Extended version of presentation used in the thesis defending to get Magister degree , September 2013 , ESI Algiers

1. ‫الرحمي‬ ‫الرمحن‬ ‫هللا‬ ‫سم‬‫ب‬
*ٌ‫اب‬َ‫ت‬ِ‫ك‬ ‫الر‬‫ا‬ِ َ ِ‫َم‬ِ‫ح‬‫ا‬ُ‫ه‬ُ‫ت‬ َ‫َي‬ِ‫ص‬ُ‫ف‬ َّ ُ‫ُث‬ٍ ‫ر‬ََِِ ٍ ‫مي‬َِِ‫ح‬ ََُِْ ِ‫ن‬ِِ ِ َ‫َل‬*
1

2. T H E S I S O F M A G I S T E R
Proposal of an Advanced
Retrieval System for Noble Qur’an

3. Plan
 Introduction
 Problematic
 State of Art
 Search Engines
 Arabic Language
 Noble Quran
 Objectives
 Proposed search
features
 Conception
 Implemented work
 Published papers
 Conclusion &
Perspectives
_

4. Introduction
 Qur’an, in Arabic, means the Read or the Recitation.
Muslim scholars define it as:
« the words of Allah revealed to His Prophet Muhammad, written in
Mus’haf and transmitted by successive generations »
 Qur’an is a sacred book for all Muslims
 Qur’an is also the first reference to Islamic law.
 The Muslims, through 14 centuries, are still:
 Studying it,
 Teaching it,
 Writing books about it,
 Developing applications for it -recently-.
4

5. Problematic
 Qur’an is an important source of information about all
aspects of life:
 Scientific, Social, Historical, Political, Ethical, Juridical, etc.
 With a huge amount of information.
 Quran is extremely difficult for regular search tools to
successfully extract key information, so we should find
other ways to enquire!
 The appropriate solution for that is an Advanced
Retrieval System
 Why a Retrieval System?
 Why advanced?
5

6. Indexing
 Indexing consists in :
 Analyzing each document in the collection to create a set of
keywords.
 Creating a representation of documents in the system.
 Supporting other domains:
 Auto-Clustering of documents,
 Related keywords suggestion
 Documents Auto-Analysis,
 Calculating collocated terms,
 Auto-summarization.
 Etc.
6

7. Full-text search
 A technology of finding documents matching a set of words.
 Most of the web search engines such as Google and Bing!
use full-text search engines at the heart of their service
 The core of a full-text search engine is split into two main
operations:
 Indexing the information into an efficient format
 Searching the relevant information from this pre-computed index
7

8. Indexing :: Phases
Example: « Assem is >defending< his thesis!! »
 Tokenization: Assem + is + >defending< + his + thesis!!
 Normalization: assem + is + defending + his + thesis
 Filtering stop words : assem + $ + defending + $ + thesis
 Stemming: assem + $ + defend + $ + thesis
Resulted keywords: assem, defend, thesis
8

9. Indexing :: Index types

10. Querying (Search)
 Querying is the phase of interaction between the system and
the user.
 Search takes a user query and returns the effective list of
matching results sorted by relevance.
 Relevance: A degree of relationship between the document
and the query
10

11. Querying process

12. Semantic Approach
12
 Objective: improve search accuracy by
understanding searcher intent and the contextual
meaning of terms to generate more relevant results.
 Semantic search does not just mean contextual
search
 It is a smart search that would consider several
factors to provide the most relevant and useful
search queries.

13. Semantic Approach :: factors
13
 Current trend
 Location of search
 Intend of the search
 Variations of words
 Synonyms
 Generalized and Specialized queries
 Concept matching
 Natural language queries
 Change of meaning based on the group of words
13

14. Semantic Approach :: factors
14
 Current trend
 Who wins the Classico?  last one of course
 Location of search
 Weather temperature?  here in Algiers preferably
 Intend of the search
 Earth quake  Checking if one happened, or looking for articles
 Variations of words
 Man, Men, Man’s.
 Synonyms
 Biggest mountain , Highest mountain
 Generalized and Specialized queries
 Health vs Diabetes
 Concept matching
 Half life  the game or the physical constant
 Natural language queries
 What time is it in Cairo?
 Change of meaning based on the group of words
 New egg health benefits
 New egg health products
14

15. Arabic :: Orthography
 A Semitic language
 The language of Quran
 A Right-to-Left language
15

16. Arabic :: Lexicography
16
The classical Arabic grammar has only three subsets
 Verbs
 Verbs with a simple root (‫المجرد‬ ‫:)الفعل‬ َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬
 Hamzated verb (‫,)مهموز‬ Assimilated verb (‫,)مثال‬ Hollow verb (‫,)أجوف‬
Weakened verb (‫,)ناقص‬ Geminated verb (‫ف‬َ‫ع‬‫.)مض‬
 Verbs with augmented root (‫المزيد‬ ‫)الفعل‬
 ‫ل‬ّ‫ع‬‫ف‬،‫فاعل‬،‫أفعل‬،‫ل‬ّ‫ع‬‫تف‬،‫تفاعل‬،‫افتعل‬،‫انفعل‬،‫استفعل‬
 Nouns
 Primitive nouns (‫الجامدة‬ ‫)األسماء‬ :
 Nouns derived from verbals (‫المشتقة‬ ‫)األسماء‬
 Numbers, Demonstrative pronouns, Relative pronouns, Personal
pronouns, Function words
 Particles

17. Arabic :: Morphology
• Arabic is a fusional language, considered as an intro-flexion
language:
• Consonants indicate the meaning
• Vowels mark the flexion
• Arabic language is very rich and based on the structure of
patterns (about 500) and roots (about 7000).
• Theoretically:
• A single Arabic root can generate hundreds of
words (noun, verb, ...) by applying patterns.
• A single Arabic word can exist in about a hundred
of forms by adding certain suffixes and prefixes
17

18. Arabic :: Flexional Morphology
18
• Arabic uses for the conjugation of verbs and declension
of nouns, some indications (Generally Affixes) of:
• aspect, mood, time, person, gender, number, case.
• These flexional marks can distinguish:
• Mode of verbs: Perfective, Imperfective …
• Function of nouns: Nominative, Accusative,
Genitive

