Re: Encoding the Holy Koran into Unicode

[Adil Allawi <adil at diwan dot com>]

Salaam Mete,

I have approached this issue from exactly the same perspective. There should be a set of standards for Quran on computers and that this would form the basis for which all companies would build their own solutions. This is why Diwan approached the subject from the point of view of using a pure Unicode encoding and encoding the actual characters rather than the visual forms. I have donated some eight years of Diwan's best R&D time into this effort.

I would love to work on such a joint project and I have proposed joint efforts to other companies. And for the past few years Diwan presents its best ideas to the industry at Gitex in Dubai. My conclusion is that there are too many managers of software companies in the Middle East who refuse to cooperate with others. At best they want the whole project for themselves and at worst they would prefer to "borrow" the best ideas of others and claim them for their own. In the US the big competing companies will share their ideas and if one company does use the ideas of another, it pays for the rights. In the Middle East software companies try to destroy each other. In this atmosphere you will not get many companies to cooperate and if Diwan openly publishes its best ideas it will only see others claiming credit for this work.

My only feeling is that if a foundation can be created to define such a standard and this can gain proper funding and support from industry and government standards bodies, then Diwan would be pleased to be partner of this. I think this is possible. Diwan has got positive reactions from big companies such as Sun and Microsoft and Dubai Internet City. But there is not yet enough momentum behind the idea to get these organisations involved and more companies interested. I think this is where our joint efforts can make a difference.

In the meantime I will work in whatever way I can - I will publish my recommendations for the Unicode standard when my time allows and I will be happy to share this with the open source community at that time.

Regards,

Adil

Regards,

Adil

At 4:29 pm +0100 8/4/03, Mete Kural wrote:
>Salaamun Aleykum Munzir, Adil and others,
>
>It is good to hear interest in a Quran encoding
>project. We have been trying to raise such interest in
>various communities for some time. So far, the
>encoding of the Quran in digital form has been a very
>fragmented area. Different companies have their own
>schemes. There are no standards. I believe that there
>should be a set of standards which organizations and
>individuals who want to publish the Quran using
>computer technology can rely on regardless of which
>company they are working with.
>
>God willing a project could be initiated which aims to
>specify a set of standard guidelines and examples of
>encoding the Quran in computer format. Then font
>manufacturers, publishing software manufacturers and
>other companies can compete in the area of providing
>publishing services such as fonts, publishing
>software, etc. to organizations and individuals who
>want to publish the Quran. This is a common scenario
>for many software applications: The specifications are
>standard and openly available, while companies compete
>in the implementation of the standards.
>
>Would you, Munzir and Adil, be interested in such a
>standardization effort?
>
>Best Regards,
>Mete

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Adil Allawi
Technical Director   Diwan Software Ltd