AL-HUROOF AL-MUQATTA’AT (THE DISJOINTED LETTERS)

Muqatta’at is a unique letter combination that appears at the beginning of some surahs (chapters) in the Quran. Muqatta’at literally means abbreviated or shortened. Their meanings remain unclear and are considered by most scholars to be decisive or allegorical. In the Arabic language, these letters are written together like a word, but each letter is pronounced separately. Muqatta’at has been and continues to be a topic of intense research and academic discussions in Islamic literature, Quranic sciences, and Western scholars as well.

These letters appear at the beginning of 29 chapters in the Quran- of which 27 are Makkan and 2 (Baqarah and Ali-‘Imran) are Madinan. These letters are formed by 14 different letters in total. They appear in the beginning of these chapters in groups of one, two, three, four, or five, and are seen in 13 different forms. Let’s give examples in connection with the numbers of the letters.

1) Single letter: ص (Sad)   ق (Qaf)  ٓن (Qalam)

2) Two letter:  طٓس (Naml)  يــٓس (Yasin)  حٓم (Mumin, Fussilat, Jathiyah, Ahqaf, Zukhruf, Dukhan) ٰطه (Taha)

3) Three letter:  الٓــٓم (Baqara, Al-I Imran, Ankabut, Rum, Luqman, Sajdah)  الٓــٰر (Yunus, Hud, Yusuf, Ibrahim, Hjr)  ٰط ٓســٓم (Qasas, Shu’ara)

4) Four letters:  الٓــٓم ٓص (A’raf)  الٓــٓمٰر (Ra’d)

5) Fiveletters:  كـــٰهـٰيـٓعـٓص (Maryam)  حٓم۞ٓعـٓسـٓق (Shuraa)

Let’s start practicing 😊: