About

This repository contains the holy book, The Quran, in its original Arabic and as translations in English, Farsi, and Portuguese. The contents are made available as JSON, and SQL. The SQL can be imported to create a database that contains The Quran.

Contents

1. src/json/directory
2. src/sql/ directory
3. bin/ directory

src/json/ directory

This section covers the JSON files.

• The src/json/ar/ directory contains The Quran in its original Arabic.

• The src/json/en/ directory contains an English translation of The Quran.

• The src/json/fa/ directory contains a Farsi translation of The Quran.

• The src/json/pt/ directory contains a Portuguese translation of The Quran.

• The src/json/chapter-metadata.json file contains information about each chapter in The Quran.

File structure

Each JSON file represents a chapter, or surah. For example - src/json/ar/1.json contains Al-Fatihah. The structure of the JSON files can be described as an array where the first element is an object that contains information aboout the chapter, and the rest of the array is composed of two-element arrays - the first element being the verse number, and the second element being the contents of the verse. For example:

[
  { <chapter metadata> },
  [
    <verse number>,
    <verse contents>
  ],
  [
    <verse number>,
    <verse contents>
  ],
  [
    <verse number>,
    <verse contents>
  ],
  /* etc... */
]

Chapter metadata

• src/json/chapter-metadata.json
  Source: https://quran.com

The src/json/chapter-metadata.json file contains information about each chapter in The Quran. The JSON file is structured as an array of objects, where each object describes a given chapter.

The following example demonstrates how Al-Fatihah is described. The "codepoints" property is a sequence of unicode codepoints representing a surah's name in Arabic. The codepoints can be mapped to Arabic using JavaScript's String.fromCodePoint(...codepoints) function.

  {
    "id": "1",
    "place_of_revelation": "makkah",
    "transliterated_name": "Al-Fatihah",
    "translated_name": "The Opener",
    "verse_count": 7,
    "slug": "al-fatihah",
    "codepoints": [
      1575,
      1604,
      1601,
      1575,
      1578,
      1581,
      1577
    ]
  },

src/sql/ directory

This section covers the SQL files.

• The src/sql/schema.sql defines the schema of the database.
  The schema is composed of three tables: qurans, chapters, and verses.

• The src/sql/seed.sql populates the contents of the database.
  The languages included are Arabic, English, Farsi, and Portuguese.

• The src/sql/queries/ directory contains .sql files that contain SQL queries.
  They serve as examples, and as inspiration for writing new queries.

SQLite3

This section of the README demonstrates how the SQL files mentioned above can be used to create a fully populated database in memory, how to query the database, and how to save the database to disk for future use.

It is assumed that the repository has been cloned or downloaded (see below), and that "sqlite3" is started from the root of the repository. Other SQL databases, such as MySQL, and PostgreSQL should be able to import the SQL files as well, but have not been tested.

1. $HOME/.sqliterc

For identical results - it is recommended that $HOME/.sqliterc has the following contents:

PRAGMA case_sensitive_like=ON;
pragma FOREIGN_KEYS = on;
.headers on
.mode column

2. Import / save the database to disk

The .save command can be used to save the database to disk permanently, and avoid repeatedly importing the database into memory:

sqlite> .read src/sql/schema.sql
sqlite> .read src/sql/seed.sql
sqlite> .save src/sql/quran.db
sqlite> .exit

SQLite3 can now be started with the path to the database saved to disk:

$ sqlite3 src/sql/quran.db
sqlite> SELECT qurans.id FROM qurans WHERE qurans.locale = 'ar';
id
--
1
sqlite>

3. Query the database

3.1

After the previous steps, the database is fully populated and exists on disk. We can now query the database and its contents. The SQL query we will execute fetches the contents of chapter 112 in the English locale (i.e: en):

SELECT qurans.locale,
       chapters.tr_name  AS "chapter (name)",
       chapters.number   AS chapter,
       verses.number     AS verse,
       verses.content
FROM   verses
       INNER JOIN qurans
               ON qurans.id = verses.quran_id
       INNER JOIN chapters
               ON chapters.id = verses.chapter_id
WHERE  qurans.locale = "en"
       AND chapters.number = 112;

The output should look like this:

locale  chapter (name)  chapter  verse  content
------  --------------  -------  -----  -----------------------------------------------------
en      Al-Ikhlas       112      1      Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “He is Allah—One ˹and Indivisible˺;
en      Al-Ikhlas       112      2      Allah—the Sustainer ˹needed by all˺.
en      Al-Ikhlas       112      3      He has never had offspring, nor was He born.
en      Al-Ikhlas       112      4      And there is none comparable to Him.”

3.2

The next query we will execute demonstrates how to find a particular word or phrase in the English translation of The Quran - using the LIKE operator:

SELECT qurans.locale,
       chapters.name   AS "chapter (name)",
       chapters.number AS chapter,
       verses.number   AS verse,
       verses.content
FROM   verses
       INNER JOIN qurans
               ON qurans.id = verses.quran_id
       INNER JOIN chapters
               ON chapters.id = verses.chapter_id
WHERE  qurans.locale = "en"
       AND verses.content LIKE "%reflected light%";

The output should look like this:

locale  chapter (name)  chapter  verse  content
------  --------------  -------  -----  ----------------------------------------------------
en      Jonah           10       5      He is the One Who made the sun a radiant source and
                                        the moon a reflected light, with precisely ordained
                                        phases, so that you may know the number of years and
                                        calculation ˹of time˺. Allah did not create all this
                                        except for a purpose. He makes the signs clear for
                                        people of knowledge.

bin/ directory

The bin/ directory contains scripts that generate the contents of the src/ directory:

• JSON scripts

  • bin/json/pull-arabic
    This script is responsible for populating src/json/ar/.

  • bin/json/pull-english
    This script is responsible for populating src/json/en/.

  • bin/json/pull-farsi
    This script is responsible for populating src/json/fa/.

  • bin/json/pull-portuguese
    This script is responsible for populating src/json/pt/.

  • bin/json/pull-chapter-metadata
    The script is responsible for generating src/json/chapter-metadata.json.

  • bin/json/insert-chapter-metadata
    This script is responsible for inserting chapter metadata as the first element of a JSON array that otherwise contains the contents of a chapter (eg src/json/ar/1.json, ...).

• SQL scripts

  • bin/sql/create-sql-seed-file
    This script creates src/sql/seed.sql - using the contents of src/json/.

Notes

• It is not neccessary to run the scripts mentioned above.
  The content they create is included in src/ already.

• The scripts are written in Ruby v3.1.0+.
  The script dependencies can be installed by running the following from the root of the repository:

gem install bundler --no-document
bundle install

Download

For those who don't have access to, or know how to use "git", a zip file of the repository is provided for download: download zip file.

Credit, and thanks

The content of the src/ directory was automatically generated thanks to the following websites:

• https://searchtruth.com - for the original Arabic.
• https://quran.com - for the English translation.
• https://al-quran.cc - for the Farsi, and Portuguese translations.

License

This software is released into the Public Domain.