APPENDIX
The science of letters and numbers is highly regarded in the East, and is used throughout the Holy Books. Although numbers in themselves do not have any magic powers, they do indicate certain ordered relationships existing throughout the universe. Some modern physicists as well as ancient Greek philosophers say,’God is a mathematician’, indicating their realization of the perfect order in all levels of creation. Mathematics is only a language created by man in his attempt to understand the universe. The Manifestations have used the tongues of man to communicate with us, and therefore they have used all levels of communication, including numbers and letters in symbolic language to convey hidden messages to the more spiritual among the believers.
Before the numerical symbols now in use were imported from India by the Arabs, the people of Greece, Israel and Arabia used letters of their alphabet to indicate numbers. From this system came the practice of using words to indicate numbers, called ~gematria~.The Bab uses the system throughout both Bayans, and Baha’u’llah uses it in the Kitab-i-Aqdas in the original Arabic. The latest translation into English by the UHJ committee has changed the words into numbers using the Abjad numbering system. This system uses words to indicate numbers, and uses numbers as symbols to represent hidden meanings, veiled to most believers unless they make the effort to investigate and understand. On the pages with illustrations and diagrams is the Abjad numbering system used in the Arabic and Farsi (Persian) languages. You cannot apply this numbering system to transliterated words. because in such altered words there are additional letters inserted to preserve the sound of the original word of the native language. Some people tend to believe that numbers in themselves have some hidden power, but in the Holy Books they are used only as symbols to indicate some spiritual message, prophetic statements of coming events, and relationships existing in God’s creation.
In the Bible there are examples of the science of letters and numbers, especially in the prophecies. One example is the use of the number 666, which in the Revelation is called the number of the beast. The beast indicates human materialism and spiritual death, when the followers of religion become enamored with the organization (body) of their religion rather than the spirit (see Some Answered Questions, chap.. XI). The number 6 was the stamp of the old mystery cults. The great secret symbol was SSS, because in the Greek alphabet the ‘s’, or stigma, indicated the value of 6. The stigma means a mark formerly used to brand slaves. Thus the people who turned away from God and are slaves to sensual and material appetites, worshipping the body (organization) of their religion rather than the Spirit, are branded with the stigma of 666, the symbol of spiritual death. The number doesn’t refer to an individual, and in the original Greek of the Revelation it says that 666 is the number of man, NOT of a man. Thus, it refers to all who turn away from the real intent of the Faith of God, which is the spiritual development of humanity, and instead place religious organizations first in their lives and thinking.
This same problem is illustrated in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner by Baha’u’llah. Concerning this Tablet, Abdu’l-Baha wrote: ‘Study the Tablet of the Holy Mariner that you may know the truth, and consider that the Blessed Beauty hath fully foretold future events. Let those who Perceive take warning.’(cited in Baha’i Prayers, 1982 edition, p. 221) In that Tablet Baha’u’llah speaks thus of future Baha’is: "By the Lord I found not from these idle claimants the breeze of Faithfulness!" And then, concerning the condition of the Faith in these days, He wrote: "They all gathered around her and lo! they found her body fallen on the dust; Glorified be our Lord. the Most High!". Compare this to the two dead bodies found in Sodom and Egypt mentioned in Revelation 11:8, and explained by Abdu’l-Baha in Some Answered Questions, Chap. XI, pp 60-61 (1970 edition). This is indicative of the Baha’is who consider their religious organization first in their priorities, rather than the spiritual values, and commandments of God.
The value of 19 is present throughout the Quran, and its significance was first acknowledged in writing in the works of the mystic Sheykh Muhiyyu’d-Din Ibnu’l-Arabi in Spain. The Bab also mentions this fact in the Bayan. In recent years, Dr. Rashad ~halifaof the Muslim Mosque of Tucson, Arizona compiled a list of all occurrences he could find in the Quran of the value of 19, in the words, letters and chapters. "Here is a subtle point, which is this, that the prophets...have placed the letters of the alphabet in correspondence with the degrees of Existence...and therefore it is said, ‘Existence emerged from the Ba of Bismillah since that is the letter which follows the alif, which is placed to correspond with the Essence of God. And it (i.e. the letter ~BR or Ba) signified the First Intelligence, which was the first thing which God created." (The First Intelligence indicates the Holy Spirit). Sheykh Muhiyyu’d-Din Ibnu’l-Arabi
Although the sacred character of the number 19 was thus prominently brought forward by the Bab, He by no means implies that is was unknown to previous prophets. On the contrary, He not only points out that the number of letters in ‘ Bi~mi’llahir-Rahmani’r-Rahim,’ which stands at the head of every chapter in Quran, is 19, but further that the total number of chapters themselves (114=19x6) is a multiple of the sacred number. So, in every ‘Manifestation’, the 18 ‘Letters of the Livng’ have appeared surrounding the ‘Point’, and amongst their number there is always at least one woman—Fatima in the Manifestation of Islam, Kurratu’l-Ayn(Jenab-i-Tahire) in the present one...So also the Bab declares that ‘He Whom God shall manifest will appear with His 18 ‘Letters of the Living’.." E.G. Browne, Selection from the Writings of E.~. Browne, ed. ~M. Momen, p. 229
As for Dr. Khalifa, I can only mention a few of the occurrence of the value of 19 that he has listed, for he has written two books on the subject, and the list is too long. He calls it the miracle of the Quran, and it is undoubtedly one of the proofs of the Divine origin of the Quran.
