Topic Map-Based Holy Quran Index

Fahmi Jafar

Khabib Mustofa

Computer Science Departement

Gadjah Mada University
Yogyakarta

Computer Science Departement

Gadjah Mada University
Yogyakarta

fahmijafar@fahmijafar.net

khabib@ugm.ac.id

ABSTRACT
Topic Map is a standard for the representation and interchange of
knowledge, with an emphasis on the findability of information.
Index of book, including the Holy Quran, is primarily presented as
list of terms, sometimes referring one to another. This kind of
association is more advantageous if it can be presented in a way
of navigating from one topic to related ones. Topic map is
considered suitable for the Holy Quran ibdex representation.
Topic Map-based application for Al Quran index was built for
representing the main topic of Al Quran into web application so it
would be a prototype of the usage of topic-map as navigation tool,
visualization, and site-map. The application is able to manage
topic-map document according to standard format of XML Topic
Map (XTM) including topic, occurrence, and association. Topicmap is visualized by TouchGraph Link Browser applet which can
helps users to explore the topics and associations among topics in
the Holu Quran topic map. This application was built using Javaservlet with TM4J API and TouchGraph LinkBrowser.

Keywords
Al Quran, Association, Occurrence, TM4J, Topic, Topic Map,
TouchGraph LinkBrowser, XTM.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Information nowadays are available in many formats which can be

a document, image, book, electronic book, HTML pages, or web
site. All these information is increasing rapidly in huge number of
size every year. This information overload will cause the
difficulties of accessing the right information and has appropriate
relevance to a subject or topic within a specific area of interest.
Hence, one of the challenges nowadays is no longer how to share
the information or knowledge but shifting to how to deliver the
right information in the right context to the right person [5].
One of the solutions can be used to that information overload issue
is using topic map approach. Topic map uses indexing approach
like in a back-of-book index which contain the context and the
location of information, as depicted in Figure 1.
Topic maps are designed to manage the info glut, build valuable
information networks over any kind of information resources, and
enable the structuring of unstructured information. A topic map
can be seen as an electronic super index, implementing the backof-bok index paradigm and much more [5].
Information has unlimited size and domain, and Topic Map is just
a standard applicable in many domains. To combine concepts
from different domain, each topic maps can be merged to build the
larger information domain.

Figure 1 Topics and Back-of-Book Index

This paper describes the usage of topic maps for representing
topics in Holy Quran (Al Quran). An application will be built
which can be a prototype of topic map application that is possibly
developed for other domains.
Al Qurans topic map document format refers to XML for Topic
Map (XTM) ISO standard 13250:2002 [6]. The main topic of this
Al Quran topic map is related to the topic ibadah. The index will
be managed using application that has several functions to browse,
search, and maintain the content of the document exclude the
function to manage scope and merge. The knowledge contained in
the Topic Map will be presented in a graphical user interface
which provides navigation feature instead of just search textually.

2.

HOLY QURAN (AL QURAN)

Al Quran is a holy book contains 114 part, every part contains

different number of verses, and every group of verses contains one
or more sub-part as known as ruku which examine certain theme
or topic. This paper will focus on developing topic map for one of
Al Qurans domain, in this case is ibadah.

3.

TOPIC MAP

A topic map is a set of information resources regarded by a topic

map application as a bounded object set whose hub document is a
topic map document conforming to the SGML architecture defined
by international standard [6]. Information structure in the topic
map including topic, occurrence, and association. Topic is the
representation of a real world subject. An occurrence is a source of
information about the topic. An association is a relationship
between topics, which describes how the topics are related to each
other, by giving the different members of the association roles [4].

Topic maps can create an index of information which resides

outside that information, as shown in Figure 2. The topic map (the
cloud at the top) describes the information in the documents (the
little rectangles) and the databases (the little cans) by linking into
them using URIs (the lines) [7].

