Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Knowledge in Islam (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. This is a messy discussion, with several issues bound together. Furthermore, since this has been moved back from draftspace after not-very-substantial improvement, the arguments from the first AfD still largely apply, and I am considering them together. The first issue is that of due process. It's quite clear that Wiki N Islam has not respected consensus here, and I will be leaving them a warning. The second issue is that of notability. Several editors have provided evidence that the concept of knowledge in Islam has been covered by reliable sources, and this has not really been rebutted. However, the third, and most critical, issue is the state of the article. While it is true that AfD is not meant for cleanup, that principle is intended for imperfect articles (ie most articles), not content that does a disservice to the reader. There is long-standing precedent for deleting an article that is full of egregious policy violations, and starting over, if that is justified. In this case, there's several editors discussing problems with original research that also have not been contested. As such there's clear consensus here to delete. Vanamonde (Talk) 13:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Knowledge in Islam
AfDs for this article:


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Knowledge in Islam

This article is essentially unchanged since 9 May 2021, when a deletion debate was closed with Draftify. It was then moved to draft space by closer User:Tone, and was moved back to article space on 11 May 2021, which was move warring against the consensus as found by the AFD. It was then moved back to draft space on 11 May 2021by User:Nearlyevil665. It was then moved back to article space on 19 August 2021 by User:Wiki N Islam. Rather than continuing the cycle of move-warring, I will let the community decide again. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. This article contains an unclear passage, which says, "According to Islam, every Muslim must have a basic knowledge of Islam. However, a group from every community or country must be a scholar of Islam, otherwise all must givean explanation to God in the Hereafter. God says in Quran, 'If it were not approved by each group of them, they would agree on figs and vow their people if they returned to them.' [Surat At-Tawbah, verse 122]" However, this alleged quotation from the Quran doesn't appear to match any version I can find; see, for example. Even if the quotation were accurate, it raises more questions than it answers. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Draftify : Per nom. nearlyevil  665  08:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * nearlyevil665 is a party to this. It doesn't appear that anything has been done to the draft at AfC and the talk page for the article is almost empty.  The AfC/draft approach does not seem to have been productive and so what is to be gained by repeating it?  Draftication is not backdoor deletion. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:55, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing productive has come out of the previous AfD because the author of the page sneakily recreated it three months after without addressing any of the concerns raised by the community in the initial AfD. This article was and is still today not in any shape or form ready for mainspace, by any standards. nearlyevil  665  18:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep Draftification of a highly notable topic is not the wiki way, as we are supposed to work on topics in main space, where everyone can find them and contribute.  This is clear policy per WP:IMPERFECT which states that"Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts. Another may help standardize the article's formatting or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add. Yet another may bring better balance to the views represented in the article and perform fact-checking and sourcing to existing content. At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing."


