This was merely the practice of some of our pious predecessors in India who decided to use the Abjad method and came up with the number 786. This arrangement of the Abjad method was done much later, most probably in the 3rd century of Hijrah during the ‘Abbasid period, following other Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, etc. The interesting thing to know here is that this practice is not from the time of the Prophet nor mentioned in Quran. If we add all these numeric values, the sum total would be 786 and that is how this number is used as a shorter or numeric form of the phrase “”Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim” Significance of the Number & its Origin
We are taking all the letters used in the phrase and the arithmetic values assigned to it. How 786 is equal to Bismillah?īased on the numeric values above, if we break “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim” in arithmetic values, we would get the following numbers. Hamza is not included in the table above because it has the same numeric value as Alif because it is the letter that marks the glottal stop in Arabic. So if we are to look at the complete Arabic alphabet, the arithmetic values assigned as per the Abjad method are as follows: In this method, the letters are arranged in the following order, Abjad, Hawwaz, Hutti, Kalaman, Sa’fas, Qarshat, Sakhaz, Zazagh. This value necessarily is from one to one thousand. This method is known as Abjad or ordinal method in which each letter of the alphabet has an arithmetic value assigned to it. There is however another and a lesser known method of arranging Arabic letters. Same way, the Arabic alphabet is arranged as Alif, ba, ta, tha etc where Alif always comes as the first letter. Here A always comes first and Z always the last. Like the English alphabet is arranged as A, B, C, D to Z.
In this method, we put the letters in a certain order. One is Alphabetical method which also applies to all other alphabets of other languages.
The same way, there are two known ways of arranging the Arabic alphabet. If you are to arrange these letters in numeric order, then A would be number 1, B would be number 2, C number 3, and so on with Z finally getting assigned the number 26. For example, English Alphabet has 26 letters from A to Z. The explanation behind this lies in the numeric or chronological order of the Arabic alphabet. The question however that even most of the Muslims would not be able to answer is that how does 786 mean Bismillah? How does “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim” shortens up to 786? The Meaning of 786 in Islam While most of the people of other faiths would not really know the reason behind it, Muslims would understand the significance as this number is believed to be a shorter or numeric form of the Arabic phrase “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim” which literally translates into “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful”. Irrespective of which religion an individual belongs to, most of the people here consider this number as “holy” or “lucky”. 786 is probably the most popular number in the Indian subcontinent.