Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)
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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. |
The purpose of this supplementary manual is to create guidelines for editing Islam-related articles to conform to a neutral encyclopedic style as well as to make things easy to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit. This manual is open to all proposals, discussion, and editing.
There is considerable disagreement between the editors of Islam related articles about which sources are reliable. The important thing to remember is that all sources and articles must conform to Wiki policies such as WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV.
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[edit] General form of articles
Islam-related articles should generally satisfy the following, as should all Wikipedia articles:
- The first sentence of each article should have the article title in bold and then define the article title.
- Each article should proceed with general remarks near the start and specific ones later. In lengthy articles, separate pages for detailed discussions of a topic should be used with a main article link (or links).
- At the end of each article, there should be the sections 'See also' (for closely related articles), 'References' (for reliability of article content) and 'External links' (for links to relevant web pages) in that order.
- Each article should be in at least one Islam category.
[edit] Grammatical standardization
[edit] Arabic transliteration
See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic) for details on how to transliterate Arabic words into English, and how to use them on Wikipedia. As a rule, diacritics over and under the letters should not be used in article titles or text (only in the etymology section). If a non-standard form of transliteration is to be used, it must be the primary transliteration, based on references or self-identification. For example Mecca rather than Makkah, mosque rather than masjid etc. Otherwise, a standard transliteration should be used. The characters representing the ayin (ع) and the hamza (ء) are not omitted in the standard form, represented by the grave accent (`) and the apostrophe ('), respectively.
Words of Arabic origin should be written out in lower case, except at the beginning of a sentence, and italicized, except when the word has passed into common English vocabulary (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Foreign terms). For example, fiqh, kharaj, and wudu should usually be italicized; jihad and hadith should not. Proper names are exempt from these rules: they should always be capitalized but never italicized.
Articles should include the original Arabic on the first line. If you do not know the Arabic, place {{Arabic}} at the top of the talk page to mark the article for attention from someone who does.
[edit] Translation
Arabic terms should be translated into standard English wherever possible without compromising the meaning of the text. For example, "Allah" should be translated as "God", but a literal translation of "Deen" as "path" would obscure the special meaning of this term as used in Islam (although "way of life" might be acceptable).
[edit] Templates
Various templates useful when editing Islam-related articles can be found at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)/templates; for other templates please see Wikipedia:Template messages.
[edit] Islamic honorifics
In keeping with the neutral nature of Wikipedia, Islamic honorifics should generally be omitted from articles, except where they are part of quotations.
[edit] Allah
Allah has many honorifics, the most common one being
- SWT or the fuller Subhanahu wa ta'ala, meaning "praised and exalted is He (Allah)" — recommended action is to remove.
Allah should be replaced with its translation of "God", unless used as part of an English-language quote. Also, the first occurrence of "God" in the article should be something to the effect of the following: [[God in Islam|God]].
[edit] Muhammad
There are several honorifics for Muhammad which should generally not be used in articles. The page Islam and veneration for Muhammad discusses these honorifics in more detail, the most common ones being:
- The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet (including with a lowercase 'h') in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; or just Prophet preceding "Muhammad" — recommended action is to simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad" except when it is the first reference in an article in which case render it as "the Islamic prophet, Muhammad".
- PBUH , or the fuller "peace be upon him", after Muhammad or other Islamic prophets — recommended action is to remove.
- SAW (or saws), a variant of PBUH, sometimes used after "Muhammad" — recommended action is to remove.
[edit] Companions
Capitalization of Companions of Muhammad (Sahaba) when referring to those who knew Muhammad — corrective action is to write in lower case in keeping with Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Capitals.
There are also other honorifics for companions all of which can be abbreviated to:
- RA or the fuller versions Radiya-allahu ta'ala (an-hu/an-ha/an-hum/an-huma) - for a sahabi, a sahabiyyah, more than two sahaba and exactly two sahaba, respectively - recommended action is to remove.
[edit] Angels and Prophets
An angel or a prophet has the honorific:
- AS or the fuller Alai-hi-as-salam, for example, Jesus (AS) - recommended action is to remove.
[edit] Qur'an
- Holy Qur'an (or Holy Koran, Holy Quran, etc.) — recommended action is to NPOV to "Qur'an". Reason: Calling a book "Holy" is making a value judgement that is inappropriate to Wikipedia.
[edit] Terrorism
The use of the word terrorism is contentious; see Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter. Its use should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
[edit] Categorisation
Due to the huge number of Islam articles present, as well as to address the problem of 'dumping' new Islam articles in Category:Islam (and similarly for other subcategories), appropriate placement of articles in categories is required. This has been done to some extent, but quite often new editors are unaware of more technical categories (e.g. Category:Tafsir). Of course an article may be (and usually is) placed in more than one category, but to avoid cluttering categories the number of categories any given article is placed into should be kept to a minimum.
[edit] Islam category
With respect to the 'dumping' problem mentioned above, it is requested that editors check Category:Islam frequently, as this is the place where many new Islam articles are placed, but where the articles could (sometimes clearly) be better placed in at least one subcategory of Category:Islam. Currently, there are a handful of articles on the Islam category page.
Criteria that should be satisfied for inclusion of an Islam-related article in the Islam category are:
- Articles that are clearly representative of a major and well known aspect of Islam, such as Allah, Qur'an and Muhammad.
- Articles that don't satisfy the above criterion and cannot at present be satisfactorily placed in a subcategory of the Islam category (sort of like a 'holding area').
[edit] Divisions of Islam
There is a Category:Islamic sects for placing articles on various sects in Islam.
[edit] Sunni, Shi'a and Sufi Islam
These 3 sects have their own categories, in fact they are subcategories of Category:Islamic sects, which is a subcategory of Category:Islam.
[edit] People
There are many Islam articles that are about Muslims. These articles should be placed in the appropriate category such as Category:Muslims or a subcategory thereof such as, Category:Caliphs, Category:Imams and Category:Muslims by nationality. Only the most notable or famous Muslims should be placed in Category:Muslims.
[edit] Stubs
There is currently one stub category with 6 subcategories:
- Category:Islam stubs - type {{Islam-stub}} near the end of an article to add it to this category.
- Category:Islamic biography stubs - type {{Islam-bio-stub}} near the end of an article to add it to this subcategory.
- Category:Islamic studies book stubs -
- Category:Mosque stubs -
- Category:Islamic organization stubs
- Category:Quran stubs
- Category:Islam by country stubs
[edit] Hadith
- Further information: Science of hadith
Articles on hadith should make clear the reliability of the hadith - if they don't then consider adding {{Hadith authenticity}}. The four general types of hadith reliability are:
- Sahih (authentic) - further subdivided into:
- Hasan (fair/good).
- Da'if (weak).
- Maudu' (fabricated).
[edit] References
As with any good encyclopedia, reliable sources should be given in each article. References to sources are of two types: those within the main text of an article (for example, a Qur'anic quote) and those at the end of an article. To maintain some type of standard in citing reliable sources, the following are suggestions towards this end.
[edit] Articles lacking references
Articles which have no references at the end of an article should have the {{references}} tag at the top of the article.
Even with references at the end, certain statements in the main text of the article may still be unsubstantiated, in which case the {{cn}} tag should be placed immediately after the claim.
[edit] References within main text
Apart from the Harvard referencing convention of writing the author's name and year of publication of source in brackets after the end of a sentence or paragraph, more specific citations for WikiProject Islam include the following:
[edit] Quran translations
There is no general consensus on which translation is to be used for Islam articles at Wikipedia. However, in any given article, any translation(s) from the Qur'an should quote the same translation source (e.g. Yusuf Ali) in that article (but not necessarily this same source in another article), unless comparing different translations or giving evidence for the meaning of a certain verse.
It is recommended that the template {{cite quran}} be used to quote verses from the Qur'an which will provide an inline-superscripted link to the USC-MSA online translations of Yusuf Ali, Pickthall & Shakir. Other translators can also be referenced using the template.
[edit] Qur'an and Hadith
The Qur'an and the Hadith are considered to be primary sources, as defined in WP:NOR. Therefore they should not be quoted to make an argument or imply a particular interpretation unless one can also cite a reliable secondary source that supports that usage. Editors can not use primary sources to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. But it's good idea to add Qur'an and Hadith to clarify the issue.
[edit] Religious sources
In Islam with organized academies or recognized theological experts in religious doctrine and scholarship, the proceedings of official religious bodies and the journals or publications of recognized and well-regarded religious academies and experts can be considered reliable sources for religious doctrine and views where such views represent significant viewpoints on an article subject. Ordination alone does not generally ensure religious expertise or reliability. Absent evidence of stature or a reputation for expertise in a leading, important religious denomination or community, the view of an individual minister or theologian is ordinarily not reliable for representing religious views.
Secondary sources are not necessarily from recent years - or even centuries. The sacred or original text(s) of the religion will always be primary sources, but any other acceptable source may be a secondary source in some articles. For example, the works of Al-Ghazali are secondary sources for a Asharite perspective on many topics, but are primary sources for Al-Ghazali article.
[edit] References at end of article
References at the end include books, journals and many other types of sources. The citation templates for these are suggested for use.
