E-text Project

Dedicated to those who serve freely...

Introduction:

This page will give you an idea of the scope of work that needs to be done to maintain this site. It is also will give you examples of what has been done by those that serve selflessly for the sake of knowledge that it may be freely spread. 

If you have visited this page before be sure to hit the refresh button on your browser to see the updates.

Needed Works

Imam Ghazali's works

Small works:

Medium Sized works:

Large sized works:

works about al-Ghazali:

Ghazali in Your language, Your help is needed and greatly appreciated in bringing to light Ghazali's works to your neck of the woods!:

Also needed is a help with editing the site. This is general clean up functions to make sure that the website follows the same conventions and also all the bibliographical information on books and articles are available. Let me know if you are interested. It is a good experience and has potential.

Works in Progress:

  1. Book IV: Mysteries of Worship (in PDF file size: 12,319kb!) The word file that needs editing: word - (Being edited)
  2. Explanation of the wonders of the heart translated by W. J. Skellie (PDF) - Word. Text is on 189 typewriter typed pages;  notes pp. 190-228; bibliography 229-234.
  3. Book II: Foundations of Belief (in PDF file size: 7,843kb!) mostly done just needs minor proofreading. The html file: html  (Being done)
  4. Book III: Mysteries of Purity (in PDF file size: 5,458kb!) The word file that needs editing: pure (spoken for)
  5. Book VIII: Etiquettes of Qur'anic Recitation (in PDF file size: 8,613kb!) (Being done)
  6. Etiquettes of Marriage:*(PDF: File size: 9391kb)  mostly done but needs minor proofreading. file in html: English Translation (Being done) [Ouadi.D]
  7. Ascent to the Divine through the path of self knowledge (Ma'arij al-quds fi madarij marifat al-nafs) Translated by Y. E. Shammas. (PDF) -  Word - Text is on 345 typewriter typed pages; Glossary pp. 346-393; bibliography pp. 394-405.  (word file) (in progress)
  8. Book I 'THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE,' BEING A TRANSLATION, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES OF AL-GHAZZALI'S BOOK OF THE 'IHYA, KITAB AL-ILM'. MCCALL, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, PHD. HARTFORD SEMINARY, 1940. XXX+ L-CII+424 pp. (522 pages including the coversheet!) A good translation with summary of the of the book. (PDF) word file (RTF) This translation is not available through UMI and it has not been published. (being worked on)
  9. Book V: Mysteries of Zakat (Charity) (in PDF file size: 5,671kb!) The word file that needs editing: (Very Short work) (Being worked on!)
  10. On Music and Singing translated by D. B. MacDonald. Three Articles in one file. (being worked on)
  11. ihya in Arabic (done!)

Ihya in Arbic (Arabic language skills needed) - Project is completed al-hamdulliah!

If you want to help please select any of the works from the Above list and let me know by e-mail.

How to:

  1. Contact us to make sure that someone else is not doing the book that you are doing.

  2. Next download the the PDF file. These are large files in which the work is scanned as images.

  3. Next download the text file that is provided to you, either via e-mail or a link is provided.

  4. Do not do this when it is very late at night and you are tired.

  5. Open the PDF file and print the first 10 pages. 

  6. Open the text file. 

  7. Make the changes to the text file to match the printed pages from the PDF file.

  8. Save your work often at least every 15 minutes. 

  9. Take a break every hour. Should you have any questions or concerns e-mail me with questions.

  10. Print the next 10 pages from the PDF file .

  11. Follow steps 7 - 10. 

  12. All the best!

General Guidelines:

Know may Allah have mercy on you that intention (niyah) in this kind of work is important be sure that your intention is pure for doing the work for Allah’s sake this will maximize your reward.

Take your time to pick the book of your choice. Make sure it is something that you enjoy to do. Also do the work i.e. the editing when you are rested. Beware of working on something late nights and when you are tired. This is usually the time when the hard work is lost by hitting the wrong key or forgetting to save the work often and the computer crashes.

Basically the PDF files contain images of the work in question. I run it through a program that attempts to convert through Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The result is not always great no matter how good the conversion process is. What is need is for a human to verify and make sure that the text corresponds to the original. This way you have quality text that matches the original but better it can be searched, copied, downloaded much faster than images of text.

Time frame: How long should this editing take place? Work on your own pace even if slowly but steadily. The important thing is the quality of the result. It is important that the work is accurate and reflect the original text. Once the work is done no one is going to care if it took you 6 months or 6 weeks all they want is quality text.

For instance it took al-Hafiz al-Iraqi more than 13 years to complete the verification of the Hadith’s in the Ihya of Imam Ghazali. He did such quality work that no printer today would dare publish the Ihya without his commentary on the Ihya’s Hadith. Please do not take 13 years to proofread a work, I am not sure that I will live that long!

Should you have any question during the process or at anytime please let me know I'll try to get back to you as quickly as possible. Once again thank you very much. May Allah bless you, and reward you well in this life, and more importantly the one to come.

If you want to help please let me know by e-mail.

Completed Works

 

In Arabic:

Al-Ghazali's Works:

 

Home - Kontact: mhozien @ gmail . com