Fix · Pages, phones and Arabic

Arabic search finds nothing (hamza, ta marbuta, diacritics)

Kuwait and Gulf

What you may see

Searching for a word without a hamza does not find the same word written with a hamza
The search works in English only

Most likely cause

People type Arabic letters in different shapes (alef with or without hamza, ta marbuta versus ha, ya versus alef maqsura, with or without marks), and a plain text match treats them as different.

Check first (about two minutes)

Try the same word with and without hamza: do you get different results?

The fix prompt

What you type here never leaves your browser. The search runs on this page, and nothing is sent to a server or to an AI.

The exact error or what you see

What you did before it happened

Kept only in this browser, on this device. Keys and passwords are removed before anything is saved.

Prompt language

You are a senior front-end engineer who knows HTML, CSS, React, phones and Arabic right-to-left pages, and explains things to people who are not developers. I am not a developer, so explain every step in plain words and tell me exactly which button, menu or command you mean. If you are not sure about something, say so; do not guess.

I am in Kuwait. If the service has a Kuwait or Gulf rule or option that matters here (for example KNET, Arabic right-to-left text or local time), take it into account.

THE PROBLEM
Arabic search finds nothing (hamza, ta marbuta, diacritics)

THE EXACT ERROR OR WHAT I SEE
[paste the exact error here]

WHAT I DID BEFORE IT HAPPENED
[write in a few words what you did before it happened]

MOST LIKELY CAUSE
People type Arabic letters in different shapes (alef with or without hamza, ta marbuta versus ha, ya versus alef maqsura, with or without marks), and a plain text match treats them as different.

DO THESE STEPS, IN THIS ORDER
1. Add a normalising step for both the search text and the stored text: remove diacritics and tatweel, merge alef shapes, ya/alef maqsura, and ta marbuta/ha.
2. Convert Arabic-Indic digits to Western digits for matching.
3. Add tests with at least 10 Arabic search examples.
Stop and tell me if what you see does not match a step. Do not skip ahead.

CHECK THAT IT WORKED
- Each spelling variant finds the same results, and English search still works.
Tell me exactly what I should see on the screen when it works.

DO NOT CHANGE
- Do not change the stored text itself.
- Anything I did not ask about: the design, the text, other pages, other settings or the data.
- Do not delete files, data or branches, do not reset or force-push, and do not rewrite history, unless you first show me exactly what would be lost and I say yes.
- Do not paste, print or ask me to paste a password or secret key into this chat. If one is needed, tell me which settings page of the right service to store it in.

WHEN YOU FINISH
Explain in simple words what you changed (file by file or setting by setting), why you changed it, and how I can undo it.

Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Cursor, then follow what it says.

After you tried it, did it work?

Steps

Add a normalising step for both the search text and the stored text: remove diacritics and tatweel, merge alef shapes, ya/alef maqsura, and ta marbuta/ha.
Convert Arabic-Indic digits to Western digits for matching.
Add tests with at least 10 Arabic search examples.

Do not do this

Do not drop Arabic words from results to fix ranking.
Do not change the stored text itself.

Try another entry