Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Arabic

message: The table at WP:Manual of Style/Arabic#Examples gives “Qur'an” as the standard transliteration, but the article itself is at Quran, the link in the title above being a redirect. (I notice that the  template lacks the apostrophe as well.) But titles are sometimes subject to special policies. What is the consensus for the spelling in articles, where current practice seems to be mixed? Should the example be changed, leaving the apostrophe only in the “strict” column?—Odysseus1479 (talk) 23:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In article titles, the single apostrophe (') is often used for `ayn ع (e.g. Ta'awwudh, but in ordinary transcription style it would represent a glottal stop.  Not sure that such de facto quasi-contradictions between article title practices and other transcription practices have been resolved.  Notice that the "strict" column uses (’), not (')... AnonMoos (talk) 05:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Though in Nastaʿlīq script an actual (ʿ) appears in the article title. AnonMoos (talk) 14:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed the contentious example. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The apostrophe in [[Qur'an]] 

message: For some reason I hadn't come across these guidelines before, but I'm finding them very helpful. I'm working on several articles about the history and architecture of southeast Anatolia and al-Jazirah between the time of the Muslim conquest of this area (638) and when it was added to the Ottoman Empire (around 1515). A lot of my sources for this period are historians writing in English, who themselves rely primarily on Arab sources. These accounts tend to have quite a lot of references to historical figures who don't currently have Wikipedia articles (and may never). As I don't read Arabic, I am taking personal and geographic names from these secondary sources, where they are typically rendered in a strict transliteration (e.g. al-Muwaḥḥid ʿAbd Allāh), rather than making my own transliterations from Arabic.
These MOS guidelines are pretty clear when dealing with the subject of an article, but I can't find a clear statement of how to handle transliteration of other names and terms that don't merit their own articles. My interpretation is as follows, but please correct it if I have misunderstood.
* For any name or term taken from Arabic use the primary transcription where one exists.
* In the absence of a primary transcription, use the standard transliteration (ALA-LC Romanization, no diacritics).
* If the name or term merits its own Wikipedia article, list the strict transliteration (and original Arabic form) in the lead paragraph. In many cases this would be the only place we would use the strict transliteration. Direct quotations and titles of reference works might be the other places.
Assuming that my understanding above is correct, I will need to fix a number of articles to use standard transliteration in place of strict transliteration.
Would it be possible for someone to rewrite this MOS guideline to clarify this aspect? I think what's needed is to add a subsection for "Preferred form" within the "Proposed standard" section. It could be as simple as stating that where an Arabic name or term does not meet the criteria for its own article, it should still appear in other Wikipedia articles using the approach laid out in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic).
That does raise another question for me: A lot of the relevant historical figures during this period have pretty long names with chains of nasabs (e.g. Amir Saif al-Dīn Shīrbārīk Maudūd bin ʿAlī (bin Alp-Yaruq) bin Artuq). Where the person has their own article, it seems fine that I just refer (and link) to that form . Where there is no article for that individual, it would seem best to use the full name on first reference, and then use the most common form for subsequent references. Is there an MOS guideline that covers this area? Rupert Clayton (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preferred form where no Wikipedia article exists 

message: :Feel free to add examples of related articles:
*:Al-Aaimmah bridge. A variety of transliterations have been presented by another editor on the articles talk page and the only reference I found was a google maps presentation of Aa'mah bridge.
*Al-Abbas ibn al-Ma'mun, the equivalent article in Arabic is more simply titled: "Abbas al-Ma'mun"
*Al-Adab al-Kabīr, the one reference provided in the article is to an Encyclopædia Iranica entry that presents ""
:GregKaye 08:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples and suspected examples of the misuse of "Al-" in title texts

message: :Replies, thoughts, responses related to the above will be gratefully received:  GregKaye 08:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Related discussion 

