Zahi is a Hugo theme tailored for Arabic-language digital gardens, offering an RTL-first layout, wiki-style note linking, and an interactive knowledge graph.
What is Zahi Hugo Theme?
Zahi (زاهي) is a Hugo theme for building Arabic content sites as digital gardens or personal knowledge bases. It takes Markdown posts and project files as input and produces a static site with RTL layout, dark and light modes, automatic backlinks, and a searchable knowledge graph. Running on Hugo Extended v0.112.0 or newer, it uses Tailwind CSS for styling, D3.js for graph visualizations, and Fuse.js for client-side search. The theme is created by Mohamed Elhefni, distributed under an MIT license, and has a live demo at zahi.netlify.app.
What makes Zahi stand out?
- RTL & Arabic Optimized — Built specifically for Arabic content with proper right-to-left layout, including the IBM Plex Sans Arabic font.
- Wiki-style Links — Use
[[Page Title]]syntax in Markdown to link notes; valid links render green, broken ones red. - Knowledge Graph — An interactive D3.js force-directed graph visualizes connections between posts and tags, with a full-page mode at
/graph/supporting filtering, search, zoom, and fullscreen. - Backlinks — Each post automatically lists other pages that link to it, based on wiki-link usage.
- Series Support — Group posts into ordered series using frontmatter fields for series name, order, and description, with progress tracking.
- Portfolio Section — Display projects in a grid with types (personal, open-source, client, contribution), statuses (completed, in-progress, maintained, archived), featured badges, technology tags, and links to demo, repo, and website.
- Search — Fast client-side search with Fuse.js, triggered via Ctrl+K or Cmd+K.
- SEO Features — Open Graph, Twitter Cards, JSON-LD structured data, auto-generated sitemap and RSS, and canonical URLs.
Who is it for?
- Arabic-speaking bloggers — Publish RTL blog posts with collapsible table of contents, reading time, tags, and syntax highlighting.
- Personal knowledge managers — Build a digital garden with wiki links and explore connections through the knowledge graph.
- Developers and designers — Showcase open-source and client work with the portfolio section, including status and type badges.
What can you do with Zahi?
- Arabic writers: Create an RTL site with posts, series, and pinned posts on the homepage.
- Researchers and note-takers: Link notes using
[[Page Title]]and visualize the resulting web through the full-page graph. - Freelancers and agencies: Present projects with filtering by type and feature the best work with featured badges.
How do I install Zahi?
You can add Zahi to a Hugo site three ways: as a git submodule, as a Hugo module, or by downloading and extracting it into the themes directory. The Hugo module method requires adding an import path in the site config and running hugo mod get -u. Development requires Hugo Extended v0.112.0 or newer and Node.js to rebuild Tailwind CSS.
FAQ
Is Zahi free to use?
Yes, Zahi is open source under the MIT license. You can use it for personal and commercial projects and modify it freely.
Does Zahi support Arabic RTL layout?
Yes, the theme is built from the ground up for Arabic content with proper RTL layout, and it includes the IBM Plex Sans Arabic font.
What are the requirements to use Zahi?
The theme requires Hugo Extended v0.112.0 or higher, and Node.js if you want to rebuild the Tailwind CSS output.
Does Zahi have search?
Yes, the theme includes client-side search powered by Fuse.js, triggered with Ctrl+K or Cmd+K, with results loaded from a JSON output of the homepage.
