cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu (Camm Maguire) (12/07/89)
Greetings! While all the information on the availability of a machine-readable Qur'an is not yet in, it seems as though most copies will only be available commercially. Or perhaps if we find a copy in the public domain, it will probably be in Arabic and hence illegible to most in the West. Which leads me to the following proposal. Would anyone be interested in typing a mutually acceptable English version of the Qur'an? The document is not that long, some people memorize it. I believe the Qur'an has some 6300 verses. If we get 63 people, say, that's one hundred verses a piece, a task which can probably be completed over a weekend. I have already received notes from people interested in maintaining such a document in the publically accessible directories of their machines. Once there, of course, the Qur'an would be available to any interested English speaking person with access to the networks. In my opinion, such a project would greatly advance the understanding of this great faith so frequently misunderstood in the West. Perhaps we should discuss this idea in this forum for a few weeks, during which time I will continue to search for a previously typed copy. Some points that leap to my mind for discussion are: 1) Is there interest in this project? Who would be willing to contribute typing time? How much time could they afford to spend? 2) What English translation of the Qur'an should we choose? Many of you may know of the world scripture translation project headed by Prince Charles. I hear that in the near future, a new English translation fully approved of by all leading Muslim scholars will be produced. We may want to wait for this translation to be completed, or we may not. 3) We need to decide on a procedure for quality control, such as assigning a typer and a different proof-reader for each section. I hope your as excited about this as I am! Peace! Camm [Please send all replies to soc.religion.islam --Naim]
thamer@cis.ohio-state.edu (Mustafa Thamer) (12/07/89)
That sounds like a great idea. Distributing the work to many, responsible people is the best way. I for one would contribute in the typing of 100 verses myself. Unfortunately, like many other students, I will be away for the Christmas break until the first week in January. -Mustafa Thamer -=- "Two days ago I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker. You wanna get out of here; you talk to me."
naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) (12/07/89)
Camm Maguire proposes a project for typing in an English translation of the Quran and asks: > 1) Is there interest in this project? Who would be willing >to contribute typing time? How much time could they afford to >spend? Certainly, there would be lots of interest in this project. You can count me in (after Jan 21st, '90), on typing 100 verses. > 2) What English translation of the Qur'an should we choose? >Many of you may know of the world scripture translation project >headed by Prince Charles. I hear that in the near future, a new >English translation fully approved of by all leading Muslim scholars >will be produced. We may want to wait for this translation to be >completed, or we may not. How about choosing an English translation that is in modern English rather than the ones that usually use archaic English ? In a previous posting, Asim Jalis mentioned a translation by Ahmed Ali that uses contemporary English. We probably do not want to wait for the translation from the world scripture project. Who knows when they will finish, and whether their result will be any better than existing translations. > 3) We need to decide on a procedure for quality control, >such as assigning a typer and a different proof-reader for each >section. There are two possibilities: 1) Somebody with access to a scanner can scan in a whole translation. This would ensure accuracy and also capture the Arabic text. However the resultant output would be a bitmap image rather than ASCII text. It would only be viewable on workstation monitors. 2) If we stick with the approach of an army of typists, then if we collect 126 (= 63 * 2) people, we can have two people independently do every section. Every pair of outputs can be compared using UNIX text processing tools to detect differences (there are variants of diff around that can do this). If we can barely collect 63 people, then we can proofread each others work. What do other people think of Camm's proposal ? Here is a chance to volunteer and make a difference!! Naim
thamer@cis.ohio-state.edu (Mustafa Thamer) (12/08/89)
In article <1890@accuvax.nwu.edu> naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) writes: > >1) Somebody with access to a scanner can scan in a whole translation. >This would ensure accuracy and also capture the Arabic text. However >the resultant output would be a bitmap image rather than ASCII text. >It would only be viewable on workstation monitors. > Not necessarily true, there a quite a few OCR packages that may be able to pull the text off a bitmap image and produce ascii text. These are not cheap, and they are not perfect, but they do work. Anyone have access to one where you can selectively box the area of the image that you want to convert to ascii? -Mustafa Thamer -=- "Two days ago I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker. You wanna get out of here; you talk to me."
