Useful info for The Quran Project

[Munzir Taha <munzirtaha at myrealbox dot com>]

I am not sure how Mr Yousuf is proceeding in Quran project. What about the 
font? It's a long time since I've last heard about it. I even send a mail (in 
private for good reasons) concerning a serious issue to the developers but no 
replies yet ;-) Hope everything is Ok with you all.

Now, I have passed through a nice information in the Internet and want to 
share it with you and hope you will like it.

(see: http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc17/a346.html)
Encoding the Holy Koran into Unicode


Adil Allawi - Diwan Software Limited


Intended Audience:
Manager, Software Engineer


Session Level:
Beginner


The central document of the Muslim religion, the Koran, also represents the 
highest standard for the representation of the Arabic language and 
typography. The text of the Koran is sacred to Muslims and as such it must be 
encoded without any errors and in its entirety. It is for these reasons that 
any approach in encoding the Koran fully on computers is a non-trivial task. 
It is not possible to compromise on any details from the design of the 
typeface to the encoding of the text into Unicode. Diwan Software Limited 
have an ongoing project for the past three years to make a complete 
electronic Koran. Starting with the creation of a suitable typeface to the 
encoding of the text. The purpose of our paper will be to show how we have 
approached this subject and to demonstrate the results of our work. We also 
wish to use the opportunity to start a discussion on how the Unicode standard 
can best be applied to this purpose and what are its limitations.


Our work is not just relevant to Muslims and scholars of Islamic religion. 
Although this would be reason enough for our project. But also as a key 
milestone in the development of the Unicode standard in its ability to 
accurately represent texts of all world language. The lessons we have learnt 
from our project will also be relevant for anyone trying to accurately render 
written texts using computers and encode such texts into Unicode. We hope 
that our presentation would also highlight these aspects. 
-------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.diwan.com/english/pages/inside/news/press9.htm
Diwan and Sun Microsystems Inc. cooperate to make the Holy Koran available on 
the Internet




Diwan and Sun Microsystems Inc. cooperate to make the Holy Koran available on 
the Internet.
 
Diwan is cooperating with Sun on the next release of Sun's Java technology to 
make the Holy Koran available in its complete form on the widest variety of 
computer platforms via the Internet. The results of our work will be 
demonstrated on the Sun Microsystems stand at GITEX 2000 in Dubai from 28th 
October to 1st November.
 
Diwan announced at the 17th Unicode conference the completion of their 
encoding of the Holy Koran into Unicode together with a typeface capable of 
rendering all the calligraphy of hand-written Korans. This project for the 
first time bridges the gap between hand-drawn Korans and computer typography.
 
Unicode has made it possible for the first time to encode the Holy Koran with 
all its correct marks and annotations. Diwan has completed a family of 
intelligent typefaces which are capable of rendering the Holy Koran 
automatically from the plain text of the encoding. Based on the award-winning 
Mishafi font, Diwan's typeface fully supports the long held traditions, 
especially those of Hafs ibn Sulaiman al-Kufi and other well known 
authorities, of encoding the Koran.
 
Using the features of the forthcoming Java version 1.4 it has become possible 
to make the text of the Holy Koran work on nearly all computer platforms 
regardless of built-in support for Arabic. Diwan has worked with Sun to make 
sure the text engine built into Java 1.4 supports the features necessary for 
Diwan's typeface to render the Koran encoding correctly. Diwan will also work 
with Sun on future enhancements to their Java text support to allow for more 
advanced typographic features.
 
Diwan has created an applet that contains our Koranic typeface and components 
of Diwan's al-Nashir al-Sahafi desktop publishing application. The applet 
will read the text of the Koran as Unicode from a database server and display 
it correctly formatted on the client's computer. As the applet is built on 
Sun's Java technology it will run immediately on any platform that has a Java 
1.4 Runtime. The applet and the database are hosted on one of Sun's high-end 
servers which provides the necessary power to make the text available to 
millions of subscribers via the Internet. Diwan will be showing this system 
at the Sun Microsystems stand at GITEX 2000.
 
"Sun Microsystems is delighted to welcome Diwan Software Limited onto its 
stand at GITEX, and is proud to learn that Sun's Java technology is being 
utilized by Diwan to provide access to the Holy Koran on the majority of 
computer platforms and over the Internet," said Amanda Cummins, Business 
Development Manager, Sun Microsystems. Diwan Software is a strategic member 
of the Sun Developer Connection - Sun's online community for developers using 
the Java and Solaris platforms.
 
Adil Allawi, technical director of Diwan Software adds: "Diwan has spent more 
than 3 years completing the Holy Koran and a typeface capable of matching the 
work of the best calligraphers. With Sun's Java technology this has helped us 
realize our dream of making the full word of the Koran available immediately 
to millions of people on all computer systems."
 
------------------------------------------------

You will find a little more info at the links. I tried to find more info but 
couldn't. Java 1.4 is still beta. Sun's site says nothing useful about this. 
Any comments?




-- 
Munzir Taha,
Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer,
Certified Internet Webmaster, (CIW),
Microsoft Office User Specialist, (MOUS),
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia