The Mystery of Numbers by Annemarie Schimmel: Sacred Number Symbolism Across Cultures

Who Was Annemarie Schimmel?

Annemarie Schimmel (1922-2003) was one of the most remarkable scholars of the twentieth century, and her range of knowledge gives The Mystery of Numbers a depth that few other authors could match. Born in Erfurt, Germany, she was introduced to the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi as a student at the University of Berlin and devoted the rest of her life to the study of Islamic civilisation.

By the age of 23, she was a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Marburg. She earned a second doctorate in the history of religions in 1954. In the same year, she became the first woman and the first non-Muslim to teach theology at Ankara University in Turkey. In 1967, she inaugurated the Indo-Muslim studies programme at Harvard University, where she served as Professor of Indo-Muslim Culture until her retirement in 1992.

Schimmel published over 50 books and hundreds of articles. She spoke German, English, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi. Her most famous work, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, remains the standard introduction to Sufism. The government of Pakistan awarded her its highest civil honours for her contributions to the understanding of Islamic culture.

This background matters for The Mystery of Numbers because it means Schimmel could read primary sources in their original languages across half a dozen traditions. When she describes the meaning of a number in Sufi poetry, she is translating directly from the Persian or Arabic. When she discusses the Hindu or Buddhist significance of 108, she is drawing on decades of personal engagement with Indian religious texts. This linguistic and cultural breadth makes the book genuinely comparative rather than merely additive.

The Book's Structure and Approach

The Mystery of Numbers opens with a concise introduction covering the major traditions of number symbolism: the Pythagoreans, Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, Islamic mysticism, medieval numerology, and the use of numbers in folklore and superstition. This introduction serves as a map of the territory, establishing the main sources and traditions that Schimmel will draw on throughout.

The heart of the book is organized by number. Each chapter takes a single number (or group of numbers) and compiles its symbolic meanings across multiple cultures. The treatment begins with one and proceeds through the integers, giving extended attention to the numbers that carry the heaviest symbolic weight (3, 4, 7, 12, 40) and briefer treatment to less symbolically loaded numbers.

Schimmel's method is primarily descriptive rather than analytical. She does not argue for a single theory of number symbolism, as von Franz does. Instead, she presents the evidence from each tradition and allows the reader to notice patterns, parallels, and divergences. This approach has the advantage of letting each tradition speak for itself without being forced into a framework imported from another context.

The book's tone is warm and personal, peppered with anecdotes, proverbs, poetry, and observations from daily life. Schimmel often notes where a particular number belief survives in modern practice: why hotels sometimes skip the thirteenth floor, why a baker's dozen is thirteen, why certain numbers are considered lucky or unlucky in different cultures. This grounding in lived experience keeps the book from becoming a dry catalogue of beliefs.

One Through Four: Unity to Stability

One is the beginning and the source. In monotheistic traditions, one represents the absolute unity of God. The Islamic shahada, "There is no god but God," is an assertion of divine oneness (tawhid) that sits at the foundation of the entire faith. In Neoplatonism, the One is the source from which all multiplicity emanates. In Hinduism, Brahman is the one reality behind the multiplicity of appearances. Schimmel shows how the number one carries an inherent paradox: it is both the beginning of counting and the state before counting begins, both the first number and the negation of all number.

Two brings division, polarity, and relationship. Schimmel traces the dualities that structure human experience: light and darkness, male and female, good and evil, heaven and earth. In Zoroastrianism, the cosmic struggle between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu is the defining duality. In Chinese thought, yin and yang express the complementary nature of all opposites. In Christianity, the two natures of Christ (divine and human) generated centuries of theological debate. Schimmel notes that two is often considered the first "female" number in Pythagorean thinking, while one is "male" or beyond gender entirely.

Three is the number of divine completeness. The Christian Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, Shiva the destroyer), the three jewels of Buddhism (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), and the Pythagorean triad all express the idea that wholeness requires three terms: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Schimmel points out that three appears relentlessly in folklore (three wishes, three brothers, three tests) because it satisfies a deep psychological need for completion.