Regarding to the topic ibadah, in this paper, topics can be: bersuci,
doa, haji-umrah, puasa, shalat, sumpah-nazar, tayammum, wudhu,
zakat, and zikir.
In an XML document of topic map, topics are represented using
topic tag. Figure 4 shows the example of adding topics into
topic map document.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<topicMap id="ibadah"
xml:base="/quran.xtm"
xmlns="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
<topic id="bersuci"> ... </topic>
<topic id="zikir"> ... </topic>
<topic id="zakat"> ... </topic>
<topic id="wudhu"> ... </topic>
<topic id="tayammum"> ... </topic>
<topic id="sumpah-nazar"> ... </topic>
<topic id="sholat"> ... </topic>
<topic id="puasa"> ... </topic>
<topic id="mandi-besar"> ... </topic>
<topic id="haji-umrah"> ... </topic>
<topic id="doa"> ... </topic>
</topicMap>

Figure 4 Defining the main topics

Figure 2 Topic Map Illustration [7]

Topic map can be defined via an XML document containing all
the relevant information. Example of the XML document for topic
map is shown in Figure 3.
The topic map document, as shown in Figure 3, starts off with a
header specifying the version of XML, followed by the topicMap
tag. Inside the topicMap tag, any number of topics and
associations can be added to this map. The sequence of these
declarations does not matter [1].
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<topicMap id="TopicMapName"
xmlns="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
<!-Topics and associations
-->
</topicMap>

Figure 3 . Example of XML document for Topic Map

3.1

Topic

Topics are the main elements in topic maps that represent the real
world subjects of which the developer wish to present information.
A topic can be anything, regardless whether it exists or not,
whether it is of physical nature or just an idea or expression [4].
A topic has three characteristics [5]:
1. Names: Human readable name for the subject. A topic
can have zero, one, or many names.
2. Occurrences: Link to information resources relevant for
the topic.
3. Playing roles in associations: A topic may be associated
with other topics.

3.2

Occurrence

Occurrences are the representation of relationship between a

subject and an information resource [6]. Whenever a resource
provides information about a topic it should be considered to
become an occurrence of the topic. Occurrences are one of the
three topic characteristics. There are two types of occurrences:
internal occurrence and external occurrence.
Internal occurrence is information about the subject that is typed
inside the topic map and included in the XML document for topic
map. As an example, for Al Quran topic map, internal occurrence
for the topic Sholat might be worship compulsory for Muslims.
External occurrence is a link to information about the topic, which
is located elsewhere. Most typically these links are represented as
URIs, and point to a web page, or may also point to a file in a file
system or a field in a database [4].
Figure 5 shows the example of defining internal and external
occurrence for a topic.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<topicMap id="ibadah"
xml:base="/quran.xtm"
xmlns="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
<topic id="sholat">
<instanceOf>
<topicRef xlink:href="#ibadah"/>
</instanceOf>
<occurrence>
<resourceData>
Worship compulsory for Muslims
</resourceData>
</occurrence>
<occurrence>
<resourceRef xlink:href=http://alislamu.com
/>
</occurrence>
</topic>
</topicMap>

Figure 5 Defining occurrences

In Figure 5 , an Internal occurrence is represented with

resourceData tag, while an external occurrence is represented with
resourceRef tag.

3.3

Association

Associations represent the horizontal structure of the topic map

ontology which is defining how topics are connected to one
another [4]. The number of topics related by one association is not
limited, as many as the application requires.
Associations can be rather general like: is located in, lives in,
written by, born in; or more specific like: is an academic
organization within, or a facility provided by.

Figure 6 Example of association in Al Quran Topic Map

As seen in Figure 6, in Al Quran topic Map, the topic ibadah is
related to topic puasa, while topic puasa is related to topic
Albaqoroh. The definition of an association is described in
association element using association tag, outside the topic
element.
Each member in an association is given a role. This provides extra
semantics to how the topics are associated. A topic can have
different roles in the different associations where it is a member
of. Figure 7 shows the example of association roles.

and chaired at the date of delivery of XTM specification version

1.0 by Steve Pepper and Graham Moore [2].

