Dear William

Thank you for your interest.
I will try to shed some light on your queries in the numerical order you
have sent me.
A - 1: It includes s every book, treaties and tracts of every Author in
every discipline.
A - 2: each composition of an Author has 3 categories: 1- Manuscripts. 2 -
Published Editions. 3 -Lost / unable to trace ( في حكم المفقود ) .
A - 3: Yes! Not only G.A.L. by Broclelmann but Sizkin and Al-Fehris ul-
Shamil and man hitherto unearthed important Source References, suffix to
state that up till now about 300 Source References has been entered
completely.
A - 4: presently I am using Arabic only, but in the final version I will be
using other languages probably in Microsoft XP.
A - 5: All the two hundred or so field are searchable, in addition various
program has bee written specifically for this purpose, and special
searchable Indexes, Cross References and many other systems has been
developed.
A - 6: Firstly publication in book form, secondly in digital format, i.e.
C.D.  And lastly a Web-side.

It seems appropriate to point out that I am suffering from M.E. for a long
time and confined to my humble abode most of the time. Presently I am a free
lance researcher and do not have any support or help from any organization,
it is just a labor of love.

Thank you for your Interset.
Regards
Mufti Ahmed Baggia


From: William Kopycki <[log in to unmask]>
To: Ahmed Baggia <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: Reply
Date: 26 July 2002 10:54 PM

Dear Mr. Ahmed,

Thanks for your response. No doubt your work will be a valuable
contribution in the field of Islamic studies; it is my opinion that more
such projects need to take place their output made available to scholars
and researchers worldwide.
So if I understand your database correctly, it is primarily of Hanafi
authors and their writings, correct? If so, then:

1. Do you include all types of writings by a particular author, or just
their works on Fiqh?

2. You mentioned that you include authors' manuscripts; is there a way
that you distinguish whether or not an authors' manuscript has been
edited and published in book form? Or is that automatically implied if
there is a listing for a book?

3. Do you include critical/bio-bibliographical information written about
the authors' themselves in the database? Here, I'm thinking about
references by perhaps Brockelmann, or in the various classical
biographical dictionaries?

4. Do you use Arabic/Persian/Urdu scripts in the database, or do you use
transliteration?

5. How can the database be searched? (That is, which fields are
searchable)

6. Ultimately, how do you envision the output of such a project? Will
you be compiling the data in book format, or will you be using this
database for yourself & your own research?

Hope you do not mind all the questions, but I am very happy to hear of
someone else working with Arabic or Islamic studies and using technology
to facilitate research in these areas.

As for me, I worked for many years in the Bibliographic Research Unit of
the Department of Arabic Studies at the American University in Cairo. I
worked under Dr. Hamdi El-Sakkut, researching Modern Arabic Literature
which resulted in the publication of several bibliopgrahies related to
this field, most notably a 6-volume bibliography on the Modern Arabic
Novel, which was published just last year.

It was as a result of my work there that I decided to do a Master's in
Library and Information Science; I ended up here at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee where I completed a database project on works
related to Kuwait, among other similar projects. This project began its
life under MS FoxPro, before being converted over to Access.

Databases are wonderful things, and I am always trying to learn more
about how to design and implement them. I am especially interested in
learning how to create effective platform for multi-lingual multi-script
databases these days, and how to distribute them online.

Thanks for your time; and salam.

William.







William Kopycki
Distance Education Coordinator
School of Information Studies
UW-Milwaukee
(414) 229-5397
[log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Ahmed Baggia [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 7:10 PM
To: William Kopycki
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reply


Dear Mr. Kopycki
Thank you for your email and kind offer of assistance.
I am conducting my research in "Microsoft Window98 Enabled" + "Office97
Enabled" (Access data base + Microsoft words). The database is specially
designed for me. It consist of numerous table i.e. "Authors,
Compilations, Manuscripts, References" etc. Each Table is divided to
many fields, i.e. "Scholar's Table" include "Name, Aka, Dob, Dod" etc. +
various Micros and Modules has been written so all these Tables and
fields are combined systematically and transferred to " words"
automatically. Presently the "dbase" contains around 10,000 "Hanfi
Authors" + 40,000 "Titles" + 200000 "Manuscripts" gathered from Arabic,
Persian, Urdu, English and German Published & Unpublished Source
References. Looking forward to learn about your own system + method and
published research. Regards Mufti Ahmed baggia