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[Zahra..]

This story dates back to several thousand years ago when man used to count things or events on his fingers. The Latin word for finger is ‘digiti.’ That has given us the English word ‘digit’ for a
numeral.

Then man learned to use symbols for each number he needed to represent. The Arabs used the alphabets of their language to denote numbers. Since the Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, the Arabs were able to count up to 1000 - lucky for them.

The discovery of zero was yet some five thousand years ahead in the future. The Arabs devised two lines of poetry for that system as follows;

Consequently the numbers assigned to each letter came out to be as follows:

LETTER VALUE

*Alif 1
*Ba 2
*Jeem 3
*Daal 4
*Ha (round) 5
*Wow 6
*Za 7
*HA (guttural) 8
*Toey 9
*Ya 10
*Kaaf 20
*Laam 30
*Meem 40
*Noon 50
*Seen 60
*Ayn 70
*Fa 80
*Swad 90
*Qaaf 100
*Ra 200
*Sheen 300
*Ta 400
*Tha 500
*Kha 600
*Dhaal 700
*Dhwaad 800
*Zoey 900
*Ghayn 1000

That gave the Arab poets a tool for recording significant events in history. They were brilliant poets. So, they would compose a few lines of poetry in such a way that a line or a number of lines together would
represent the exact date of the event. The calculation of the date would be done just by adding the numbers assigned each one of the alphabets employed in that line of poetry by applying the values given above.

When Islam came the holy Qur’an became the standard Arabic text in the community for all reading and writing.

The Prophet of Islam sent out letters of invitation to the surrounding areas. Each letter that the Prophet dictated to his scribes would always begin with Bismillah Ar-Rahman ar-Raheem.

That also became the standard for all letter writing for Muslims. However, there was a downside to that practice. Not all letters were of great significance to a reader. Some were of great importance and the
reader of the letter would want to keep it. Others, on the other hand, were not important. They had to be disposed off. Now, here was a problem. You cannot, as a believing and practicing Muslim throw a piece of paper in the dust bin if Allah’s name is written on it.

Then someone found a brilliant solution to the problem. If instead of writing the full ‘bismillah’ one could write a symbol which would remind the reader so that he would immediately recite ‘bismillah’ before begin to read the text of the letter, that would really solve the
problem.

What better symbol could there be than depicting a number that would represent ‘bismillah.’ The formula was already there. So, ‘bismillah’ was written in long hand and each letter used in that phrase was ciphered to depict the exact number from the ABJAD.

That gave us the number 786.

Hence the practice of starting a letter with that number. The ‘786’ written at the head of a letter is a reminder to the reader to recite ‘bismillah’ before starting to read the text of the letter.

There is neither any superstition in it nor is their any hidden black magic.

Curiously enough, I have not seen that practice among the Arabic speaking Muslims. It is though very common among the Muslims of India and Pakistan.

New comers to Islam, and even some of the Arabs think that it is an innovation (bid’at). Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a very intelligent way to save a Qur’anic verse from desecration by carelessness and lack of concern.

Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Syed-Mohsin Naquvi