A Literature Review on Natural Language Processing Techniques for Qur'anic Studies: Challenges and Insights

Alia Al-Shidi¹Farah Hani Bt Nordin²Izzeldin I Mohamed^1*Younis M.A¹Imadeldin Elsayed Elmutasim³Eimad Eldin Abusham¹

• ¹Sohar University, Sohar, Oman
• ²Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
• ³Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Gambang, Pahang Darul Makmur, Malaysia

15Studies related to the Qur’an have unearthed a multitude of unique challenges and opportunities within16the Natural Language Processing (NLP) research domain. These challenges tend to stem from the17distinctive orthography of the Qur’an, the need for technical and linguistic support, as well as the18requirement for advanced NLP technologies to address stumbling intricacies. As such, this paper delves19into the significance of NLP in analyzing the holy Qur’an across ten notable dimensions; Grammatical20NPL analysis, speech Recognition, Semantic Work, Ontology Base Work, Translation, Search system,21Classifier system, Topic Extraction, knowledge Extraction, and Maqams. In particular, this paper looks22into the following aspects - linguistic structure, positive discourse, and the use of conjunctions in23translation. The probabilistic topic modeling was also deployed, along with paragraph vectors and K-24Mean clustering techniques, to explore the semantically rich subjects identified across the Qur'an.25Besides enabling researchers to apply deep learning techniques when analyzing Qur'anic passages and26recitations, the listed methods map out the influence of ancient Arab philosophers on the development27of both the Maqam theory and practice. Having said the above, NLP methods are indeed applicable for28Qur'anic research purposes to unveil rich information waiting to be discovered.