New Intelligent Quran Search Engine

JahsWolf

I am in the database design curve of a project to develop a intelligent Quran search engine that I will call "My Quran".

In the current design projections are multiple english Quran's, with a twist where the user will either maintain his or her history, bookmarks, notes, chain references, and personal reflection on the meaning of a particular surah.

I am open to suggestions, and would like your feedback on what you wish you had when searching the Holy Quran.

I am also interested in what your opinions are on providing group statitics. Like what kind of information should be kept completley private to the user, and what information may be open to public access.

For example. A well used Quran search engine could provide details like most read verse, poll results like what people think a particular verse means and much more.

Since I am in database design phase, it is important that I have a good idea how the project will grow and to what direction, so that a complete re-write of code will not be necessary to obtain a desired goal.

One of the main goals of the project is to give the user the ability to ask in a natural language questions of the Quran, and a verse to be the reply from the engine.

An example. Can those in hell repent and be forgiven?
Answer Allegorical Description of Hell

If you cannot do this - and you can never do this - then beware of the HELLfire, whose fuel is people and rocks; it awaits the disbelievers.

"As for those who disbelieve and reject our revelations, they will be dwellers of HELL, wherein they abide forever."

It can be seen by these verses the eternity of hell, yet in the following verse we see a possible escape from hell

Gehenna is inevitable.
For the transgressors; it will be their abode.
They stay in it for ages.

The goal of the intelligence put into the engine is to provide the possible explanations to many questions, and to LEARN new explanations from the users, and ultimatly provide the collective God given guidance given to individuals collected and distributed back to the group of users as yet another source of information for the soul to use it's reason in determination of what is right and wrong guidance.

CavemanDoctor

Peace JahsWolf

If I am following you correctly, this seems like a great idea. I really like the idea of someone, for example, signing up and having all his/her personal data (notes, references, reflections, etc.) stored in his/her profile so that that person could revisit it and so that others can see that person's thoughts.

Example Let's say I feel I have a real good grasp on secured transactions (2282) and make notes on it. Whenever someone pulls that verse up (either through a direct verse search, or through a word search that brings the verse up), it will not only give the verse in its multiple translations but also say something like "52 comments have been made regarding this verse. To see these comments, click here."

Regarding the group statistics and privacy, give the user the option to keep whatever he/she wants to keep private.

Some other suggestions

Probably some Quran search engines already have this but make it to where one can search an actual word and not just any string of letters. E.g., when I use quranbrowser.org and type in the word "ten," I get many results with the words "ten," "begotten," "forgotten," etc., when in actuality, I just want the number "ten."
You mentioned English translations. Definitely try to put the transliteration as well as the Arabic script as well.
Don't know if this is possible but can you incorporate openburhan into your search engine as well so that users can search for Arabic roots. This would make your site that much more comprehensive.
You used the example of someone asking the engine a question such as "Can those in hell repent and be forgiven?" If possible, make it to where (using keyword tags) the engine knows what other users asked similar questions (e.g. "Is hell eternal or can God forgive me?&quot, and thereby the asker of the question can be directed to the other users who asked those similar questions ("15 other users have asked a similar question. To see their profiles, click here.&quot. This way, the person who asked the question can be lead to various users who are "thinking along the same lines" and perhaps discover other questions that those other users asked that the original user never even thought to inquire about.
Again, not sure if any current engines have this capability but try to incorporate more advanced search techniques (such as those used by Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis). A good example of this is the "search within n words feature." E.g., let's say I want to search for the word "prophet" but only when the word occurs around the word "disbelievers." To do so, I type in "prophet /10 disbelievers" and it finds all verses where the word "prophet" is mentioned within 10 words of the word "disbelievers." You can use the same thing for words in the same sentence ("prophet /s disbelievers&quot or perhaps same chapter ("prophet /c disbelievers&quot.
One thing that bugs me about some engines is that word searches are restricted by translation. For example, on quranbrowser.org, if I want to search "paradise," I have to click on what translation I want to look in (Khalifa, Shakir, etc.) and it forces me to look through all of them one at a time cause many times translators use different English words for different verses. Make sure you give the user an option to search for the word "in all translations."
I like the idea you have about poll statistics regarding most read verse, etc. I think the converse should also be included least read sura, least read verse, sura with least amount of comments, etc. This will perhaps tip users off and allow them to focus more closely on those seldom-read verses/suras and thereby spark more notes on them.
Since you say the goal is to provide the user with as many explanations as possible, you should try to also provide links to traditional commentaries (if they are online) so that the user gets different views. Biblegateway.com does something similar whenever you look up a verse, it gives various commentaries that you can choose from to learn more about the verse.
Allow users to submit suggested cross-references that pop up whenever someone else finds a verse. E.g., let's say I'm reading the verse about punishing thieves (53 and I realize "aha, this is tied to Joseph's story" so I mark the thief-punishing verse and suggest 1274-75 to be tied to it. Thereafter, when someone comes upon 538, he/she sees "A cross-reference has been suggested for this verse. To see it, click here" and when the user clicks, 1274-75 comes up.

That's all I can think of for now. If I think of more, I'll let you know. Peace.

unknownuser

May I ask what DB engine and language you will use?

cheers

adley

Salaam JahsWolf,

Well well... interesting... very interesting.
What will be the final result of this project? Is it pure Web or there will be a standalone version that can be installed on Windows/Linux that has the ability to go online to synchronize with updates?

If this is going to be big and feature-istic (as I assume it will), the design better be well-thought and documented bro (you know, UML and stuffs ;D). And to consider bro CavemanDoctor's suggested ideas, this thing will be quite a work.

=adley=

Wakas

peace JahsWolf,

the Q&A function sounds very complex to do, and I'm not even sure it should be done. The reason being, the so-called answers may not be correct. If such a function can be added later, thats fine, but I dont think this should be the main goal.

Allowing users to make notes and browse other notes is a good idea. However, if it becomes too popular, the note quality is likely to go down.

I think the most important feature to have is to be able to identify ALL information about a word, e.g. its root, all its occurrences, its classical arabic meanings, all other verses discussing the same topic, all its grammar info. This would allow high quality study of 'the reading'. This is what I'm concentrating my efforts on at the moment.

Also, are you working with others on this? I know "Hoag" of QuranInstitute.org is working on similar things.

Wakas

JahsWolf

May peace be upon each of your hearts

Thank you all for your very interesting responses. I need to evaluate each of them further, before I make a detailed response.

As far as the database engine it will be MySQL. It has a wonderful text search capability that was just being developed five years ago when I hung up my keyboard from professional programming and database administration.

The code for the front end I am still thinking about, but I am set on the first cut to be a web based front end. I want this for the main reason of compatabiltiy for the maxium amount of users including a phone browser. I toyed with the idea of a client based program and even layed quite a lot of code into it before I just had to stop, and make the decision to go to a web front end. I am leaning toward PHP but it will be a learning curve for me, but I like the speed of what I have seen elsewhere.

As in all design phase programs I am making every attempt to decide the number of features at first release and what the order of additional features I wish to add later. All of the input here has given me quite the laundry list of features from which to choose from for the first release. Since I am designing the Database now, this is imperitive to decide now what features I will include later.

As far as the effort, it is a personal effort and I am not colaborating with anyone of this except God of course.

I have spend a number of years making up my mind to do this or not, and dealing with the moral considerations of developing artifical intelligence at all, and to what extent. But the goal is to develop it here in a way to provide the maximum benfit for returning users.

Again, thank each of you for taking the time to respond to my querry, and I promise to keep you informed about what features I decide to include in my first release.

May the Peace of God be found in each of your hearts...

Dow