Fatawa Mahmudiyyah
A searchable digital edition of Fatāwā Mahmūdiyyah, the multi-volume collection of rulings by Mufti Mahmūd Hasan Gangohi. Readers search in their own language and can open the original scan at the matching page.
Visit mahmudiyyah.com- Role
- OCR & digitisation contributor, with Makeen Majlis
- Year
- 2026
- Platforms
- Web
- Technology
- Next.js, PostgreSQL, Hybrid search, Docker
Inside the interface.
A closer look at the live product. Switch between views to explore the details.
The problem
Fatāwā Mahmūdiyyah is cited constantly by scholars and fatwa departments, but it lives in many printed Urdu volumes. Finding a ruling meant knowing which volume to open and paging through it.
What the site does
Makeen had already vectorised most of the collection in his Istidlal project. I helped prepare remaining material using an OCR pipeline I had worked on. The interfaces shown here provide context for the wider project.
- Search in any language, with answers drawn from the original Urdu
- Advanced search for narrowing down results
- Browsing by volume, with the number of fatāwā in each
- The digitised text side by side with a link to the original scanned page
- Light and dark reading modes and a choice of interface language
Design in the details
Start with the reader’s question
The search interface accepts a question in the reader’s own language. Results retain their Urdu titles, excerpts, and volume references, keeping discovery connected to the original collection.
Keep the source within reach
The reading view puts the volume, page number, and original PDF link beside the text. Readers can move from a useful result to its source without losing the reference.
Under the hood
Preparing the remaining material
My contribution was to the OCR and digitisation work, helping get remaining material ready alongside the collection Makeen had already prepared for Istidlal.
Text you can check
Every passage links back to the scanned page it came from, so readers can verify the exact wording before they cite it.
Released in stages
Volumes go live only after digitisation, formatting and page-by-page verification. Volumes 1 to 10 are searchable now, and the rest follow as they pass review.
The experience
From a question to a referenced passage.
Readers can search across the available volumes, open the matching Urdu text, and check its original scanned page. The project views show the live search and reading interfaces.