Letters · a Light

Twenty nine chapters open with letters nobody can explain

Alif Lam Mim. Ha Mim. Kaf Ha Ya Ayn Sad. Nun. Twenty nine chapters of the Qur'an begin with strings of disconnected Arabic letters, recited by name rather than sounded as a word. Fourteen of the twenty eight letters are used, in fourteen different combinations, and Alif Lam Mim and Ha Mim each appear six times. The classical commentators offer many readings: names of God, abbreviations, a challenge pointing out that the book is built from the same letters its opponents use, a signal that recitation is beginning. A great many early scholars declined to explain them and said their meaning rests with God. It is the one part of the text that has never been decoded.

Al-huruf al-muqatta'a, 29 chapters

Source · Commentators differ widely over the disconnected letters, and many of the earliest authorities declined to interpret them at all.