The efforts of the Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah (IDB) in Quranic Script Project

Islamic development Bank (IDB) has realized at the right time that it has the responsibility to take a proactive and wise step in the direction of moving this civilized and historical project, which indeed it promoted and developed especially the provided the needed human resources. IDB took up the flag of this project and gathered highly qualified and honest scholars to chart the ideal method for studying a group of African and Asian Muslim languages very far away from publicity. This served as preliminary for the designation of manual typewriters specifically designed for typing text materials with Arabic script.

They idea began to command more influence when it was welcomed by Mr. Mukhtar Ambo, the then director of the UNSCO regional office. Encouraged by Ambo’s acceptance, Dr. Muhammad Ahmad Ali IDB’s manger who first revealed the idea started to send official notes to the concerned organizations. The international organization of Islamic call of Libya was one the first organization that welcomed the idea and started to work hand in hand with IDB for planning and implementation of the idea. Being successful in West Africa, IDB invited more organizations with the intention of expanding the project in order to create a wider benefit in both Africa and Asia. The organizations that honored the invitation and contributed in planning and implementing the projects include:

Islamic Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)
Rabat Institute of Research and Studies for Arabization
Khartoum Institute of Arabic Language

These bodies held a number of meetings in the 9th decade of the 20th century which resulted to some important decisions and suggestions. As a result a number of conferences were organized to which expert scholars were invited from different parts of the world whose expertise and long standing experiences could be tapped and used in the implementation of the project. The first in the series of these conferences came up on 13-14, Rabiul Awwal, 1409 H, equivalent 23-24, October, 1988. A. D.

From the very beginning of the designation, IDB has been précised about the objectives of the project as summarized in the following points:

Illiteracy eradication in the societies where the level of illiteracy is high.
Helping the beneficiaries of the program to play significant roles in the development of their communities.
Working towards bringing the Muslim communities back to their literary heritage so as to strengthen their future development as it will come to lean on the very root of their past.
Uplifting the capacity of Arabic script phonetically and technically in order to be able to contain all the Muslim languages.
Spreading the Arabic script among the Muslims. This is to make it easy for them to read Quran and learn the language of Quran so as to have a better understanding of the religion.
To help African people in writing their languages with Arabic script in the way compatible with the modern technology
To simplify publishing of books, pamphlets and news papers in those languages using Arabic scripts.

In order to achieve all these, IDB designed two proposals:

The theoretical frame work based on the following:

Study of the phonetics of the collection of the languages that are phonetically close to one another.
To identify the particular sounds that do not have equivalent in the already existing alphabets of the Quranic script in order to design the missing alphabets for them and designing a compatible typewriter to that effect.
Distributing publications written with the standardized typewriter as a demonstration to the use of the new alphabetical system for writing the Muslim languages.
Discussing the implementation proposal from time to time with the regional and national monitoring committees for possible improvements

Field work proposal based on the following:

Identifying the languages that used the Arabic script in writings at a point in their history and those interested in using it but never had such experience before.
Identifying the languages of communication among Muslims and classifying them under language groups for easy identification of the bases of their spread. This will serve as a preliminary for the designation of languages atlas throughout the Muslim world.
An attempt to collect all the Arabic scripted materials (manuscripts) in order to study the alphabetical system used in them to represent the sounds without alphabetical equivalent and the extent of the success of the particular systems.
Holding constant meeting between experts for the discussion of the latest discovery in the field and the suggestions guided by the discoveries. The project will benefit more the meetings are held not only constantly but also at regional and international levels.

At the upper stage, some of the objectives of the projects were already achieved since IDB held meeting with a number of concerned organizations and signed memoranda of understanding. An example of this is the memorandum signed with UNESCO on a regional program for illiteracy eradication in Africa using the Arabic script in 1984. Apart from UNESCO and IDB, other party that signed the agreement was ISESCO. This program was aiming at designing an educational strategy for using Arabic script in education and writing a number of African languages with Arabic script with the aim of eradicating illiteracy in those languages. Additionally, the project conducted a practical study on the level of Arabic script usage in some parts of Africa. These include; Mali, Senegal, Niger and Nigeria. Additionally, national conferences were organized in order to standardize the alphabets to be used for the following languages: Fulfulde, Songhai, Zurma, Wolof, Kanuri and Hausa. This is an addition to the establishment of the model classes for teaching local languages using the Arabic script in Quranic schools. This was experimented in Mali (on Fulfulde, Songhai and Zurma), Senegal (Fulfulde and Wolof is) and Niger (Songhai, Zurma, and Hausa).

ISESCO has contributed immensely to the completion of this regional project within its powers.

However, group discussions were organized in order to unify the script for writing Fulfulde and Songhai languages. This was collaboration between the Malian ministry of education, Dakar and the regional office of UNESCO. Held in February of 1987, the function was attended by the institute of research and studies for Arabization, Rabat and the countries speaking these languages. These include Senegal, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Guinea. In the Mach of 1998, another group discussion was organized in Rabat were aiming at the final unification of the script of the two languages.