message: The MoS has a statement in the section on definite articles "For this manual of style, assimilated letters will be used, as it aids readers in the correct pronunciation."  This seems a bit strange. Is it stating that assimilated letters must be used?  If so, it seems an unusually strict requirement which opens up quarrels and confusion. ALA-LC does not use assimilated letters, and the preponderance of ALA-LC transcription in English texts (certainly in the US) mean that most academic and other source material will not be using them.  Are we requiring Wikipedia editors to know that the transcriptions they are coming across and using in articles are "wrong" by that policy statement?  Most Wikipedia editors are not Arabic-speakers, and have no idea about assimilated letters or pronunciation, and will transcribe names as they read them (e.g. "Harun al-Rashid" rather than "Harun ar-Rashid").  This seems a very strange demand to make upon them.  Particularly as it opens up quarrels between editors, between the few who insist on assimilated letters (unusual in the literature) and the bulk who insist on keeping it unassimilated (as they commonly read it).  It will also likely introduce inconsistencies across articles, e.g. the main article being forcibly named "Harun ar-Rashid", but other editors continue to innocently write "Harun al-Rashid" in other articles, not imagining it might be inconsitent.  It seems to me WP:MOSAR statement is being unproductive here, and imposing a rule that contradicts common usage, and will likely lead to quarrels between editors.  I would like to propose a modification in the MoS which states that assimilated letters can be used, if shown to be the preponderant transcription, and eliminate the statement that "it will be used", which seems an anomalous imposition. Walrasiad (talk) 23:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I’m inclined to agree. The premise quoted above seems flawed: pronunciations and native orthographies usually appear near the beginning of the lead, so I don‘t think promotion of correct pronunciation is generally an important consideration for our spelling norms, especially where the result would differ from the most frequent form. I confess, however, that I don‘t understand the rationale for many of our spellings (for example how we came up with the peculiar Quran, neither the commonly encountered fish Koran nor the more precisely transcribed fowl Qur’an, so to speak), and I‘m not familiar with the academic literature, so I may be missing something.—Odysseus1479 00:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The project page explains that per Wikipedia's Manual of Style, if the title of an article is to be based on standard transliteration from Arabic, then . I strongly disagree with your proposed modification. Thousands of article titles on Wikipedia, about place names, people, etc, use the assimilated letters per WP:MOSAR. Some of the titles (only where the assimilated definite articles occur at the start of the title) can be found in these lists: All pages with prefix at-, All pages with prefix ad-, All pages with prefix adh-, All pages with prefix ar-, All pages with prefix az-, All pages with prefix as-, All pages with prefix ash-, All pages with prefix an-. Khestwol (talk) 08:18, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is not about article titles.  This is about common usage in article text.  I've written hundreds of historical articles on Wikipedia, many of them relating to North Africa, with hundreds of Arabic names, and I assure you that not once did I use assimilated letters, for they were not used in my sources.  This was not a conscious decision - I was simply following common usage in academic sources and other texts, and was blissfully unaware of this weird quirk in MOSAR.  I presume a lot of editors are like me, in that they write based on sources, and wouldn't in a hundred years imagine that MOSAR has a tiny codicil which contradicts common usage.  (Not least that a lot of editors simply don't know Arabic, and wouldn't know what a sun letter was if it hit them in the face, so wouldn't even imagine this to be a question; this codicil seems to expect that any articles that refer to an Arabic name are only going to be written by Arabic-speakers, aware of nuances of Arabic pronunciation?) In other words, articles will continue to be written with unassimilated letters. If this is a policy, then it is patently unenforceable, and will foster inconsistency and quarrels. Will Wikipedia establish a "sun letter task force" to comb through all these articles to ensure compliance with this bizarre requirement?  Or is this going to remain a hidden weapon for sun letter warriors to surprise writers, contradict common usage, and provoke quarrels and acrimony between editors? This is an immensely unproductive codicil that needs to be rectified. If not rectified, then I would request that the statement at the top of MOSAR requesting editors to follow ALA-LC be corrected or removed entirely, as it is very deceptive.  MOSAR statement at the top needs to be re-written to clarify that Wikipedia intends to promote pronunciation, not common usage. Walrasiad (talk) 12:29, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: , BTW, I personally find that most relevant titles on Wikipedia, especially those which are about the Arabian Peninsula or areas east of the Maghreb region, do assimilate al- before a sun letter. Also see the lists I provided above. You maybe right about the Maghreb, but I guess that is because the transliteration from that region are more under the French influence maybe? Many of the articles from that region do not use spelling normal in English. But I myself try to assimilate al- before a sun letter in titles. And BTW, this is coming from a non-Arabic speaker.  I have very little knowledge of Arabic. However, I am aware of the correct pronunciation of the definite article so I always try to follow WP:MOSAR. Khestwol (talk) 13:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think it is a regional issue.  It is a source issue.  If articles are written based on written English sources, particularly academic or recent ones, ALA-LC will very likely be followed and sun letters will be unassimilated. While you may be aware of correct Arabic pronunciation, I don't expect most Wikipedia editors are.  They write as they read. And they read unassimilated. Walrasiad (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: ALA-LC is not the only romanization. See Romanization of Arabic, there are also others in common usage. I think that most do assimilate al- before a sun letter. A change like what you are recommending won't be constructive to implement in the present. It will lead to incorrect, simplistic pronunciations which are not based on correct Arabic, and many many articles will have to be moved away from their present, correct titles. I think the MoS is fine as is. Khestwol (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  ALA-LC is, far and away, the most widely-used romanization in modern English sources, particularly academic ones, and increasingly in journalism and elsewhere.  In short, it's what Wikipedia editors are reading, and the sources they will be using to write articles.   If ALA-LC leads to incorrect Arabic pronunciation, so be it.  This is not an Arabic language class, it is an encyclopedia.  Communicating information, not teaching pronunciation, should be the paramount concern.  The question of assimilation is evidently something that both the ALA and LC carefully weighed and decided upon, and one the bulk of academics agreed with.  If you think they were all wrong-headed, and you know what is best, perhaps you should write a letter to the Library of Congress expressing your misgivings.  I wish you luck. That said, I remind you that I am not requesting imposing ALA-LC in Wikipedia.  What I am requesting is flexibility, removing that draconian codicil so as to to allow unassimilated spellings to also be used here, and ensure they aren't automatically and controversially overridden by MOSAR, regardless of common usage and causing edit wars and quarrels. Walrasiad (talk) 14:40, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

