Ontology-based approach for retrieving knowledge in Al-Quran

Information retrieval relies on obtaining relevant data from a set of knowledge resources, such as Al-Quran. Searching can be based on metadata, indexing, or other content-based. Al-Quran is the most widely read book in the world and automating knowledge retrieval from this of religious literature is very challenging. This has led to the development of a number of search applications, which can retrieve knowledge based on keywords. Retrieving the knowledge of Al-Quran ontology
includes several fundamental problems, one of which is the lack of accuracy. In most cases, the searching cannot retrieve the relevant concept of knowledge and verses. Current approaches use conventional methods such as taxonomy, hierarchy, or tree structure, which only provide the definition of the concept of themes without linking to the correct knowledge concept of Al-Quran. The main aim of this study is to design a method that uses the ontology approach to search and retrieve relevant verses in Al-Quran. The new approach consists of two stages. The first stage: involves the Al-Quran ontology development based on thematic classification which was implemented using Protégé-OWL. The second stage: involves the development of a search method by using the Jena framework which is based on Java programming languages. The search method allows ontology processing, and performed the searching using the given keywords and retrieve the knowledge pertaining to the keyword. The search approach was evaluated using the Recall and Precision measurements, which shows a high accuracy in retrieving the knowledge of Al-Quran. Furthermore, the ontology classification was evaluated by two experts
in Islamic Studies field. This study contributes to the ease of learning and
understanding Al-Quran by people of all ages.