contains 209 bones, 19x11.
4. LANGMAN'S MEDICAL EMBRYOLOGY, by T. W. Sadler, is used as a textbook in most of the Medical Schools in the U.S.A. On Page 88 of the Fifth edition, we read the following statement: "In general the length of pregnancy for a full term fetus is considered to be 280 days or 40 weeks after onset of the last menstruation, or more accurately, 266 days or 38 weeks after fertilization." The numbers 266 and 38 are both multiples of 19.

THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Such are corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is not one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be one who is wise and seeks God. All alike have gone astray.... [Psalm 14;1-3]

Mathematical composition of a literary work is a totally new concept, though we now realize it has existed for centuries in sacred writings. Since it is a new concept, a brief explanation may be of help.

MATHEMATICALLY COMPOSED LITERATURE

Suppose you are asked to write a book with the stipulation that:

1. Chapter 3 is to contain exactly 532 of the letter `S'.
2. Chapter 8 is to contain exactly 209 B's, and 779 T's.
3. Chapter 6 is to contain exactly 133 of the letter combination `ING.'
4. And the total number of sentences must be exactly 57,152.

You will then try to write this hypothetical book, carefully counting and keeping track of those letters and the number of sentences in order to conform with the specifications given to you. As you conform to these specifications, you must write down words and sentences that make sense and tell the reader something important having to do with the subject of your book. This is a simple example of mathematical composition.

These specifications can be increased or decreased to create varying degrees of complexity. The specific counts of certain letters, numbers of specific phrases, numbers of sentences and totals of verse numbers can soon become so interlocking that it becomes virtually impossible to compose such a book.

CODED SCRIPTURE

Mathematically composed liturgies were reported by Rabbi Judah the Pious in the 11th century. To my knowledge, a recent analysis of the Torah has not been done to see if this code is still intact in the entire scripture, but we have already discussed indications that there have been some alterations in the Torah, at the very least in reference to the sons of Abraham. These alterations would have seriously disrupted the code.

The Gospels have been shown to have many problems in their transmission to us. In their present form, they are not good candidates at all for such an analysis.

The Quran, which was revealed in A.D. 610-630, is the only scripture that is known to still exist in its original language, and form. It is also the only book known to be mathematically coded throughout.

All the parameters of the Quran-the numbers and sequences of chapters; the number of verses; the numbers assigned to each verse; the number of words; the number of certain specified letters; the number of words from the same root; the number and variety of divine names; the absence of one or more letters from a word, verse or chapter; the unique and often strange spellings of certain crucial words; and many other elements-are all authenticated by its mathematical code.

HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED

How was this code discovered in the Quran?

Before we can answer that question we need to know a little about a unique feature in Quran-a phenomenon not found in any other literature. Twenty-nine chapters of the Quran are prefixed with certain letters of the Arabic alphabet, or `Quranic Initials.' Ever since the Quran was revealed more than 14 centuries ago, Muslim and orientalist scholars have been trying to decipher the meaning and possible significance of these mysterious Quranic initials, but to no avail. They remained a mystery to all.

Finally, a Muslim scientist and computer expert named Rashad Khalifa entered the Quran into the computer in hopes of finding some pattern which would explain these initials. Khalifa, a Ph.D. chemist, later on the roster of scientists called `Technical Assistance Experts' with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), began his computer study as part of the research for his translation of the Quran into English. The result of his extensive research was the discovery of an intricate mathematical system which pervades the whole Quran and governs every possible parameter, including its initials.

Dr. Khalifa's discovery is extremely significant, especially since it matches the findings of Rabbi Judah the Pious. The common denominator of the Quran's mathematical code, the number nineteen, was reported by Rabbi Judah "in the liturgy, in the Scripture, in nature, in historical events and throughout the universe."

Thus, God's `signature,' the number nineteen, encodes and guarantees every letter and every parameter of the Quran, and intact portions of the Torah. It also places the Creator's stamp on our own creation, on major historical events, on the sun/moon/earth interactions and throughout the universe.

WESTERN KNOWLEDGE OF THE CODE

Why haven't you heard about this? Here in the West, Rashad Khalifa's work has not received the attention it deserves. Only two `Western' comments on his momentous discovery are noteworthy. The first comment appeared in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of September 1980. Martin Gardner wrote of Khalifa's initial publication in the West: I later discovered that the author of this monograph, Rashad Khalifa, is an Egyptian who received a doctorate in biochemistry from an American university, where he also taught for a time. His monograph was published privately in the U.S. in 1972.... Dr. Khalifa's monograph attempts to show that 19 appears throughout the Koran too often to be there by chance. The number of suras in the Koran is 114, a multiple of 19. A famous verse called the Basmala ("In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful"), which opens every sura but one, has 19 letters. Its first word (ism) appears 19 times in the Koran. The second word (Allah) is found 2,698, or 142 x 19, times. The number of times the third word (al-Rahman) appears is 57, which is also a multiple of 19, as is the number of times the fourth word (al-Raheem) appears, 114.

