Structure · a Light

The opening formula appears exactly 114 times

Every chapter of the Qur'an opens with the basmala, in the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, except chapter 9, Surah al-Tawba, which begins without it. So the formula heads 113 chapters. It occurs once more inside the text, in Surah al-Naml, where the queen of Saba reads out the letter that has reached her and quotes its opening: it is from Sulayman, and it is in the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. That brings the total in the book to 114, the number of chapters. The one occurrence that is not a heading is a quotation from a letter between two heads of state.

Surah al-Naml, verse 30

Source · Qur'an 27:30