Marefa (in ar, المعرفة, , knowledge) is a

not-for-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

online

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

project that uses the

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

system to provide a free Arabic encyclopedia similar to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. It was set up by Nayel Shafei on February 16, 2007. Sister projects include Manuscript documentation, Sources, Collaborative books, forums, Blogsphere, E-mail accounts (with unlimited storage), Video/Audio library. In September, 2007, Marefa received 25,000 manuscripts and old books, in

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

, from the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. These are scanned images of books stored in and around

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate public state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918 , He released a farman to establish OSMANIA UNIVERSITY on the day of 28 August 1918. It ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The books are in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...

. Marefa started the electronic publishing of them, immediately, and made them available for free.

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

(UNC) puts Marefa as one of top eight sources for Arabic Manuscripts, with notable global cultural centers of Arabic heritage, like,

Süleymaniye Library This is a list of libraries within the city limits of Istanbul. Some of the most important libraries are: * American Library (Amerikan Kütüphanesi), Tepebaşı * Atatürk Library, Taksim * Beyazıt State Library, Beyazıt * Halide Edip Adıvar ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, and

Azhar University , image = جامعة_الأزهر_بالقاهرة.jpg , image_size = 250 , caption = Al-Azhar University portal , motto = , established = *970/972 first foundat ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

. Middle East Librarian Association recommends the Marefa to its members, and its cited Marefa's receipt of 25,000 Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts from the Government of India.

Multimedia

In addition to articles and original manuscripts, Marefa offers a vast variety of multimedia projects for its visitors. On the home page, viewers can find developing news stories from around the world, updated daily. Marefa recently added a video library where visitors can watch clips uploaded by administrators and other visitors. In Spring 2009, Marefa began offering weekly live Webinar lectures for site visitors. Marefa members and visitors from around the world discuss pressing global issues, on the Webinar, by hooking up webcams and microphones to their computers and communicating with each other in real time. The weekly Webinar features a guest lecturer speaking about his or her area of expertise. Past Webinars have included talks on the Yemeni secession movement, 2009 Iranian national elections, and historic roots of current crisis in Somalia. Marefa offers e-mail accounts to members who choose to sign up for such service.

Relationship with Wikipedia

The founder of Marefa, Nayel Shafei, was in 2005–06, one of the contributors to

Arabic Wikipedia The Arabic Wikipedia ( ar, ويكيبيديا العربية) is the Modern Standard Arabic version of Wikipedia. It started on 9 July 2003. As of , it has articles, registered users and files and it is the List of Wikipedias, largest editi ...

in number of different articles. After what he describes as a takeover of the Arabic Wikipedia that culminated in banning him, page of Shafei checkuser case on Arabic Wikipedia. he stopped contributing to it, and formed Marefa. Marefa started with content from several permitting sources including Wikipedia. Marefa uses Wiki-format for its site but provides articles on individuals, issues, and items often not found on the Arabic Wikipedia site. Marefa often uses content from the English and Arabic sites for baseline material, but Marefa provides additional details, sources, images, multimedia, and commentary for articles that may not be found on the Arabic Wikipedia site. Marefa's articles are in Arabic but also have a multilingual linking system in which alternative language editions of a given article in Marefa are linked to Wikipedia editions in those languages.

References

External links

Marefa website
{{Authority control 2007 establishments in Jordan Internet properties established in 2007 Online encyclopedias MediaWiki websites Arabic-language encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias Jordanian online encyclopedias