I had been thinking whether the Quranic Initials / Huroof-e-Moqatte’at (Alif Laam Meem, Qaf, Ta Seen etc) are actually the initials/abbreviations of some words in the chapter that they occur in. The Initials also make a pattern (certain initials occurring with certain words). I am not sure yet, what they are. But I found this article interesting:
From http://www.thedivinebook.org/abbreviations.asp
Divine Abbreviations
The Abbreviated Letters or Isolated Alphabets called Huroof-e-Moqatte’at exist as a unique treasure in the Scripture, and Allah Himself calls them Pointers in the Book (Ayaat-ul-Kitab) at various places like 10/1, 12/1, 13/1, 15/1, 26/1, 27/1, 28/1 and 31/1. These pointers are available at the commencement of 29 Surahs of the Codex. These are present as a single alphabet in 38/1, 50/1 and 68/1; as two alphabets in 20/1, 27/1, 36/1, 40/1, 41/1, 42/1, 43/1, 44/1; 45/1 and 46/1; as three alphabets in 2/1, 3/1, 10/1, 11/1, 12/1, 14/1, 15/1, 26/1, 28/1, 29/1, 30/1, 31/1, 32/1 and 42/2; as four alphabets in 7/1 and 13/1; and as five alphabets in 19/1 only.
The total alphabets used in these pointers are fourteen and the total formations available are also fourteen when we delete the repetitions. The alphabets used are Alif, Ha, Ra, Seen, Saad, Tau, Ain, Qaaf, Kaaf, Laam, Meem, Nun, ha and ya. The fourteen formations used are Qaaf, Nun, Saad (single lettered), Tau ha, Tau Seen, Ya Seen, Ha Meem (two lettered); Alif Laam Meem, Alif Laam Ra, Tau Seen Meem, Ain Seen Qaaf (three lettered); Alif Laam Meem Saad, Alif Laam Meem Ra (four lettered); and Kaaf ha Ya Ain Saad (five lettered).
Every abbreviated letter or alphabet stands as the first letter of a word. The subject matter in the Surah becomes a guide and tells us that Qaaf stands for the word Quran, Nun stands for the title Z unnun (i.e., Prophet Yunus), Saad stands for the word Sabr and Tau stands for the word Tuwa. It is this practice within the Scripture which establishes a universal practice in every language to write one letter (initial alphabet for the word) to represent the word. It is quite frequent to write M for Muslim, S for Sindh, N for north, W for west, UK for United Kingdom, UNO for United Nations and NASA for National Aeronautics and Space Administration etc., etc. There is another example in the Quran wherein Allah presents the letter’s in figure-form in the word Ilyas; while it is presents in its sound-form in the word Ilyasin. See 6/85 and 37/123, 130.
The letter Tau stands for the word Tuwa and is a reference sign available in four different Surahs (20, 26, 27 and 28) of the Scripture. The 20th Surah contains many details about the incident when Allah spoke to Musa in the valley termed Tuwa. The same applies to the remaining three Surahs. Surah No. 79 contains the word Tuwa in its text but not an abbreviated Alphabet at the commencement of the Surah. Similarly, Surahs 26th to 28th contain Tau as an abbreviated letter at the commencement of the Surah and also a discussion of the incident in the text; but the word Tuwa is not available as such in these three Surahs.
Divine Abbreviations also point clues to solve certain confusions. Books like Literary History of the Arabs (Nicholson) and some allied Linguists breed confusion about the number of alphabets in the Arabic Lexicon. Since the pointer alphabets appear in 29 Surahs we get a hint that Arabic Language contains 29 alphabets and not 28 as propagated by this group as well as some others. When we ponder on mustahzeun (2/14), Anbeyhum (2/33), She’tuma (2/35), fad-da-rautum (2/72), Beysa (2/90), Tas-a-lu (2/108), ja-au (4/43) and sayyeatin (10/27) and so on, we become convinced that hamza is a definite letter or alphabet quite distinct from alphabet called Alif.
These Divine Pointers also preserve within them certain aspects of the history of Arabic Language. They point out that only 14 basic forms or figures have been utilized to make up 29 alphabets. It is only an application of dots (one, two or three) which forms the alphabets Ba, Taa, Saa out of the Divine Abbreviation termed Nun; Jeem and Kha out of Haa; alphabet Zaa out of Raa; alphabet Sheen out of Seen; Zaad out of Saad; Zau out of Tau; Ghain out of Ain and Faa out of Qaaf (by deleting one dot). By removing the belly from Ain we get the alphabet Hamza. By removing from Qaaf the two dots and deleting the belly partially, we get alphabet Vau, and by removing the head and reversing the belly we get alphabet Daal. This will become Z aal when we add one dot over it.
The so-called ‘expert linguists’ and ‘great historians’ have played to the Jewish tune to create confusions about the parent language of man. Arabic, the mother language can not exist for a day without the system of dots. It is a paralysed mind that cannot think when it says that Arabic script contained no letter-dots even till the end of the first century after the Prophethood of Muhammad. The format of the Divine Abbreviations (being single, double, triple, four or five lettered) again points to the root system in the language. In Arabic language words may be single lettered like Ba, Seen, Laam and Vau or these could be double lettered as In, Un, Min etc. The most common root in Arabic is triliteral or 3-lettered; and the next most common is 4-lettered; while only a few words have five root letters in their construction.
The Divine Abbreviations also play their due role in relation to the amazing Mathematical Coding in the Scripture which Allah refers to in the 74th Surah of His Codex.
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