The Islamic World and Quranic interpretation with electronic brain

Picture of Dr. Rashad Khalifa and his mother during Hajj pilgrimage

The newspaper editorial note: Interpretation of the Holy Quran’s chapters (suras), i.e., those which start with initialed letters through an electronic brain (host computer), was the initiative of a 37 year old Egyptian Ph.D. and scientist. The work has led to worldwide discussion, especially in scientific circles, and prompted many comments about them.

Undoubtedly the effort of the Egyptian scientist could be one of the most interesting events of the recent weeks. For the first time in Islamic history and in the world, the initial-letters at the beginning of chapters (suras) of Glorious Quran have been interpreted through electronic brains (i.e., a computer).

Dr. Rashad Khalifa made tireless efforts for three years to further his research of the Quran while working as a scientist in the United States. He programmed a computer and entered the Quran data including a set of initial letters which are mentioned in Quranic verses. This research brought out a sophisticated mathematical phenomena and discovered new facts about the Quran and initials.

Dr. Khalifa’s new scientific discoveries and extraordinary views about the initials, has been actively discussed by the scholars. Dr. Khalifa was born in a religious family in the western province of Egypt and after obtaining his degree at Ain Shams University headed to the United States of America.

He says about this exceptional and unprecedented research: “among the chapters (Suras) of the Holy Quran, there are precisely 29 initialed Suras (chapters)”. These chapters begin with the Initial letters such as Q (qaf), S (saad), N (noon). There are other letters including the five: K (kaf), H (ha), Y (ya), ‘A (ayn) and S (saad) which are known as Initial Letters. Because of their uncertainties in meaning they have so far have not been understood by the human beings and they had been read as “unknown words”.

He also noted that, his “efforts to understand the meaning of these Initials, which are also called ‘Luminous Letters’, that have been used in the Quranic chapter (suras). The results from the electronic computer made me motivated to know the truth of their existence.”

He then said, “I used the electronic brain to analyze Quran, and to obtain my results on the starting initials in a chapter or sura. And for the mathematical relationship between all the numbers corresponding to those Initialed Letters of the Arabic alphabet (which is composed of 28 characters).”

“During this study, with the help of pre-processing work by using the mathematical value of each character, I replaced the entire Arabic scripture with numbers and entered more than a million of them in to the electronic computer to extract the value and to reveal the real secret behind the “initial letters”, and why they are stated in the beginning of those chapters or suras in Quran. Undoubtedly in the future, this can assist in new interpretation. So it would be the key reason for the Islamic scholars to achieve and reach to a common point of interest on this case.”