0.1.3 - Note About Transliteration

In this book, we mostly used a transliteration style that avoids any unusual Roman characters. This simplified system is simple and straightforward, so we don’t need to add any table of definitions. For example: a double “aa” indicates alif-madda (otherwise usually indicated by: â, in the standard transliteration styles), while a double “ee” or “ii” is yaa-madda (or: î). If no confusion is anticipated, these will be written as single letters, “a” instead of “â”, “i” instead of “î” and “u” instead of “ŭ”. Other Arabic sounds that do not have Latim equivalents will be transliterated to the nearest familiar sound, sometimes also using double letters, such as “dd” (for: đâd) or “ss” (for: şâd). The letter “’ayn” is also often written as “aa” or “ii” depending on the vowel that follows or precedes. For example, “Mawâqi’ al-Nujŭm” is written simply as “Mawaqii al-Nujum”, and “Fušŭš al-Ĥikam” is written as “Fusus al-Hikam”.

Although this system might cause some confusion, but it should be not very difficult for professionals seeking further information to distinguish the correct pronunciation of these transliterated Arabic words or letters. However, this simplified transliteration is more compatible with e-book readers and online publishing and encoding.

Only upon first mention, or in some other cases, when accuracy is critical or necessary, we shall follow a transliteration style similar to the standard systems used for example by the Encyclopedia of Islam. This custom style is defined in the following table, and it is slightly modified to suit the standard HTML and LATEX scripts for online browsing.

ArabicLetter	Transliteration	-	ArabicLetter	Transliteration
hamzah	’	-	kâf	k
alif	Â/â	-	lâm	l
bâ’	b	-	mîm	m
tâ’	t	-	nūn	n
thâ’	th	-	hâ’	h
jîm	j	-	wâw	w;ŭ
Ĥ/ĥâ’	Ĥ/ĥ	-	yâ’	y;î
khâ’	kh	-	alif-maddah	’â;’a
dâl	d	-	tâ’-marbūţah	h;t
dhâl	dh	-	alif-lâm	al-
râ’	r	-	alif-maqşūrah	â
zây	z	-	fatĥah	a
sîn	s	-	kasrah	i
shîn	sh	-	đammah	u
Š/šâd	Š/š	-	fatĥah-alif	â
Ď/đâd	Ď/đ	-	kasrah-yâ’	Î/î
Ť/ťâ’	Ť/ť	-	đammah-wâw	Ŭ/ŭ
Ž/žâ’	Ž/ž	-	fatĥah-yâ’	ay
‘ayn	‘	-	fatĥah-wâw	aw
ghayn	gh	-	fatĥatân	an
fâ’	f	-	kasratân	in
qâf	q	-	đammatân	un

Transliteration Style

The custom transliteration style used in this book. This system is similar to the standard styles used for example in the Encyclopedia of Islam, but we did some simple modification to suit the standard HTML and LATEX scripts for online browsing.