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<topicMap id="ibadah"
xml:base="/quran.xtm"
xmlns="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
...
<association id="x135">
<instanceOf>
<topicRef xlink:href="#has-includes"/>
</instanceOf>
<member id="x136">
<roleSpec>
<topicRef xlink:href="#includes"/>
</roleSpec>
<topicRef xlink:href="#ibadah"/>
</member>
<member id="x137">
<roleSpec>
<topicRef xlink:href="#included-in"/>
</roleSpec>
<topicRef xlink:href="#puasa/>
</member>
</association>
...
</topicMap>

Figure 8 Defining association

The origins of the topic maps paradigm itself dates back to 1993,
when it was first expressed as a working document in the context
of the Davenport Group. The paradigm was more fully developed
thereafter in the context of the GCA Research Institute (now
known as IDEAlliance), in an activity called Conventions for the
Application of HyTime, during and after which the paradigm was
independently developed, implemented, and promulgated. Early in
2000, after several years of continuous effort by an international
group of individuals, the topic map paradigm was fully formalized
for the first time as an ISO International Standard, ISO/IEC
13250:2000. Almost immediately thereafter, TopicMaps.Org was
founded in order to develop the applicability of the paradigm to
the World Wide Web, and to realize its enormous potential to
improve the findability and manageability of information [2].

3.5
Figure 7 . Al Quran Topic Map Association Roles
In the Al Quran topic map, the topic puasa has different roles in
two associations. In the association with ibadah it has the role
included in. This association can be read that puasa is included
in the ibadah. In the association with albaqoroh, puasa
has the role described in, and albaqoroh has the role
describes. It means albaqoroh describes the topic puasa.
Figure 8 shows the syntax to define the association.

3.4

XTM

XML document for topic map described in this paper refers to the
international standard called XTM. XML Topic Maps (XTM) is a
product of the TopicMaps.Org Authoring Group (AG), formed in
2000 by an independent consortium named TopicMaps.Org,
originally chaired by Michel Biezunski and Steven R. Newcomb,

TM4J

TM4J is a topic map processing engine written in Java providing a

pure Java API, support for the Tolog query language, support for
importing XTM and LTM syntaxes, support for exporting XTM
syntax and persistence of topic map information in a wide variety
of databases [8]. As most of othe Java libraries, TM4J is an
opensource package available to be further explored.
The engine provides a comprehensive Application Programming
Interface (API) to allow programmers to create and modify topic
map structures. The engine can be used to manage topic maps
which are maintained in-memory or which are persistently stored
either in the Ozone object-oriented database, or in a relational
database using the Hibernate O-R mapping. TM4J also provides
interfaces for querying topic maps structures using the Tolog
query language, parsing topic maps from XTM or LTM syntax
files, and writing topic maps to XTM syntax files.
The application on this paper is built using Java and TM4J library
so that the application can provide the interface to manage the
topics, occurrences, and association.

3.6

TouchGraph LinkBrowser

TouchGraph LinkBrowser 1 is a Java applet which to visualize

information using node and edge. The use of TouchGraph
LinkBrowser in topic map application will simplify the exploration
and navigation of topics and association between topics.
TouchGraph LinkBrowser will read an XML document which has
a specific document type definition as shown in Figure 9. This
document type definition has different definition with XTM, so
XTM document need to be converted to an XML document that
refers to TouchGraph LinkBrowsers XML.

Figure 10 shows the main topics that has been selected for domain
ibadah. These main topics can be expanded into more sub-topics
that related to main topics.
After determining the main topics, the next step is to add the
occurrences for each topic. As mentioned before, occurrences can
be internal or external. Figure 11 shows the topic zikir with
several external occurrences.

Regarding to the conversion of XTM to XML, a function has been

developed and added to the application. This function will change
the topic element with its attributes into node and nodeset, and
change the member element inside the association into edge and
edgeset.
<TOUCHGRAPH_LB version="1.20">
<NODESET>
<NODE nodeID="node-id1">

</NODE>
</NODESET>
<EDGESET>
<EDGE fromID="node-id1" toID="node-id2"
type="1" length="70" visible="false"/>
</EDGESET>
</TOUCHGRAPH_LB>

Figure 11 Example of adding occurrences into a topic

Figure 9 XML DTD to visualize topic map

By the function of TouchGraph LinkBrowser applet, application
provide an interface to draws the topic map as a graph, so it can
help user to explore the topic map.

