The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/ alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been used in the Arabic-speaking world since before the eighth century when positional

Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such a ...

were adopted. In modern Arabic, the word ' () means ' alphabet' in general. In the Abjad system, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet,

ʾalif Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez . These lett ...

, is used to represent 1; the second letter,

bāʾ Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Bēt , Hebrew Bēt , Aramaic Bēth , Syriac Bēṯ , and Arabic . Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fric ...

, 2, up to 9. Letters then represent the first nine intervals of 10s and those of the 100s: yāʾ for 10,

kāf Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp , Hebrew kāf , Aramaic kāp , Syriac kāp̄ , and Arabic kāf (in abjadi order). The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek kappa (Κ), L ...

for 20, qāf for 100, ending with 1000. The word '' ʾabjad'' () itself derives from the first four letters (A-B-J-D) of the Semitic alphabet, including the

Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fert ...

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

, and other scripts for

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant ...

. These older alphabets contained only 22 letters, stopping at taw, numerically equivalent to 400. The Arabic Abjad system continues at this point with letters not found in other alphabets: thāʾ= 500, etc. Abjad numerals in Arabic are similar to the earlier alphanumeric codes of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

isopsephy.

Abjad order

The Abjad order of the Arabic alphabet has two slightly different variants. The Abjad order is not a simple historical continuation of the earlier north Semitic alphabetic order, since it has a position corresponding to the Aramaic letter ''

samekh Samekh (Phoenician ''sāmek'' ; Hebrew ''samekh'' , Syriac ''semkaṯ'') is the fifteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including the Hebrew alphabet. Samekh represents a voiceless alveolar fricative . Unlike most Semitic consonants, the p ...

/ semkat'' , yet no letter of the Arabic alphabet historically derives from that letter. Loss of ' was compensated for by the split of ' into two independent Arabic letters, (') and ('), which moved up to take the place of '. The most common Abjad sequence, read from right to left, is: This is commonly vocalized as follows:مصر :*. Another vocalization is: :* Another Abjad sequence (probably older, now mainly confined to the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

), is:Alyaseer.net Ordering entries and cards in subject indexes
Discussion thread ''(Accessed 2009-Oct-06)'' which can be vocalized as: :* Another vocalization is: :* ;Competing order Modern dictionaries and other reference books use the newer ' () order, which partially groups letters together by similarity of shape: A now-dated ' Maghreb order exists (replaced by the Mashriqi order): Persian dictionaries use a slightly different

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

, in which و comes before ه instead of after it.

Uses of the Abjad system

Before the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the abjad as numbers were used for all mathematical purposes. In modern Arabic, they are primarily used for numbering

outlines Outline or outlining may refer to: * Outline (list), a document summary, in hierarchical list format * Code folding, a method of hiding or collapsing code or text to see content in outline form * Outline drawing, a sketch depicting the outer edg ...

, items in lists, and points of information. Equivalent to English, "A.", "B.", and "C." (or, rarer, Roman numerals: I, II, III, IV), in Arabic, thus "", then "", then "", not the first three letters of the modern ' order. The abjad numbers are also used to assign numerical values to Arabic words for purposes of

numerology Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...

. The common Islamic phrase ' ('In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate' – see

Basmala The ''Basmala'' ( ar, بَسْمَلَة, ; also known by its incipit ; , "In the name of Allah"), or Tasmiyyah (Arabic: ), is the titular name of the Islamic phrase "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" (Arabic: , ) ...

) has a numeric value of 786 (from a letter-by-letter cumulative value of 2+60+40+1+30+30+5+1+30+200+8+40+50+1+30+200+8+10+40). The name

Allāh Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", an ...

by itself has the value 66 (1+30+30+5).

Letter values

A few of the numerical values are different in the alternative Abjad order: For four

Persian letters ''Persian Letters'' (french: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France ...

these values are used:

Similar systems

The Abjad numerals are equivalent to the earlier

Hebrew numerals The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BCE. The current numeral system is also known as ...

up to 400. The Hebrew numeral system is known as

Gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

and is used in

Kabbalistic Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

texts and numerology. Like the Abjad order, it is used in modern times for numbering outlines and points of information, including the first six days of the week. The

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to those ...

differ in a number of ways from the Abjad ones (for instance in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

there is no equivalent for , '). The

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...

system of letters-as-numbers is called isopsephy. In modern times the old 27-letter alphabet of this system also continues to be used for numbering lists.

References

External links