Presentation on The Zekr Project

Last week I had a presentation on Zekr Project in ubuntu.ir release party for Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). I was also ready to present my other slides on Open Source, which wasn't presented because of lacking of time. The presentation of Open Source is an excerpt of my BS thesis on the same topic.

Here are the files for download:

• Zekr Project Overview (PPT, PDF)
• Open Source Phenomena (PPT, PDF)

A Closer Look at Zekr 0.7.0 Beta 2

Zekr 0.7.0 beta 2 was released last night, mainly introducing three new features. 1) Search through translations (both with Tanzil search method, and Lucene), 2) Quran Paging: how many (and which ayas) to be shown in each page of Zekr, and 3) Quran root and stem database, supporting searching through root references, with sorting options (by revelation order, natural order, relevance, and aya size).


Quran root and stem search is a unique feature introduced in this version of the software. Root database is kindly provided by CRCIS (Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences). Here I deeply thank this center for providing such a valuable resource for Zekr project. This root database is bundled with Zekr under a restricted license agreement. You are not allowed to use this database anywhere unless you have a written permission from CRCIS.


Paging mode is another awaiting feature. We used to have rather heavy HTML pages containing thousands of Arabic characters, which made navigation too slow. From this version, there are 4 built-in paging mode, plus as many custom paging mode as one likes. By default an Uthmani paging mode is provided with all Zekr packages.


Paging modes are specially useful for our future exegesis (tafsir) support. Almost all new-style exegeses are section-by-section. Their authors divide Quran into several sections, each has a number of related ayas within it, and put their commentaries on each section overall. Having custom paging modes, one may provide a paging mode used for an exegesis. Authors commentaries then come at the end of the page.

"Go To" menu, previously available under View > Go To, is now provided as a separate menu, with a large choice of navigation options: aya by aya, sura by sura, juz by juz, and even navigating to the next sajda.


Searching through translations was supported very elementarily before 0.7.0. In 0.7.0 beta 1, as we totally rewrote the basic search Java code, it was temporarily removed from that version and now in beta 2 is available for both search methods: Basic, and Advanced (indexed).

There is a I18N option for people to customize how search works for a language, by providing search replacements string patterns or introducing their language stop-words for better search result. In Arabic, for example we provided several replacement rules (patterns) to remove diacritic for easier to ease query writing. AS another example, the following code (available in search-info.properties) is used to work with different kinds of YEH character in Persian translation search:

search.pattern.replace.fa = [\u0626\u0649\u064a]=\u06cc


Advanced search, already available just for searching through Quran text, now also works with translations, featuring powerful Lucene queries. There are a number of Western languages whose stemmer is provided built-in. Other users can use search-info.properties patterns, or write their own stemmers and Lucene analyzers for more practical advanced search.

This release is probably the last beta version in 0.7.0 branch, and the next will be final 0.7.0. The next release, will be provided inshaAllah before this Ramadan.

Zekr on Nokia N800

Zekr seems to work on Nokia N800 Internet appliances!



Many thanks to Adibudeen for the screenshot.

Typos in Digital Copies of Yusuf Ali Translation

There are a number of copies of widely-known Quran translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali on the web. Since most of the digital copies are using the text provided by USC-MSA (which is actually extracted by means of OCR), they all have the same typo for 23:22.

Today, I noticed a bug report for Zekr's Yusuf Ali translation, which mentioned the typo. I then checked the printed copy of the book on Google books and found the original text, which was different in 4 places.

The original Arabic text for Sura Al-Muminun, aya 22 is:

وَعَلَيْهَا وَعَلَى الْفُلْكِ تُحْمَلُونَ

the right English translation of Yusuf Ali is:

And on them, as well as in ships, ye ride.

while many websites have the meaningless translation:

An on them, as well as in slips, ye side.

I just tried a Google search and found that the buggy one is more commonly used than the right one. My first query resulted in 6 items, while the second one (buggy) resulted in 27. The copy on on Wikisource also had that problem, which is now fixed.

Special thanks to Benjamin Geer for pointing out these typos.

ZRE: Zekr Ramadan Edition

Zekr Ramadan Edition released last night. This is a special release (0.6.5) specially developed for Ramadan to deliver recitation feature by the start of Ramadan. In this version, user can listen to Quran recitation online of offline. Recitation support is done through a small flash MP3 player (so all recitations are to be in MP3 format). It uses JW MP3 player for playing recitations.


There is an audio download package on Zekr resources page if you want to download and listen to Quran recitation offline. Instruction:
1. Download minshawi.zip and minshawi-offline.properties. Add minshawi-offline.properties through Tools > Add > Recitation (or just copy it in ~/.zekr/audio).
2. Unzip minshawi.zip to [zekr installation directory]/res/audio/minshawi
3. Restart Zekr and choose Minshawi recitation through Audio > Recitation > Al-Minshawi (offline)

Steps in more detail can be seen on this page.

