Introduction
Among the arguments advanced by certain Christian missionaries against the divine origin of the Qur’an is the allegation that the mysterious letters appearing at the beginnings of several Qur’anic chapters were borrowed from earlier Samaritan religious or magical practices. This allegation is sometimes attributed to the Orientalist Moses Gaster (1856-1939), whose research into Samaritan manuscripts, amulets, and religious traditions is invoked as evidence that the Qur’an incorporated pre-existing magical formulas.
The letters in question are known as al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿah (الحروف المقطعة), or disjointed letters. They include Alif Lām Mīm (الم), Alif Lām Rā (الر), Ḥā Mīm (حم), and Kāf Hā Yā ʿAyn Ṣād (كهيعص).
According to the allegation, these letters originated from a method of employing initials or symbolic abbreviations in Samaritan literature, allegedly connected with amulets, incantations, and divination. The argument attributed to Gaster states: “They are either initials selected from the text, or a collection of letters taken from these initials and placed at the beginning of the surah, as is the case in the Samaritan Sharīʿah (Qissah).” The passage is cited by proponents as Encyclopaedia of Islam, “Samaria,” 11/93.[1]
However, this argument confuses similarity with borrowing, fails to establish the necessary historical connection, and overlooks both the Qur’anic context and the extensive discussions within classical Islamic scholarship. The existence of mysterious or abbreviated letters in other religious traditions is not, in itself, evidence against the divine origin of the Qur’an.
The short answer
There has been an amazing discovery that sheds light on the literary genius of the Qur’an in regard to these disjointed letters. This alone should be a refutation of the weak argument but we shall discuss it in detail below.
The disjointed letters in the Qur’an
The disjointed letters appear at the beginning of twenty-nine chapters of the Qur’an. They comprise fourteen distinct Arabic letters arranged into different combinations, ranging from a single letter to five letters.[2]
Examples include الم (2:1), المص (7:1), الر (10:1), كهيعص (19:1), طه (20:1), حم (40:1), ق (50:1), and ن (68:1). Unlike ordinary Arabic words, these letters are generally recited individually by their alphabetic names.
Their precise significance has been discussed extensively by Muslim exegetes. Some considered their ultimate meaning known to Allah (ﷻ) alone; others understood them as abbreviations, names of chapters, references to divine attributes, or rhetorical devices. Muslim scholars were neither unaware of these letters nor incapable of discussing them. Their interpretations were recorded centuries before modern Orientalist scholarship.
The Qur’an does not present these letters as magical instructions, incantations, or divinatory formulas. They appear as part of the revealed text and are frequently followed by statements about revelation, scripture, or the Qur’an itself.
What Moses Gaster’s research actually establishes
Moses Gaster was a scholar of Jewish and Samaritan literature whose research included Samaritan manuscripts and amulets containing biblical passages, divine names, symbolic letters, and mystical arrangements. The existence of such material is not disputed.
The Encyclopaedia Judaica entry on Samaritan amulets describes Gaster’s acquisition of a collection in 1905 and discusses divine names, angelic names, and formulas related to biblical passages.[3] The John Rylands Library preserves Gaster Samaritan MS 2012, an amulet for healing containing biblical passages and magical squares, catalogued as nineteenth–twentieth century.[4] Another object, Gaster Amulet 46, includes biblical verses, divine names, and a magical square and is likewise dated to the nineteenth–twentieth century.[5]
These materials establish that some Samaritan communities used religious writing in amuletic and magical contexts. They do not establish that the Qur’anic disjointed letters were borrowed from those practices. The existence of Samaritan amulets is a historical observation; the assertion that the Qur’an borrowed its opening letters from Samaritan magic is a separate hypothesis requiring independent evidence.
Similarity does not establish borrowing
Abbreviations, initials, alphabetic symbols, and acrostics occur across languages and literary traditions. Their mere appearance at the beginning of a text does not identify their source. To establish dependence, one would ordinarily require distinctive correspondence, chronological priority, and a plausible route of transmission.
What Samaritan expression supposedly corresponds to الم? What accounts for كهيعص? Why do several chapters begin with حم? What Samaritan system predicts these particular arrangements? Without such answers, the relationship remains a conjecture based on general resemblance.
The statement that Samaritan writers employed symbolic letters does not logically entail that the Qur’an derived its own combinations from them.
The chronological difficulty
The Qur’an belongs to the seventh century CE. A borrowing argument must therefore demonstrate that the relevant Samaritan practice existed before or contemporaneously with Qur’anic revelation. Modern surviving amulets cannot independently establish the existence of precisely the same practice more than twelve centuries earlier.
This does not mean Samaritan mystical traditions originated in the nineteenth century. Later manuscripts may preserve older material. But antiquity must be demonstrated rather than assumed. Gaster himself acknowledged difficulties in dating Samaritan manuscripts and the limitations of available comparative evidence.[6]
A securely dated pre-Islamic Samaritan parallel would establish chronological possibility, not by itself historical dependence. The missionary claim still requires a specific correspondence and a route of transmission.
The Qur’anic context differs from a magical function
Many chapters beginning with disjointed letters immediately introduce revelation or scripture. Sūrat al-Baqarah begins: “Alif Lām Mīm. This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah” (2:1–2). Sūrat Yūsuf begins: “Alif Lām Rā. These are the verses of the clear Book” (12:1). Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ opens: “Ṭā Sīn Mīm. These are the verses of the clear Book” (26:1–2). Sūrat Ṣād begins: “Ṣād. By the Qur’an containing the reminder” (38:1).
