And the number of the day is... Jihad

Belmont Club had a very interesting post the other day about numerology, Islam, and jihad. Mohammad Reza Taheri Azar is under arrest for trying to do the will of Allah by running over students on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill earlier this month. Here is some of what he has to say for himself:

I am a servant of Allah. I am 22 years old. I was born in Tehran, Iran. My father, mother and older sister immigrated to the United States in 1985 when I was 2 years of age, and I have lived in the United States ever since. ... I have decided to take advantage of my presence on United States soil on Friday, March 3, 2006, to take the lives of as many Americans and American sympathizers as i can in order to punish United States for their immoral actions around the world. In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women. I know that the Qur'an is a legitimate and authoritative holy scripture since it is completely validated by modern science and also mathematically encoded with the number 19 beyond human ability.

Belmont links to an Islamic website's explanation of the significance of 19:

The number 19 possesses unique mathematical properties, for example:

1-It is a prime number , only divides by itself and one.

2-It encompasses the first numeral (1) and the last numeral (9), as if to proclaim God's attribute in 57:3 as the "Alpha and the Omega".

3-Its {numerals} look the same in all languages in the world.The numerals (1) and (9) look very much the same in , for example Arabic and English.

4-It possesses many peculiar mathematical properties. For example, 19 is the sum of the first powers of 9 and 10, and the difference between the second powers of 9 and 10.

5-Number 19 is the numerical value of the word "ONE" in all the scriptural languages, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic. The number 19, therefore proclaims the First commandment in all the scriptures: that there is only ONE GOD.

The word "ONE" "Wahid" in reference to God, in the Quran, is used 19 times. Is it a co-incidence?

The number 19 itself has no power and has no holiness, and can lead you no where. It is the Miracle that is based on this number that has the significance. This significance is explained clearly by God Almighty Himself in 74:30-31.

"Over it is nineteen." " We appointed angels to be guardians of Hell, and we assigned THEIR NUMBER (i.e.19) (1) to disturb the disbelievers. (2) to convince the Christians and Jews (that this is a divine scripture), (3) to strengthen the faith of the faithful, (4)to remove all traces of doubt from the hearts of Christians, Jews, as well as the believers, and (5) to expose those who harbor doubt in their hearts, and the disbelievers; they will say," What did God mean by this allegory ?" God thus sends astray whomever He wills, and guides whomever He wills, None knows the soldiers of your Lord except He. THIS IS A REMINDER FOR THE PEOPLE." 74:30-31

This kind of thinking sounds strange to modern ears, but similar arguments were not uncommon in the West just a few hundred years ago.

Given the apparent fascination of certain elements of Islam with the number 19, one must wonder: Was it just happenstance that there were 19 hijackers on 9-11, or was that part of the message, to those who could understand it?