Ta Sin Mim: Meaning and Surahs

What Does Ta Sin Mim Mean?

The most widely held position is that its meaning is known with certainty only to God. Wikipedia states that this is the general belief of most Muslims.

Ta Sin Mim is one of the huruf muqattaat, the disjointed letters that open 29 surahs. Commentators over the centuries discussed several suggestions about such letters. Those views are set out on the huruf muqattaat overview and are not repeated here.

This page is a reference, not a commentary. It reports facts about the two surahs, how the letters are named and written, and how they are counted.

Which Two Surahs Open With Ta Sin Mim?

The two surahs are ash-Shu’ara (26) and al-Qasas (28). Both are classed as Meccan. The table gathers their main reference facts.

Together the two surahs hold 315 verses. Ash-Shu’ara is described on Wikipedia as the longest Meccan surah by verse count.

How Is Each Surah Laid Out?

Wikipedia gives a summary of each surah by verse ranges. The outlines below repeat only the layout, not any commentary on it.

Ash-Shu’ara, Surah 26

The first eight verses form an introduction. A long section from verse 9 to verse 191 then turns to accounts of earlier prophets. They are Musa, Ibrahim, Nuh, Hud, Salih, Lut and Shuayb, in that order.

The closing part runs from verse 192 to verse 227. It deals with the Quran itself, a call to warn close kin, and a final passage about poets. Wikipedia says the name comes from a word in verse 224.

Al-Qasas, Surah 28

Al-Qasas is shorter and has a narrower focus. Verses 1 to 3 are an introduction. Verses 4 to 42 follow the life of Musa from infancy to the confrontation with Pharaoh.

Verses 43 to 75 address the people of Makkah, and verses 76 to 82 tell of Qarun. The last verses, 83 to 88, close the surah. Ibn Kathir is cited on Wikipedia as tracing the name to a word in verse 25.

Where Do the Two Surahs Sit Among the 29 Openings?

Among the 29 surahs that open with letters, ash-Shu’ara is the 12th and al-Qasas is the 14th. Between them stands an-Naml, the 13th, which opens with طس.

So the sequence runs طسم, then طس, then طسم. The next four surahs, from al-Ankabut to as-Sajdah, open with الم. That makes seven surahs in a row, from 26 to 32, each with its own letters.

The Egyptian standard revelation order, as listed on Wikipedia, also places the three surahs together at 47, 48 and 49. Printed order and revelation order are two separate lists, and here both keep the three side by side.

How Is Ta Sin Mim Written and Read?

The three letters are written as one cluster, طسم. In ordinary Arabic script, ta and sin both join the letter after them. The cluster therefore forms one connected shape.

It is read as three separate letter names, with a short stop between them. The first is ta, written طاء in full. The second is sin, written سين, and the third is mim, written ميم.

Many printed copies add small prolongation marks above the sin and the mim. These marks guide the reciter and are not extra letters. The engine on this site ignores them, so the plain and the marked forms give the same sum.

Ta is an emphatic consonant, produced with the tongue raised. English writers spell the name as Ta, Taa or Tā. Sin appears as Sin, Seen or Sīn, and mim as Mim, Meem or Mīm.

A fuller guide to the sounds is on the muqattaat pronunciation page. For how the groups are drawn in different scripts, see the muqattaat calligraphy page.

Where Do Ta, Sin and Mim Sit in the Alphabet?

The same three letters hold different places in the two Arabic orders. In the everyday alphabet order they sit far apart. In the Abjad order they sit at 9, 15 and 13.

The difference between the orders is covered on the Abjad and hijai order page. Only the Abjad order carries the values.

How Is the Name Spelled in English and Urdu?

English pages use many spellings, such as Ta Sin Mim, Ta Seen Meem and Taa Seen Meem. Some write it as one word, Taseenmeem, or in short form as Tasm. All of them refer to the same three letters.

Urdu writers spell the letter names طا, سین and میم, with the Urdu form of the letter ya. The engine gives 10, 120 and 90 for these three names. That matches the Arabic spellings, so the totals do not change.

The page on Urdu and Persian letters explains why some forms look different from the Arabic ones. A reader who only types the three letters طسم gets the same result in every case.

Is the Opening a Complete Verse?

The table on Wikipedia has a column that marks whether the letters form a complete verse by themselves. For Ta Sin Mim the answer is yes, in both surahs. So the group stands as the first verse of surah 26 and of surah 28.

This sets it apart from طس, which the same table marks as not complete. The only difference between the two is the final letter mim. The page on Ta Sin covers that opening in detail.

What Are the Letter Values of Ta Sin Mim?

In the Abjad system, ta is the ninth letter and counts as 9. Sin counts as 60, and mim counts as 40. The total is 109.

ط 9 + س 60 + م 40 = 109

1. Take each letter in turn: ط, س, م.
2. Look up each value in the letter values chart: 9, 60 and 40.
3. Add the three values to get 109.

The sum is plain addition, the same method used for any Arabic word. You can try it by hand with the guide to calculating by hand.

Why Is the Maghribi Total Different?

Two of the three letters keep one value in every system. Sin is the exception. In the Maghribi order it counts as 300, not 60.

That change moves the total from 109 to 349. The difference is exactly 240, which is the gap between the two values of sin.

The reason the orders differ is explained on the why values differ page. A writer should always say which order was used.

What Do the Spelled-Out Letter Names Add Up To?

Each letter name is itself written with letters. Historically, some writers also counted the full name. The table shows that arithmetic and nothing more.

The three written names add up to 220. The cluster itself adds up to 109. These are two different counts, so say which one you mean.

How Does Ta Sin Mim Relate to Ta Sin and Ta Ha?

Three openings begin with the letter ta, and they are easy to confuse. The table sets them side by side.

• طسم is طس with mim added. The Mashriqi difference is 40, the value of mim.
• طه shares only the first letter. It pairs ta with ha and opens surah 20, on the Ta Ha page.

Ta Ha keeps the same sum in both orders, because neither ta nor ha changes. Both openings with sin do change. That is the one letter that separates the Mashriqi and Maghribi totals here.

How Often Do Ta, Sin and Mim Appear Across the Openings?

Ta appears in 4 of the 29 openings, and sin appears in 5. Mim is much more common and appears in 17.

Sin is found in طسم twice, in طس, in يس, and in the second opening of ash-Shura, عسق. The page on Ya Sin covers the opening of surah 36.

Mim is found in الم, المص, المر, حم and the two Ta Sin Mim surahs. The full table of every opening is on the muqattaat list page.

How Can You Find the Opening in a Printed Quran?

The two surahs are easy to locate. Follow these steps for the first one.

1. Turn to surah 25, al-Furqan, and go to its end.
2. Find the next surah heading, ash-Shu’ara, which states 227 verses.
3. Read the three letters طسم on the first line after the Bismillah.

For the second surah, go to al-Qasas, which follows an-Naml. Its heading states 88 verses, and the same three letters stand at the start.

How Can You Check the Value Yourself?

Type طسم into the Abjad value calculator to see 9, 60 and 40 with a total of 109. The multi-system calculator shows the Maghribi total beside it.

The muqattaat and Abjad page explains how writers in history added up these openings. This site records that method only and does not endorse any numerological reading.

The method is described on the methodology page. The words and phrases section lists more pages of this kind.

Sources and Further Reading

• Muqattaʿat, Wikipedia. The table of 29 surahs, the complete-verse column and the majority view.
• Ash-Shu’ara, Wikipedia. Verse count, juz, sections, name and outline by verse ranges.
• Al-Qasas, Wikipedia. Verse count, juz, sections, name and outline by verse ranges.
• List of chapters in the Quran, Wikipedia. Numbers, names, verse counts and revelation order.
• Letter values and sums come from this site’s tested engine. See the methodology.

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