19. Arabic :: Flexion
19
• Flexion of verbs (Conjugation)
o Aspect
o Mood
 Doubted, Affirmed (Actual or Eventual)
o Tense
 Perfective (‫:)الماضي‬ ‫فعلت‬ ،َ‫فعلت‬ ،ُ‫فعلت‬
 Imperfective (‫)المضارع‬
 Imperative (‫)األمر‬

20. Arabic :: Flexion :: Verbs
20

21. Arabic :: Flexion :: Verbs
21
• Perfective (‫:)الماضي‬
• 1st person: ،ُ‫ت‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬‫َا‬‫ن‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬
• 2nd person: ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،‫ا‬َ‫م‬ُ‫ت‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،ِ‫ت‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،َ‫ت‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬َُّ‫ت‬ْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،،ُ‫ت‬
• 3rd person: ، ْ‫ت‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬َ‫ف‬ ،‫ا‬َ‫ت‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ، َ‫َل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ََّْ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ ،‫وا‬ُ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬
• Imperfective (‫)المضارع‬
• Nominative,
• Accusative,
• Jussive,
• Imperative (‫)األمر‬

22. Arabic :: Flexion :: Nouns
22
• Flexion of nouns (declension)
o 3 cases:
 Nominative (‫)الرفع‬
 Accusative (‫)النصب‬
 Genitive (‫)الكسر‬
o Depends on:
 Number: Singular (‫,)المفرد‬ Dual (‫,)المثنى‬ Plural (‫)الجمع‬
 Form: Triptote , Diptote , etc.
-

23. Arabic :: Flexion :: Nouns
23
o Declension of Singular nouns
 Triptotes (‫المنصرفة‬ ‫:)األسماء‬ ‫ا‬ً‫ب‬‫كتا‬ ٍ‫ب‬‫كتا‬ ‫كتاب‬
 Diptotes (‫الصرف‬ ‫من‬ ‫الممنوعة‬ ‫:)األسماء‬ ‫قاحلة‬ ‫صحراء‬
 Five Nouns (‫الخمسة‬ ‫:)األسماء‬ ‫أخو‬‫أخا‬‫أخي‬
 Deverbals with defective roots : ‫ماض‬
o Declension of dual nouns: ‫كتابان‬ ‫كتابين‬
o Declension of plural nouns
 External masculine plural (‫السالم‬ ‫مذكر‬ ‫:)جمع‬ ‫كاتبين‬ ‫كاتبون‬
o Declension of function words
 Invariables : ‫منذ‬
 Variables: َّ‫ل‬‫ك‬

24. Arabic :: Derivational morphology
24
o Deverbal noun (‫:)المصدر‬ ‫د‬‫و‬ , ‫د‬‫و‬ , ‫اد‬‫د‬ِ‫,و‬ ‫ة‬‫اد‬‫د‬ِ‫و‬ , ‫َّة‬‫د‬‫و‬‫م‬
o Active participle (‫فاعل‬ ‫:)اسم‬ ‫ب‬ ِ‫ار‬‫ض‬ (hitter)
o Passive participle (‫مفعول‬ ‫:)اسم‬ ‫وب‬‫ْر‬‫ض‬‫م‬ (struck)
o Nouns of time and place (‫والمكان‬ ‫الزمان‬ ‫ٔسماء‬‫ا‬): ‫ة‬‫س‬‫ْر‬‫د‬‫م‬ (school), ‫ب‬ ِ‫ر‬ْ‫غ‬‫م‬
(sunset)
o The Nomen Vicis (‫المرة‬ ‫:)اسم‬ ‫ة‬‫ب‬ ْ‫ر‬‫ض‬ (a hit)
o The Nomen Speciei ( ‫الهيئة‬ ‫:)اسم‬ ‫ت‬‫س‬‫ل‬‫ج‬_‫ة‬‫س‬ْ‫ل‬ ِ‫ج‬_‫ا‬‫ل‬‫ا‬‫ات‬‫ير‬ِ‫م‬ (she sat like
princesses)

25. Arabic :: Ambiguities :: Absence of Vocalization
If text has the word (‫,)الملك‬
How should search engine understand the meaning?
Is it ?
1. « ‫ك‬‫ل‬‫|الم‬ Angel »,
2. « ‫لك‬‫|الم‬ Kingdom »
3. « ‫ك‬ِ‫ل‬‫|الم‬ King »
25

26. For the word « ‫»وعد‬ , the letter wâw « ‫»واو‬ is :
1. A part of the word:
‫د‬‫ع‬‫و‬ (to promise)
2. Not a part of the word:
‫و‬َّ‫د‬‫ع‬ (and + to count)
Arabic :: Ambiguities :: Prefixes
26

27. For the word « ‫,»وله‬ the letter ha’ (‫)هاء‬ is :
1. A part of the word:
‫ه‬ِ‫ل‬‫و‬ (admire)
2. Not a part of the word:
ِّ‫ل‬‫و‬ِ‫ه‬ (crown + him)
‫و‬‫ل‬‫ه‬ (and + he <-> has)
Arabic :: Ambiguities :: Suffixes
27

28. Quran :: Structure
 The Qur’an consists of 114 surahs, the surahs are divided into
ayahs.
 the main fragmentation, specified by the prophet.
28
‫القرآن‬
‫سورة‬1
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...
‫سورة‬2
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...
...
‫سورة‬114
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...

29. Quran :: Structure
 There are many fragmentations:
 Primary structure: surah, ayah, word and letter;
 Special locations: First ayahs of Surah ( ‫السورة‬ ‫,)فواتح‬ Last ayahs of
Surah ( ‫السورة‬ ،‫,)خواتي‬ Qur’anic comma ( ‫فاصلة‬‫قرا‬‫نية‬ ), Sajdah ( ‫,)سجدة‬
Waqf (‫)وقف‬
 Other Structures: page, Juz’ (‫)جزء‬ , Hizb( ‫,)حزب‬ Nisf( ‫,)نصف‬ Rubu’(
‫,)ربع‬ Thumn( َّ‫)ثم‬
‫القرآن‬
‫أول‬ ‫جزء‬
‫حزب‬
‫نصف‬
‫ربع‬
َّ‫ثم‬َّ‫ثم‬
‫ربع‬
‫نصف‬
‫حزب‬
...
‫جزء‬
‫ثَلثون‬
29
‫القرآن‬
‫سورة‬1
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...
‫سورة‬2
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...
...
‫سورة‬114
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•‫آية‬
•...

