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From: cmaguire@phoenix.princeton.edu (Camm Maguire)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Machine Readable Qur'an
Message-ID: <2042@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 89 07:19:15 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Lines: 48
Approved: naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah)


	Greetings!  The responses have been pouring in!  So far we
have 20 committed typists.  In addition, a friend of mine here at
Princeton knows of about 20 potential others at U Penn.  He seems
confident that they will wish to participate.  

	Many respondents have been indicating their schedule
constraints, and it seems as if late January or early February would
be the best time to type.  Unless anyone disagrees, let's shoot for
Feb. 1.  

	As far as the choice of translation goes, I suggest the
following procedure:

	1) First find out which translations are copyrighted and
eliminate those.

	2) Then limit the choices to those which are well known
among all Muslims, especially Islamic scholars.

	3) Then take a net vote as to whether Victorian or modern
English is preferred.  This should eliminate roughly half of the
choices left after step 2).

	4) Then eliminate those not easily accessible to any of our
committed typists.  

	5) If any choice remains at this stage, take a net vote.

	If there are any objections to this procedure, please post
them to soc.religion.islam within the next week or so, and through
consultation we will amend it as necessary.

	If there are no objections to this procedure, I will
volunteer to do step one, and will post a list of non-copyrighted
translations.  If anyone has access to a broad range of Islamic
scholars and could then do step two, please send me mail.
Otherwise, I can check with the Near Eastern Studies Department here
at Princeton.

	In the mean time, please keep sending volunteers to type!
If you know any friends who might not see this message themselves,
ask them if they're interested.  It looks as if this project is going
to go!

Peace!

Camm