 * And, per WP:NOTCLEANUP, AfD is not part of this editing process. If there are disputes about the content then they should be resolved by talk page discussion and RfC.
 * The main trouble in this case is that there is a huge amount of material to go through and such theological topics are not straightforward. A reading list follows but AfD can't be expected to work through this and resolve all the issues in 7 days.
 * The Concept of Knowledge in Islam : And Its Implications for Education in a Developing Country
 * Islam: Source and Purpose of Knowledge
 * Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and dissemination
 * Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam
 * Classification of Knowledge in Islam
 * Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam
 * The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam
 * Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam
 * Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia
 * How We Know: Ilm and the Revival of Knowledge
 * Andrew🐉(talk) 08:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete Earwig finds extensive copyvio, including big blocks from a source that predates the article's creation by over a decade, so it's clearly not reverse copyvio. The text overall is deeply and inextricably POV. It also seems to be synthesizing topics from theology to medieval history to modern higher education, as though every subject in any book that has both "Islam" and "Knowledge" in the title is fair game. The sources are a grab-bag of the tangential and the unreliable, from an online dictionary entry for the word "science" to a book self-published on Lulu.com. We already have the articles Education in Islam, Islamic philosophy, and many more. This is not even a good starting point for another. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:06, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This issue was already indicated in the previous AfD, "In what seems like an attempt to save the page from being sent to draftspace the author has copy pasted entire paragraphs from other Wikipedia articles, and potentially sources outside of Wikipedia as well (I haven't checked if all content comes from other wiki pages)." But this page wasn't deleted and was instead draftified to AfC where precisely nothing was done to address this.  The basic problem here is that there's no collaboration – just a gauntlet of inspectors who do nothing to help. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:02, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * An AfD discussion is a collaboration, and if it results in a page being deleted, well, stopping people from trying to salvage the unsalvagable is helping. There isn't a well-defined, "highly notable" topic here; there's an amorphous blob with a title that makes it sound important. The closest approaches it makes to actual encyclopedia topics already have their own articles. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:33, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This article seeks to be more than a mere "fork" on philosophy or education in Islam - this is (or should be) a much more focused topic of Islamic epistemology, which we need but don't have (only a small para under Islamic philosophy) .-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  03:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete: Firstly, this is a total abuse of the AFC process. The creator User:Wiki N Islam needs to be immediately banned for subverting the process by removing deletion tags, moving draft to mainspace immediately after AFD conclusion, repeating again. Mr. Davidson, in good faith, argues "The AfC/draft approach does not seem to have been productive and so what is to be gained by repeating it? Draftication is not backdoor deletion." Well, it didn't work because the process has been abused. And about "backdoor deletion?" In my view, this is backdoor entry to mainspace, without an AFC reviewer's oversight. This is in itself a reason for deletion. Secondly, No editor has addressed the issues highlighted in the previous AFD. It was pointed out by several editors that the article suffers from WP:OR. The whole article is an written like a magniloquent essay with citations directly/indirectly quoting Quran and long paragraphs of unverified interpretations of Quran. On top of all that, there are so many assertions which are derived by WP:SYNTH. Wikipedia must provide objective and factual representation, and not a reproduction/interpretation of holy ancient texts to their readers. The "reading list" provided by Mr. Davidson is a fatuous argument because nobody is denying that the subject of the article is notable. One can create an article titled "Knowledge in Christianity" or "Consciousness in Hinduism" or any such broad theological topic, lace it with some quotations from a holy text and some reliable sources selectively chosen to match an interpretation that suits the editor. This cannot be allowed. - hako9 (talk) 22:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Draftify again. This page was draftified after an AfD three months ago. In the meantime, the article creator made minimal edits to the article that didn't really address the reasons why the article had been up for deletion, and nobody else provided improvement either. After three months of no activity, the article was brought back to mainspace without further improvement. If people want to collaborate on this page, then they can do so in draftspace. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I would also note that Wikipedia doesn't have articles titled Knowledge in Christianity, Knowledge in Hinduism, Knowledge in Buddhism, Knowledge in Judaism, or "Knowledge in ..." any other religion. That's not to say that those other articles should or shouldn't exist. I'm just saying that the omission of this article would not leave a gap when compared to coverage of other religions in Wikipedia. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:37, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete It is complete time-waster for everybody involved. The ref's are complete mess and whole thing is junk.   scope_creep Talk  12:19, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete- between the long history of copyvio, the inherently WP:SYNTH nature of the content, and the article's owner being willing to neither accept the result of the last AfD nor improve the article such that the last AfD becomes moot--- it's quite clear that this is a hopeless case. If it is draftified it would also need to be greenlocked to stop the owner from sneaking back in three months to move it again. Reyk YO! 15:33, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - If other editors wish to recreate, it is better served to start over. I would also salt to prevent the above behavior from simply returning.  Onel 5969  TT me 13:59, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - at first glance I wavered between “Draftify” and “Delete,” but I was drawn to Andrew Davidson’s deep conviction, expressed above as “speedy keep,” and after re-reading his eloquent reasoning in a well-written post, it swayed my final decision to go with a "strong keep". I immediately moved away from "Delete" mostly because I've never been in favor of "AfD" proposals, where articles clearly have the potential to say something and be informative, just because they have a number of different weak but fixable points - and this is one such article.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  03:43, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * You may have been moved by Mr. Davidson's passionate reasoning, but, with all due respect, this is nothing more than an appeal to emotion. - hako9 (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If you've got the facts on your side, pound on the facts. If you've got policy on your side, thump the policy. When neither facts nor policy are on your side, pound the table. Reyk YO! 12:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The articles that "have the potential" to be informative despite their "weak but fixable points" already exist: Islamic philosophy, etc. This article is all weak points. The "fix" is deletion. And while "eloquence" is a matter of taste, I have to admit that copying titles out of the first couple pages of a Google Books search doesn't do it for me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.