It's an ingenious study of the Quran, but it could have been more impressive if Khalifa had consulted me before he wrote it. Nineteen is an unusual prime. For example, it's the sum of the first powers of 9 and 10 and the difference between the second powers of 9 and 10. (Scientific American, Sept. 1980, p. 22)

Three years later the Canadian Council on the Study of Religion reported in its QUARTERLY REVIEW of April 1983 that the code Khalifa discovered is "an authenticating proof of the divine origin of the Quran."

Since 1983, little notice has been taken of this work. In spite of that, Dr. Khalifa's work has been published in the United States in six books:

1. MIRACLE OF THE QURAN: Significance of the Mysterious Alphabets, Islamic Productions, St. Louis, Missouri, 1973.
2. THE COMPUTER SPEAKS: God's Message to the World, Renaissance Productions, Tucson, Arizona, 1981.
3. QUR'AN: The Final Scripture, Islamic Productions, Tucson, Arizona, 1981.
4. QURAN: VISUAL PRESENTATION OF THE MIRACLE, Ibid, 1982.
5. QUR'AN, HADITH AND ISLAM, Ibid, 1982.
6. QURAN: The Final Testament, Ibid, 1989.

MIDEASTERN KNOWLEDGE OF THE CODE

In the Middle East, the story is a little different. Beginning in the late sixties, this work received wide publicity throughout the Islamic world, rendering Khalifa's name a household word. By the end of 1973, Rashad Khalifa had become a popular hero, commanding full-house audiences as he lectured at the universities, mosques, organizations, and even royal and presidential palaces.

However, his discovery led to unavoidable conclusions which ran contrary to certain basic beliefs of the traditional Muslim clergy. These conclusions boil down to a total rejection of the `Islamic traditions' which have been added onto the religion over the centuries, and a return to the pure teachings of Quran alone. Consequently, Khalifa's popularity was reversed and his life threatened in a number of Muslim countries.

Before Khalifa incurred the wrath of the Muslim clergy, many popular magazines and newspapers in the Middle East, from Morocco to Pakistan, reported his discoveries. Millions of summaries in pamphlet and bulletin form are still secretly circulating among the Muslims of the world.

Khalifa's first publicized report appeared in the most popular magazine of the Middle East, Egypt's AKHERSA (January 24, 1973). Updates of his research were subsequently published by the same magazine (November 28, 1973 and December 31, 1975). Many other magazines and newspaper articles by and about Khalifa appeared throughout the world in many languages.

Then, very early in the morning on January 31, 1990, Rashad Khalifa's life was taken by one or more assassins who had broken into his office in Tucson, Arizona, and waited for him. There is no doubt that his life was taken in an attempt to stem the growing rejection of distorted Islamic tradition and a return to the Quran alone-a movement which he spearheaded.

DETAILS INTRODUCED

The Quran was recorded as it was revealed-in fragments which were separated in both time and place, and positioned like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into the final scripture. Since the order of revelation is different from the order of final position, two consecutive verses may be separated by as much as two years and 300 miles according to their chronological revelation.

THE CODE - SIMPLE FACTS

Though the code was initially discovered by examining the occurrences of Quranic initials in the initialed chapters of Quran, there is a large number of much less complex parameters to the code. Here is a brief listing of some of them:

