ABSTRACT
Mysterious Letters of the Qur'ān, The Twenty-nine suras of the Qur'ān begin with single letters, or groups of letters, from the Arabic alphabet. They occur after the Basmala (q.v.) but before any other words. A large number of theories, over the centuries, have been put forward by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars in an endeavour to explain these letters. Such theories include the idea that each letter is the first of an epithet characterizing God (e.g. K=Karīm (Noble)), and the idea that each letter has a numerical (mystical) value, among many others. M.S. Seale in his book Qur'ān and Bible advances the interesting thesis that 'the standing puzzle posed to Islamic scholarship by the initial letters . . . may be explained by reading them as mnemonics or as abbreviated tables of contents'. However, the comment in the mediaeval Exegesis (Tafsīr) of al-Jalālayn is one of the most telling as well as one of the most succinct. Following the citation of the five Arabic letters with which Sūrat Maryam (q.v.) commences, the authors of the Exegesis comment: 'God knows best what is meant by this'.
