Numbers

Now

you would think that there was more than enough

for mathematicians to deal with,

when personalised information gathering

and media manipulation

became a central issue to the fabric of human society,

with so much of the information that people consume

being tailored to them

but not necessarily for them.

More than ever they needed mathematicians

who could see the uncertainty in the data,

the bias in the algorithms,

and recognise the real chances in probabilities.

But people will always wander off into remote places,

just to explore,

and mathematicians are people much the same.

So as mathematicians explored further and further,

deeper and wider,

into the world of number,

they found that they needed specialised languages

to speak with the maths that they found there,

and so mathematics developed a variety

of mathematical specialisations

to use in describing the imaginable worlds.

Like different languages expressing shared meaning,

or accents within a language,

mathematical languages

to communicate different kinds of understanding and information.

But if number is so intrinsic to the creation that we are part of,

we would expect the Qur'an to have words about the subject,

and so it does in different ways.

Qur'an says that everything is numbered with numbers,

but in a limitless world only mentions a few.

Of course, central to all the themes of the Qur'an

is the number One,

One and one,

two sets,

the One and Only,

and the one that has others.

Then there's two,

like humans and jinn,

and two humans born of one soul,

procreating in partnership,

along with all the pairs of plant life,

and as Qur'an assures us,

pairs of what we do not know.

Binary relationships

define so much of the way we understand our life experience,

from fast and slow

to high and low, hot and cold to good and bad,

They may be relative but they still have polarity.

Three is also used with a meaning that can never be reached with finality,

for instance mentioning

without explanation

three layers of darkness in the womb,

and from the unknowable to the clearly defined,

as when pointing out that worship of the One

must not be confused and conflated with a Divine Trinity.

The Qur'an sometimes toys with the human need for precision,

telling of arguments about the exact number of those who were in the cave,

and never forgetting to add their dog

who was sleeping at the door.

Does it matter,

when the story does not have to come up with precise numbers to be true,

especially as it involves a miracle,

which by definition is outside scientific restraint.

So some numbers we will never know,

but that doesn't mean that we can't use science

to search for understandings

that we can apply to the language of the Qur'an.

Why seven heavens and earths

and what do we mean by that?

Qur'an lets us know that numbers are mysterious,

but also that number is an aspect of reality

that is quantifiable,

that the language of number

is part of our relationship with the fabric of creation.

But these are just the numbers that are mentioned in words in the Qur'an.

For those who would like to see some of the language of number itself,

there are also numerical patterns

that can be found in the letters and the words themselves.

Muslims always saw numbers throughout the Qur'an,

because

before the Arabs began using what we know as Arabic Numerals

they used letters to signify numbers,

much like the Romans,

with the letters of the alphabet each being allocated a number.

The Abjad system,

named after the letters beginning the numerical alphabet,

would have been used in the Jahiliyya

for fortune telling, magic and charms.

Written words and numbers carry great weight

in a non-literate society.

With the advent of the Qur'an,

those with skills in word and number now put them to a different use,

and over the years the Abjad system was developed

into a number of esoteric sufi number systems.

So common has been the use of those systems

that the number 786,

the abjad signifier for the bismillah,

can be seen on the signs of many local mosques

and written over doorways all around the muslim world.

But now, with the use of computers,

yet another numerical approach is being taken,

extending the power of digital calculation

to the word and letter count traditions of earlier times in muslim history.

And so all kinds of wondrous number patterns come to light,

patterns to deepen our appreciation of the Qur'an's miraculous beauty.

Data & Analysis, Chance & Uncertainty

Specialisation in Mathematics