Automated Translation of Islamic Literature Using Large Language Models: Al-Shamela Library Application

Mohammad Mohammad Khair, Majdi Sawalha


Abstract
Large Language Models (LLM) can be useful tools for translating Islamic literature written in Arabic into several languages, making this complex task technologically feasible, providing high-quality translations, at low cost and high-speed production enabled by parallel computing. We applied LLM-driven translation automation on a diverse corpus of Islamic scholarly works including: the Qur’an, Quranic exegesis (Tafseer), Hadith, and Jurisprudence from the Al-Shamela library. More than 250,000 pages have been translated into English, emphasizing the potential of LLMs to cross language barriers and increase global access to Islamic knowledge. OpenAI’s gpt-4o-mini model was used for the forward translation from Arabic to English with acceptable translation quality. Translation quality validation was achieved by reproducing Arabic text via back-translation from English using both the OpenAI LLM and an independent Anthropic LLM. Correlating the original source Arabic text and the back-translation Arabic text using a vector embedding cosine similarity metric demonstrated comparable translation quality between the two models.
Anthology ID:
2025.clrel-1.5
Volume:
Proceedings of the New Horizons in Computational Linguistics for Religious Texts
Month:
January
Year:
2025
Address:
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Editors:
Sane Yagi, Sane Yagi, Majdi Sawalha, Bayan Abu Shawar, Abdallah T. AlShdaifat, Norhan Abbas, Organizers
Venues:
CLRel | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
53–58
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.clrel-1.5/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Mohammad Mohammad Khair and Majdi Sawalha. 2025. Automated Translation of Islamic Literature Using Large Language Models: Al-Shamela Library Application. In Proceedings of the New Horizons in Computational Linguistics for Religious Texts, pages 53–58, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Automated Translation of Islamic Literature Using Large Language Models: Al-Shamela Library Application (Khair & Sawalha, CLRel 2025)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.clrel-1.5.pdf