[3][4] Proponents of the code include United Submitters International (an association initiated by Rashad Khalifa) as well as some Quranists and traditional Muslims.
[5] Edip Yüksel, a Turkish Quranistic author and colleague of Rashad Khalifa, makes the following claims in his book Nineteen: God's Signature in Nature and Scripture:[6] The Quran consists of 114 Surahs, of which a total of 29 Surahs are provided with separated letters, Muqattaʿat or also called Quranic initials.
By analyzing the Quran's 29 initialized Surahs statistically, Khalifa claimed to reveal complex mathematical patterns centered around the number 19.
One such critic was Bilal Philips, who argued that Rashad Khalifa's "miracle 19" theory was a hoax based on falsified data, misinterpretations of the Quran's text, and grammar inconsistencies.
[15] Additionally, since early Quran manuscripts can contain orthographic differences in certain passages, the precise number of letters in those sections can be unclear.
[20][21] He based this assertion on the Samarkand Codex, an 9th century Quranic manuscript which includes a spelling with the letter Sīn in place of Suād.
He supports this claim by the hadith Sahīh al-Bukhārī 7425, according to which Zaid ibn Thābit, tasked by Abu Bakr with compiling the Quran, found only one witness to attest to the validity of verses 9:128–129, Khuzaima al-Ansari.