30. Quran :: Structure :: Stops (Waqfs)
3030

31. Quran :: Uthmani Script
standarduthmanipositionchanges
‫سأريكم‬‫سأوريكم‬(‫األعراف‬:145)
‫في‬ ‫الزيادة‬
‫الواو‬
‫العالمين‬‫العلمين‬‫القرآن‬ ‫في‬ ‫مواضعها‬ ‫جميع‬‫األلف‬ ‫حذف‬
‫الغاوون‬‫الغاون‬
(‫الشعراء‬:94)‫موضع‬ ‫و‬
‫آخر‬
‫الواو‬ ‫حذف‬
‫النبيين‬‫النبين‬‫القرآن‬ ‫في‬ ‫مواضعها‬ ‫جميع‬‫الياء‬ ‫حذف‬
‫الليل‬‫اليل‬‫القرآن‬ ‫في‬ ‫مواضعها‬ ‫جميع‬‫الالم‬ ‫حذف‬
‫ننجي‬‫نجي‬(‫األنبياء‬:88)‫النون‬ ‫حذف‬
‫وجيء‬‫وجائ‬(‫الزمر‬:69)‫آخر‬ ‫موضع‬ ‫و‬‫األلف‬ ‫زيادة‬
31

32. Quran :: Sciences
32
 Specific to Quran
 Tafssīr (‫)التفسير‬
 Knowledge of Makkan and Medinan ayahs
 Knowledge of the causes of revelation
 Knowledge of the beginnings of surahs
 Science of allegorical ayahs (‫المتشابه‬ ،‫)عل‬
 Qur’anic Parables ( ‫ا‬‫ل‬‫ا‬‫مثال‬‫القرا‬‫نية‬ )
32

33. Quran :: Sciences
33
 Shared with other resources
 Legislative Study:
 Fiqh ( ‫)الفقه‬
 Abrogating and Abrogated ayahs ( ‫والمنسوخ‬ ‫اسخ‬ّ‫ن‬‫)ال‬
 General and Particular (ّ‫م‬‫والعا‬ ّ‫)الخاص‬
 Lingustic Study:
 Orthography (ّ‫الخط‬ ‫مرسوم‬ ،‫)عل‬
 Grammatical analysis of the Qur’an ( ‫ا‬‫عراب‬‫ا‬‫ا‬‫لفاظ‬‫القرا‬‫ن‬ )
 Morphology ( ‫)الصرف‬
 Rhetoric ( ‫)البَلغة‬
 Lexicology ( ،‫المعاج‬ ،‫)عل‬
 Scientific Study
 Scientific Miracles in Quran
 Numerical study of verses (ignoring the debate about it)

34. Quran :: indexes
Syntactic
Semantic
StructuralStatistical
Thematic
The indexes are catigorized by purpose on 5 main categories:

35. Quran :: Indexes :: Projects
35
 Midād lbayān
 Word morphology index
 Zerrouki’s Indexes
 Word morphology index
 Topic index
 Synonym index
 Qur’anic Arabic Corpus
 Word_by_word morphology index
 Tanzil Project
 Ayah index (Electronic Mushaf)
 Sructural index
 Surah index
 Boundary-Annotated Qur’an Corpus
 Word_by_word Waqf index (+mapping Uthmani-Standard)
 Qurany Concepts Tool
 Concept index

36. Quran :: Ontologies + examples
36
 Qur’anic Concepts Ontology
 Henni’s Ontology

37. Quran :: Indexes/Ontologies projects
Global critics
37
 Not Available|Not Open
 Except Zerrouki’s , Quranic Arabic Corpus, Tanzil
 Discontinued Development
 Except Quranic Arabic Corpus, Tanzil
37

38. Quranic Search Tools
38
 Alawfa (‫)األوفى‬
 Al-Monaqeb-Alqurany ( ‫المنقب‬‫ني‬ٓ‫ا‬‫القر‬ )
 Quran complex search service
 Quranic Researcher ( ‫الباحث‬‫ني‬ٓ‫ا‬‫القر‬ )
 Quranologie ( ‫علم‬‫ن‬ٓ‫ا‬‫القر‬ )
 Quranic Corpus Word-by-Word Search
 Tanzil Quran Browser (‫)تنزيل‬
 Zekr (‫)ذكر‬
38

39. Quranic Search Tools :: Global Critics
39
 They are not Full-Text Search Engines
 except Tanzil’s and Zekr’s advanced Search.
 Basic Search Operations
 Simple Query System
 Weak or unsupported linguistic operations
 except Quranic Corpus word_by_word search
 No Semantic Approach
 Closed source
 except Zekr
 Implemented as Interfaces, not as APIs or Librairies.
39

40. Objectives
40
 Design a retrieval system that fits perfectly the
Qur’an search needs.
 Yet, first we should list and classify all the search features that
are possible and helpful.
 Then, we need to study how to implement each feature and
what is its requirements.
40

41. Proposed Search Features :: Advanced Query
 Fielded search
 ‫سورة‬:‫الفاتحة‬
 Logical relations
 ‫الصَلة‬‫و‬‫الزكاة‬
 Phrase search
 ”‫هلل‬ ‫الحمد‬“
 Interval search
 ،‫رق‬_‫اآلية‬:[1‫إلى‬5]
 Full Regular expression
 [ ‫ن‬‫ا‬ ]‫م‬ to search for َّ‫م‬ or ‫ما‬
 Wildcards (Jokers)
 ‫ب؟‬‫طة‬  ‫بسطة‬,‫بصطة‬
 *‫*نبي‬  ‫نبي‬,‫األنبياء‬ ، َّ‫النبيي‬,,,
41

42. Proposed Search Features :: Output Improvements
 Pagination
 Sorting
 Relevance
 Mushaf natural order
 Revelation order
 Numirical, Alphabitical, or Abjad order
 Keyword Highlight
‫ذرني‬‫خلقت‬ َّ‫وم‬<style>‫وحيدا‬</style>
42

43. Proposed Search Features :: Output Improvements (2)
 Real time output
 Results grouping
 by surahs
 by topics
 by taffssir dependency
 by revelation events
 by allegorical ayahs
 by parables
 Uthmani script with full diacritical marks
43

