Nun: The Opening of Surah al-Qalam

Is Nun the Name of Surah 68?

The usual title of surah 68 is al-Qalam, which means the Pen. Nun is an alternative title taken from the letter at the start. English Wikipedia lists the surah as al-Qalam, with Nun as the second name.

Not every list treats the surah as named after its letter. Wikipedia’s muqattaat article says that four or five chapters take their names from their openers. Ta Ha, Ya Sin, Sad and Qaf are always included, and Nun (al-Qalam) is included only sometimes.

The most widely held position is that the meaning of the letter is known with certainty only to God. Commentators have also proposed several explanations. The huruf muqattaat overview sets out those views, so they are not repeated here.

What Are the Basic Facts About Surah 68?

The table collects the main facts from Wikipedia’s article on al-Qalam and its list of chapters.

The surah has two close neighbors in the printed order. Both of them are Meccan, so the surah sits in an unbroken Meccan stretch.

When Was Surah 68 Revealed?

Sources disagree about the revelation order of this surah. The Egyptian standard list places it 2nd. Noldeke’s list, followed by John Medows Rodwell, places it 18th.

Other opinions sit between those two. Muhammad Asad suggested it was probably 3rd, and George Sale dated it to the fourth year of Islam. Suyuti is reported to have placed it right after the first five verses of surah 96.

Wikipedia holds it to be among the earliest surahs revealed at Makkah, before the move to Madinah in 622 CE. The same article calls it the first single-letter surah in time. It is the last of the lettered surahs in the printed order.

How Is Surah 68 Laid Out by Verse Range?

Wikipedia divides the surah into six ranges. The table paraphrases them in neutral terms and adds no commentary.

The third range is the longest, with 18 of the 52 verses. The last two ranges together hold only 5.

The Opening Is Part of Verse 1

The letter does not form a verse by itself. Wikipedia’s table of the muqattaat marks Nun as not a complete verse. It shares the first verse with the words that follow it.

What Pattern Does Wikipedia Note About Surah 68?

Wikipedia reports an observation about the 29 openings. In all but three of them, the opening is followed almost at once by a mention of the revelation. Al-Qalam is one of the three exceptions, along with al-Ankabut and ar-Rum.

Some scholars would still count those three, since the revelation is mentioned later in each surah. These are observations about patterns, and this page takes no side.

How Is the Letter Nun Written?

Nun is spelled نون and is the 25th letter of the Arabic alphabet in the usual order. In the Abjad order it is the 14th. Wikipedia’s letter article lists four forms: isolated ن, final ـن, medial ـنـ and initial نـ.

The bowl of the letter sits below the line, with a single dot above it. The muqattaat article adds a footnote that Nun and Qaf have no variant written without dots in modern script.

In the Nastaliq style used for Urdu, the same shapes are stretched out. The Unicode code point for the letter is U+0646, named arabic letter noon.

Many printed copies show the opening as نٓ, with a small prolongation mark above the letter. This mark guides the reader and is not an extra letter. The engine ignores it, so the marked form still gives 50.

Letters That Look Alike

In the middle of a word, nun looks much like ba, ta and tha. Only the dots tell them apart. The table lists the four together.

The family resemblance is the reason dots matter so much in careful writing. The muqattaat calligraphy page shows how scribes handled such shapes.

How Is Nun Written in Urdu?

Urdu uses the same letter, with the name نون. Wikipedia’s page on the Urdu alphabet places it 31st in Urdu dictionary order. It gives the sound /n/, with nasal variants in some contexts.

Urdu also has a related letter, noon ghunna, written ں. It marks a nasal vowel and has no dot. The same page notes that it appears only at the end of words in this form.

The engine on this site counts noon ghunna as 50, the same as nun. The Urdu and Persian letters page covers the wider set.

How Is Nun Pronounced?

Nun is a voiced alveolar nasal. In phonetic symbols it is /n/, the same sound as English n. Wikipedia states that this is its value in all of the languages that use it.

The letter is read by name in the opening, so a reader says nun. Many Pakistani readers say noon. The muqattaat pronunciation page covers how all of the letters are named.

What Is the Abjad Value of Nun?

Nun is the 14th letter of the Abjad order and counts as 50. It sits in the tens, between mim at 40 and sin at 60. In the Maghribi order it also counts as 50.

ن 50 = 50

1. Take the single letter ن.
2. Look up its value in the letter values chart: 50.
3. Check the second system. The Maghribi order gives 50 as well.

Nun is one of the letters that does not change between the two systems. The page on why values differ explains the letters that do change.

Nun Among the Tens

Nun belongs to the tens, the second band of the Abjad order. The table lists all nine letters of that band. It shows each value in both systems and the openings that contain the letter.

Nun and kaf are the two letters of the band that each sit in a single opening. Two letters, sin and sad, are the ones whose value changes between systems.

What Is the Value of the Spelled-Out Name?

The letter name is a word of three letters, نون. It is nun (50), waw (6) and nun (50) again. The total is 106 in both systems.

The number 106 belongs to the word, not to the opening. The opening is one letter with the value 50. The spelling changes value page explains why a longer spelling gives a different total.

Where Does the Name Nun Come From?

Arabic nun descends from the Phoenician letter nun, whose name meant fish. Wikipedia gives the Arabic name as meaning a large fish or whale. It also mentions a snake-based origin, linked to a Hebrew word for snake.

Hebrew has a matching letter, also named nun, which counts as 50 in Hebrew numerals. The shared value follows from the shared alphabet order, and it is not a coincidence of meaning.

How Does Nun Compare With the Other Single-Letter Openings?

Three surahs open with one letter alone. Nun is the last of them in the book.

Nun is the only one of the three that does not repeat elsewhere in the list. Sad appears in three openings and Qaf in two. See also the pages for Sad and Qaf.

Nun also differs from the Qaf page in one respect. Qaf returns inside Ain Sin Qaf, while Nun appears only here.

How Do English Writers Spell It?

English texts show the letter in a few ways. None is official, because each only shows the Arabic sounds in Latin letters.

Every variant points to the same Arabic letter, ن, with the value 50. The spelling changes the Latin form only.

How Can You Check the Value Yourself?

You can confirm the number with any ordinary tool. Type ن into the Abjad value calculator and read the total. The multi-system calculator shows the Mashriqi and Maghribi totals together.

The steps for doing it by hand are on the calculate by hand page. For the full set, see muqattaat and Abjad and the full list of all 29 surahs.

Sources and Further Reading

• Al-Qalam, Wikipedia. Surah number, 52 verses, Meccan classification, juz 29, neighbors, word and letter counts, revelation order opinions and verse ranges.
• List of chapters in the Quran, Wikipedia. Verse counts, revelation order and the alternative title Nun.
• Muqattaʿat, Wikipedia. The 29 openings, the chapters named after their letters, the footnote on dots and the observations on patterns.
• Nun (letter), Wikipedia. Letter forms, pronunciation and origin of the Arabic nun.
• Urdu alphabet, Wikipedia. The Urdu name, sound and dictionary order of nun, and noon ghunna.
• Letter values and sums come from this site’s tested engine. See the methodology.

Frequently Asked Questions