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Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles

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Purpose

The purpose of this manual is to create guidelines for editting 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 editting.

Standardization

Arabic transliteration

Much of the vocabulary of Islam is originally in the Arabic language, as are many Muslim proper names. There are a number of systems for transliterating Arabic words and names into Latin characters.

Wikipedia has not yet settled on any one in particular (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic)). Any may be used, but transliterations of individual words should be consistent within the article: do not mix Qur'an and Koran, Shiite and Shi'ite, etc. In general, articles should use common western English spellings for Islamic terms and places. For example Mecca rather than Makkah, mosque rather than masjid, etc.

Words of Arabic origin should be written out uncapitalized, except at the beginning of a sentence, and italicized, except when the word has passed into common English vocabulary (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Loan words). For example, fiqh, kharaj, and wudu should usually be italicized; zakat, jihad, and hadith should not. (Proper names are exempt from these rules: they should always be capitalized and unitalicized.)

Articles about such subjects should use the English transliteration for the title and 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.

Translation

In English-language articles, Arabic terms should be translated into standard English wherever possible without compromising the meaning of the text. For example, "Allah" should in most instances 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).

Templates

Templates can be placed in articles to provide links to many other similar articles. Two of the most common ones for Islam are:

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.

Allah

Allah has many honorifics, the most common one being

  • SWT or Subhanahu wa ta'ala, meaning "praised and exalted is He (Allah)" — appropriate action is to remove.

Muhammad

There are several honorifics for Muhammad which should generally not be used in articles (the page Islam and veneration for Muhammad discusses the follwing - and other - honorifics in more detail):

  • The Prophet or The Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; or just Prophet preceding "Muhammad" — appropriate action is to simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad"; in first references to Muhammad in an article in which confusion with other Muhammads is plausible, render Muhammad, or possibly "the Muslim prophet Muhammad".
  • PBUH , or the fuller peace be upon him, after Muhammad or other Islamic prophets — appropriate action is to remove.

SAW (or SA), a variant of PBUH, sometimes used after "Muhammad" — appropriate action is to remove.

Companions

Capitalization of Companions of Muhammad (Sahaba) when referring to those who knew Muhammad — correction action is to uncapitalize in keeping with Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Capitals.

There are also other honorifics for companions all of which can be abbreviated to:

  • RA or Radiya-allahu ta'ala (an-hu/an-ha/an-hum/an-huma/) - for a sahabi, a sahabiyyah, more than 2 sahaba and exactly 2 sahaba, respectively - appropriate action is to remove.

Quran

  • Holy Qur'an (or Holy Koran, Holy Quran, etc.) — appropriate action is to NPOV to "Qur'an". Calling a book "Holy" is making a value judgement that is inappropriate to Wikipedia.

Martyrs

Description of Muslims as martyrs is in most cases inappropriate, as it ascribes a meaning to the martyr's death which non-Muslims might consider unacceptably POV. In the case of suicide bombers and other terrorists, it is never appropriate and should be removed, unless it appears in a sourced quote (e.g. "Hamas leader So-and-so praised Such-and-such as a 'martyr'." [source]). Honorific references to terrorists as martyrs in the text of an article is inappropriate.

Terrorism

The use of the word terrorism is contentious; see Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Terrorist, terrorism. Its use should be decided on a case-by-case basis, it is usually applied to politically or religiously-motivated attacks on civilian targets by non-state actors for the purposes of creating fear.

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, many 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.

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. MP has made some attempt to counteract this dumping tendency, but the problem seems persistent - perhaps a few words at the start of the Islam category page would help.

Criteria that should be satisfied for inclusion of an Islam-related article in the Islam category are:

  • An article that cannot satisfactorily be placed in a subcategory of the Islam category.

Divisions of Islam

There is a Category:Islamic sects for placing articles on various sects in Islam.

Sunni, Shi'a and Sufi Islam

These 3 sects have their own categories, in fact they are subcategories of Category:Islam. They should perhaps also be subcategories of Category:Islamic sects.

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, Category:Fictional Muslims and Category:Muslims by nationality. Only the most notable or famous Muslims should be placed in Category:Muslims.

Stubs

There is currently one stub category with a subcategory:

References

As with any good encyclopedia, references should be given in each article. Some reasonable conventions for giving references are outlined below.

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.

There is no general format of Qur'anic references, but an informative and convenient suggestion is this form:

which gives a reference to verse 35 of sura 4 (An-Nisa) in the translation by M. H. Shakir.

Hadith

Hadith references should make clear the reliability of the hadith. The four general types of hadith reliability are:

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