مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - A Pamphlet on the Use of abjad Calculations in Hurufism

Abstract :

The attribution of hidden meanings to letters and numbers has been a practice of humankind from the dawn of literacy onwards. One can observe some scholars attributing hidden meanings to letters and trying to explain existence in this way. Most remarkable among them are the interpretations in the 14th century by Fazlullah-ı Esterâbâdî, the founder of the system known as Hurufism. Fazlullah correlated the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet and the 32 letters of Persian with hair on human face, joints of fingers, peacetime, voyage and Friday prayers and he developed his peculiar way of interpreting the Kur’an. Hurufis, benefiting from the relation between certain numbers and features of the human beings face; from the letters given in the beginning of the verses of most sections of Qur an; from the lines believed to divide everything into two and from completely subjective connotations developed a system deeply influencing Turkish literature and culture and the history of belief. Hurufi’s also occasionally employed abjad calculations. However, to date we have found no substantive study concerning the Hurufis’ approach in respect to abjad, which was usually employed to record dates, for fortune telling, for witchcraft and in the writing of amulets, was a resource for the Hurufis. In this work, a pamphlet explaining the uses of abjad in Hurufism is issued to permit a better understanding of Hurufis’ peculiar interpretations.