ICAS Press Transliteration System

Arabic and Persian terms that do not have standard spellings in English are transliterated according to the following system:

Assimilation of alif and lām

The definite article 'al-'(always followed by a hyphen) should not be assimilated when preceded by a preposition or particle that is written separately from the following noun, such as wa, min, ilā, ʿan, ʿalā, fī, and lā; e.g. wa al-bayt, min al-bayt, ilā al-bayt, ʿan al-bayt, ʿalā al-bayt, fī al-bayt, lā al-bayt.

When al- is preceded by a preposition that is not written separately from the following noun, such as bi, ka, and li, it should be assimilated in the following way: bil-insān, lil-insān, kal-insān.

Some commonly used naturalised foreign words

The spelling of the following words should be noted. As these words are naturalised, they are not italicised:

Allah	Qur'an
Ayatollah	shariah
hadith	shaykh (capitalised when used as someone'stitle)
hajj	Shi'a, Shi'i
imam (capitalised when used as someone's title)	sunnah
qibla	Sunni

Invocations

Authors may or may not choose to add an abbreviation after the mention of the Prophet Muḥammad, an Imam, Lady Fāṭimah, or pre-Islamic prophets to represent the invocation 'may Allah bless him and his progeny' or 'peace be upon him/her'. If they choose to add an abbreviation, the following convention should be adopted:

• • (S) after the name of the Prophet Muḥammad

• • (A) after the name of an Imam, Lady Fāṭimah, or pre-Islamic prophets

Patronymics and kunyas

The words 'ibn' and 'bint' should only be capitalised if they appear at the beginning of a name or sentence, i.e. 'Ibn Sīnā' is correct and so is 'ʿAlī ibn Sīnā', but 'ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā' is incorrect. Kunyahs (e.g. Abū, Abī, Abā, Umm) are to be capitalised and never assimilated, e.g. 'Abulqāsim' and 'Ummul Banīn' are incorrect. 'Bin' and 'b.' should not be used.

Capitalisation

Transliterated words should be capitalised according to English convention, that is, at the beginning of sentences, in titles, and for names. However, when transliterating a sentence or phrase, capitalisation is not required.

Hyphens

Where it is thought useful, hyphens may be used to indicate prefixes and suffixes, e.g. 'pīsh-namāz' and 'kitāb-hā-yi dīnī' (in Persian) and 'litakūnū' and 'bi-buyūtihim' (in Arabic).

Inflexion

The inflexion of the end letter of a word is not usually indicated, e.g. 'qawl wa fiʿl' not 'qawlun wa fiʿlun'. On occasions it is warranted, e.g. 'samiʿtu al-adhān' not 'samiʿt al-adhān' and 'ḥayya ʿalā al- ṣalāh' not 'ḥayy ʿalā al-ṣalāh'.

Names

If someone spells their name in a particular way, that spelling is not transliterated; for example, 'Seyyed Hossein Nasr'. In all other cases, the spelling is transliterated; for example, 'Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī'.