Among the initial lettered suras, only three have one letter as their first verses. These three letters are “Sad,” “Qaf” and “Noon.” These letters are used in the 38th, 50th and 68th suras. We shall now examine the letter “Sad.” The sura that begins with the letter “Sad” is called also “Sad.”
The letter “Sad” is used in the 38th sura by itself and it is also used in the combination “Alif-Lam-Meem-Sad” in the sura “The Purgatory,” which is the 7th sura, and in the combination “Kaf-He-Ya-Ayn-Sad” in the sura “Mary,” which is the 19th sura. The total number of occurrences of the letter “Sad” used in these 3 suras is 152 (19×8). This number is a multiple of 19.
| The total “Sad” letters in the suras which have “Sad” initials | |||
|
7th sura |
19th sura “Mary” |
38th sura “Sad” |
Total |
|
97 + |
26 + |
29 |
= 152 |
If you count the letter “Sad” in some copies of the Quran, you will see that there are not 97 but, 98 “Sad”s in the sura “The Purgatory.” The reason for this is that the word “Bastatan” was written with the letter “Sad” instead of “Seen” by mistake in the 69th verse. In many copies, the letter “Seen” was added over that word and an explanation was written next to this word. This explanation says “Yuqrau bi-s seeni,” that is to say, you should read this word with the letter “Seen” even though it is written with “Sad.” So there are people who claim that the word “Bastatan” in the 69th verse of the sura “The Purgatory” is written with the letter “Sad” and pronounced with the letter “Seen” and some others say the word “Bastatan” is written with both letters “Sad” and “Seen.”
In one of the oldest copies of Quran, the Tashkent copy, the word “Bastatan” <strong>is written with </strong>“<em>Seen.</em>”
The Quran is not the work of man. It is the revelation of God and the code 19 solves the problem in this verse. This word is written with “Seen” in Arabic dictionaries. After the code 19 was discovered concerning the initial letters, an old copy of the Quran was examined to solve this problem. It was discovered that the word “Bastatan” was written with the letter “Seen” in the Tashkent copy of the Quran, one of the oldest copies in the world. It is understood that, while copying the Quran, certain copyists confused the letter “Sad” with the letter “Seen.” We assume that the person who noticed this mistake wrote the letter “Seen” over the letter “Sad” to correct this mistake, yet people copying the Quran wrote it with the letter “Sad,” as they did not understand that a correction had been made in the spelling of this word. However, this word was written with the letter “Seen” in some copies of the Quran. It is clear that there were discussions on this topic because a hadith was fabricated that says that it is correct to write the word “Bastatan” with the letter “Sad.” The code 19 solves this problem and proves that all these hadiths were fabricated.
There are some lessons to be taken from this correction:
1. The code 19 finds and corrects even the smallest mistakes performed by man in the Quran.
2. The code 19 is not a mere embellishment. It is a miraculous code having active, protective and corrective duties.
3. It is clear that God protects the Quran as He says: “Surely, We have sent down Reminder, We. And We will assuredly guard it” in the 9th verse of the sura “Al-Hijr,” which is the 15th sura of the Quran. The Quran is protected with the code 19 and other mathematical miracles. Man can make mistakes. The code that God draws attention to and placed into the Quran corrects these mistakes (The mistake in the word “Bastatan” is good proof of the fact that human beings had made mistakes while they were copying the Quran, but the mathematical code corrected them).