[soc.religion.islam] On Line Qur'an

cmaguire@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Cary Maguire) (05/29/91)

Greetings!  Quran.tar.Z is now publicly available from princeton.edu in
the directory /pub.  Enjoy!

Camm
======================================================================
Internet: cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu 
"O Son of Man!  Veiled in my immemorial being and in the ancient
eternity of Mine essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I
created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee
My beauty."
					Baha'u'llah

cmaguire@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Cary Maguire) (05/29/91)

Greetings!  Sorry for the incredible delay, but there had been quite a
few requests from the publishers, and I had to defend my dissertation
in the interim.  Good News!  We now have permission to publicly
distribute the text, though this permission will be renewed on a
yearly basis.  I got the go ahead today.  I think within the next two
days, I should be able to find an anonymous ftp site which will write
protect the text, as the publishers had requested.

So watch s.r.i for the next few days for the announcement of the ftp
site.  Beyond this step, we still have to address two questions: 1)
final proofreading (the text has passed through only a preliminary
editing) and 2) a permanent home for the text, meeting the following
criteria: a) someone to correspond with the publishers on an annual
basis to receive the publication permission, and b) a site which will
be willing to write protect, maintain and incorporate corrections of
the text over the foreseeable future.  I will be losing all computer
access soon, and, God willing, travelling to the Soviet Union, so I
need to pass the text to someone permanently based here who can
maintain this text.  Perhaps we could consult on ways to meet these
challenges, and in the mean time enjoy the first on-line public domain
version of the Holy Qur'an in English!

Peace!

Camm
======================================================================
Internet: cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu 
"O Son of Man!  Veiled in my immemorial being and in the ancient
eternity of Mine essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I
created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee
My beauty."
					Baha'u'llah

cmaguire@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Cary Maguire) (05/30/91)

Greetings!  I have received email asking me to clarify the on-line
Qur'an I mentioned in an earlier post.  The translator is M.H. Shakir,
as was selected by vote over the net last year.  One can access it
through the following commands (parenthetical comments are machine
prompts):

1) (your machine prompt) ftp princeton.edu
2) (Name:) anonymous
3) (Password:) type anything here, e.g. your username
4) (ftp>) cd pub
5) (ftp>) bin
6) (ftp>) get Quran.tar.Z
7) (ftp>) quit
8) (your machine prompt) zcat Quran.tar.Z | tar xvf -

The ascii text of the Holy Qur'an should then be located in a
subdirectory of your current working directory called "Quran".  Only
the ascii text is provided.  The translator and publisher are listed
in the file "README".  Please maintain this file with the text when
further distributing the package, as the publisher has requested.
Enjoy!

Camm
======================================================================
Internet: cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu 
"O Son of Man!  Veiled in my immemorial being and in the ancient
eternity of Mine essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I
created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee
My beauty."
					Baha'u'llah

eederavi@pyramid.swansea.ac.uk (Farzin Deravi) (05/31/91)

In article <1991May29.144627.31767@wpi.WPI.EDU> cmaguire@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Cary Maguire) writes:
>
>
>Greetings!  Quran.tar.Z is now publicly available from princeton.edu in
>the directory /pub.  Enjoy!
>
>Camm
>======================================================================
>Internet: cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu 

Could you please indicate which translation(s) of the Quran are used
to produce Quran.tar.Z (above). This is important information
and will determine the usefulness of the file.

many thanks for your efforts

Farzin Deravi

zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman) (06/03/91)

	My personal thanks to all who participated in this
project...however (and not to denigrate the efforts of those
who did participate in this) so far we have an "On Line translation
of the Quran."  How about a transliteration?

	Here's my idea.  Most Muslims have much of the Quran 
memorized.  If we could use this and have various people take
the responsibility of those portions which they have memorized;
we could enter in some standard transliteration format such
portions until we accumulate a significant portion.

	For example, the first aya might go:

alm. /dlk alktb la ryb fyh. hdN llmtqyn all/dyn ywmnwn blgyb w
yqymwn alslwt w mma rzqnahm ynfqwn.

