A retrieval profiling framework for relevant results on thematic interpretations of al-Quran with special reference to surah Yaseen

Abstract

A thematic interpretations of al-Qur’ān (TIaQ) - tafseer al-maudu’iy (التفسير الموضوعي)- has a sensitivity in information retrieval (IR) platform due to the interrelation of Qur’ānic verses with each other. Many online Qur’ānic search engines (OQSEs) scattered on the Internet and the themes or topics of al-Qur’ān in those OQSE are in multiform. As a result, some OQSEs’ list of themes and assigned verses are not same as another OQSEs’ list of themes. This nonuniformity of themes and verses in the search tools have the possibility to mislead the user by retrieving nonaligned verses against the query (themes/topics). In this regard, the main purpose of this research is to develop a retrieval profiling framework (RPF) by analyzing and evaluating the existing themes and assigned verses in those OQSEs. However, this research has underlined a three stages research design to analyse the existing methods of Qur’ānic retrieval system and extract the sources based on Surah Yaseen. It has conducted a comparative research in stage one among the themes and aligned verses found in OQSEs and a Delphi study in stage two to justify and ordinate the themes with the verses. Applying this mix methodology, it has used SPSS data analysis tool and Lemur (index and retrieval) tool to further evaluate the most ordinate themes and the verses and draw a line of comparison between Delphi score and retrieval score using two sample t-test in stage three. The major contribution has been achieved by this research is the components and the guidelines of RPF with 240 justified themes by quantitative aspect of Delphi and 107 additional themes in qualitative aspect of Delphi. This result determined the effective approach of the framework with its twelve components. It is expected that this proposed framework will help the users from all types of background in thematic search of al-Qur’ān as well as it will practically guide the IR system developers for generating a good retrieval platform. Despite the significance outcome of this research, the limitation recommends that the further research should now include other Surah, the justification process can now go through various layers and the guidelines of basic thematic classification should be accessed and open to all users. Thus, the existing equivocal themes with the verses in all OQSEs can be resolved