From 16th to 18th February 1998, a regional conference was organized in Dakar. The conference aimed at assessing the UNESCO regional project. Apart from volunteer participation from Nigeria and Niger, the organizations concerned with the project have also sponsored participation. These include IDB and the International organization for Islamic Call. Other participants are the representatives ISESCO, Khartoum Institute of Arabic Language and the Institute for Research and studies for Arabization. The results of the conference were encouraging. It is worth noting that ISESCO participated in two meetings called by IDB which were held in Jeddah on the project of writing Muslim languages with Arabic script. The international Islamic Call organization later on presented two proposals on the same subject to IDB for sponsorship.

However, six east African languages were chosen to feature in this project. These are Comoros, Swahili, Oromo and Denka languages. Others are Lagbara and Lokanda languages. To this effect, other two conferences were organized; the first one in Khartoum in august, 1989 while the second came in September of the same year at Rabat as a collaborative effort between the Khartoum Institute of Arabic and ALESCO. At the end the alphabets of these languages were not only standardized but also unified with those of the West African Fulfulde and Songhai. As encouraging as they were, the result of those two conferences led to a quick continuation of the already giant steps that were taken about the Muslim languages in the West African. These are, to be précised, Hausa, Kanuri, Tamashug, Malinge/ Bambara, Swoswo and Soninke. To this effect, ALESCO engaged in organizing national symposia in the countries speaking these languages. These are Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Gambia all towards the end of May, 1991. The specific findings and suggestions at these symposia formed the bases of the general regional conference that came up later aiming at unifying all the standardized alphabets. Between 11th and 16th June of the same year, ALESCO and IDB organized a collaborative conference in Conakry, the republic of Guinea. Apart from the representatives of IDB, ALESCO and ISESCO, specialists from Comoros, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Niger participated in the conference. Earlier on, the conference specified two objectives:

Unification of the selected Arabic alphabets for writing the following languages: Hausa, Kanuri, Tamashug, Malinge/ Bambara, Swoswo and Soninke. This was in addition to the already standardized Fulfulde and Songhai of West Africa, as well as the East African Comoros, Swahili, Oromo Denka, Lagbara and Lokanda languages.
2. Identifying the rate of occurrence of especially the non existent sounds in Arabic in the specified languages, design particular alphabets to represent them and then reflect the whole process in the designation of their manual typewriter.

However, the achievements of conference could summarized in the following points

After a very complicated scientific analysis of the symbols tracing the nature of the represented sound in its elementary and advanced stages, a particular alphabetical system was specified and adopted.
After a lot of hot debates, experts agreed on the specific sound units in the selected languages which led to their agreement the representing symbols.
The same bases used for the selection of other alphabets in the previous conferences are the ones adopted in the cause of this particular one.

The Islamic development Bank organized another conference between 2nd and 6th December 1998 in Islamic University, Niger Republic. Apart from the participation of ISESCO, specialist from within and without the republic of Niger participated in the conference. The communiqué of the conference came with great ideas that benefitted the project of writing the languages of Muslims with Arabic script as it launched it self into the second stage. IDB however, prepared a proposal for the third stage of the project, which the standardization of the alphabetical system for writing the Muslim languages in the Asian countries. This in line with the need for standardizing the languages as shown below:

One: studying the Muslim languages for the purpose of standardizing them.

This study will be conducted in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Dar es Salam, Philippine, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Others are Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, Korea and Taiwan. The project was to focus on some specific regions of these countries as shown in the table below. In order to achieve these goals, the following are the proposed steps for the successful execution of the plan.

Holding meetings, conferences and workshops with the experts, so that each of the trained groups would standardize a language or a dialect believed to have contained written Islamic literary heritage of some sort.
To familiarize the experts with the available symbols in the Arabic alphabets and the linguistic sound(s) they represent, as they will also be introduced to the African experience in the standardization work. This will not only prepare them to the task, but will also quip them with the necessary and background of the job.
Encouraging them to attend the extended regional symposia for them to gain access to the researches conducted in the field read them and discuss them. This will provide a platform for them to get acquainted with the symbols used to represent the sounds that are common to all the languages and creating new ones based on the rules of the Phonetics, those that can benefit the modern technology involved in the whole project.

Below is a table for the explanation above:

No	Region	Countries	Time & Date of the experts meeting	Time & Date of a general conference
1-	South Eastern Asia	Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippine, Brunei, Darussalam, Thailand	Malaysia	Indonesia
2-	Central Asia	Khuzestan, Turkmenistan, Keirakezya, Tajikistan, Afghanistan	Marty	Marty
3-	Eastern Asia	China, Mongolia, Korea, Taiwan	China	China

Two: the justifications of the project

This project is a contribution in the process of preserving the Muslim heritage in the Asia and bringing the Asians very close to the Arabic script. The project aims through this to make the largest possible population of Asia a productive participant in the development of their communities. Introducing the standardized Arabic alphabets as packaged in the modern technology into this region will make spread very fast. As Muslims begin to use it, they would become close to their counterparts in Africa as who already started to live up to the expectation of the project. The major achievement is to be seen within the potentiality of bringing Muslim youth closer to the Islamic literary heritage in their original text. It is worth noting that the only real channel to the Islamic source of legislation is language which in turn could only be learnt using the Arabic script. That the project contributes in illiteracy eradication and local developmental programs is strikingly remarkable.