Followers of Khalifa claim that the Basmallah has 19 letters. Many scholars consider it to have 21 letters. I think both viewpoints have their merits. To make clear what the two different views are, excerpts of two newsgroup postings.

In article <4o4tn2$3np@shellx.best.com>, kwirasub@worldbank.org 
(kwirasub) writes:

I am not a Khalifite and not a scholar in Arabic, but it seems to me
there are 19 letters in basmallah, they are:

1.  ba
2.  sin
3.  mim
4.  alif
5.  lam
6.  lam
7.  ha (27th letter in the arabic alphabet)
8.  alif
9.  lam
10. ra
11. ha (6th letter in the arabic alphabet)
12. mim
13. nun
14. alif
15. lam
16. ra
17. ha (6th letter in the arabic alphabet)
18. ya
19. mim

Correct me if I am wrong.

In article <4ofh6i$bki@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, AzharK1557@aol.com writes:

1.  ba         B            2
2.  sin        S           60
3.  mim        M           40
4.  alif       A            1       
5.  lam        L           30
6.  lam        L           30
7.  ha         H            5
8.  alif       A            1
9.  lam        L           30
10. ra         R          200
11. hae        HH           8
12. mim        M           40
13. nun        N           50
14. alif       A            1
15. lam        L           30
16. ra         R          200
17. hae        HH           8
18. ya         Y           10
19. mim        M           40 
    
     Total GV             786

 
In article <4o5li7$djc@shellx.best.com>, qabbany@wimsey.com 
(Moustafa Elqabbany) writes:

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.

> I am not a Khalifite and not a scholar in Arabic, but it seems to me
> there are 19 letters in basmallah, they are ...

There are actually 21 characters. One of the two you are missing is the
alif (maqsoura) after the <.hA'>  of <al-rra.hm_aN> . All scholars of Arabic
count this as a letter, since it is essential to the pronunciation of the
word.  If you ask any scholar of Arabic how many letter there are in the
word <h_a_dA>  ("this"), he/she will respond ‘four’. The fact that this alif
is shortened (maqsoura) does not mean it is not a letter.  In fact, there
are many words that are written with alif maqsoura in the Qur'an that are
written with a full alif in standard Arabic.  Some examples are:

Meaning			In Qur'an		In Standard Arabic
******************************************************************
master,owner		m_alik			mAlik
skies			sam_aw_at		samAwAt
Oh (used for calling)	y_a			yA

(There are others, but these are what come to mind immediately.)  This
indicates the complete equivalence of the alif maqsoura and the full alif
in sound and count.  There is no one who knows Arabic who will tell you 
that that the Arabic word for "master" has only three letters, because it 
has four. Similarly, there is no one that will tell you that the Arabic 
word for "Oh" has only one letter, since it has two.

Also, 786 is used a lot of the time in place of the basmallah.  

While I don't condone this practice, 7+8+6 = 21, not 19!   
Salaam,
Moustafa

as well as 786 = 2 x 3 x 131 i.e. not a multiple of 19!

The question now is: Who is right/wrong? The Qur'an with its "deficient" orthography that doesn't display all the letters that are spoken? Or regular orthography which goes against the "revealed" spelling of words?

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