44. Proposed Search Features :: Suggestion System
 Spell corrections
 ‫ابراهام‬:،‫إبراهي‬
 Semantically related words
(Ontology-based)
 ‫يعقوب‬:‫نبي‬ ، ‫إسرائيل‬ ،‫إسحاق‬ ،‫يوسف‬ ...
44

45. Proposed Search Features :: Suggestion System (2)
 Different vocalizations
 ‫:الملك‬ ‫ك‬ِ‫ل‬‫الم‬،‫ك‬ْ‫ل‬‫الم‬،‫ك‬‫ل‬‫الم‬ ...
 Collocated words
 ‫:سميع‬ ‫سميع‬‫عليم‬،‫سميع‬‫بصير‬
 ‫:الحمد‬ ‫الحمد‬‫هلل‬
 Keyboard mapping
 fsl: ‫(بسم‬f  ‫,ب‬ s  ‫,س‬ l ‫)م‬
 Different significations
 ‫:رب‬ 1st meaning (god), 2nd meaning (master)
45

46. Proposed Search Features :: Linguistic aspects
 Romanization
 ‫خليفة‬ : kalīfaẗ (ISO233), xalyfap (Buckwalter), _halyfaT (Arabtex).
 Syntactic Coloration
 Partial vocalization search
 ‫م‬َ‫ـ‬‫لـك‬ to locate ‫م‬َ‫ـ‬‫ك‬ِ‫ـ‬‫ل‬ , ‫م‬َ‫ـ‬‫ك‬َ‫لـ‬ … and ignore ‫م‬ُ‫ـ‬‫ك‬ْ‫ـ‬‫ل‬
 Multi-level derivation
 (Word: ‫اسقينا‬‫ا‬, level: lemma) to find ‫ا‬ َ‫و‬ْ،ُ‫ك‬‫َا‬‫ن‬ْ‫ي‬َ‫ق‬ْ‫س‬,ْ،ُ‫ه‬‫َا‬‫ن‬ْ‫ي‬َ‫ق‬ْ‫س‬ َ‫ل‬,‫ا‬َ‫ف‬ُ‫م‬ُ‫ك‬‫َا‬‫ن‬ْ‫ي‬َ‫ق‬ْ‫س‬ُ‫ه‬‫و‬ .
 Specific-derivations
 Conjugaison in perfective of ‫قال‬ to find ‫قال,قالت‬ ,‫قالوا‬ ,َّ‫قل‬ ...
46

47. Proposed Search Features :: Linguistic aspects
 Vocal Search
 Word linguistic
annotation
….
47

48. Proposed Search Features :: Linguistic aspects
 Word properties embedded query
 { ‫جذر‬:‫ملك‬‫نوع‬:‫اسم‬‫عدد‬:‫مفرد‬ }
 Numerical values search
 309 replaced by ‫وتسعة‬ ‫ثَلثمائة‬
 Fuzzy string search
 ‫مءصدة‬ may replace ‫مؤصدة‬
 Linguistic examples search
 Rhetorical deletion (‫البَلغي‬ ‫)الحذف‬
 Grammatical Shift (‫اللتفات‬
 Uthnmani writing way
 ‫بسطة‬ may replace ‫بصطة‬
 ‫نعمت‬ may replace ‫نعمة‬
_
48

49. Proposed Search Features :: Quranic Options
 Recitation marks retrieving
 ‫سجدة‬:،‫نع‬
 Structural options
 ‫صفحة‬:1
 ‫جزء‬:،‫ع‬
 Divine Name Highlight
49

50.  Translation embedded query
 { text: mercy lang: english author: shekir }
 Repetitions and Allegorical ayahs ( ‫التكرار‬‫والمتشابهات‬ )
 Repetition {55,13} == [ ِّ‫ي‬َ‫أ‬ِ‫ب‬َ‫ف‬ِ‫ء‬ َ‫آل‬‫ا‬َ‫م‬ُ‫ك‬ِّ‫ب‬َ‫ر‬ِ‫ان‬َ‫ب‬ِّ‫ذ‬َ‫ك‬ُ‫ت‬ ], 31 repetitions
 Abrogators and Abrogated ayahs search ( ‫والمنسوخ‬ ‫)الناسخ‬
 Quranic parables (‫)األمثال‬
 parable ( ‫سورة‬:‫ا‬‫لبقرة‬ )
[ ‫م‬ُ‫ه‬ُ‫ل‬َ‫ث‬َ‫م‬‫ل‬َ‫ث‬َ‫م‬َ‫ك‬‫ي‬‫ذ‬َّ‫ل‬‫ا‬َ‫د‬َ‫ق‬‫و‬َ‫ت‬‫اس‬‫ا‬ً‫ار‬َ‫ن‬‫ا‬َّ‫م‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ف‬‫ت‬َ‫ء‬‫ا‬َ‫ض‬َ‫أ‬‫ا‬َ‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َ‫ل‬‫و‬َ‫ح‬َ‫ب‬َ‫ه‬َ‫ذ‬ُ‫ه‬‫ـ‬َّ‫ل‬‫ال‬‫م‬‫ه‬‫ور‬ُ‫ن‬‫ب‬‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َ‫ك‬َ‫ر‬َ‫ت‬َ‫و‬‫ي‬‫ف‬‫ات‬َ‫م‬ُ‫ل‬ُ‫ظ‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ون‬ُ‫ر‬‫ص‬‫ب‬ُ‫ي‬ ]
Proposed Search Features :: Quranic Options (2)
50

51. Proposed Search Features :: Semantic Queries
 Semantically related words
 Syn( ‫)جنة‬ to find ‫,جنة‬ ،‫نعي‬ ,‫فردوس‬ …
 Ant ( ‫)جنة‬ to find ،‫,جحي‬ ‫سعير‬ , ،‫جهن‬ , ‫سقر‬ …
 Is ( ‫)جنة‬ to find ‫فردوس‬ ،‫عدن‬
 … (based on ontology)
 Faceted Thematic Search
-
51