text:  PS.- I am going to pause my commentary, to allow other editors to speak. While this is an outgrowth of Talk:Harun ar-Rashid#Requested move 19 May 2015, I do not want this to become a continuation of that. I would be interested in hearing what other editors, not involved in that particular page, think about the proposal. Walrasiad (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I think that also allowing unassimilated spellings will gain for us nothing and will only cause a big WP:CONSISTENCY issue. Khestwol (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sun letters, once again 

message: As discussed above, "Al" when not the article means "family", not "dynasty" - even if dynasties take their family's name. Whenever the name of the ancestor is well-known, its descendant may be know as "Al ...". See for example Al ash-Sheikh. Naming it "dynastic" may let people think these are a reigning familyn which is not necessarily true.
Also, this section should also be part of Al (disambiguation) and arabic names - I copied it there--Df (talk) 20:56, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dynastic Al" 

message: Some articles require the use of the original word in Arabic script. It could be me, but I am coming across an increasing use of the  template for enlarging Arabic words. Personally, I don't like this since it increases the whitespace between lines, adds to a sometimes already complex syntax code, and I can't see much difference anyway (could be my browser settings). Is this the new standard for Arabic or does a normal font size suffice? - HyperGaruda (talk) 11:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, I recently compared this issue on Internet Explorer 11 vs Firefox 38 (my standard browser). It seems that Firefox currently uses a different character set for Arabic in the Arial font, a set which is larger/much more legible and Arial-like. IE11 on the other hand uses the illegible Arabic character set which I was used to until some time ago and which would justify the use of the Big template. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

