The Meaning of the Disconnected Letters at the Beginning of the Surahs

His Eminence the Shaykh: The interpretations of the exegetes regarding the disconnected letters at the beginning of the surahs have varied.And the question is: Do these letters have a meaning, or do they not have a meaning? And if they have a meaning, did Allah reserve knowledge of it to Himself, or do the firmly grounded in knowledge know it? And if they do not have a meaning, a problem may arise for us: how does Allah, Mighty and Majestic, who is the Wise and the All-Knowing, speak words that have no meaning?
Please inform us, may Allah reward you with good?
The correct view is that these alphabetic letters at the beginning of the surahs do not have a meaning.By the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He: [Al-Shu'ara: 193-195] And the Arabic language does not assign any meaning whatsoever to these letters; rather, these are letters from which people's speech is composed.And it is not the meaning of our saying: It is not that they have no meaning in the sense that they have no benefit; they have a great benefit.Its benefit is: That this noble Qur'an, which has baffled you, O Arabs, despite your ability, eloquence, and clarity, did not come with new letters that you do not know; rather, it is composed of the letters that you know and from which you arrange your speech.And this indicates: You hardly see a surah that begins with alphabetic letters without the mention of the Qur'an following it. This is what the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) held, saying: They have a purpose, but they do not have a meaning in themselves.

And I found the proof that they do not have a meaning in themselves from the Qur'an itself: [Al-Shu'ara: 195] Based on this: if someone claims that they are letters symbolizing something, we do not accept his claim.Because if we said: That they are letters symbolizing something that no one knows except Allah.
Then there would be in the Qur'an something that no one knows except Allah, and Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has undertaken to make the Qur'an clear to His servants.So he said: [Al-Qiyamah: 18-19] And there is no word or letter in the Qur'an whose meaning is known only to Allah, ever; it must be known. However, knowledge differs: the firmly grounded in knowledge have knowledge, those below them have knowledge, and the common person has knowledge. As for something existing in the Qur'an that no one among people knows, that is impossible; rather, it must be known.