These passages demonstrate a recurring relationship between the letters and the Qur’an’s presentation of itself as revelation. Some Muslim commentators therefore understood the letters as drawing attention to the fact that the Qur’an is composed of the Arabic letters familiar to its audience, despite the challenge to produce something comparable.
By contrast, the Samaritan objects in question are identifiable as protective or healing amulets. The Qur’anic passages contain no corresponding instruction to construct talismans or perform divination. An outward resemblance does not establish identical function.
Later magical use does not establish original purpose
Sacred passages have been incorporated into amulets, protective inscriptions, and healing practices across religious traditions. Later use of scripture in an amulet does not establish that the scripture was originally composed as a magical formula.
The obscurity of the Qur’anic letters may itself have made them attractive to later esoteric interpreters. It is entirely possible that the letters first appeared in the Qur’anic text, acquired sacred status through that context, and were later employed in amuletic practices.
Samaritan amulets themselves incorporate biblical verses and divine names.[3] Yet their appearance on amulets does not demonstrate that the biblical verses originated as magical formulas. The same standard should be applied to the Qur’an.
Classical Muslim scholars discussed the letters
Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH/923 CE) recorded early explanations connecting the letters with divine names and abbreviated expressions.[7] Al-Qurṭubī discussed multiple interpretations, while Ibn Kathīr (d. 774 AH/1373 CE) summarized the disagreement and explained that no interpretation had secured universal agreement.[8]
Ibn Kathīr also discussed the explanation that the letters emphasize the miraculous nature of the Qur’an: it consists of familiar Arabic letters, yet opponents cannot produce a comparable revelation. He associated versions of this view with earlier authorities including al-Mubarrid, al-Farrāʾ, Quṭrub, al-Zamakhsharī, and al-Rāzī, as well as Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Mizzī.[8]
The Qur’an challenges its opponents: “If you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our servant, then produce a surah like it” (2:23); and “If mankind and the jinn gathered together to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce its like” (17:88).
Other scholars preferred to suspend judgment about the precise meaning. The Qur’an itself distinguishes clear and ambiguous passages (3:7). Uncertainty about an expression’s interpretation does not prove foreign derivation.
Modern scholarship has not conclusively resolved the matter
Keith Massey’s entry “Mysterious Letters” in the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān surveys competing explanations, including abbreviations and divine names, without establishing a single universally satisfactory interpretation.[9]
Martin Nguyen’s study of Sunni interpretations demonstrates the diversity and intellectual depth of the exegetical tradition and questions the neglect of this material in some modern approaches.[10] Halim Sayoud’s computational investigation likewise did not produce a definitive explanation.[11]
These studies do not prove any one Islamic interpretation. They do undermine the claim that Gaster conclusively solved the letters’ origins or that Muslim scholars failed to engage with them.
The burden of proof rests on those alleging borrowing
The allegation that the Qur’anic letters originated from Samaritan magic is a positive historical claim requiring evidence. It is not established by the absence of a universally accepted Muslim interpretation.
Its proponents must identify a specific Samaritan source; establish its relevant pre-Islamic dating; demonstrate meaningful correspondence with the actual Qur’anic combinations; explain transmission into seventh-century Arabia; and account for the different literary contexts and functions.
Even an earlier parallel would not, without more, prove copying. Nor would historical similarity alone settle the theological question of revelation. The Qur’an itself presents itself as confirming earlier scripture (5:48). The question is whether this particular derivation has been historically demonstrated. On the evidence cited, it has not.
Conclusion
Gaster’s research provides evidence that Samaritan communities used symbolic letters, divine names, biblical passages, and mystical arrangements in religious and magical contexts. But those observations do not establish that the Qur’an borrowed its opening letters from Samaritan magic.
The proposed derivation lacks a demonstrated specific correspondence, secure dating of the alleged precedent, a plausible transmission history, and an adequate account of the Qur’anic literary setting. Classical Muslim scholars discussed the letters at length, and modern scholarship continues to treat their precise significance as unresolved.
Muslims need not establish the exact meaning of every disjointed letter to reject an unsupported borrowing claim. The burden of proving Samaritan derivation rests on those asserting it.
The absence of certainty concerning the meaning of the disjointed letters is not evidence of their Samaritan origin. A mystery is not solved merely by attaching it to another mystery.
Indeed, Allah (ﷻ) knows best.
References and footnotes:
[1] Alleged quotation attributed to Moses Gaster, cited as Encyclopaedia of Islam, “Samaria,” 11/93. Disclaimer: The late dates of surviving amulets do not establish when the underlying practices originated.
[2] Martin Nguyen, “Exegesis of the ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa: Polyvalency in Sunnī Traditions of Qur’anic Interpretation,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 1–28. DOI: 10.3366/jqs.2012.0053.
[3]Theodore Schrire, “Amulets, Samaritan,” Encyclopaedia Judaica.
[4] John Rylands Research Institute and Library, “Amulet for Healing,” Gaster Samaritan MS 2012.
[5] John Rylands Research Institute and Library, “Amulet for Protection,” Gaster Amulet 46.
[6] Moses Gaster, “A Samaritan MS. of the Second or Third Century: A Palæographic Study,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
[7] Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āy al-Qurʾān, commentary on Qur’an 2:1.
[8] Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, commentary on Qur’an 2:1.
[9] Keith Massey, “Mysterious Letters,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill), vol. 3, 471–477.
[10] Martin Nguyen, “Exegesis of the ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 1–28.
[11] Halim Sayoud, “Investigation on the Mystery of the Qur’an’s Disjointed Letters,” QURANICA: International Journal of Quranic Research 5, no. 2 (2013).
