only what their eyes see and who have no ear to hear with, no heart to feel with, and no knowledge to judge with, the Qur’an alludes to its miraculousness in a fashion.1 It is like this:
In the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition handwritten by the calligrapher Hafiz Osman and later printed, many of the words look to one another. For example, if a needle is passed through the word “dog” in the phrase “they were seven, the dog being the eighth” in Sura al-Kahf (18:22) and through the underlying pages, with a slight deviation it will go through the word “Qitmir” in Sura al-Fatir (35:13), thus establishing the dog’s name. In a similar way, the words “they will be all brought before us” (muhdarun-in) occur twice in Sura Ya. Sin. (36:32, 53, 75), the first overlying the second. The same words are again repeated twice in Sura al-Saffat (37:57, 127), and these look both to each other and to those in Sura Ya. Sin. Also, the phrase “in pairs” (mathnà) occurs only three times in the Qur’an, and two of these corresponding cannot be mere coincidence.2 There are numerous similar examples. One word even coincides with slight deviation on five or six underlying pages. I have seen a copy of the Qur’an in which passages looking to one another on facing pages were written in red ink. At that time I said that that too indicated another sort of miracle. Some time later I saw that many phrases looked to others on the reverse of pages, corresponding to one another in a meaningful way. Thus, since the arrangement of the Qur’an in the writing and script of printed copies of the Qur’an also is through the guidance of the Prophet (UWBP) and divine inspiration, it is a sort of sign of its miraculousness. For it is neither the work of chance, nor of the human mind. Sometimes there are deviations, but that is generally the fault of the printing and if it had been absolutely in order, the words would have corresponded to one another exactly.
Furthermore, on every page of the Qur’an’s Suras of long and medium length which were revealed in Medina, the word “Allah” has been repeated in the most wondrous manner. In addition to being repeated mostly five, six, seven, eight, nine or eleven times on the same page, the repetitions of
Here the mention of the aspect of its miraculousness directed to those without ear, heart and knowledge, and who see only with their eyes, is extremely concise, abbreviated, and even deficient. But it has been demonstrated most clearly and brilliantly in the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Letters,• so that even the blind can see it. We have had a copy of the Qur’an written that shows this aspect of miraculousness. God willing, it will be published, then everyone will be able to see it.
*The Thirtieth Letter had been planned and intended, but it gave up its place to Isharat al-I‘jaz (Signs of Miraculousness), while itself never materialized. (Author)
The phrase occuring towards the end of Sura al-Saba’ (34:46) corresponds to the same phrase as the beginning of Sura al-Fatir (35:1).