52. Proposed Search Features :: Semantic Queries
 Natural Questions: ‫ك،؟‬ ‫ل،؟‬ ‫متى؟‬ ‫أيَّ؟‬ ‫ما؟‬ ‫مَّ؟‬
‫ما‬‫هي‬‫الحطمة؟‬What is Al-hottamat?
[ُ‫ة‬َ‫د‬َ‫ق‬‫و‬ُ‫م‬‫ال‬ ‫ـه‬َّ‫ل‬‫ال‬ ُ‫ار‬َ‫ن‬]-‫الهمزة‬6
It is the fire kindled by Allah
َّ‫م‬،‫ه‬‫األنبياء؟‬Who are the prophets?
[َ‫ل‬‫إ‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ي‬َ‫ح‬‫و‬َ‫أ‬َ‫و‬ ‫ه‬‫د‬‫ع‬َ‫ب‬ ‫ن‬‫م‬ َ‫ين‬‫ي‬‫ب‬َّ‫ن‬‫ال‬َ‫و‬ ‫وح‬ُ‫ن‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬‫إ‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ي‬َ‫ح‬‫و‬َ‫أ‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫ك‬ َ‫ك‬‫ي‬َ‫ل‬‫إ‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ي‬َ‫ح‬‫و‬َ‫أ‬ ‫ا‬َّ‫ن‬‫إ‬َ‫م‬‫س‬‫إ‬َ‫و‬ َ‫م‬‫ي‬‫اه‬َ‫ر‬‫ب‬‫إ‬ ‫ى‬‫ع‬َ‫و‬ ‫اط‬َ‫ب‬‫س‬َ‫اْل‬َ‫و‬ َ‫وب‬ُ‫ق‬‫ع‬َ‫ي‬َ‫و‬ َ‫َاق‬‫ح‬‫س‬‫إ‬َ‫و‬ َ‫ل‬‫ي‬‫اع‬َ‫س‬ُ‫ن‬‫و‬ُ‫ي‬َ‫و‬ َ‫وب‬ُّ‫ي‬َ‫أ‬َ‫و‬ ‫ى‬َ‫س‬‫ي‬
َ‫د‬‫و‬ُ‫َاو‬‫د‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ي‬َ‫ت‬‫آ‬َ‫و‬ َ‫ان‬َ‫م‬‫ي‬َ‫ل‬ُ‫س‬َ‫و‬ َ‫ون‬ُ‫ار‬َ‫ه‬َ‫و‬‫ا‬ً‫ور‬ُ‫ب‬َ‫ز‬]-‫النساء‬163
َّ‫أي‬‫غلبت‬/‫الروم؟‬ ‫هزمت‬Where was Rome defeated?
[َ‫ون‬ُ‫ب‬‫ل‬‫غ‬َ‫ي‬َ‫س‬ ‫م‬‫ه‬‫ب‬َ‫ل‬َ‫غ‬ ‫د‬‫ع‬َ‫ب‬ ‫ن‬‫م‬ ‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َ‫و‬ ‫ض‬‫ر‬َ‫اْل‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ن‬‫د‬َ‫أ‬ ‫ي‬‫ف‬]-‫الروم‬3
،‫ك‬‫الكهف؟‬ ‫أصحاب‬ ‫مكث‬How long did People of Cave stay?
[‫ا‬ً‫ع‬‫س‬‫ت‬ ‫ُوا‬‫د‬‫َا‬‫د‬‫از‬َ‫و‬ َ‫ين‬‫ن‬‫س‬ ‫َة‬‫ئ‬‫ا‬‫م‬ َ‫ث‬ َ‫َل‬َ‫ث‬ ‫م‬‫ه‬‫ف‬‫َه‬‫ك‬ ‫ي‬‫ف‬ ‫وا‬ُ‫ث‬‫ب‬َ‫ل‬َ‫و‬]-‫الكهف‬25
‫متى‬‫القيامة؟‬ ‫يوم‬When is the Day of Resurrection?
[‫ا‬َّ‫س‬‫ال‬ َّ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫ل‬ َ‫يك‬‫ر‬‫د‬ُ‫ي‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫و‬ ‫ـه‬َّ‫ل‬‫ال‬ َ‫د‬‫ن‬‫ع‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ه‬ُ‫م‬‫ل‬‫ع‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َّ‫ن‬‫إ‬ ‫ل‬ُ‫ق‬ ‫َة‬‫ع‬‫ا‬َّ‫س‬‫ال‬ ‫َن‬‫ع‬ ُ‫اس‬َّ‫ن‬‫ال‬ َ‫ك‬ُ‫ل‬َ‫أ‬‫س‬َ‫ي‬‫ا‬ً‫ب‬‫ي‬‫ر‬َ‫ق‬ ُ‫ُون‬‫ك‬َ‫ت‬ َ‫َة‬‫ع‬]-‫الكهف‬25
‫كيف‬‫الجنيَّ؟‬ ‫ل‬ّ‫ك‬‫يتش‬How has the embryo be formed?
[َ‫ة‬َ‫ف‬‫ط‬ُّ‫ن‬‫ال‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ق‬َ‫ل‬َ‫خ‬ َّ‫م‬ُ‫ث‬ً‫ة‬َ‫ق‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ً‫م‬‫ا‬َ‫ظ‬‫ع‬ َ‫ة‬َ‫غ‬‫ض‬ُ‫م‬‫ال‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ق‬َ‫ل‬َ‫خ‬َ‫ف‬ ً‫ة‬َ‫غ‬‫ض‬ُ‫م‬ َ‫ة‬َ‫ق‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬‫ال‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ق‬َ‫ل‬َ‫خ‬َ‫ف‬َّ‫م‬ُ‫ث‬ ‫ا‬ً‫م‬‫ح‬َ‫ل‬ َ‫م‬‫ا‬َ‫ظ‬‫ع‬‫ال‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫و‬َ‫س‬َ‫ك‬َ‫ف‬ ‫ا‬ُ‫ه‬‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫َأ‬‫ش‬‫ن‬َ‫أ‬َ‫ار‬َ‫ب‬َ‫ت‬َ‫ف‬ َ‫ر‬َ‫خ‬‫آ‬ ‫ا‬ً‫ق‬‫ل‬َ‫خ‬َ‫ين‬‫ق‬‫ال‬َ‫خ‬‫ال‬ ُ‫ن‬َ‫س‬‫ح‬َ‫أ‬ ُ‫ه‬‫ـ‬َّ‫ل‬‫ال‬ َ‫ك‬]-
‫المؤمنون‬14
52

