I have deferred a discussion of these letters to Surah...

I have deferred a discussion of these letters to Surah Ha-Mim-‘Ayn-Sin-Qaf ( Surah al-Shawra ), in the hope that by then God will have unraveled this secret for us—that is of course if death permits. But why did we choose that Surah ? It is because that Surah treats of the nature of Revelation and Divine inspiration and is thus related to the topic in question.

Nonetheless, what has been dawned upon us in regard to these letters up to the present is that there is a peculiar connection between these letters and the content and purpose of the surah s they open. For instance, there seems to be a common thread running through the surah s that begin with Alif Lam Mim . The same holds true in regard to the surah s that share, for instance, the opening letters Alif Lam Ra or Ha Mim .

The surah s that share common separate letters have a discernible similarity in content that does not exist among other surah s. An interesting observation in this relation is that Surah al-A‘raf , beginning with the separate letters Alif Lam Mim Sad bears unmistakable similarities in content to both the group of surah s beginning with Alif Lam Mim and those beginning with Sad . This is what we have come to so far; the details are, however, still unclear.

We hope that God would unveil for us the truth.[^7] Desecrating the Qur’an Question Recently, there has been a trend among publishers in Iran to print certain figures and symbols as spells along with the Qur’an. Furthermore, they attribute amazing qualities to them, claiming that they have been established by the Prophet and the Imams. Are these figures based on authentic Islamic sources? Do they really bring about the effects that are claimed for them?

Let me also ask you about the pictures that are purportedly of the Prophet and the Imams: is it right to print them with the Qur’an (as publishes these days seem to find appealing)? Answer Such figures and symbols, whether printed along with the Qur’an or separately, are unfounded and lack religious sanction. The effects claimed for these formulas are either false—as in the case of looking at the “seal of prophethood”—or based on unverifiable sources.

Thus, to print such falsehoods along with the Qur’an is a desecration and a great sin. The same is true of the purported pictures of the Prophet and the Imams. The fundamental issue here is that the Qur’an is the word of God; it is the central source of Islamic doctrine.