# Overview of the Abjad numerological system

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Frank Lewis, Overview of the Abjad numerological system, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Overview of the Abjad numerological system
> 
> Frank Lewis
> 
> 1999-04
> 
> 1. ABJAD AND THE RISE AND DECLINE OF ALPHANUMERIC SYSTEMS
> 
> The word abjad is an acronym derived from the first four
> consonantal shapes in the Arabic alphabet -- Alif, Bá, Jim, Dál. As
> such abjad designates the letters of the Arabic alphabet (also known
> as alifbá') in the phrase hurúf al-abjad. An adjective formed from
> this, abjadí, means a novice at something. Nowadays the Arabic alphabet
> does not follow the sequence a-b-j-d, but rather the order:
> A-B-T-Th-J-H.-Kh-D (the basic shapes of the letters A-B-J-D without their
> diacritical dots do, however, occur in that order, insofar as T and Th are
> distinguished from B only by dots, and the H. and Kh from the J only by
> dots). However, the order A-B-J-D is quite ancient, insofar as the
> word abjad is not of Arabic origin, but comes from earlier written
> alphabets, perhaps from Phoenician though the sequence may be as old as
> Ugaritic. In any case, it certainly predates the writing down of Arabic,
> as can be seen by comparison of Hebrew (Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth) and
> Greek (Alpha Beta Gamma Delta).
> 
> The Arabic alphabet and the corresponding numerical values known as
> abjad are therefore derived from earlier prototypes, as the following
> comparison shows:
> 
> Hebrew: Aleph = 1 Beth = 2 gimel = 3 daleth = 4
> Greek : alpha = 1 beta = 2 gamma = 3 delta = 4
> Arabic: alif = 1 bá' = 2 jím = 3 dál = 4
> 
> The so-called Arabic numerals that we use as ciphers to represent our
> numbers (1,2,3,4, etc.) were invented in India c. 600 A.D. They were
> first used in the Middle East by the mathematician al-Khwarazmi (c. 875),
> along with the zero. Though some Europeans were aware of these "Arabic"
> computational symbols as early as the 10th century, they did not come into
> general use until the 13th century in Europe. The point being that up
> until this time, written texts in Greek, Latin, Hebrew/Aramaic,
> Arabic/Persian, etc. used letters of the alphabet to represent numbers
> (the Latin equivalent is Roman numerals).
> 
> The Arabic numerals proved far superior for computational purposes
> to the previous systems (it is not possible to do positional computation
> with roman numerals, nor did they come with the zero, another gift of
> India). The older letter/numbers gradually fell out of use,
> except in certain contexts (specifically the use of Roman numerals and
> Abjad numerals to mark the page numbers of the introduction of a book and
> the use of Roman numerals to record the publication date of books until
> the 19th century and the production date of motion pictures until the
> 1960s). However, just because the letters were no longer generally used as
> numbers, this does not mean that the numerical associations died out.
> Among poets the numbers were used to write chronograms (a word that
> contains a numerical value; poets frequently tried to find words with a
> numerical equivalent to the year of someone's death to write an elegy, for
> example). Theologians and mystics invested the letters and their
> associated numerical values with mystical significance. I have never
> studied the matter, but the Bab perhaps took one of his cues for the use
> of gematria from Fazl Allah Astarabadi, founder of the Horufi sect (Todd
> Lawson would, I am sure, be able to speak in an informed manner on what is
> mere speculation on my part).
> 
> 2. ABJAD SYSTEM AND HOW IT WORKS
> 
> There are two principle variations in the Abjad system as to the value
> of certain letters; the Arabs of North Africa and Spain gave a different
> alpha-numeric order to some of the letters in the 100s than was common in the
> Levant and the Islamic east. However, this variation does not affect the
> values of letters under 100, which have always and everywhere been the
> same, so far as I know.
> 
> The Abjad values and their mnemonic groupings are as follows. Short
> vowels have no value (except in the beginning of a word, where they are
> necessarily accompanied by alif/hamza). Note that hamza (') and `ayn (`)
> are different letters with different values, as are the letters followed
> by dots (which would be underdots in printed versions of texts rendered in
> accord with the romanization system used by Shoghi Effendi for Bahá'í
> texts). For the details of why hamza and alif have the same value (i.e.,
> á = ' = 1), see section #4 below:
> 
> abjad: hawwaz h.ut.t.i kalaman sa`fas.
