Arba'in — Page xvi
xiv Please note that in transliterated words the letter ‘e’ is to be pro- nounced as in ‘prey’ which rhymes with ‘day’; however the pro- nunciation is flat without the element of English diphthong. If in Urdu and Persian words ‘e’ is lengthened a bit more it is transliter- ated as ‘ei’ to be pronounced as ‘ei’ in ‘feign’ without the element of diphthong thus ‘ ےک ’ is transliterated as ‘Kei’. For the nasal sound of ‘n’ we have used the symbol ‘n’. Thus the Urdu word ‘ ی ںیم ’ is transliterated as ‘mein’. The consonants not included in the above list have the same phonetic value as in the principal languages of Europe. As noted above, the single quotation mark ‘ is used for trans- literating ع which is distinct from the apostrophe ’ used for ء. We have not transliterated some Arabic words which have become part of English language, e. g. Islam, Mahdi, jihad, Ramadan, and ummah. The Royal Asiatic Society’s rules of trans- literation for names of persons, places, and other terms, are not followed throughout the book as many of the names contain non-Arabic characters and carry a local transliteration and pro- nunciation style.