Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!ischick
From: ischick@BBN.COM (Irvin C. Schick)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Proposal for a Machine readable Qur'an
Message-ID: <2049@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 89 07:25:32 GMT
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Approved: naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah)

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