text: I agree,  is a kludge.  The problem is that Arial is terrible for mixing Arabic with other scripts.  It has a very large x-height for Latin letters, but a small dal-height for Arabic.  (Cyrillic and Greek are matched to the Latin in x-height, weight, baseline and stroke taper, but its Arabic differs in all four.)  I wonder if something could be done with an "Arabic-script" CSS class and the default stylesheets to select a different font?  Pelagic (talk) 13:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: There is  which adds a script-arabic class, but it also has its own hard-coded font list, and sets the size to 125%. Pelagic (talk) 14:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: When using , most languages in the Arabic script be displayed in a more legible font on Chrome. Is there not a way to request a change for which default font is chosen for the Arabic script? Abjiklɐm (tɐlk) 17:51, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  In-line Arabic 

message: And additionally made changes to the wording of some phrases. - HyperGaruda (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a note that MOS:APOSTROPHE now prefers the use of , , and . -- Beland (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated ayn

message: Perhaps we should rename the current standard transcription into something like basic transcription. I often get the feeling on other talk pages that people confuse standard transcription with strict transliteration. Although this might give problems with primary transcription, so maybe we should change that into common transcription Any better naming suggestions? - HyperGaruda (talk) 19:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your choice of common transcription, basic transcription and strict transliteration describes well the different options. Abjiklɐm (tɐlk) 21:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

text: Works for me! Another thing I think we might need to (re)consider is whether or not we're going to say anything about translations... The first sentence of the "Definitions" section reads "For the purposes of this convention, an Arabic word is a name or phrase that is most commonly originally rendered in the Arabic alphabet, and that in English is not usually translated into a common English word...." and that's the last thing said about translations. Now if we're going to talk about article titles in a coherent way, translations would probably need to be part of the guidance (e.g. a concept that is under a translated article title, can be transliterated in the first paragraph of the lede). Or leave article titles out of this guidance alltogether? Which would mean reviving WP:Naming conventions (Arabic)... Don't know what would be best? --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for mentioning translations. It's a bit odd that the broadly titled "MoS/Arabic" hardly says anything about using translations in the first place. Then again, to the original editors it might have been obvious, that the mother of all trans-language wiki conventions comes first. I'm really against treating the article title differently, since it just adds more complexity to an already complex situation. Instead, simply stressing the importance of WP:English might be enough. - HyperGaruda (talk) 10:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Re. "...treating the article title differently...": well article titles are treated differently. That's basic MOS/AT distinction. The choice is whether we say something sensible about article titles in this guidance or whether we revive the derelict WP:Naming conventions (Arabic). Even if the last option is chosen WP:MOSAR should not contain guidance that is incompatible with article titling guidance, meaning: the complexities involving article titling need to be addressed anyway. That is, if we want this page to evolve from would-be guidance to an actual guideline. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:48, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the current convention for article titles is a clear enough summary:  This brevity does not really warrant a complete article of its own imho. The current common and basic transcription rules are MoS-compatible, so I am not sure what other rules you want to add for article titles; care to explain? - HyperGaruda (talk) 15:21, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That ruleset could never account for Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī which has survived quite a number of WP:RMs (...and many other examples some of which have been mentioned above), so I attempted to rewrite in view of WP:AT compatibility, and removed the link to the failed naming convention. Hope this may work. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That looks great. And about al-Khwarizmi: wow, who permitted that title? Ok, I see some reason in keeping the first name over the common name, but the diacritics? It's got to be an absolute pain in the a** to keep using that name in the article. - HyperGaruda (talk) 17:36, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Re current article title for al-Khwarizmi (and many others that show little coherence for how the Arabic name is rendered): shows the downside of not having had a coherent article titling guideline for Arabic names for the last ten years, so I'm happy we're going towards something that might fill the gap. If this becomes an acceptable naming convention probably some of the current article titles may benefit from being revisited. Don't want to rake up the dust though, before we're sure this is a convenient naming convention. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:43, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming suggestion 