Four represents stability, earthly completeness, and the material world. Four directions, four seasons, four elements, four humours, four Gospels, four rivers of Paradise. Schimmel shows that four is the number of the world, of nature, of the created order as distinct from the divine order represented by three. The combination of three and four gives seven (the cosmos) and the product of three and four gives twelve (governance and cosmic order).

Five Through Seven: The Human, the Hexagram, the Cosmos

Five is the human number. Five fingers, five toes, five senses. In Islam, the Five Pillars (shahada, prayer, fasting, alms, pilgrimage) define the practice of the faith. In China, five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) govern the cycles of nature and health. Schimmel notes that the pentagram, the five-pointed star, has served as a protective symbol from ancient Babylon through medieval magic to the American flag.

Six is the number of creation (God created the world in six days) and of perfect mathematical balance (6 = 1 + 2 + 3 = 1 x 2 x 3, the smallest "perfect number" in mathematics). The Star of David, the six-pointed hexagram, represents the intersection of the ascending triangle (fire, spirit, male) with the descending triangle (water, matter, female). In Islamic architecture, the hexagon appears as a fundamental design element, connecting the circle (heaven) with the square (earth).

Seven receives more attention from Schimmel than any other number, and for good reason. Seven appears as the number of cosmic completion across nearly every culture on earth. There are seven days in the week, seven planets in the ancient sky (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), seven heavens in Islam, seven sacraments in Catholicism, seven chakras in Hinduism, seven colours of the rainbow, seven notes in the musical scale.

Schimmel traces the origin of seven's special status to the Babylonians, who observed seven visible celestial bodies and organized their calendar around them. From Babylon, the sacredness of seven spread to Judaism (the seventh day, the seven-branched menorah, the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot), to Christianity (seven deadly sins, seven virtues, seven seals of Revelation), and to Islam (seven circumambulations of the Kaaba, seven rounds between Safa and Marwa).

What makes Schimmel's treatment of seven special is her ability to show how the same number carries different emotional tones in different contexts. Seven can mean completion and rest (the seventh day), or it can mean trial and endurance (the seven years of famine). It can represent cosmic harmony (the music of the spheres) or overwhelming totality (the seven plagues). The number itself is a vessel that each culture fills with its own meaning.

Eight Through Twelve: Renewal, Completion, Governance

Eight represents renewal, new beginnings, and resurrection. In Christianity, the eighth day is the day of resurrection, the day after the seven days of the week that inaugurates a new creation. Baptismal fonts are traditionally octagonal for this reason. In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration) is the path to liberation. In Islam, Paradise has eight gates.

Nine is the number of finality and fulfilment in many traditions. As the last single digit, nine represents the end of a cycle. In Chinese culture, nine is the supreme yang number and is associated with the emperor (the dragon has nine forms, the imperial palace has 9,999 rooms). In Norse mythology, there are nine worlds connected by the world tree Yggdrasil. Schimmel notes that nine has special properties in mathematics (any number multiplied by nine reduces to nine when its digits are added together) that ancient numerologists found deeply significant.

Ten was the most perfect number for the Pythagoreans, because it is the sum of the first four integers (1+2+3+4 = 10), which they called the tetraktys. The Ten Commandments, the ten plagues of Egypt, the ten sefirot of the Kabbalah, and the ten avatars of Vishnu all reflect the completeness and authority of this number. Schimmel shows that ten functions as the base of our counting system (we have ten fingers) but also carries a symbolic weight that transcends mere convenience.

Twelve is the number of cosmic order and divine governance. Twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, twelve imams in Shia Islam, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months, twelve Olympian gods, twelve knights of the Round Table. Schimmel argues that twelve's power comes from its mathematical richness: it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, making it the most versatile base for organizing time, space, and social structure. The duodecimal system (base-12) remains embedded in our culture through the twelve-hour clock, the dozen, and the inch (twelve to a foot).

Thirteen Through Forty: Bad Luck, Death, and Trial

Thirteen carries a negative charge in Western culture that Schimmel traces to multiple sources. The most commonly cited is the Last Supper, where thirteen people sat at the table before the betrayal and crucifixion. But Schimmel also notes that thirteen disrupts the completeness of twelve: it is the number that breaks the cosmic order. Hotels skip the thirteenth floor. Many people refuse to sit at a table of thirteen. Friday the 13th combines the unluckiest day (Friday, the day of the crucifixion) with the unluckiest number.

