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How many letters does the Basmala have, and do the seven recitations affect this number?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The total number of letters in the Basmala (بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ) is twenty-one letters. The ten reciters (Qurra') do not differ on this, noting that there are two 'alifs' that are not written in the script in the words "Allah" and "Ar-Rahman".

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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