Ramadan Mubarak :)

Zekr 0.6.0beta2 Released

Zekr 0.6.0beta2 is out. This version fixes a number of bugs with advanced search and introduces the following features (main features only):

• Fuzzy queries for advanced search
• HTML export for bookmark sets
• Adding some command line options: -index, -clean, -workspace
• Making task pane resizeable (optional)
• A new language pack: Pashto (thanks to Qudratullah)

God willing, the next release - 0.6.0 final - will be out but August 1.

Get it here.

Zekr Running on OLPC

Five months ago, I received an email from Babar Haq, a Pakistani Server Technologies Expert, from Open Source Resource Center (OSRC), Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) (G) Limited. He was trying to bundle Zekr in their customized OLPC (see this) machines.

We were finally able to run Zekr on an XO-1 machine (AKA OLPC, build 406), using gij, after months of trial-and-error in making native build of Zekr using GCJ, so that there would be no need to any JRE.

I couldn't eventually build a native version of Zekr, because GCJ (using -static-libgcj option) does not embed XML parser code even when explicitly newing gnu.xml.dom.DomDocumentBuilderFactory. See these topics about the issue on GCJ mailing list: libgcj_bc.so not embedded and Trying to embed gnu.xml.dom.DomDocumentBuilderFactory.

To make a long story short, now Zekr runs on XO-1, using a copy of necessary GCJ libraries and executables from Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty). There is no need to have Mozilla, since OLPC readily includes XUL Runner. I've put here an image taken by Babar, from an XO-1 machine running Zekr 0.5.0 final on it.

From Wikipedia:

The XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop or Children's Machine, is a proposed inexpensive laptop computer intended to be distributed to children around the world, especially to those in developing countries, to provide them with access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The laptop is being developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) trade association.

Zekr 0.6.0 beta 1 is Ready

The first beta release of Zekr 0.6.0 is available for download. This release is a great step forward, comparing to 0.5.0. The most important new feature is advanced search with wild cards, scoping, grouping and Boolean operators support. Powerful Lucene text search library is used, and virtually all these queries should be supported. Pagination is supported with "advanced search" feature, as shown in screen shots. There are two options to sort search results based on: 1) similarity (similarity algorithm may be customized), 2) natural order of ayas (like the one available with normal search).

Another important feature in this release is adding a new (experimantal) Uthman Taha theme. It uses me_quran font, which is designed to be as similar to Uthman Taha's Quran calligraphy as possible. In addition a detailed version of Quran text file is used to support Uthman Taha's notation for Waqf, Wasl, Sajda, ....

Minor changes: Progress bar in splash screen, JQuery upgraded to 1.1.2, Bookmark-related icons enhanced, search configurations are now saved.

Here is some screen shots regarding new features in this release (custom mixed layout: multiple translations, was available from 0.5.0):

Zekr 0.6.0 Advanced Search at a Glance

There is an important feature in Zekr 0.6.0. Although it's not yet released, a screenshot of the advanced search feature might be thrilling ;)

Zekr 0.5.0 Final Release is Out

I'm happy to announce the 0.5.0 release of the Zekr project. This is mainly a bug-fix release over 0.5.0b2, so you should not expect visible changes between these versions. Features in 0.5.0 over 0.4.0 are:

• Bookmark management, supporting multiple bookmark sets, tree-like bookmark folders and items, bookmark set export/import, find aya references to bookmark items, etc.
• A new layout supporting multiple translation at a time: Custom Mixed Layout.
• There are 12 different language packs available with this release.
• A built-in Quran transliteration in English.
• Many small features: random aya, hizb sign, vertical-view-enabled theme for custom mixed layout, etc.

You can find more details on the Zekr website.

Zekr in Ubuntu Muslim Edition 0.1

Zekr is bundled in Ubuntu Muslim Edition (UbuntuME) 0.1.

UbuntuME stands for Ubuntu Muslim Edition. Ubuntu Muslim Edition is a free, open source operating system based on the popular Ubuntu Linux. Customize the Ubuntu distro by installing islamic softwares (prayer times, Quran study tool, Arabic learning software etc.) and by changing its "look".

See the announcement here. There is also a screenshot of the Zekr in UbuntuME here.

Mozilla Arabic Text Rendering with IceApe

Debian testing package now upgrades mozilla-browser to IceApe (renamed version of SeaMonkey due to branding reasons). IceApe seems not to have the traditional problem of Mozilla Arabic+diacritics text rendering. Zekr just looks fine on this Mozilla. See a screenshot.


After installation of IceApe, your MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME shoud be updated to usr/lib/iceape.

Special thanks to Johan.

Zekr 0.5.0 beta 1 released

Zekr 0.5.0 beta 1 is out.
This release brings a very useful feature: Bookmarking.
There is a new bookmarks menu, plus a bookmark manager (with drag and drop feature ;)).

More features:

• Printing is enhanced for this release, and Zekr uses different style sheet for printing. Just try printing from Quran/translation view or search view.
• Current page search also is now much better. You can navigate through the current page search using buttons on search bar.
• Goto random aya menu item added under view menu.

Download it from here.

Here are some screen shots from the new release.

A sample screenshot of bookmarks configuration form

A sample Zekr printed document