53. Proposed Search Features :: Semantic Queries (2)
 Auto Vocalisation
 ‫هللا‬ َّ‫م‬ ‫رسول‬ ِ‫هللا‬ ََِّ‫م‬ ‫ول‬ُ‫س‬ َ‫ر‬
 Entity extraction
 ‫تسعا‬ ‫وازدادوا‬ َّ‫سني‬ ‫مائة‬ ‫ثَلث‬ as (Time/number, 309)
 ‫ببكة‬ as (place, Mekka)
 ‫البصر‬ ‫كلمح‬ as (time unit, ??)
 ‫ذرة‬ ‫مثقال‬ as (size unit, ??)
 ‫يا‬‫ا‬‫ا‬‫يها‬‫النبي‬ as (person, Mohammad)
 Proper nouns search (co-reference resolution)
َّ‫بنيامي‬‫؟‬
[‫وا‬ُ‫ل‬‫ا‬َ‫ق‬ ‫ذ‬‫إ‬ُ‫ف‬ُ‫س‬‫و‬ُ‫ي‬َ‫ل‬َ‫و‬ُ‫ه‬‫و‬ُ‫خ‬َ‫أ‬‫ة‬َ‫ب‬‫ُص‬‫ع‬ ُ‫ن‬‫ح‬َ‫ن‬َ‫و‬ ‫ا‬َّ‫ن‬‫م‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ي‬‫ب‬َ‫أ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬‫إ‬ ُّ‫ب‬َ‫ح‬َ‫أ‬‫ين‬‫ب‬ُ‫م‬ ‫ل‬ َ‫َل‬َ‫ض‬ ‫ي‬‫ف‬َ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬‫ا‬َ‫ب‬َ‫أ‬ َّ‫ن‬‫إ‬]-‫المؤمنون‬14
--
53

54. Proposed Search Features :: Statistical system
 Frequencies of different units
 How many words of « ‫»هللا‬ in Surah “‫?”المجادلة‬
 What are the ten most frequently cited words in the whole Qur’an?
 How many the word of Sea/ ‫بحر‬ and its derivations are mentioned
in the whole Qur’an?
 How many letters in the Surah ‫?طه‬
 What’s the longest Ayah?
 How many Marks of Sajdah in the whole Qur’an? (different
rewayates)
54

55. Discussion of search features
55
 To validate Usefulness, Importance and Clarity of
each feature, we’ve launched a survey to gather the
opinions.
 We mixed the aimed audience to get high quality
feedbacks from :
 Regular users,
 Quran scholars,
 Arabic morphology experts,
 Natural Language Processing /Information Retrieval
researchers,
 philosophers , working on religious scriptures comparing.
55

56. Survey Takers
5656

57. Survey Takers
5757

58. Survey Results
5858

59. Conception
59
 Previous Work:
 the Engineer degree graduation project entitled “Development of a
search and indexing engine for Qur’anic documents” [Dahmani2010]
 Improvements:
 Moving into a Full vocalized search engine
 Customization of text processing phases, considering both uthmani and
standard scripts
 Adopting the Quranic word as a search unit
59

60. Conception :: Full Vocalized Search Engine
60
 Barriers:
 Comparing vocalized, partially vocalized, and unvocalized texts
 Distinguishing between original vowels and declension case
markers
 Lack of vocalized Arabic linguistic resources
 Texts, ontologies, thesauruses, corpuses
 Advantages:
 Lift the ambiguities caused by ignoring vocalizations
 Make searching results, suggestions, and statistics more accurate.
 Refine the meanings detection
 ( a first step in the semantic approach )
60

61. Conception :: Text processing
61
 We consider both standard script and uthmani script to
resolve difficulties such as:
 Searching with an Uthmani writing form of a word.
 Calculating statistics knowing based on the uthmani writing.
 Matching the same Word-By-Word structure of some Quranic
linguistic resources
61

62. Conception :: Text processing :: Global schema
6262

63. Conception :: Text processing :: Substitution
63
 New phase! Purpose?
 Cases of substitution:
 Romanization:
 Guessing policy:
 Nature of used characters
 Arabic valid words
 Word existence in Quran
 Predefined priorities
 Numbers as words:
 Rules:
 We don’t say ‫رجل‬ ‫,صفر‬ we say ‫رجل‬ ‫ل‬
 One never mentioned as ‫واحد‬ but as ‫احد‬‫ا‬
 Some numbers accept gender: ‫ا‬‫ثنان‬‫ا‬‫ثنتان‬
 Other numbers change their forms in the opposite gender of the count noun:
‫سماوات‬ ‫,سبع‬ ‫سبعة‬‫ا‬‫ا‬‫بحر‬
 A hundred ‫مئة‬ had a special writing in Quran: ُ‫ة‬َ‫ئ‬‫ا‬ِ‫م‬
 Some numbers mentioned indirectly: َ‫ف‬ْ‫ل‬‫ا‬_ٍ‫ة‬َ‫ن‬َ‫س‬_‫ِٕل‬‫ا‬_ََّ‫ِي‬‫س‬ْ‫َم‬‫خ‬_‫ا‬ً‫م‬‫ا‬َ‫ع‬
63

64. Conception :: Text processing :: Tokenization
64
 Phases:
 Phrases to words (tokens)
 Words to their parts (Sub-tokens)
64

65. Conception :: Text processing :: Tokenization
6565

66. Conception :: Text processing :: Normalization
66
 Normalize Uthmani text into Standard text
 Strip all recitation marks
 keep the vowels except the declension case ending vowel
66

67. Conception :: Text processing :: Filtering stop words
67
 Stop-words selection strategy:
 Chosen from the list of the most frequent words in
Qur’an,
 Considering vocalization
 Preferring:
 Particles such as َّ‫لك‬
 Pronouns such as َ‫أنت‬
 Clitics such as ‫ـ‬َ‫ف‬
67

68. Conception :: Text processing :: Stemming
68
 We proposed stripping the affixes in tokenization
 In Stemming, we bring the word back either to:
 ROOT: Large set of words, different meaning
 STEM: Smaller set of words, similar meaning
68

