Transliteration of Arabic and Fársí words/names

Caliphs (first 18).. .

a) The Rightly-Guided (ar-Ráshdún)

1	Abú-Bakr Ibn Abí-Quḥáfah (632–34)	3	‘Uthmán Ibn ‘Affán (644–56)
2	‘Umar Ibn al-Khaṭṭáb (634–44)	4	‘Alí Ibn Abí-Ṭálib (656–61)

b) The Umayyad Caliphs (al-’Umawiyya)

1	Mu‘áwíyah I (Mu‘áwíyah Ibn Abí-Sufyán) (661–80)	8	‘Umar (‘Umar Ibn ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz Ibn Marwán) (717–20)
2	Yazíd I (Yazíd Ibn Abí-Sufyán) (680–83)	9	Yazíd II (720–24)
3	Mu‘áwíyah II (683–84)	10	Hishám (Hishám Ibn ‘Abdu’l-Malik) (724–43)
4	Marwán I (Marwán Ibn al-Ḥakam) (684–85)	11	Al-Walíd II (son of Yazíd II) (743–44)
5	‘Abdu’l-Malik (‘Abdu’l-Malik Ibn Marwán) (685–705)	12	Yazíd III (son of Al-Walíd I) (744)
6	Al-Walíd I (Al-Walíd Ibn ‘Abdu’l-Malik) (705-15)	13	Ibráhím (son of Al-Walíd I) (744)
7	Sulaymán (715–17)	14	Marwán II (Marwán al-Ḥimár) (744–50)

Categories of words in Arabic.. .

Arabic divides all words into three categories. A verb (fi‘l) refers to an event, or motion, in time. A noun (ism) refers to a thing and makes no reference to time. A preposition (ḥarf) has no independent and substantive meaning but functions as a link between nouns and verbs. Gate of the heart, p. 205.

Elative word forms.. .

In some languages such as Arabic, the concepts of comparative and superlative degree of an adjective are merged into a single form, the elative. How this form is understood or translated depends upon context and definiteness. In the absence of comparison, the elative conveys the notion of “greatest”, “supreme”. The elative of kabár (big) is ‘akbar (bigger/biggest, greater/greatest).

Font information.. .

The Cambria font has been chosen because it is an OpenType font (a successor of TrueType fonts) with a larger character set that contains underdots, and Proportional/Tabular and Lining/Old style numerals. Proportional/Old style numbers are for text paragraphs since they blend better into text with a mix of upper- and lowercase, proportional letters. Tabular/Lining numerals are used in tables.

• Proportional width numbers blend better into text with proportionally spaced letters

• Tabular numbers (equal width) are used in all caps text or in tables where they can be vertically aligned

• Lining numbers are equivalent to capital letters. All caps text is harder to recognize than lowercase letters due to their lack of ascenders (the portion of lowercase letters above the x-height) and tails (the portion of lowercase letters below the baseline)

• OldStyle numbers are equivalent to lowercase letters and blend better into text

Proportional Lining	Proportional Oldstyle	Tabular lining	Tabular Oldstyle
0123456789 9876543210	0123456789 9876543210	0123456789 9876543210	0123456789 9876543210

Gregorian week days & months.. .

English	Arabic
Sunday	yawm al-aḥad
Monday	yawm al-ithnain
Tuesday	yawm ath-thalátá’
Wednesday	yawm al-arbi‘á’
Thursday	yawm al-khamís
Friday	yawm al-jum‘a
Saturday	yawm as-sabt

English	Foreign pronunciation	Arabic (Syr, Leb, Jord, Iran)
January	yanáyir, yaná’ir	kánún ath-thání
February	fabráyir	shubáṭ
March	mars	ádár
April	abril	nísán
May	máyú	ayyár
June	yúniyó and yúniya	ḥazírán
July	yúliyó and yúliya	tammúz
August	agustus	áb
September	sibtambir	ailúl
October	okctóbir	tishrín al-awwal
November	núfimbir	tishrín ath-thání
December	disembir, disambir	kánún al-awwal