4.

Other occurrences can be added into another topics in the domain.

The process of expanding the main topics into sub-topics and
adding occurrences into a topic are repeated until the topic map
document considered as complete.
After the topics and sub topics are determined, then the next step
is to determine the relationship between topics defined by the
association element. Figure 12 shows an example the association
for topic puasa.

AL QURAN TOPIC MAP DESIGN

Al Quran topic map design consists of topic, occurrence, and

association related to topics in Al Quran domain to be
represented. The main topics in Al Quran are morals/manners, Al
Quran, previous, law, private law, worship, science/knowledge,
faith, holy war, foods, dress, history, and muamalat [3].
The selected domain for topic map depends primarily on the needs
of the application, the user needs, and the author of topic map
itself. From the main topics in Al Quran, domain ibadah (worship)
has been selected for this paper and from this domain can be
expanded to main topics that related to domain as shown in Figure
10.

Figure 10 . Topic type and main topics

http://www.touchgraph.com/newLB/TGLinkBrowser.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/touchgraph/

and

Figure 12 Example of association between the topics

5.

APPLICATION DESIGN

After the Topic Map model is established, the next step is to create
an application to manage and display the model for human
consumption. There are two user types of the application,
administrator and client. Administrator has access to admin page
and maintain the topic map document (XTM), including add, edit,
delete the topics, occurrences, and associations. Administrator also
has access to the XTM conversion functions corresponding to the
XML standard format required by the TouchGraph LinkBrowser
applet. User client can see the web page which the menu and the
content are generated from XTM document. The system design of
Al Quran topic map application is shown in Figure 13.

should be evaluated if the size or number of concept is increasing

from time to time. Another approach which involves persistence
store using database management systems (via JDBC, ODBC,
Hibernate) could be implemented to compare with the curent
achievement as the future works.

Figure 13 System design of topic map application

As shown in Figure 13, application uses Java Servlet with TM4J
library in processing topic map document (XTM). Processing
results are then returned to the servlet to be combined with HTML
tags.

6.

IMPLEMENTATION

The process of adding, editing, deleting topics, occurrences and

associations, and converting XTM document into XML standard
format required by the TouchGraph LinkBrowser applet will
produce a web page that can be accessed by the user. In other
words, the main menu and contents of this web page are generated
from XTM document maintained by administrator. The web page
also contains a TouchGraph LinkBrowser applet that visualizes the
topic map.
Figure 14 shows the application from user side. Part (1) is the
applicatioin menu which contain the main topics from the selected
domain. Part (2) is the place for describing the current selected
topic which contain the basename of the topic, internal occurrence
and external occurrence. If a topic has association, then it will be
displayed in part (3). This part can help user to navigate to the
related topics. Part (4) is a visualization of topic map contents. In
this part, user can see the illustration of topics with its association
to other topics. As mentioned before, the visualization of topic
map in part (4) is using TouchGraph LinkBrowser applet.

7.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE
WORKS
From the discussion above, it can be concluded that an open
source web-based application for learning Holy Quran has been
developed. The system works for presenting and managing
knowledge of topics in Al Quran using Topic Map model. Using
TouchGraph browser, the Topic Map can be presented in a userfriendly manner after the Topic Map model is converted first to
XML format required by the TouchGraph browser. Using this
nice GUI, the search, presentation and navigation topics becomes
easy.
This paper introduces an approach of wrapping inter-related
knowledge, concepts or information existing in the Holy Quran.
The approach discussed in this paper can be used and extended for
other knowledge domains.
Topic Map presentation used in this research is XTM which keeps
all model in a file stored in a file system. The performance issue

Figure 14 . Main page of Al Quran Topic Map application

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