Digital Islamic Humanities

Digital Islamic Humanities

A Comparative Analysis of Persian Translations of the Qur'an Based on Automatic Word Alignment

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
ahmad rabiei zadeh 1
majid lesani 2
1 Vice President of Islamic Sciences Computer Research Center and Director of Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
2 Artificial Intelligence & Digital Islamic Humanities Laboratory, Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences (CRCIS)
10.22034/disah.2026.2094333.1090
Abstract

Achieving an accurate understanding of the meanings of the verses of the Holy Qur'an has been a central concern for Muslims, as well as for non-Muslims interested in Islam, since the earliest period of Islamic history. Given that the Qur'an was revealed in Arabic, the most accessible means for individuals unfamiliar with the Arabic language to understand its message is through Qur'anic translations. As a substantial proportion of Muslims are Persian speakers, numerous Persian translations of the Qur'an have been produced and are readily available. Conducting a systematic qualitative analysis of these translations, however, is an extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive task. This study proposes a framework for the automatic alignment of Qur'anic words with their Persian translations using natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Employing this approach, the words of 88 Persian translations of the Holy Qur'an, spanning from the fourth century AH to the present, were automatically aligned with their corresponding Qur'anic words. The results of this research have been incorporated into the Noor Comprehensive Tafsir Software 4. This achievement provides a robust platform for conducting a variety of analytical studies on Qur'anic translations. Three major types of analysis were carried out: (1) assessing the degree of each translator's fidelity to the original Qur'anic text; (2) identifying the extent of variation among translators' lexical choices for individual Qur'anic words; and (3) examining the degree of similarity among the Persian translations.
Keywords
Automatic Word Alignment
Digital Islamic Studies
Qur'anic Translation
Natural Language Processing
Subjects
 
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Digital Islamic Humanities
Volume 2, Issue 3
April 2026
Pages 43-66