Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam

Mission and scope
The mission of WikiProject Islam is to ensure that Islam-related articles on Wikipedia are written in an encyclopedic style, in a neutral and non-sectarian manner, using verifiable and reliable scholarly sources. This is the best place to discuss issues which affect Islam-related articles in general. Discussions about particular articles should be handled on the talk pages of those articles.

The scope of this WikiProject is to improve the quality and quantity of information about Islam available on Wikipedia.

Guidelines for editing Islam articles
If you are a newcomer, the most important and often over-looked point to remember while editing Wikipedia is: You cannot insert your own particular viewpoints into articles. Articles should typically reflect the verifiable opinions of qualified academic scholars, in neutral and balanced prose. The Qur'an and hadith are considered primary sources and they shouldn't be quoted in support of a particular argument unless also backed up by a citation to a reliable secondary source. Also remember to cite your sources correctly. If you feel a viewpoint merits mention, you can find some material which may constitute a reliable source by checking books, journals, articles, newspapers and other sources.

To promote consistency in the way articles are written and edited, a manual of style with recommended guidelines exists. Visit its talk page for current discussion.

To do

 * 1) Place the project banner  on the talk pages of all articles that fall within the scope of the project.
 * 2) Add the articles to the WikiProject Islam/Articles list by category.
 * 3) Check the recent changes for recent improvements, vandalism, and other changes.

Participants/members

 * See WikiProject Islam/Members

Departments
Departments are specific group of members who do the meta work. Tasks include keeping the project going, maintaining the project pages, related portals, assessing articles, participating in peer reviews, managing the consensus within the project and so on. The following is a list of departments within the WikiProject. WikiProject Members may not necessarily do only departmental tasks. They can contribute content as a member of Work Groups as well.
 * List of
 * Links Cleanup
 * Watchlist of All Islam-related articles
 * Watchlist of Main Islam-related articles

Assessment
The assessment department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia articles related to Islam. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

Peer review
The peer review department conducts peer reviews of Islam-related articles on request; this helps to obtain ideas for further improvement by having contributors who may not have previously worked on particular articles examine them. Project members are invited to submit articles to the department in lieu of using the generic peer review process.

Task forces

 * Ahmadiyya task force
 * Hadith (watchlist)
 * Islam and Controversy (watchlist)
 * Mosques (watchlist)
 * Muslim history (watchlist)
 * Muslim scholars (watchlist)
 * Prophets of Islam (watchlist)
 * Salaf (watchlist)
 * Shi'a Islam (watchlist)
 * Sunni Islam (watchlist)

Related

 * Early Muslim military history task force (watchlist)
 * WikiProject Saudi Arabia
 * WikiProject Quran

Version 1.0 Editorial Team release version selections

 * Averroes
 * Avicenna
 * Idi Amin
 * Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
 * Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
 * Muhammad Iqbal
 * Shia Islam
 * Sunni Islam
 * Zheng He

Current issues
Although members of the project are usually aware of current problems and specific tasks to perform in Islam articles, non-members – who are encouraged to help with these – may not be. Generally, discussions of articles take place on talk pages of those articles, but below is a list of some important problems and tasks.

Vandalism/sock puppet alerts
Please watch out for editing behaviors of these banned puppet masters and revert their edits when suspected:

Articles affected

 * Controversial articles like Apostasy, Apostasy in Islam, Ibn Khaldun, Dhimmi, and Jihad Watch
 * Islam and Children (frequented by DavidYork71's socks)
 * Islamophobia, Criticism of Islam (frequented by H.E.)

Helpful links for reporting vandalism and getting help

 * Administrator intervention against vandalism – only for persistent vandals
 * Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents – report block evading users
 * Requests for checkuser

Tasks

 * Standardise references to Qur'an translations.
 * Placing articles in the most appropriate category or categories.
 * Fix inadvertent placing of new Islam articles in Category:Islam when a better category (or more) can be chosen.
 * Sandbox

Deletions

 * See WikiProject Deletion sorting/Islam

Reference materials
In accordance with general directives on reliable source usage, Wikipedia should quote qualified scholars of Islam, as Wikipedia policy dictates that authors must be "authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." Other indicators of reliability is whether or not the work is published in a scholarly, peer-reviewed press, or whether the work is itself the subject of independent academic reviews. As per WP:REDFLAG, It is especially important for the source to be of high quality (and perferably there should be multiple sources) when assertions about Islam are made which are unsupported by mainstream academic opinion.

The editors should not write for example "Some Muslims argue X" and then reference it to some Muslim websites unless they could show that the website is representative of the thought of a particular significant group.


 * Please note that websites such as "Answering-Christianity.com" are not reliable sources, because they are neither written by famous scholars nor peer reviewed works. Articles at islamic-awareness.org are usually signed by the authors. For those articles, if one can establish that the authors hold an official academic degree (Western or Islamic) and are notable, they could be used when properly attributed to the authors. Articles at islamic-awareness.org are more likely to have references. So, if you found something there, try to look up for its source and then look up the original source. If you are lucky, you'll get a good sourced piece of information.

Arabic Wikisource has many relevant works in the Arabic language. See the Islamic collection there.

General tips

 * Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopedia of the Qur'an are a very good scholarly resources and one can find information on almost everything. But it is not free unless you belong to an organization that provides access to this for you. Encyclopædia Iranica online is an exception that contains many articles pertinent to Islam, which are peer-reviewed and free to the public, and which may provide additional information not found in the other encyclopedias.
 * You can have free (but limited) online access to many of these books at books.google.com or amazon.com. You can also search for a word (like Islam) in books.google.com and find good books. It is useful to memorize names of some reputed scholars of Islam, most of whom are listed on the 'List of Islamic studies scholars'. Since the scholarly books are usually published by "University of X" presses, you can also add "university" in the appropriate box in the advanced search to get the more scholarly works.
 * If you can afford $15 a month for access to an online library, Questia has a spotty selection of Islam-related books. They don't have everything one would want, but they have enough to justify the money, IMHO. You can search the library without joining.
 * In the U.S., if you have a library card at the local public library (usually free to city residents) you can often get a card at the library of a nearby public university or community college. This may get you access to their online databases like Lexis/Nexis, Jstor, and the Oxford English Dictionary.
 * Check out The Wikipedia Library which serves as a research hub for Wikimedia volunteers. It provides direct and free access to a variety of libraries including Cambridge, Brill, JSTOR, and others, many of which contain plethora of material related to Islam.

From whom you can ask

 * Please see: Expert Wikipedians in Islamic issues, where you may find a Wikipedian who can help you with your questions about Islamic issues.
 * Checking with the Deoband Community Wikimedia, a recognised Wikimedia Foundation affiliate might be helpful.

Lists

 * Index of Islam-related articles
 * Glossary of Islam
 * List of characters and names mentioned in the Quran

Books

 * List of Sunni books
 * List of hadith books
 * List of Shia books

People

 * Lists of Muslims
 * List of converts to Islam
 * Lists of Islamic scholars

Related projects
WikiProject Quran