History of Abjad Numerals: Arab, Persian, Ottoman and Islamic Tradition

Today, when we write a page number, a year or a price, we reach for the digits 0 to 9 without a second thought. Yet for centuries people writing in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish either had no separate set of digits or did not use one everywhere: the letters themselves were also numbers. Alif meant one, ba two, jim three. The history of Abjad is the story of these signs that were both letter and number.

An Order Older Than Arabic: the Semitic Trace

The first surprise about the Abjad sequence is that it does not match the familiar order of the Arabic alphabet. Dictionaries arrange the letters so that similar shapes sit together: alif, ba, ta, tha. The Abjad order instead runs alif, ba, jim, dal, ha, waw, zay… This order is not Arabic in origin; it is the letter order of the much older Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets. The same order survives in the Hebrew and Syriac alphabets.

These Northwest Semitic alphabets had 22 letters, and writing numbers with them was a known practice in the region before separate digits became widespread. Hebrew has kept its tradition of letter numerals to this day, and the Greeks used their own alphabet as numbers in a similar way. Reading a letter as a number, in other words, was not an Arab invention but a shared inheritance of the Mediterranean and the Near East.

Into Arabic: Eight Words to Remember

When Arabic script inherited this old order, the letters were grouped into eight words with no meaning of their own, simply to make the sequence easy to memorise. Learners passed this chant down from generation to generation; it was the gateway to Abjad:

Look closely and one detail stands out: the first six words cover 22 letters, and the last letter of Qarashat, ta (ت), stops at 400. That is no accident: the final letter of the old Semitic alphabet was also worth 400. The six letters that exist in Arabic but had no counterpart in Aramaic, namely tha, kha, dhal, dad, za and ghayn, were appended at the end as "Thakhadh" and "Dazagh" and given the values 500 to 1000. This completed the 28-letter system; added together, the values of all the letters come to 5995.

One note: in the Maghreb, that is North Africa and al-Andalus, some of the final letters were arranged in a different order, so a few letters carry different values there. The values used in Turkey and on this site are the eastern ones, known as the great Abjad (ebced-i kebir).

How Did You Write a Number with Letters?

A number was broken into its place values and the letter for each part was written side by side, usually from the largest value to the smallest. The number 1446, for example, is built like this:

• 1000 → غ (ghayn)
• 400 → ت (ta)
• 40 → م (mim)
• 6 → و (waw)

Result: غتمو. A reader knew from the context, such as a table column or a stated year, that this cluster of letters was a number and not a word.

Where this method truly thrived was astronomy. Throughout the Middle Ages, astronomical tables (zij) compiled in the Islamic world recorded degrees and minutes in Abjad letters for a long time. Letters took up little space, fitted narrow table columns and offered copyists a system they were used to. Even after digits of Indian origin had spread, the habit lived on in many astronomical texts.

A name turns into a number by the same logic: the values of its letters are added up. If a scribe could write the position of a star in letters, the letters of your name also carry a number. In the tradition, when that number is read together with your mother's name, it reveals your star chart sign and a reading of your temperament.

The Arrival of Indian Digits and a New Role for Abjad

Under the Abbasids, in the ninth century, the decimal digit system of Indian origin became known in the Islamic world; al-Khwarizmi's work on Indian reckoning is one of the well-known milestones of this process. With zero and place value, this system made calculating with large numbers far easier, and over time the new digits took the lead in trade and arithmetic.

Abjad did not disappear, however; its role changed. Digits were used for calculation, Abjad letters for meaning. The fact that a number could match a word, and a word a number, opened a door to poetry, inscriptions and mystical interpretation.

Abjad in Persian and Ottoman Culture

Persian script added four letters to the Arabic alphabet: پ (pe), چ (che), ژ (zhe) and گ (gaf). In Abjad these letters have no values of their own; each takes the value of the base letter it resembles: pe 2, che 3, zhe 7, gaf 20. Ottoman Turkish followed the same practice.

The most elegant meeting of Abjad with Persian and Ottoman literature is the chronogram: a line of verse or a phrase is composed so that the sum of its letters gives the year of an event. Such lines are common on the inscriptions of mosques, fountains and tombs. We cover this art with examples in a separate article; here it is enough to say that it shows Abjad turning from a numeral system into a measure of elegance.

At a Glance: the Journey of Abjad

1. The millennia before the Common Era: the 22-letter order takes shape in the Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets and passes on to Hebrew and Syriac script.
2. Antiquity: letters are also used to write numbers in the region; the Hebrew and Greek traditions are well-known examples.
3. Before and in the early Islamic period: Arabic script inherits the old order, six letters are added at the end and the eight-word memory sequence becomes established.
4. Throughout the Middle Ages: Abjad letters serve as numerals in astronomical tables and manuscripts; from the ninth century, Indian digits spread.
5. The Persian and Ottoman world: پ چ ژ گ take the values of their base letters; chronograms and inscriptions flourish.
6. The modern era: digits fully dominate everyday arithmetic; in Turkey the 1928 alphabet reform removes Arabic letters from daily writing. Abjad lives on in name calculation, literature and cultural heritage.

What Did the Scholars Say?

Muslim scholars accepted Abjad as a numeral system and a literary art without difficulty. They were cautious, however, about drawing firm conclusions about the future from letter values, reminding people that knowledge of the unseen belongs to God alone. Name readings in the Abjad tradition should be understood in the same spirit: a number can offer thought-provoking hints about a person's temperament, but it does not bind their fate. For a general reference, see the article "Ebced" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.

Where Is Abjad Today?

The Abjad sequence still lives on quietly. The Arabic word for "alphabet", abjadiyya, comes straight from it. In Arab countries, official documents and books still number their clauses أ، ب، ج، د instead of a, b, c. And in linguistics, scripts that write only consonants are generally called "abjads".

Yet the most personal use of Abjad is in names. A name beginning with alif meets a number, and in the tradition that number meets a world of meaning. The value of your letters can also be compared with the verses of the Quran.

Note: This article is an informational overview of the history of Abjad. In the tradition, Abjad readings are a tool for reflection; they carry no certainty, prophecy or guarantee.