> 
> á/ ' 1 h 5 h. 8 k 20 s 60
> b 2 w/v/ú 6 t. 9 l 30 ` 70
> j 3 z 7 y/í 10 m 40 f 80
> d 4 n 50 s. 90
> 
> qarashat thakhidh d.az.agh
> 
> q 100 th 500 d. 800
> r 200 kh 600 z. 900
> sh 300 dh 700 gh 1000
> t 400
> 
> In the maghrib (Spain and North Africa), the following variant values
> obtained, to wit: s.= 60, d.= 90, s= 300, z.= 800, gh= 900, sh=1000.
> 
> N.B.: Certain phonemes which require two letters to represent in the roman
> alphabet (e.g., Th, Kh, Dh, Gh, Sh) are each rendered by a unique letter
> in the Arabic alphabet. In the system of Bahá'í transliteration as used
> by Shoghi Effendi, these letter combinations are written with an underline
> (I can't quite render it in ASCII text, but: _sh_, _kh_, etc.) . Do not
> count the "h" of underlined letters for the purposes of calculating abjad
> values if you are working from an English transliteration. _Kh_ál would
> be Kh= 600 á= 1 l= 30 for a total of 631.
> 
> Likewise, doubled consonants (hurúf mushaddada) are counted only once.
> For example, though in transliteration we write Muhammad, in the
> Arabic script, the doubled consonant "mm" is represented by a diacritical
> mark (tashdid) over a single "m", which is therefore only written once
> and only counted once. Hence the numerical values of Muhammad and Nabíl
> are identical (remember not to count the short vowels, which are any
> vowels in transliteration which lack the accent mark):
> 
> M + h. + mma + d
> 40 8 40 4 = 92
> 
> N + b + i/y + l
> 50 2 10 30 = 92
> 
> The word Rid.wán totals to 1057: R= 200, d.= 800, w= 6, á= 1, n= 50.
> Mustagháth equals M=40, s=60, t=400, gh=1000, á= 1, th= 500 for a total of 2001.
> 
> 3. SPELLING THE WORD BAHA'
> 
> The numerical value of Baha' (bahá') would in either eastern or
> western Islamic version of abjad total to nine (9), as follows: b= 2,
> h= 5, á (a with accent in transliteration)= 1, hamza (')= 1 TOTAL: 9
> 
> Although Persians do not generally pronounce hamza after final alif
> (which occurs only in words of Arabic origin), this does not mean that the
> letter does not exist. The existence of the final hamza is extremely
> important for Arabic declension, because only with that final short vowel
> is it possible to distinguish the nominative (bahá'u), accusative
> (bahá'a) or genitive (bahá'i) forms of the word from one another. This
> is of utmost importance for the correct vocalizing of an Arabic sentence
> or phrase with the word Bahá' in it, and may also play a role in
> correctly comprehending the meaning. Persian has no noun declension, so
> the elision of the final hamza in words of this pattern (e.g., saná' bahá' shay' ridá' a`dá' qurrá' `ulamá', etc.) does no
> great harm (except that sometimes it creates homonyms; e.g., bahá =
> price, bahá' = glory). In neither Persian nor Arabic is Bahá'
> spelled with an alif maqsúra (this would give bahiyy, as in
> Bahiyyih Khanum), a dagger alef (which would not change the abjad value,
> anyway), with two alifs, or any of the other variations which have been
> proposed, in so far as I am aware (though the Bab has a long tablet with
> various permutations of the root B-H-Y and he sometimes produced
> morphologically possible forms which, though theoretically
> meaningful, had never actually been used by anyone).
> 
> Incidentally, the value of kull shay' should be 361 (k= 20, l = 30,
> doubled or mashdudd consonants are not counted twice, sh = 300,
> y = 10, hamza = 1). Persians sometimes elide the final hamza when
> writing this word in Persian (sometimes an extra "y" is also incorrectly
> added), which could lead to the value of 360, but the Bab was using an
> Arabic term which should always have the value 361 (except in Northwest
> Africa, where it would have been 1061).
> 
> 4. NUMERIC VALUE OF HAMZA AND ALIF ARE THE SAME
> 
> As Iskandar Hai pointed out, alif and hamza have the same numerical
> value. If we stop to consider how the word "abjad" is written and
> pronounced in Arabic or Persian, this fact should not come as a great
> surprise. The initial sound in abjad is a short "a." In any
> language a word beginning with a vowel is proceeded by a glottal stop
> (quickly pronounce the words "a apple" and you will hear and feel the
> glottal stop in between them). The letter which marks the glottal stop in
> Arabic is the hamza.
> 
> It is true that the word abjad begins with an alif, but the alif in
> this case is merely a place-holder for the initial hamza. This is because
> according to the rules of Arabic orthography, word-initial hamza, the
> phonetic value of which is a glottal stop followed by a vowel, must be
> written with an alif. This is true for any word beginning in a short vowel
> -- a, u, i. In word-initial position a short vowel rests upon a hamza,
> which in turn rests upon an alif.