However, Schimmel is careful to show that thirteen's bad reputation is culturally specific. In Jewish tradition, thirteen is not unlucky at all: a boy becomes bar mitzvah at thirteen, and the thirteen attributes of God's mercy are a central liturgical text. In some Islamic contexts, thirteen carries positive associations. The "unlucky thirteen" is primarily a Western European and American phenomenon.

Nineteen has special significance in the Bahai faith and in certain Islamic numerological traditions. Schimmel discusses the Quran's reference to nineteen guardians of hellfire (Surah 74:30), which has generated extensive commentary. The Bahai calendar is based on nineteen months of nineteen days.

Forty is one of the most powerful numbers in the religious imagination. Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness. The Israelites wandered forty years in the desert. Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai. Noah endured forty days and nights of rain. In Islam, Muhammad received his calling at age forty, and forty-day retreats (chilla) are a standard Sufi practice. Schimmel shows that forty consistently represents a period of testing, purification, and preparation for a new phase of spiritual life. It is the number of the threshold, the time of waiting between what was and what will be.

The Great Numbers: 72, 99, 108, 1001

Schimmel's treatment of the larger symbolic numbers reveals how different cultures developed their own sacred arithmetics.

Seventy-two appears as the number of nations and languages in Jewish and Christian tradition (derived from the 72 descendants of Noah listed in Genesis 10). There are 72 names of God in the Kabbalistic tradition. The disciples sent out by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke number 72 in many manuscripts. In Islamic tradition, the 72 sects of Islam are a common reference in hadith literature.

Ninety-nine holds a unique place in Islam. The 99 Beautiful Names of God (al-asma al-husna) enumerate the divine attributes: the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Creator, the Provider, the Guardian, the Healer, and dozens more. Muslims recite these names on prayer beads with 33 or 99 beads. The hundredth name is said to be hidden, known only to God, or whispered by God to the camel (which accounts, in popular tradition, for the camel's expression of secret knowledge).

One hundred and eight is the great sacred number of Hinduism and Buddhism. Hindu mala prayer beads have 108 beads. There are 108 Upanishads. There are 108 sacred sites (pithas) of the goddess. In Buddhism, there are said to be 108 earthly temptations that must be overcome to reach liberation. The distance between the earth and the sun is approximately 108 times the sun's diameter, a coincidence that modern Hindu commentators have found significant.

One thousand and one is the number of infinity in Arabic literary tradition. The Thousand and One Nights uses the number to mean "endlessly many, more than you could ever count." Schimmel shows how 1001 functions as a literary device for expressing inexhaustible richness, divine generosity, and the endlessness of story itself.

Pythagorean Roots and the Greek Heritage

Schimmel opens her historical survey with the Pythagoreans, and for good reason. The Greek philosophical tradition established the framework within which Western number symbolism developed for the next 2,500 years.

Pythagoras and his followers believed that numbers were the basis of the entire universe, that reality itself was constructed from numerical relationships. Their most famous proof of concept was the discovery that musical harmony could be expressed as ratios between whole numbers: the octave as 2:1, the fifth as 3:2, the fourth as 4:3. If music, the most beautiful thing the Greeks knew, was made of numbers, then perhaps everything beautiful was made of numbers.

The Pythagoreans assigned gender to numbers (odd numbers were male, even numbers female), moral qualities (justice was 4, marriage was 5), and cosmic significance (the tetraktys, 1+2+3+4=10, contained the whole truth of the universe). These assignments may seem arbitrary to modern readers, but Schimmel shows how they were based on careful observation of mathematical properties combined with analogical thinking.

The Pythagorean tradition flowed into Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, then into early Christian theology (Augustine was deeply influenced by Neoplatonic number theory), then into medieval Islamic philosophy (the Brethren of Purity were avid Pythagoreans), and eventually into the Renaissance and early modern science (Kepler's search for mathematical harmony in planetary motion was a direct continuation of the Pythagorean programme).