69. Conception :: Quranic Word as Search Unit
69
 Purpose: obtain a quick efficient stable method to retrieve specific
Quranic words.
 Requirements:
 A Quranic words corpus , enriched with linguistic annotations
 Word occurance as a unit
 Word form as a unit
 Information Schema:
 Identifiers: a global identifier, a secondary identifier based on the order in
the ayah added to ayah identifier and surah identifier;
 Different forms: Uthmani vocalized word (the main form), Standard
vocalized word, Standard unvocalized word;
 Transliterations: ISO233, Buckwalter, Arabtex;
 Translations: English, other languages;
 Different levels of stemming: Lemma, Stem, Root;
 Other properties: Part Of Speech, type, state, case, mood, voice, number,
gender, person.
69

70. Conception :: 2-steps search strategy
70
 1st step: retrieving the best keywords set based on the user
query by searching in:
 A word-as-a-unit index
 A Quranic words ontology
 2nd step: retrieving the corresponding ayahs using the
keywords set resulted from the first step
70

71. Conception :: 2-steps search :: applications
71

72. Conception :: Word Search :: Word properties
72
 Objective: allow the users to locate ayahs based on
linguistic properties of words such as POS, type,
state, case, mood, voice, number, gender, person.
 Methods:
 Fielded search:
 A fielded search is an advanced query feature that enables
users to select and associate the different document fields to
which he wishes to limit the query, then use the required
keywords within these fields.
72

73. Conception :: Word Search :: Semantically Related Words
73
 Objective: offer the related words of a keyword
entered by the user.
 Algorithm:
 The user specifies:
 The word
 The semantic relation: Synonymy, Antonymy, Hypernymy,
Hyponymy, Meronymy, Holonymy, Troponymy.
 Inquiring the ontology for related words
 Using those keywords to retrieve the corresponding
ayahs.
73

74. Conception :: Word Search :: Multi-level Derivations
74
 Objective: get a set of words that
share the same origin such as
stem and root.
 Algorithm:
 The user specify:
 the keyword
 The a level of derivation.
 Recovering the origin of the word in
the specified derivation level
 Retrieving all the set of words that
share this origin.
74

75. Conception :: Word Search :: Specific Derivations
75
 Objective: find the words resultants of
applying a specific derivation operation on
the user given word.
 Algorithm:
 The user should:
 Enter the keyword
 Specify which derivation.
 Generating the set of derived words either by:
 fetching in the word index
 using linguistic tools such as verb conjugators. be
filtered as a second step by intersection with the
set of Quranic words.
 The resulted set will be used to locate the
corresponding ayahs.*
75

76. Conception :: Word Search :: Fuzzy Search
76
 Objective: fetch using the set of words that are nearly similar to the
input word in writing or pronunciation.
 Methods:
 Liechtenstein distance (previously unknown text)
 Ngrams
 Spell-checker
 Soundtex (Phonetic )
76

77. Conception :: Word Search :: Fuzzy Search
77
 Arabic Similarities Specifications
 ‫مءصدة‬and ‫مؤصدة‬
 ‫الحمد‬and ‫د‬ْ‫م‬‫الح‬
 ِ‫عشر‬and ‫عشر‬
 ‫ه‬‫يضل‬and ‫يضلله‬
 Examples
 Mis-order of letters: ‫زنبجيل‬for ‫زنجبيل‬
 Phonetic similarity: ‫هرم‬for ‫إرم‬
 Spelling similarity: ‫الضحي‬for ‫الضحى‬

78. Open Source but WHY?
There are a number of advantages lead us to open source, the following
points examine the most important of these[Web-Oss-watch]:
 Collaborative bug-fixing & Fast security vulnerabilities detection
>Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow<
-- an open source slogan
 Customization.
 Translation & Localization.
 Development discontinuation.
 Being part of a community.
 Low cost.
78

79. Used Technologies :: Python
Python is a powerful dynamic programming language, used widely.
 Features:
 powerful and fast
 plays well with others
 runs everywhere
 friendly and easy to learn
 Free Open
79

80. Used Technologies :: Whoosh API
 Whoosh is a full-text indexing and searching library
implemented in Python
 Features:
 Pure Pythonic API
 Fielded indexing and search
 Fast indexing and retrieval
 Powerful query language
 Useful for circumstances such as:
 Anywhere a pure-Python solution is desirable to avoid having to
build/compile native libraries
 As a research platform (Python is easier to read!)
 When the search features are more important to us than the raw speed.
80

81. Implementation :: Previous Code Base
81
 Implemented on [Chelli&Dahmani2010]
 Licensed under GPL*
 (Server applications issue)
 Based on Whoosh Indexing Library
 Offering Many Search Operations
 Results in HTML format
 Raw format
 Can be used in Python
 Requires to write wrappers for other languages
 A basic resource manager
 Has a missing piece
81

82. Implementation :: Our improvements
82
 The code base:
 has had 981 commits made
 representing 15,243 lines of code
 mostly written in Python
 with a well-commented source code.
 took an estimated 4 years of effort (COCOMO model)
Reference: Ohloh Website.
82

83. Implementation :: Our improvements
New Output System
83
 A New Output System:
 JSON-Based ==> Simpler & more extensible
 Centralized ==> Changes on one & only one place
 Extended & Extensible Results Structure
 Customizable Search Request using flags
 Including a Statistic Calculating Unit
 Offering Meta-Data for request
83

84. Implementation :: Our improvements
Multiple Search Units
84
 Translation-as-unit:
 Word-as-unit
84

85. Implementation :: Our improvements
Many new features
85
 Fuzzy Search Feature
 Retrieving the neighbors of each ayah
85

86. Implementation :: Our improvements
Many new features (2)
86
 Manipulating different Quranic Scripts
 More suggestion operations
 Showing the linguistic annotations
 Retrieving & Showing transliterated keywords (Buckwalter)
86

87. Implementation :: Our improvements
Resources Importing Manager
87
 Resources Importing Manager:
 Downloading original resources (Licensing issue)
 Parsing & Importing the data to our intermediate database
 Indexing the database
 Updating auto-generated data files
87

88. Implementation :: Our improvements
Packaging System
88
 Automating the API building
 Packaging into:
 Source Tarball
 Binary Tarball
 Python egg package
 Debian deb package
 Red-hat rpm package
 Windows Installer
 Mac OS (Perspective)
88

