An experience of developing Quran ontology with contextual information support Rizwan Iqbal and Aida Mustapha Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, and Zulkifli Mohd. Yusoff Centre of Qur’anic Research, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Purpose – Ontologies play an important role in enabling machines to understand and navigate a knowledge base. Currently, a number of ontologies covering specific topic in the Quran have been created to serve a particular application. However, these existing Quran ontologies are limited in scope and knowledge. Specifically, existing ontologies do not support contextual information that is considered necessary for correct interpretation of the verses of Quran. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In order to fill this gap, this paper reports development of an ontology for Juz’ Amma that encapsulates contextual information support, which are the translations, revelations place, tafsir, and hadiths. Findings – The developed ontology was evaluated and was found to satisfy the requirements specification. Originality/value – In addition, this ontology can be reused and further enhanced to support many Quran-related semantic applications in the future. Keywords Ontology engineering, Quran corpus, Quran ontology Paper type Research paper Introduction According to Muslim belief, Quran is the holy book of God which was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Quran provides a complete code of life for the Muslims to live a life that pleases God. It is a fundamental Muslim belief that success in the afterlife depends on adhering to the commandments in the Quran. In today’s world of advancing knowledge, knowledge of Quran is not just an area of interest for the Muslims but it has immensely attracted the attention of millions of people from other faiths as well. In this modern age of flourishing science and technology, web technologies play a vital role in knowledge dissemination across the globe. Web technologies allow people and machines to exchange and share information for several purposes. However, limitation of current web is the absence of semantic information linked to the content available on it. The concept of semantic web was introduced to address this issue by extending capabilities of the current web, providing semantic support for the web content. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-497X.htm This research is funded by Fundamental Research Grants Scheme by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia in collaboration with the Centre of Quranic Research at University of Malaya, Malaysia. Received 29 March 2013 Revised 1 July 2013 Accepted 21 July 2013 Multicultural Education & Technology Journal Vol. 7 No. 4, 2013 pp. 333-343 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1750-497X DOI 10.1108/METJ-03-2013-0009 Experience of developing Quran ontology 333