message: Since the guideline is being updated, what is your opinion on using the  and <large> tags, presumably to make the Arabic script more legible? I'm in favor of avoiding them since I'm hoping that, in the future, more browsers will support choosing an appropriate font. These tags are visually distracting and are a cheap fix for a temporary problem. Abjiklɐm (tɐlk) 15:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm still against these ugly and static tags, especially since I've learned that the "lang" templates can take care of the problem more elegantly. Our conversation at #In-line Arabic shows that at least Firefox and Chrome adapt to Arabic script if indicated as such. Not sure about Safari, although the basic Arabic font on my iPad is already nicely legible without the "lang" template. If anyone wants to compare with/without template: Arabic diacritics#Alif waslah contains both cases. - HyperGaruda (talk) 16:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  &lt;big&gt; and &lt;large&gt; tags 

message: Should the definite article be capitalized in navigation templates where Arabic words are listed in horizontal and alphabetical order? I ask because I've been discussing the :Template:Mosques in Palestine with another user who is arguing that because each article stands alone, the definite article should be capitalized. I believe, because the definite article is basically a formality, that it should not be emphasized and thus should be lowercase while only the main word should be capitalized. I think capitalizing the definite article for each item in the list muddies the alphabetical order because the emphasis becomes shifted to the definite article instead of the main word getting prioritized. For example: I think "Ibrahimi Mosque • al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque an-Nasr Mosque" is preferable to "Ibrahimi Mosque • Al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque • An-Nasr Mosque". The only time I think the definite article should be capitalized is for the first item in the list. I could not find a specific guideline in MoS Arabic for templates so I wonder what the policy should be here. --Al Ameer (talk) 05:24, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Since each entry is basically a separate sentence, I'd say capitalise the first letter, regardless of being "al" or not. The same has been the case for the initial "The" in other templates such as Template:Andrew Lloyd Webber (forgive me for comparing to a musical writer, but this came up first in my mind). Of course any other "al" should not be capitalised. - HyperGaruda (talk) 07:39, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see your point, but I still think only the first word of a particular row (section) should have its definite article capitalized for Arabic. With the English "The", the following word is not exactly attached to the definite article like "al-" is attached to the subject word because a hyphen is not used in the former. I also think the lowercase style takes less emphasis away from the main word, which is even more relevant for an alphabetically ordered list), and simply looks better (at least to my eyes). I'm not exactly sure what the process here is for amending or adding to the current guidelines, but it would be beneficial to MoS Arabic if a definitive policy could be set regarding the capitalization of the definite article in templates so that it could be applied throughout the encyclopedia. I understand the argument that my question is answered by the following guideline: "Al-" ... always written in lower case (unless beginning a sentence), and a hyphen separates it from the following word, but I think there should be clarification regarding stand-alone words in a list. Further input from more users like yourself who are active on MoS Arabic would be nice. --Al Ameer (talk) 03:46, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

text: Well, I am the other editor who thinks that list elements are like the beginning of a new sentence, see the discussion at Template_talk:Mosques_in_Palestine#Capitalization_of_the_definite_article. In this regards, list elements are like Wikipedia article titles, and are as a rule capitalized, see Al-Aqsa Mosque and all others. Debresser (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalizing the definite articles in templates 

message: I have tried to find templates related to Arabic, excluding navigation and message templates. It is probably a good idea to include these in the MoS, but I would like to hear your comments about them and if there are more which may need a mention in the MoS. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Templates related to Arabic 

message: Already mentioned in MoS. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: <del>{{tl|lang-ar}}</del>

message: In combination with |ar. Already mentioned in MoS. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: <del>{{tl|lang}}</del>

