 | Thisguideline is a part of the English Wikipedia'sManual of Style. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this page should reflectconsensus. When in doubt, discuss first onthis guideline's talk page. |
The purpose of this supplementary manual to theManual of Style is to establish guidelines for editingIslam-related articles, ensuring they adhere to aneutral,encyclopedic style and maintain a consistent format forreadability. These guidelines are not absolute rules; different approaches may be equally valid. However, consistency across articles improves readability, usability, and ease of editing, while also helping to minimize unnecessarycontent disputes. This manual remains open toproposals,discussion, and revision by editors.
A key challenge in editing Islam-related articles is determiningreliable sources, as opinions on this vary among editors. The most crucial requirement is that all sources comply with Wikipedia's three core content policies:
Adhering to these policies ensures that Islam-related articles maintain high standards of accuracy, reliability, and neutrality in line with Wikipedia’s editorial principles.
| Manual of Style | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
By topic area
| ||||
Islam-related articles should generally follow these structure and formatting guidelines:
As a general rule,Arabic diacritics (e.g.ـُ ـِ ـَ ــٰ ـٓ آ ٱ ـْـ ئ ؤ إ أ etc.) over and under theletters, andapostrophe-like variants (e.g.’ ʻ ʾ ʿ ᾿ ῾ ‘ ’), other than thestraight apostrophe ('), should not be used in article titles (seeMOS:APOSTROPHE andWP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS). They should also not be used in the article's body text, except in the "Etymology" section, and occasionally the first sentence of thelead section.
If a non-standard form of transliteration is to be used, it must be thecommon transcription, if a large majority of references in English use the same transcription or if a reliable source shows that an individual self-identifies with a particular transcription.[b] For example,
Y Mecca rather than
N Makkah,Y mosque rather thanN masjid. Otherwise, abasic transcription should be used which uses a systematic convention of rendering Arabic scripts(seeWikipedia:Manual of Style/Arabic § Transliteration.) The characters representing theayin (ع) and thehamza (ء) are not omitted (except when at the start of a word) in the basic form, and both are represented by the straight apostrophe (').
Words of Arabic origin should be written out in lower case, except at the beginning of a sentence, anditalicized using{{lang|ar}}, except when the word has passed into common English vocabulary(seeWikipedia:Manual of Style § Non-English terms). For example,fiqh,kharaj, andwudu should usually be italicized;jihad andhadith should not.Proper names are exempt from these rules as they should always be capitalized and never italicized.
Articles should include the original Arabic using{{langx}}, and itsstrict transliteration using{{transliteration|ar}} on the first line. For example, inShahada the first line isShahada(Arabic:الشَّهَادَةُaš-šahādatu). If you do not know the Arabic, place{{Arabic script needed}} at the top of the talk page to mark the article for attention by someone who does.
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'. However, there are cases when translation is discouraged when it would risk obscuring the special meaning of this term as used in Islamic literature. For instance, aliteral translation ofDeen as 'path' would be suboptimal; 'way of life' might be a better option.
Various templates useful when editing Islam-related articles can be found atWikipedia:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles/Templates; for other templates please seeWikipedia:Template index.
 | This sectionmay requirecopy editing. (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In keeping with theneutral nature of Wikipedia, Islamic honorifics should generally be omitted from articles (whether Arabic or English), except where they are part of quotations or images.
Images containing Islamic honorifics or calligraphy should have a well-documented usage outside of Wikipedia and not beuser-generated.
"Allah" should be replaced with its translation, "God", unless used as part of an English-language quote. The first occurrence of "God" in the article should be something to the effect of the following:[[God in Islam|God]].
When referencing a deity by a personal pronoun (e.g. "he" or "his"), the pronoun should not becapitalized except as demanded bystandard grammar (i.e. at the beginning of a sentence, but not in the middle of one). Refer tothe Manual of Style's section on capital letters.
Allah has many honorifics, the most common being
Honorifics forMuhammad should generally not be used in articles. TheSalawat article discusses these honorifics in more detail, the most common ones being:
An angel or a prophet has the honorific:
Capitalization of "Companions of Muhammad" when referring to those who knew Muhammad (theSahaba)—corrective action is to write in lowercase in keeping withWikipedia:Manual of Style#Capital letters.
There are also other honorifics for companions all of which can be abbreviated to:
Honorifics may also include:
The use of the wordterrorism orterrorist can becontentious; seeWikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch § Contentious labels. Its use should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Due to the huge number of Islam articles present, as well as to address the problem of 'dumping' new Islam articles inCategory: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:Quranic exegesis). 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.
With respect to the 'dumping' problem mentioned above, it is requested that editors checkCategory: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 ofCategory: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:
There is aCategory:Islamic branches for placing articles on various sects in Islam.
These four sects have their own categories, in fact they are subcategories ofCategory:Islamic branches, which is a subcategory ofCategory:Islam.
There are many Islam articles that are about Muslims. These articles should be placed in the appropriate category such asCategory:Muslims or a subcategory thereof such as,Category:Caliphs,Category:Imams andCategory:Muslims by nationality. Only the most notable or famous Muslims should be placed inCategory:Muslims.
There is currently one stub category with 9 subcategories:
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 Quranic 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.
Articles that have no references at the end of an article should have the{{Unreferenced}} 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{{Citation needed}} tag should be placed immediately after the claim.
Apart from the parenthetical 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 forWikiProject Islam include the following:
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 theQuran 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 template{{Qref}} and{{Cite Quran}} be used to quote verses from the Quran, which will provide an inline-superscripted link to quran.com or theUSC-MSA online translations ofYusuf Ali,Pickthall,Mustafa Khattab andShakir. Other translators can also be referenced using the template.
TheQuran and theHadith are considered to be primary sources, as defined inWP:PRIMARY. 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. Primary sources may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. But it's a good idea to quote the Quran and Hadith to explain a topic, if they are cited in reliable secondary sources. For articles and sections where only Quran and Hadith are cited without secondary sources, use the templates{{Primary sources}} or{{Religious text primary}}, or inline tag{{Primary source inline}}.
In Islamic branches 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 ofAl-Ghazali are secondary sources for anAsharite perspective on many topics, but are primary sources for theAl-Ghazali article.
References at the end include books, journals and many other types of sources. The citation templates for these are suggested for use.
See alsoTalk:Muhammad/images