Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mawla (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. Two of the three "keeps" amount to "it's important", which isn't a convincing argument in the face of WP:DICDEF. Can be restored if a non-dicdef article can be written.  Sandstein  22:05, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Mawla
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Purely dictionary definition of an Arabic word. And mostly unreferenced. The prev AfD was no consensus, but the objections posted there were not addressed in the past 8 years since the first Afd.Staszek Lem (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. North America1000 14:51, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. North America1000 14:51, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Mawla seems to be related to Mawali, Mawlana, Mawlawi and Mullah. I hope or other wiki-experts on Arabic can shed some light on this and on whether or not it is worthy of an article. - HyperGaruda (talk) 17:00, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and the Polish word czerwony is related to chervonets, Czerwien, Czerwonak, Bialo-Czerwone Iskry, and several dozens more. So what? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's just that I'm not sure, especially considering that there are so many interwiki links and that Mawla seems to be the parent word of the others I've mentioned. - HyperGaruda (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * In all European-lang wikis texts are basically same: dicdefs. And I am not aware that being a "parent word" makes it notable. If this were the case, we'd have whole Latin and Greek vocabulary in wikipedia. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay...I have to apologize here. I saw this when I started, intended to respond, unfortunately forgot and saw it again and assumed that I had responded. But yes, there is an etymological relationship between the above mentioned terms; all of them are ultimately related to the Arabic word wali and wilayah, but not all of the above derived terms are Arabic (Mowlawi and Mawlana being examples of that). As for whether or not that warrants the article being kept, then as you all know, that's a separate topic entirely. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:47, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:03, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but if it really is a "parent word", I'd say that a redirect or DAB page is more appropriate than deleting. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:45, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - Looks to be purely a WP:DICDEF. Not opposed to a redirect if there's an appropriate target. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 23:11, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep if sufficiently improved; otherwise selective merge to Mawali. In the argument above between HyperGaruda and Staszek Lem, HyperGaruda is largely right - terms like Mawali and Mawlana have a far closer conceptual relationship to mawla than any of Staszek Lem's examples have to czerwony (indeed, in origin, Mawali seems just to be the plural of mawla). Mawla can apparently be translated into English as either "patron" or "client", depending on context - in early Muslim society, through to the fall of the Ummayad Caliphate, these patron/client relationships were socially immensely important, to the point where conversion to Islam was only possible if the convert entered into such a relationship with an existing Muslim. This feature of Muslim society largely disappeared after the fall of the Ummayads, but the word and its close relatives remained in use to describe somewhat similar relationships. To be fair, the current article scarcely touches on this at all, so in itself would be no great loss - Mawali already pretty much covers the Ummayad-period patron-client relationships though, if someone with enough expertise could write it, we could certainly do with an article closer in style to the corresponding article on Spanish Wikipedia in its coverage of connections between various related terms - unfortunately, I have absolute none of the knowledge of Arabic that would be necessary to do this adequately. Failing this, redirecting to Mawali would at least roughly cover the original concept, but merging in one or two of the definitional points from here would somewhat strengthen that article. PWilkinson (talk) 01:25, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Spanish article has nothing beyond dicdef plus summaries for derived terms. Their wikipedia have their rules, we have ours. There is nothing to merge. the dicdef for mawla is already there. The rest is gibberish. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:25, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Replace Mawla's contents by those of Mawali and redirect Mawali to Mawla. This text gives a nice explanation of its meaning and most importantly: mawali is the plural form of mawla. Per WP:PLURAL, the current Mawali article should thus actually be titled Mawla. - HyperGaruda (talk) 18:33, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * When considering the merger of revision histories, perhaps it is better to just delete Mawla and then move Mawali to Mawla. - HyperGaruda (talk) 18:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep Mawla is an important term in Islamic studies as well as Islamic history. It is sufficient to pay attention to google books results to find how many books has written about it.-- Seyyed(t-c) 05:32, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Currently the article is strictly a WP:DICDEF (or worse -- a partial dictionary entry in that it provides lexicographical information and usage without even including a straight definition). As Wikipedia specifically does not include articles that are dictionary definitions, this a problem regardless of how important the term is (there are lots of important terms that don't have Wikipedia articles. That said, if anyone wants to edit the article to be about a single concept rather than a word, I'd happily reconsider. Otherwise, a keep !vote misunderstands the purpose of Wikipedia vs. that of, say, Wiktionary. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 16:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I'd like to add that this is a second AfD nomination. If it is so important then why the article is still so useless?Staszek Lem (talk) 18:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * DeleteI am not sure why we are even discussing this. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. To be frank this article is not even a dictionary entry as does not even define the term. In my opinion one of the shoddiest articles on wikipedia which should have been tagged with speedy deletion rather than AFD. There are millions of words used in the Hadith and the Quran, so are we going to include them all in wikipedia because they are "important in Islamic studies"? I am afraid not. The WP:BURDEN is on the keep voters to show that this word has a unique definition within Islamic theology which has been given in depth coverage by multiple reliable sources. Otherwise, lets get rid of this mess please. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:25, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mr. Guye (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per WP:NOTDICT, and as has been pointed out above, the article doesn't even provide a good definition of the word. --Michig (talk) 06:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * to the Keepers (actually, there's only one die-hard Keeper): as per my remark of 19 November, I have used said source to rewrite the dead-linked etymology section in Mawali. Mawla is at least used in an encyclopedic context over there. I hope the Keepers are now ok with deleting/WP:TNT'ing the Mawla article. - HyperGaruda (talk) 08:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge: appears more like a dictionary definition. Unless wikified, it should be merged into Mawali. Vincent60030 (talk) 07:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Bushranger One ping only 08:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The article on this word is no more than dictionary-like. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Mawla is a important and notable subject in Islam (Shia and Sunni Muslims).Saff V. (talk) 16:00, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * But Wikipedia is not a dictionary; it is not here to define words, and notability is conferred by reliable sources, not by assertions of importance. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete, as it's currently a dictionary definition, but keep if someone replaces it with an article on the concept expressed by the term. If it's a significant concept in Islam, we definitely ought to have an encyclopedia article on it, although deleting the current page wouldn't violate that idea, because the current page isn't an encyclopedia article.  Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is the second nomination, man. They had 8 (!) years to do it. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:48, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I know, but that's not my point. In other words, "if someone gets up and replaces it with an article before this AFD is closed, consider me a keep".  It looks like we have no reason to object to the existence of an encyclopedia article on this topic, so if someone writes one, it shouldn't be deleted through this AFD.  But as long as nobody does anything new, it should definitely be deleted.  Nyttend (talk) 03:26, 11 December 2015 (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.