message: In combination with |ar. Same effect as , but used for entire paragraphs that need to be right-aligned.
*I think its use should be discouraged, since entire texts in Arabic are prohibited per WP:USEENGLISH. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|rtl-para}}

message: Gives IPA pronunciation.
*Could be used in the lead next to what has already been proposed: "Abjad (, , )". Definitely used in . - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|IPAc-ar}}

message: For use after external links to indicate that the linked site is written in Arabic.
*Used as stated. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Ar icon}}

message: Infobox with all the possible renderings of an Arabic term.
*Should only be used in articles whose titles are originally Arabic terms, such as madhhab. I'm not sure about this infobox's position in the text: lead or etymology? - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Infobox Arabic term}}

message: Infobox analysing the different parts of an Arabic name.
*Should be used for articles about persons with Arabic names. In that case, it would be nice if it is possible to integrate it into . Anyone with more experience? - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Arabic name pattern}}

message: From MOS:
"Al-" and its variants (ash-, ad-, ar-, etc.) are always written in lower case (unless beginning a sentence), and a hyphen separates it from the following word.
I think it should always be written in lowercase even when beginning a sentence. I'm sorry if you discussed this before but I couldn't find any direct mentions to this.
From Wikipedia Romanization of Arabic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic#endnote_10
The UN system and ALA-LC prefer lowercase a and hyphens.
References cited by the Wikipedia article:
ALA-LC Romanization Tables, Rule 18(a)
https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf
the definite article al is given in lower case in all positions
UNGEGN Romanization Tables, Other systems of romanization
http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ar.pdf
The original transliteration table, published in vol. II of the report on the Second UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, contains examples (but not explicit rules) where the definite article is always written with a small initial
What do you think?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeromido (talk • contribs) 09:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalizing al- when beginning a sentence 

message: This page is like a mind field. 
Only people with perfect knowledge of the Quran (the holy book of Muslim) and its meanings and perfect knowledge of the English language, should venture in editing it or be participant in it. 
Why ?  Because the only origin of the Arabic language is the Quran.
A statistic issued by the United Nations claimed that the most three difficult languages worldwide are the American Native Indians languages, which has no rules, the Chinese language which underwent a massive simplification in the last decades and third the Arabic language which cannot be simplified by any means because the Quran cannot be changed in any way.
Just two examples
1- The word : ALLAH (which means the only name of God in Arabic) does not change pronunciation, in most, may be all of the languages spoken worldwide.
2- Any other word changes from country to another - example : house (English) - maison (French) - haus (German) - casa (Spanish and Italian) - (بيث - العربية). Try to read them all and see if you get the same sound.
Now, any word that is Arabic and has an established noun in a foreign language, should be used ( for the picky people like me both should be used for example Cairo - Alqaheera - القاهرة).
For any word (also in Arabic) that has not an established noun in the foreign language should be written as it is pronounced in the Arabic language. The last point is a logic thinking.
@Pathawi
Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 22:48, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Your religious piety may be impeccable,  but unfortunately your knowledge of linguistics appears to be weak.  Mostly what is being transcribed is MSA pronunciation rather than strict Qur'anic tajwid.  "Cairo" is an exonym (see the article on exonyms and endonyms)... AnonMoos (talk) 01:33, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is like a mine field. 

message: In the interest of focusing the discussion about setting a manual, or manuals, of style for Arabic place names on Wikipedia, I have moved the original thread here. Mahmud you have been active with this page in the past, what is the best approach to setting this up? Organizing the discussion here or going further by opening an RFC (also here)? Either way, the relevant wikiprojects and active users who have frequently edited this topic (i.e. places in the Arabic-speaking world) will be notified. Before we continue discussion about the substance though, we should decide the best mechanism. Al Ameer (talk) 21:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Al Ameer. I am quite busy, but I'll try to find a way to insert this in the guide. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 00:27, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you . I was not referring specifically to the guideline about the non-assimilated, hyphenated 'al-' or 'el-' (excuse the confusion from my placement of this message under that specific thread; I have separated it now). I meant what do you believe is the best approach to hold a broader discussion about how we spell Arabic place names so that we could decide and implement a manual. For the record, I do support a guideline about using non-assimilated, hyphenated articles across the board, unless it contravenes the clear common name. Al Ameer (talk) 02:34, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  You will notice that you should use the normal ⟨al⟩ or ⟨el⟩, hyphenated/capitalized or not. I am currently waiting for some other input in the above discussion, then I will make it clearer in the guide, since it is not. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 08:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Setting a manual for spelling Arabic places