Islamic Number Mysticism and the Brethren of Purity

The sections of The Mystery of Numbers that deal with Islamic number symbolism are the most original and valuable, because Schimmel brings expertise that few other Western scholars could match.

Islamic culture developed a sophisticated tradition of number mysticism that drew on Pythagorean, Neoplatonic, and indigenous Arabian sources. The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa), a group of scholars working in 10th-century Basra, produced an encyclopaedia of 52 epistles that included extensive treatments of mathematics, music, logic, and metaphysics, all organized around numerical principles.

In the Islamic tradition, the numerical value of Arabic letters (abjad) allows every word to be translated into a number and every number to be read as a word. This practice, called hisab al-jummal (the calculation of totals), has generated an enormous literature of number-based interpretation of the Quran, of divine names, and of prophetic traditions. Schimmel discusses this tradition with the authority of someone who has read the primary sources in Arabic and Persian.

Sufi mysticism added another layer of number symbolism. The stages of the mystical path, the levels of the soul, the degrees of spiritual attainment were all numbered and ordered. Different Sufi orders (tariqas) developed their own numerical systems for organizing spiritual practice: the number of repetitions of a particular divine name, the number of days in a retreat, the number of breaths in a meditation cycle.

Schimmel's treatment of Islamic numerology gives English-language readers access to a tradition that is largely unknown outside the Islamic world. Most Western books on number symbolism mention Islam briefly or not at all. Schimmel devotes equal attention to Islamic sources and Western ones, creating a more balanced and complete picture of the global significance of number symbolism.

Schimmel vs. von Franz: Two Approaches to Number

Readers who come to The Mystery of Numbers after reading von Franz's Number and Time will notice that the two books, though they share a subject, take completely different approaches. Understanding these differences helps clarify what each book offers.

Von Franz approaches number theoretically. She wants to explain why numbers carry meaning, and her answer is that they are archetypes, the deepest ordering patterns of the psyche. Her method is analytical, her framework is Jungian, and her goal is a unified theory of psyche and matter. Number and Time is a philosophy book that uses number as its central concept.

Schimmel approaches number descriptively. She wants to document what meanings numbers have carried across different cultures, and she lets the evidence speak for itself without forcing it into a theoretical framework. Her method is comparative, her framework is the history of religions, and her goal is a comprehensive catalogue of number symbolism. The Mystery of Numbers is a reference book that uses number as its organizing principle.

Neither approach is superior. They are complementary. Von Franz gives you the theory but sometimes forces the evidence to fit it. Schimmel gives you the evidence but sometimes leaves you without a theory to make sense of it. The ideal reader would read both, using von Franz for the depth and Schimmel for the breadth.

There is also a difference in tone. Von Franz is demanding, dense, and sometimes difficult. Schimmel is warm, anecdotal, and accessible. Von Franz writes for specialists. Schimmel writes for educated general readers. If you are new to the subject, start with Schimmel. If you want to go deeper, move to von Franz.

The Lasting Value of This Book

The Mystery of Numbers has remained in print since its first publication in 1993 because it fills a niche that no other book fills as well. There are plenty of books on numerology, but most of them are either popular treatments with little scholarly rigour or academic studies with little readability. Schimmel manages to be both rigorous and readable, a combination that is rarer than it should be.

The book's lasting value lies in its demonstration that number symbolism is not a fringe interest or a relic of premodern thinking. It is a universal human practice that appears in every culture and every historical period. The specific meanings assigned to numbers vary from culture to culture, but the impulse to find meaning in numbers is constant. Schimmel does not explain why this is so, but she documents it so thoroughly that the question becomes impossible to ignore.

For readers interested in comparative religion, The Mystery of Numbers provides a unique lens through which to view the relationships between different traditions. When you see that seven means cosmic completion in Babylon, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, you are confronted with a pattern that demands explanation. Is this diffusion (the idea spread from one culture to another)? Is it convergence (different cultures independently arrived at the same conclusion)? Or is there something about the number seven itself that makes it a natural symbol of completeness?

Schimmel does not answer these questions, but she provides the data from which answers might be constructed. That is the proper role of a comparative scholar, and she plays it with grace, learning, and a genuine love for her subject that shines through every page.

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