	Already I see some of the problems which would have to be
addressed: In hdN I transliterated the nunation (tanwin) as a 
capital N.  I ignored the shaddas (tashdid--"doubled" letters).
Then there is the question of the peculiar Quranic orthography--
the alif on rzqnahum, I am not sure whether it is actually written
as a letter or whether it is just a "dagger" on top of the nun.
This type of thing might require a look at a mushaf as one typed--
still, the fact of memorization would aid greatly.

	Any takers?  I think the first step would be to send
lists of suras you could do to one individual who would then
apportion stuff out.  Also, proofreading by comparing against
the mushaf would be important....

PS.  Is anyone maintaining a "typo-report" list somewhere on
the translation?  E.g. 

005.TheFood 67: ... deliver what (b)as been revealed ...

mmdh@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Mamdouh Maher) (06/05/91)

Assalamu `alaykum,
  
  Would someone please tell me the name of the authors of the online
translation of the meaning of the Qur'an? What are their references?

  The reason why I am asking is to know how reliable the translation
is. 
 
  Thank you all in advance.
  
Assalamu `alaykum,

Mamdouh Maher

zafir@unssun.nevada.edu (Zia Zafir) (06/06/91)

>alm. /dlk alktb la ryb fyh. hdN llmtqyn all/dyn ywmnwn blgyb w
>yqymwn alslwt w mma rzqnahm ynfqwn.

	This is a good idea but the way you are doing the transliteration
	is objectionable.  It seems that each arabic letter is replaced
	with an English letter.  This is OK if you know how to read
	arabic and are familiar with the arabic alphabets.  But in my
	opinion the objective of a transliteration should be that
	it could be read by anyone whether he is familiar with the
	arabic alphabets or not.  This inlcudes lot of new muslims
	who do not know how to read arabic but they want to read the
	Quran rather than reading translations.

	for this reason, I think transliteration should be based upon
	how we read a particular verse.  We need some rules and
	standards for this which could be set up.

	For example the first verses could be written as

	alif laam meem.  dhalikal kitabe la rayb-a-feehi hudal lil muttaqeen.

Zia Zafir

whaddara@kean.ucs.mun.ca (AL-NABEGHA AL-DHEBYANI) (06/07/91)

X-News: leif soc.religion.islam:146
From: zafir@unssun.nevada.edu (Zia Zafir)
Subject:Re: On Line Qur'an
Date: 6 Jun 91 13:29:24 GMT
Message-ID:<1991Jun6.132924.11173@wpi.WPI.EDU>



>>alm. /dlk alktb la ryb fyh. hdN llmtqyn all/dyn ywmnwn blgyb w
>>yqymwn alslwt w mma rzqnahm ynfqwn.

>	This is a good idea but the way you are doing the 
transliteration
>	is objectionable.  It seems that each arabic letter is 
replaced
>	with an English letter.  This is OK if you know how to read
>	arabic and are familiar with the arabic alphabets.  But in my
>	opinion the objective of a transliteration should be that
>	it could be read by anyone whether he is familiar with the
>	arabic alphabets or not.  This inlcudes lot of new muslims
>	who do not know how to read arabic but they want to read the
>	Quran rather than reading translations.

>	for this reason, I think transliteration should be based upon
>	how we read a particular verse.  We need some rules and
>	standards for this which could be set up.

>	For example the first verses could be written as

>	alif laam meem.  dhalikal kitabe la rayb-a-feehi hudal lil muttaqeen.
				      ^^^
		Dhalikal kitabo
			  ^^^^^^
	:-)

>Zia Zafir
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zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman) (06/10/91)

My idea for a transliteration was more for the need for the ability
to search (eg you remember an aya and don't remember where it is..)
The quran.tar.Z on Princeton doesn't fulfill this need--since there
can be many translations for a single aya...

The problem of a version of the quran which non-Arab speakers can read
is yet another one!!!

Iftikhar