1. There are 114 chapters in the Quran, or 19 x 6.
2. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6346, or 19 x 334.
3. Then you add the 30 different numbers which are mentioned in the Quran's text (i.e. one God, two brothers, etc.), the total is 162146 or 19 x 8534.
4. The first statement in Quran, "In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful" consists of 19 Arabic letters. Known as the `Basmalah', it prefaces every chapter except Chapter 9.
5. Though missing from Chapter 9, exactly 19 chapters later the Basmalah occurs twice. Chapter 27 has this statement at its beginning and in verse 30. This makes the total number of times the Basmalah occurs in the Quran 114, or 19 x 6.
6. Since there are 19 chapters between the missing Basmalah and the extra one, the sum of those chapter numbers is a multiple of 19. (The sum of any 19 consecutive numbers is a multiple of 19.) But the total, 342, is also the exact number of words between the two occurrences of the Basmalah in Chapter 27. This number, 342, is 19 x 18.
7. Every word in the Basmalah occurs throughout the Quran a number of times which is a multiple of 19.
8. The very first revelation that was given to the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, came as 19 words.
9. The total number of letters making up the 19 words of the first revelation is 76, 19 x 4.
10. Though they were the first revelation, these verses are placed at the beginning of Chapter 96. This chapter is atop the last 19 chapters.
11. Chapter 96 consists of 304 Arabic letters, or 19 x 16.
12. The last chapter revealed (Chapter 110) has 19 words, and its first verse is 19 letters.
13. God's name in Arabic, `Allah,' occurs in the Quran 2698 times, or 19 x 142.
14. If you add the numbers of the verses where `Allah' occurs, the total is 118123 or 19 x 6217.
15. The main message in the Quran is that there is only One God. The number of times that the word `one' is used to refer to this concept of One God is 19.
16. The word `Quran' occurs in 38 different chapters, or 19 x 2.
17. The total number of times `the Quran' is mentioned is 57, 19 x 3.
18. Within the 114 chapters of the Quran, 29 of them begin with the Quranic initials discussed earlier. Intermixed between the first initialed chapter (Chapter 2) and the last initialed chapter (Chapter 68) are 38 non-initialed chapters, or 19 x 2.
19. In that same group of chapters, from Chapter 2 to Chapter 68, there are 19 alternating sets of initialed and non-initialed chapters.
20. The total number of verses making up this group of chapters is 5263, 19 x 277.
21. Within this group of chapters there are also 2641 occurrences of the word `Allah', or 19 x 139. Of course, that leaves 57, or 19 x 3, occurrences of that word outside of this group.
22. If you add the chapter and verse numbers of the 57 occurrences of `Allah' outside the initialed section, the total is 2432 or 19 x 128.
23. There are a large number of discoveries having to do with the numbers of the chapters and verses. Many of them are very complex and interrelated. Here is a simple one to give you a feel for these discoveries: If you add the numbers assigned to all the chapters, plus the numbers assigned to all of the verses, plus the number of verses in the Quran, the total is 346199 or 19 x 19 x 959.
24. If you look at the initialed chapters separately and add the chapter numbers, verse numbers and number of verses, the total is 190133, 19 x 10007. Of course it follows that the total for the uninitialed chapters, 156066, is also divisible by 19.

There are a great many more discoveries, most of them more complex than the ones presented above. Additional discoveries continue to be made as Dr. Khalifa's work is carried on by the many students of pure Quran he left behind.

You may already be convinced that this interlocking occurrence of the number 19 is too frequent to be accidental. If not, the next section dealing with the Quranic initials should dispel your doubts.

QURANIC INITIALS

As we discussed earlier in this chapter, it was the search for an explanation of the Quranic Initials which led to the discovery of the code imbedded in the Arabic text of this scripture. These initials exhibit many aspects of the code, when looked at as individual sets and when looked at as a whole.

Let us begin by looking at the initials which use a single letter. The first one we will examine is the initial which has the English transliteration of `Q'.

THE INITIAL 'Q' (Qaaf): There are several special phenomena having to do with the initial Q. Perhaps it can be seen as standing for Quran. This is especially so since there are two Q-initialed chapters, each with 57 (19 x 3) Q's in them. Thus, the total of Q's in both chapters is 114 (19 x 6), the same number as the number of chapters in the Quran.

The fact that both Q-initialed chapters contain exactly 57 Q's is quite remarkable because the first of them (Chapter 42) is more than twice as long as the second (Chapter 50).

There is another remarkable phenomenon in the sum of the number of each chapter with the number of verses in that chapter. Chapter 42 has 53 verses; 42 plus 53 is 95, 19 x 5. If we look at the other Q-initialed chapter, 50, it has 45 verses; 50 plus 45 is also 95.

THE INITIAL 'N' (Noon): This initial prefixes only one chapter, number 68. The total number of occurrences of N in this chapter is 133, or 19 x 7.

THE INITIAL 'S' (Saad) prefixes three different chapters, 7, 19 and 38. The total occurrences in these three chapters taken together is 152, or 19 x 8.

Most of the time the initials occur together in sets. Next, we will examine some of these sets.

THE INITIALS 'Y.S.' (Ya Seen): These two initials are found at the beginning of Chapter 36. The number of times that these two letters appear in this chapter is 285, or 19 x 15.

THE INITIALS 'H.M.' (Haa Meem): This set of initials is found initializing the seven consecutive chapters 40 through 46. The total occurrence of these two in all of these chapters is 2147, or 19 x 113.

THE INITIALS 'Á.S.Q.' (Ayn Seen Qaf): Chapter 42 is the only chapter with a set of initials (H.M.) in the first verse and another (Á.S.Q.) in verse two. The number of times the letters of this second set of initials are in Chapter 42 is 209, or 19 x 11.

CONCLUSION

There are more sets of initials which we could discuss. All of them exhibit similar phenomena to those we have examined. Much more detail is contained in the appendix of this book.

From this short presentation, it is easy to see that the substitution or removal of any word containing one of the initials in an initialed chapter would break the code in that chapter. As the initials become more complex, the difficulty of writing readable and meaningful sentences increases. In some cases the only way that the code could have been written into the Quran was for the language to have been invented around it!

The patterns exhibited in the initialed chapters added to the simpler parameters discussed earlier make an awesome network of coding which pervades the very fabric of the Quran. All this clearly required divine control.