khan@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Iqbal Mustafa Khan) (12/08/89)
> > Would anyone be interested in typing a mutually acceptable >English version of the Qur'an? The document is not that long, some >people memorize it. I believe the Qur'an has some 6300 verses. If Count me in as one of those 63 people; I am willing to share 1/63 of the typing. > 2) What English translation of the Qur'an should we choose? >Many of you may know of the world scripture translation project >headed by Prince Charles. I hear that in the near future, a new >English translation fully approved of by all leading Muslim scholars >will be produced. We may want to wait for this translation to be >completed, or we may not. > I have read the translation by Yussuf Ali and also another translation published in Lebanon. The latter one's translater (or reviser) is Mehmud Y. Zayid and it is published by DAR AL-CHAURA. This one is approved by both the Sunni and Shia councils of Lebanon. However, I think Yussuf Ali's translation is probably the most widely accepted, even though it is not in contemporary English. > 3) We need to decide on a procedure for quality control, >such as assigning a typer and a different proof-reader for each >section. > Fully agree with you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iqbal Mustafa Khan khan@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu 812-857-2863 Computer Science Department Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
bmaruti (B Maruti) (12/09/89)
In article <1885@accuvax.nwu.edu> cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu writes: > > > Would anyone be interested in typing a mutually acceptable >English version of the Qur'an? The document is not that long, some >people memorize it. I believe the Qur'an has some 6300 verses. If >we get 63 people, say, that's one hundred verses a piece, a task >which can probably be completed over a weekend. I have already > > In my opinion, such a project would greatly advance the >understanding of this great faith so frequently misunderstood in the >West. > > >Camm > I endorse this idea. I would be willing to contribute by either typing 100 verses or proofreading someone else's typing. However, being non-Muslim, I do not have a copy of Quran. I will be able to borrow one from the library, but if most muslim netters settle on a particular version, perhaps I can get a xerox copy of the verses I have to type in or proofread. - Maruti bmaruti@wpi.wpi.edu [To the moderators: I posted one article to soc.religion.islam but it didn't get posted. Then I sent it to shari@wpi.wpi.edu, one of the moderators. For the benefit of those who do not know where to send the articles, it would be better to periodically describe the procedure for posting or following-up on s.r.i. ]
ischick@BBN.COM (Irvin C. Schick) (12/12/89)
In article <1885@accuvax.nwu.edu> cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu (Camm Maguire) writes: > > Would anyone be interested in typing a mutually acceptable >English version of the Qur'an? The document is not that long, some >people memorize it. I believe the Qur'an has some 6300 verses. If >we get 63 people, say, that's one hundred verses a piece, a task >which can probably be completed over a weekend. > >... > > Perhaps we should discuss this idea in this forum for a few >weeks, during which time I will continue to search for a previously >typed copy. Certainly an on-line version of any important text is better than no on-line version at all, but I have some questions and concerns on the subject of entering an English translation of the Qur'an. 1. One of the primary benefits of having a text on-line is to be able to perform searches on it. But an index and concordance to the Qur'an would serve this purpose just as well. Why then would we go through the trouble of entering the entire text? 2. Another benefit is to be able to perform various kinds of textual analysis. This, however, would necessitate an on-line version of the original Arabic text, not of a translation. Clearly, any analysis (stylistic etc.) conducted on a translation would only reflect the qualities of the translation, not of the original. 3. Finally, while I am not Muslim, I expect that some Muslims might be concerned about the maintenance and disposal of the on-line Qur'an and of printouts made from it. After all, it would not be desirable for computer paper onto which verses of the Qur'an were printed to be used to line someone's garbage can. All this said, I would participate if it is decided to go ahead with this project. Irvin
araja@m2.csc.ti.com (Ali Raja) (12/14/89)
> Would anyone be interested in typing a mutually acceptable >English version of the Qur'an? The document is not that long, some >people memorize it. :-). They also spend about two years doing it. :-) >I believe the Qur'an has some 6300 verses. If >we get 63 people, say, that's one hundred verses a piece, a task >which can probably be completed over a weekend. I doubt that you will be able to get 63 people, and be able to co-ordinate them easily. I have access to a scanner which scans printed text and deciphers it back into ASCII format. Assuming about 1/2 a minute a page, and at 7 verses (translated etc.) to the page I calculate (shut up, Seggev :-]) about 500 minutes or so - should be able to do it within a weekend. It is not perfect though; it does make mistakes, so it'll have to be proofread; errors should be obvious - they'll be spellings mostly, and to make sure that I have not missed/duplicated a page. [I also found a scanner with optical character recognition software attached to a MacIntosh here at Northwestern. Basalat and I with the scanners, and the 20-30 typists that Camm mentioned, should be able to get this project finished in a month or two inshallah. --Naim] -------