1. The opening statement of the Quran consists of 19 letters
2. The first Quranic revelation has 19 words (Surih 96:1-5)
3. The first revelation consisted of 76 letters, or 19x4. The first five verses of Surih 96 were the first revealed verses)
4. The first Surih revealed consists of 304 letters (19x16)
5. The last Surih revealed consists of 19 letters.
6. Other revelations similarly consist of multiples of 19.
See Visual Presentation of the Miracle. Masiid Tucson.
The Bab made obvious use of the number 19. Each Vahid (vahd in Arabic means unity, and has the Abjad value of 19) in either Bayan contains 19 Gates, or verses, except for the last Vahid in the Persian Bayan. Almost every ordinance in either Bayan contains some expression using the numbers 9 or 19, or multiples thereof. Dowries are in multiples of 9 and 19. There were to be no more than 95 (5xl9) doors on the Shrine of the Bab. People who travel by sea can only do so for 95 months (5x19). Fines are all in multiples of 19, etc.
Every nineteen years the Sun, Moon and Earth are lined up in a specific orientation. In Jewish tradition their Lunar year is adjusted every 19 years when the Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned in that specific orientation. The Bab, using the solar year, divided each month into 19 days and the year into 19 months, plus 4 holidays before the Spring Equinox. He also established 19 year cycles (which correspond to the nodes of the Moon) which He called Vahids. Nineteen Vahids, or 19x19 He called a ~ull-i-shay, the Number of All Things. So you have double meanings of numbers and words, as well as an indication of the actual interrelationships in our Solar system.
.. NOTES ON THE WORD ‘ALF’ lN ARABIC
Every language is historical; that is, it changes over time so that the language, as written and spoken a hundred years or so in the past, is not identical with the written and spoken language of today. Consequently, there will be differences in the way some words are written and accented over a long period of time. Although modern written Arabic is fairly standard, with variations from nation to nation, there is considerable diversity of dialects in spoken Arabic, just as in any language. Differences in written Arabic are usually historical, but differences do exist in various localities as well as in dictionaries. In Arabic, as in any language, there are some words that have identical spellings, but the meanings and sometimes the pronunciation vary according to the context of the sentences wherein they appear.
In English, for example, the word ‘read’ changes meaning and pronunciation according to the tense and person in which it is used. Many words in the English language are spelled differently in England than they are in the United States. One example is the word ‘favor’(U.S. spelling), which in England is usually spelled ‘favour’. Such variations are normal in any language, differing from area to area, and sometimes from dictionary to dictionary. This is the reason we speak of languages as being ‘historical’, and dictionaries as being historical records of languages as spoken and written at the time and place such dictionaries are published.
In the Arabic alphabet three vowels are indicated, although vowel sounds are quite often included in the pronunciation of the consonants. In the Greatest Name (BHA’), spelled with three letters, two consonants and one vowel, the ‘B’ and ‘H’ are pronounced Ba and Ha when by themselves. The word for unity, transliterated as ‘vahid’ to preserve the original pronunciation, is composed of three consonants and one vowel (vahd). In most languages accent marks are sometimes, not always, used to indicate different pronunciation and meanings of words.
In Arabic the word ‘alf’ changes meaning according to the context in which it is used. Alf is the of the first letter (a in English) of the Arabic alphabet. That letter is also written the same as the number ‘1’, and it has the Abjad value of ‘1’. The word for 1,000 (one thousand) in Arabic is also alf, the same word as the name of the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. I have seen the word ‘alf’ for the first letter of the Arabic alphabet transliterated as either ‘alf’ or ‘alif’.
I have questioned Baha’is with knowledge of Arabic about this word used with either the meaning of ‘a’ or of ‘one thousand’. One told me that it was the same word, with the meaning altered by the context in which it is used. Another, (reproduced on pages of diagrams and illustrations, except in Internet copy) indicated that an accent is added to the word when it is used as the name of the first letter of the Arabic alphabet.
In a book by Dr. Syed Ali from the Hippocrene Language Studies series, he shows that the letter ‘a’ DOES NOT have the accent mark indicated in the example mentioned above, but on the other hand the same word when used to indicate ‘1000’ DOES have an accent added. As you see from the illustrations, the same word is either accented or not, according to the dictionary used as reference, or to the country. For the people whose native language is Arabic, the context wherein the word is used is probably sufficient, and the difference known by the context.
It is because of these differences of opinion that I did this limited research. In the notes explaining the symbolic significances of the word ‘alf’. The differences of opinion DO NOT affect the symbolic significances of the word, which are derived from its numerical values.