> 
> But alif is used not only as a place-holder for initial short
> vowels. It also has other purposes, and this is where the confusion comes
> about. In the middle of a word, and sometimes at the end, alif represents
> the long vowel "á" (in Arabic, fatha and long alif have the same vowel
> quality in most phonetic environments, the difference being one of
> quantity--the alif is pronounced twice as long; in Persian, however, the
> long alif [á] sound is not only held longer, but is also qualitatively
> different from the fatha [a], having the value of the "a" in "law" as
> opposed to the "a" in "hat").
> 
> Technically speaking, the alif that represents the long "á" is a
> doubled or elongated fatha (a), and consists of a fatha combined with a
> hamza. Neither the fatha nor the hamza are written in this case, however,
> but instead the combination is marked by an alif. So the long vowel "á,"
> represented in writing by the letter alif, does contain a hamza, even
> though that hamza isn't written out. Though modern Arabic orthography
> does not call for the hamza to be written with the alif of the long vowel,
> it can be found written out in some ancient manuscripts and inscriptions
> (it would be far easier to explain this if we could write Arabic
> characters in electronic form; those of you interested in actually
> seeing what I'm talking about can check Wright's extremely detailed
> explanation in Grammar of the Arabic Language, in the first section, under
> hamza and alif).
> 
> One might argue that it is not actually because of the alif, but rather
> because of the unwritten hamza that usually accompanies the alif, that
> the letter has the numerical value of one. Due to the conventions of
> writing Arabic, the hamza occurs everywhere an alif has a phonetic value
> (the alif is written in some cases without a phonetic value, such as in
> the alif wasl or as a soundless marker at the end of the 3rd person masc.
> pl. verb ending). So, for most purposes, where there is an alif with a
> phonetic value, it actually contains within it a hamza. However, the
> hamza can also occur without the alif. Hamza is written as a separate
> symbol (without the alif) when two vowels fall next to each other (e.g.,
> su'ál, masá'il), when an unvowelled consonant is followed by a
> short vowel (e.g., mas'ala; in words like qur'án, mir'át, where a
> syllabic break occurs with a consonant, followed by a long vowel "á", the
> hamza is written as a madda stroke above the alif, and not usually in the
> form of hamza); or when a short vowel occurs at the end of a word
> immediately after a long vowel (bahá', shay').
> 
> The long and short of it is that both alif and hamza are counted as
> one in Abjad. Where there is both an alif and a separate hamza in a word,
> as in Bahá', you count them separately. á = 1 , ' = 1.
> 
> 5. METHODOLOGICAL MEDITATION
> 
> This brings to mind a methodological/epistemological question, or
> perhaps an observation on the nature of internet discussions. There are
> many reference works, such as the Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopeadia
> Iranica, the Arabic Lexicon of Lane, the Dictionaries of Mo'in and
> Dehkhoda, that contain information on the Abjad system. Most of the
> dictionaries explain that alif and hamza have the same numerical value.
> 
> I have not checked it to see whether it specifies the value
> of hamza and alif, but I seem to recall that Marzieh Gail's Bahá'í
> Glossary had an abjad chart with explanation of the numerical value of
> certain key words. I would not be surprised if an explanation also shows
> up in one of the volumes of Bahá'í World or even in Star of the West. How
> is it that so many well-informed people could have been discussing a
> pseudo-problem (the calculation of the numerical value of Bahá') for
> several days on H-Bahá'í, before it was pointed out that Bahá' does
> indeed equal nine?
> 
> Does it not seem unlikely in the extreme that something this elementary
> (and theologically important) could have escaped the notice of the Babis
> or their enemies? If the word Baha' was supposed to total nine but
> according to the normal mode of calculation it had totalled eight, would
> this not have cast some doubt on the Bab's writings? (Karim Khan or the
> orthodox Shíte ulama would have certainly added this charge to that of
> ungrammaticality of the Bab's Arabic)? It is easy with the benefit of
> hindsight or in the light of subsequent scientific knowledge, to develop
> a sense of hubris about the superior understanding of matters of history
> we have compared to the actual participants in the events had. However,
> those participants had as much common sense and often more specific
> knowledge than we, so that when confronted with a question of this nature,
> as part of our procedural methodology, we would do well to ask ourselves
> if we are correctly understanding what we read or if one of our
> assumptions or premises might not be amiss.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views71162 views since posted 1999; last edit 2025-03-08 08:15 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../lewis_abjad_numerological_system;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> Formatted 1999 by Jonah Winters; Proofread 1999 by Frank Lewis.
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> — *Overview of the Abjad numerological system (Used by permission of the curator)*