message: The current strict transliteration recommends ʾ for ayin and ʿ for hamza. Just kidding! It's actually ʿ for ayin and ʾ for hamza. On my system these characters look identical at the default body text size. While I'm all for following standards, standards that depend on distinguishing different apostrophes are not suitable for use on the web where we cannot control how text is rendered (font, size, rasterisation, etc).
While I can accept that for basic transcription, conflating ayin and hamza is acceptable, the purpose of the strict transliteration is explicitly to be able to distinguish each letter. Everybody should be able to distinguish it, not just people with 20/20 vision with their nose pressed against the screen.
I propose that one of apostrophes should be changed to a different glyph. It is better to change ayin, as using apostrophe for glottal stop is a stronger convention.
Here's some potential non-apostrophe options for ayin:
: 3 - the de facto standard transliteration of ayin as used by Arabs, plus some educational sources such as Duolingo
: ﻉ - some texts use an ﻉ glyph directly inside the transliteration. But including an RTL glyph inside an LTR word is problematic for unicode bidi reasons
: e - this is used by IATA (on passports) and Google Translate. But it is confusing for Egyptian Arabic where "e" represents a vowel
: A - some texts represent ayin using an uppercase A
I like using "3" the best as it's a de facto standard and many people are already used to reading it.
Here's what the difference looks like:
أعرف →  ʾaʿraf → ʾa3raf
رائعة →  rāʾiʿa →  rāʾi3a
عائلة →  ʿāʾila → 3āʾila
To my eyes, that's a big improvement. I can actually read the 2nd transliteration. Alextgordon (talk) 13:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: On Wikipedia we generally follow scholarly sources, and the de facto standard in scholarly sources these days are modifier letter left half ring (ʿ) and modifier letter right half ring (ʾ) for ayn and hamza, respectively. I'm not sure why these two look identical on your system, but on most systems they look fairly distinct, more so than the modifier letter reversed comma (ʽ) and modifier letter apostrophe (ʼ) often used in older scholarly sources. Yes, "3" of course looks much more distinct, but it also looks like SMS language, and it is never used in scholarly sources. In my opinion it would be a very bad idea for Wikipedia to be the first encyclopedia or knowledge-oriented source to start using "3" instead of ʿ or ʽ. We are not trailblazers, we follow established usage. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly agree with Apaugasma about "3", but some selective use of the IPA symbols ʔ and ʕ might be helpful (not in article titles, of course). AnonMoos (talk) 00:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, ʔ and ʕ are appropriate particularly in linguistic contexts, where reliable sources also often them. This guideline should not be applied to strictly: each article can have its own standards according to the usage found in its sources, if that usage consistently differs from WP:MOSAR. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

text: The use of 3 to represent 'ain is derived from slang transliteration; it has never been scholarly. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:56, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor accessibility of Ayin and Hamza strict transliteration 

message: I curate the Timeline of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, and I'm puzzled by the distinction (if any) between "Houthi" and "Houthis". I've done some digging, and in the citations at least "Houthi" predominates. But what's the proper style? Should we go orthographically by citation? Write etymologically "Drones from the tribe of Houth"? What? What? Figured that I, monoglot, would hand you this abstruse issue. Details matter. Thx. kencf0618 (talk) 14:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Houthi vis-à-vis Houthis