About
Tabsirah publishes bilingual editions of philosophical, mystical, and theological works. Each edition sets the original text beside an English translation and connects it to the rest of its author's writing, so a passage can be read together with the places the same author takes up the same questions elsewhere.
Who makes it
Tabsirah is, for now, the work of one editor. As it grows it will be built by a small team of volunteers, and its review is being opened to specialists in the relevant fields — a network that will widen over time.
What an edition contains
An edition is more than a translation. Alongside the text, Tabsirah builds four things:
Corpus map
The same author's treatment of a subject, gathered from across his works, so a passage can be read next to the other places he takes up the same question.
Glossaries
One for the technical vocabulary of the field, and one for how this particular author uses those terms, which is not always the standard sense.
Commentary
What others have written or said about a passage, collected beside it in the reader.
Study notes
Short explanations at the points where a passage is hard to follow.
How it is built
Building these is where most of the work is. Computational tools do a lot of the searching, comparing, and drafting — but everything they produce is a proposal. At every stage a person is deciding: which sources count, whether a proposed link holds, whether a rendering is right. Only reviewed material goes on the site.
- SourcesThe author's works and identified source texts
- Tools proposeSearching, comparison, candidate links and terms, drafts
- PublishedOnly reviewed material appears, tied to its evidence
How review works
Publishing an edition does not close it. A review environment runs alongside the site, where any published passage can be examined, questioned, and corrected. Access is given to qualified scholars, and the circle of reviewers grows over time. An accepted correction returns for an editorial decision and can enter a later version, while the earlier one stays on record.
The name
تَبْصِرَةً وَذِكْرَىٰ لِكُلِّ عَبْدٍ مُنِيبٍ
a clarification and a reminder for every penitent servant · Qurʾān 50:8
Tabṣirah comes from the root b-ṣ-r, to see. A baṣīrah is an insight — a clear seeing into something. The verse calls revelation a clarification: something that makes one see. That is the aim of this project — to increase insight, and to make the deeper works of the Islamic tradition clear to those who wish to understand them.