In ʿilm al-ḥurūf, the “science of letters,” Arabic letters were treated as building blocks of creation. A letter was more than a sound. Its shape, sound and numerical value could carry meaning, and some mystics connected letters to divine names and the way the created world takes form. The nuqṭa, the tiny dot beneath ب, became one of the key symbols. In later traditions, it could represent unity or an original point from which the many letters unfold. One point becomes many letters, and many letters become words. The Ḥurūfīs pushed this idea further in 14th-century Iran. Faḍlallāh Astarābādī linked letters and sounds to the human face and body. The human being could be read through the same system of signs used to read language. Astarābādī was executed in 1394, but his followers survived and spread his teachings into Anatolia. The abjad system added numbers. Each Arabic letter has a traditional numerical value, so words and divine names could also be studied through their numerical relationships. Then there are the isolated letters at the beginning of 29 Qur’anic surahs, including الم, يس and حم. Their original meaning remains uncertain. For these mystics, the alphabet was not simply a writing system. It offered a way to think about how one source could unfold into the countless forms of the world. #Hurufism #Sufism