89. Implementation :: Our improvements
->More<-
89
 Coding Standardization
 Following Python Conventions (PEP8)
 Using Pylint (a source code bug and quality checker)
 Documentation Covering
 Enriching the code with Readme files
 New Console interface
89

90. Implementation :: Open Issues
90
 Implement the modularity for the Query Parser: This is
important to enable the extensibility feature and fix the problem of
mixing (the combination) the different operations made during
parsing.
 Restrict the anonymous requests to the API: restricting
requests protect the API from flooding either intended or not. This
can be done by:
 Limit the maximum of simultaneous requests globally and by IP.
 Implement an identification system that works with remote clients.
 Move to the last version of Whoosh library: Whoosh is
almost in the version 3.X in its stable release while we still using an
older version which is 0.3. The moving to the last version is very
recommended to benefit of the improvements made. Though, it will
not be an easy operation since our API is intertwined with the older
version. Especially for the Query Parser.
90

91. Implementation :: Interfaces
9191

92. Implementation :: Open Issues
92
 Complete the features implementation
 Enrich the linguistic resources
 Implement the modularity for the Query Parser
 Restrict the anonymous requests to the API
 Move to the main stream of Whoosh library
 Maintain compatibility between Python versions
 Cover with documentation
 Optimize code and performance
92

93. Implementation :: Open Issues
93
 Enriching the linguistic resources: the actual
used resources are poor comparing to what we really
need.
 Integrate Qurany project to enrich the actual faceted thematic
search.
 Integrate the boundary annotations to enable the retrieving of
boundaries in Quran.
 Propose a standard format for new linguistic and Quranic
resources.
 Textify the binary database to enable the possibility of logging
of changes and take the benefits of revision control systems
such as GIT.
93

94. Implementation :: Open Issues
94
 Complete the features implementation
Fielded search YES
Logical relations YES
Phrase search YES
Interval search YES
Full Regex NO
Wildcards PARTIALLY
Boosting keywords YES
Pagination YES
Scoring YES
Sorting YES
Keywords Highlight YES
Uthmani full marks YES
Real time output NO
Results grouping NO
Spell correction PARTIALLY
Related keywords PARTIALLY
Different vocalizations YES
Collocated words NO
Keyboard mapping NO
Different significations NO
94
Romanization PARTIALLY
Partial vocalization PARTIALLY
Multi-level derivation YES
Syntactic Coloration NO
Vocal Search NO
Specific-derivations NO
Linguistic annotations PARTIALLY
Fuzzy string PARTIALLY
Word properties PARTIALLY
Linguistic examples NO
Structural options YES
Translation search YES
Uthmani writing way NO
Recitation marks PARTIALLY
Divine Names Highlight NO
Repetitions&Allegoricals NO
Abrogators&Abrogated NO
Qur’anic Parables NO
Semantically related words PARTIALLY
Faceted Thematic Search PARTIALLY
Entity Extraction NO
Questions Answering (QA) NO
Automatic vocalization NO
Co-reference resolution NO
Vocalized word frequency YES
Unvocalized word frequency YES
Another Qur’anic units frequency NO
Root/Stem/Lemma frequency NO

95. Implementation :: Open Issues
95
 Move to Python 3.X: Python 2 is disappearing and sooner
or later it’ll be fully replaced. There are many tools offer some
automatic scripts to convert a code from 2 into 3. Though, the
big part often should be done manually.
 Cover with documentation: the documentation is so
important, it’s expensive but it encourages the community to
involve in the project. This can be done by:
 Enrich the readme files;
 Enrich the code with appropriate comments;
 Create a usage How-To and straighten it with many demos;
 The man page for the console interface.
 Optimize code and performance: proceed the fixing of
pylint code analysis warnings and use Profile to check the
performance of each search feature in order to improve it.
95

96. Implementation :: Interfaces
9696

97. Implementation :: interfaces :: API
97
Powerful Points:
1. Free Libre Open
1. A Python API
1. A founded base
1. Lot of features

98. Implementation :: interfaces :: API#Sample
9898

99. Implementation :: Interfaces :: JSON web service
9999

100. Implementation :: Interfaces :: Console
100100

101. Examples of use
 As a desktop application
 As a web interface
 www.alfanous.org
 As a smart phone app
 iPhone, iPad
 Windows phone
101

102. Examples of use :: Alfanous.org
102
 Remarkable Features:
 Localizable
 Awarded:
 As the best-in-technicality website
in Algeria Web Awards 2012

103. Examples of use :: Alfanous.org (Responsive)
103
 Remarkable Features:
 User experience
 Responsiveness
 Simplicity
 Awarded:
 chosen as the best website categorized
under the religious websites in Algeria Web
Awards 2013
103

104. Examples of use :: iPhone Application
104
 Developed by:
 iPhone-islam (objective-C)
 Remarkable Features:
 running on iPhone and iPad series
104

105. Examples of use :: Windows phone APP
105
 Developed by:
 Moumen bou Abdellah (C#)
 Remarkable Features:
 Running on windows phone
105

106. Examples of use :: Alfanous Desktop Interface
106
 Remarkable Features:
 Offline use
106

107. Conferences
1. An Arabic paper in NITS 2011 KSA:
 Title: An Application Programming Interface for indexing and
search in Noble Quran
 Authors: Assem Chelli, Merouane Dahmani, Amar Balla, Taha
Zerrouki.
2. An English paper in a pre-conference workshop in
LREC 2012 Turkey which is about ”LRE-Rel:
Language Resource and Evaluation for Religious
Texts”
 Title: Advanced Search in Quran: Classification and Proposition
of All Possible Features.
 Authors: Assem Chelli, Amar Balla, Taha Zerrouki.
107

108. Conclusion & Perspectives
108
 We went through the implementation of many search
features that we previously enlisted.
 Unfortunately, there are more improvements to be done
and many issues to be resolved. We left them as
perspectives:
 Achieving an accurate statistics gathering system;
 Implementation of a more adequate suggestion system;
 Clear the way toward a semantic search engine;
 Proceeding the full conception of all search features.
 Complete implementation of all open issues.
108

109. Contacts:
Email: assem.ch@gmail.com
Github: @assem-ch
Twitter: @assem_ch
Project Links:
Website: www.alfanous.org
User feedback: feedback.alfanous.org
Source-code: www.github.com/assem-ch/alfanous