Talk:Harut and Marut/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: A. Parrot (talk · contribs) 22:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to fail this article immediately, given that the nominator has passed other GAs successfully, but it has a serious problem with Criterion 1a. Often the historical context is not clearly described, so a reader unfamiliar with it will be confused, and this problem is exacerbated by some strange choices of wording.

For example, the sections "History" and "Tale of Harut and Marut" have unclear scope and significant overlap. Both allude to the tradition of the Watchers, but they don't clearly explain what that tradition is, and the text seems to alternate between calling that tradition a Jewish and a Christian belief, rather than clearly stating its origins (a non-canonical tradition that originated in Judaism and was adopted by many early Christians).

The section on angelic impeccability is better, but it would benefit from some reorganization. Generally it's a good idea to go from the more general to the more specific—maybe say near the beginning which traditions consider angels to be fallible or infallible, and then refer to the opinions of specific scholars within those schools of thought.

Regarding wording problems, some examples are:


 * "The angelic pair is exemplary for angels in Islamic tradition to be tested and potentially fail." I think this is trying to say that these angels are used as supporting evidence for the Islamic tradition that angels are fallible.
 * "Muslim authors… advocate to free angels from sin in general, due to their lack of bodily impulses" — meaning they argue that angels are free of sin?
 * "As evident from al-Jāḥiẓ, the case of Harut and Marut were exemplified for the very phenomenon of fallen angels in Muslim culture." I don't know what this means, though it may be the same as the sentence in the lead section that I quoted above. You probably need to explain specifically what al-Jāḥiẓ says about Harut and Marut.

I haven't thoroughly examined the other criteria, but I do note a sourcing problem for the translation of Surah 2:102. The Perseus page that is linked in Citation 3 includes three English translations of the passage, but the translation given here does not match any of them. The translation Wikipedia gives should conform to a cited source. (I'm not sure I would use the versions at Perseus, because the Pickthall uses some archaic vocabulary and the other two don't feel sufficiently Anglicized. I have a copy of The Study Quran and can substitute its translation if need be.)

Let me know if I need to clarify anything. If it looks like my initial concerns are being addressed, I will check the article against the other criteria in a week. A. Parrot (talk) 22:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Greetings, and thanks for your time and efforts,
 * I see that the article still has some major issues in regards of formatting, which can be solved within a week however. I have, however, not expected that there is still so much trouble about the content though. This article is by far not my greatest work. It is rather the best I expect this article could become. Maybe it is a case of "'It appears that the article is as good as it will ever get, and will never meet the standards. (Not every article can be a Good article. If the references to improve an article to Good article standards simply do not exist, then you should not overlook that part of the criteria.'" as per WP:RGA. I will try my best to improve the quality of the adressed issues within the week. However, if this does not help for a better understanding, I can see why this article might not suffice to GA Status. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 01:31, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * " I have a copy of The Study Quran and can substitute its translation if need be" Nontheless, I would welcome a translation by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The only freely accessable one I found besides Perseus' s Sahih international, and their's is full of commentary-additions. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * "more general to the more specific—maybe say near the beginning which traditions consider angels to be fallible or infallible" I will look for a source which goes into detail regarding this matter. Until now, I only found that (both academic as well as Muslim primary) sources have contradictional statements regarding the status of angels. The best I found was the association with angels lacking free-will among the Mutazilites. I will look up if there is more classification done. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:31, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Having seen no improvement here in the past week, I'm afraid I have to fail the article. To be clear, I don't get the impression that the sources don't exist to cover this topic adequately. Most of the essential points of the topic seem to already be present in the article, but they're presented in an unclear way. (My remark about saying which schools of thought interpret the story in particular ways was only a suggestion for how to organize that section, not an insistence that the article must do so.) I think the problems are fixable, and if they were in the process of being addressed, I would be willing to give it another week.

As the nominator does have a good track record, I encourage continuing to work on the article over the long term. If it is nominated again somewhere down the road, I'd be willing to review it again—if you're worried about having to wait another three months for a reviewer, feel free to contact me. A. Parrot (talk) 23:24, 11 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I apologize for not putting the required efforts to save the article from failing GA. I think I need some time to put further work into it, to make the structure clear and check out some of the sources again. If you are willing to do a GA, I worked simultaneously on two separate, but related articles, in the mean time. If you still want to review the next time, I would appreciate if you check out Iblis and Shaitan. They may have a similar issue of loose structures I simply do not realize, of working on these articles for quite a time. I am not necessarily asking for a GA review, rather on your first opinion if it could pass a check. I want to nominate it, when I feel free to do so. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 17:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)