Quranic Letter Counter
The Quran is not merely preserved in meaning - it is preserved to the letter, and the proof is arithmetic. This counter goes through the Quran letter by letter, so you can count any of the 28 Arabic letters yourself, in any sura or range of suras, and check the counts on which the mathematical code of 19 stands.
[74:30] Over it is nineteen.
[15:9] Absolutely, we have revealed the reminder, and, absolutely, we will preserve it.
The text counted here is this website's own Quran text: 6346 verses, which is 19 × 334 - the 6234 numbered verses plus the 112 unnumbered Basmalahs. The opening of sura 68 is spelled نون (NuN), as in the oldest manuscripts, and the word bastatan in 7:69 is written with a Seen.
1. Pick a letter
The fourteen marked letters are the Quranic Initials - the letters that open 29 suras and carry the code.
2. Pick the range and options
1:1 is a numbered verse and is always counted. Sura 9 has no Basmalah. The verified counts of the code include each sura's opening Basmalah, so this stays on unless you want the numbered text alone.
Verified counts of the code
Seven famous counts from the Quranic Initials. Press one and the counter computes it live from the text above - nothing is hard-coded.
How the letters are counted
The counter counts the letters as they are written, after removing every diacritic and superscript mark - the vowel signs, the shadda, and the small dagger alif are pronunciation aids, not written letters. A doubled letter written once with a shadda therefore counts once, exactly as written.
Written forms are classified the way the published counting method classifies them. The hamza comes in seven written forms, and only the first three are alif: a free-standing hamza counts as alif; a hamza seated on an extension of the line counts as alif; and a hamza written between the lam and the alif counts as alif. A hamza seated on a tooth (nabra), above it or below it, counts as ya, and a hamza seated on a ya counts as ya. A hamza seated on a waw counts as waw. Beyond the hamza: an alif in any of its written shapes counts as alif, including the wasla and the madda; the alif maqsura, the dotless ya at the end of words, counts as ya; and the ta marbuta, the closed final ta, counts as ha - as it is written. Where the display shows a bare hamza, that is a seated hamza kept as a written letter.
As one check of the whole method: the Basmalah counted by these rules is exactly 19 letters.
A note on the alif: unlike every other letter, the alif's written count depends on spelling conventions that varied between the old manuscripts and the modern print - words such as Salat and Zakat are written with a waw standing for a spoken alif. The published alif tallies of the code follow the spoken alifs of the revelation; this counter reports what stands written in the text. For every other letter, the written count and the published count agree exactly.
Companion studies: Is the Quran the 19th Scripture?, The Perpetual Miracle of the Quran, and The Two False Verses.