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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of modern Muslim scientists and engineers

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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. MBisanz talk 01:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of modern Muslim scientists and engineers

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Part of a walled garden of SYN/OR by Jagged 85 (talk · contribs). See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inventions in the modern Islamic world. All sorts of things are attributed to a religion without any sources, or when there is a collaboration involving all sorts of people. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - in theory might be workable as a list, BUT: So much of what is actually "modern" in this timeline involves broad cooperation with scientists from around the world... including many Jewish scientists. There's even a picture of a Jewish scientist in the article mislabled as a Muslim. How do we show that each person listed is actually Muslim? How do we decide "how Muslim" they have to be to get on the list: is having a Muslim grandmother enough? I don't even understand what this timeline is supposed to be of... inventions? What constitutes enough notability to be listed here: anything done by a Muslim that is even remotely scientific or engineerish? Do we include the whole catalog of every scientific journal and every bridge built in Iran and Pakistan? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NJGW (talk • contribs)
  • Delete I agree, while theoretically this list would have some value, there is no proof that these people are actually religious muslims, which obviates the notability and usefulness of this list. --Pstanton 07:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pstanton (talk • contribs)
  • Keep "Modern" is defined in the article to mean "after the Islamic Golden Age," just as "Modern history" in English means after the middle ages. Used in the sense of the Muslim cultural area, not religion, this is a valid article topic and a defensible list. Used in the sense of people descended from those in the Muslim cultural area, it's a good deal fuzzier, but possible. If religion is wanted, some of the 20th century people are definitely Muslims , information about most of the rest is known one way or another, and ones before 1900 can all be assumed to be at least nominal Muslims. Almost everything there is sourced, and I see no OR whatsoever. The assemblage of information is not OR. It's just a question of defining the parameters for selection. Of course people collaborate; these are the major inventions in which people from that culture area/religion has a leading role. It shouldn't be seen as the things the Muslims did without help from anyone else. I see nothing unencyclopedic about the recognition of ethnicity. I see nothing wrong in the world with pride in ethnic accomplishments, either. I think it would be better to start here than to start over. If deleted, which it should not be, I'll gladly userify to anyone who wants to work on it further DGG (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Article can't decide whether it's Islamic, Arab, Indiviual, National or even a real topic. Tries to bring in every possible angle on completely unrelated topics in certain places with no individual conideration or realistic criteria. As there is no serious academic topic discussing or researching Muslim specific scentific researches beyong the Islamic Golden Age, and the fact that those elements, when stripped of all the unverifiable religious classifications, national specifics and comment on western muslim achievments which are in no way segregated from any other development, would be negatable, I see nothing salvagable in this indiscriminate list. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep since this is an interesting and search-worthy list of technological and scientific achievement. I didn't expect to be impressed by it, but I am--it seems solidly based on adequate references. Any problems regarding who or what is Muslim or not can be cleared up in discussion on individual topics; pretty much any ethnicity/religious group has the same definitional problems, and those don't stand in the way of having lists like List of Jewish American visual artists or List of Christian country artists. I know, I know, "other stuff exists" is not an argument--but he who hath ears to hear knows what I mean: definitional problems of ethnicity (etc.) are usually handled in an ad-hoc, conversational manner, rather than by fiat beforehand. I'm chiming in with DGG. Drmies (talk) 19:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Firstly, Jewish is an ethnicity, unlike Islam. As for the Christian one, it isn't about Christians who play sport or paint pictures or whatever, it is about Christians who are notable for doing Christian work, in this case, religious music. YellowMonkey
Comment Jewish is NOT an ethnicity. They only claim this. Look at the article "Who is a Jew. 78.144.227.243 (talk) 13:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't take this the wrong way: "it would seem their religion is not relevant..."--to you perhaps! It seems relevant to me, and no doubt to many others. Drmies (talk) 00:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He quite clearly specificied "to their scientific achievements", and is correct; the achievements weren't related in anyway to their religious beliefs, and "it's interesting" is not a valid reason to keep an otherwise perfectly invalid article. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 00:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Take it easy Jimmi Hugh--note the ellipsis. I did not exclude anything; I know what he said and I can read, thank you very much. You seem to be expressing a case of "I don't like it" under the guise of some absolute objectivity. And who said that these characters achieved what they did because they were Muslim? No one, and it wouldn't make any sense. By putting words in my mouth you're digging a hole for yourself: a perfectly acceptable list such as List of Jewish American biologists and physicians is full of people who were, say, biologists in ways unrelated to their Jewishness. The same is happening here, as DGG explained above. Let's stick to the facts, shall we? If you have a problem with someone taking pride in accomplishments by Muslims (whether observant or not, whatever branch, no matter), fine--but don't bring that in here please. WP does the same for Jews, Christians, African-Americans, etc. Of course there can be difficulties, but see the introduction to List of Christian thinkers in science--these can be solved. As to the nay-sayers who say that this is "essentially POV," all I can really say is "huh?" Is it essentially POV to have an article on flying animals, since it excludes creepies and crawlies? Drmies (talk) 01:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NB the Christian example is not a fair comparison because that list is of Christians who do Christian work, ie, praising Christianity in their work. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies if I sounded anything but calm, I had thought my comments cold, but not negative. I don't agree that any of the articles you referenced that aren't related to the merit of the categorisation have any place on Wikipedia either, so it's a fairy weak argument. Also, the flying animals article (or at least that which is redirects to) clearly metions insects ("creepies and crawlies") in the opening paragraph, and any further missing information should of course be added. I won't go on to accuse you of bad faith, I'm sure you already regret saying I was making claims of not liking this indiscriminate and unmanageable list for any reason other than the ones I listed above, and forgive you for saying so. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 02:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry if I suggested bias; I should have chosen my words more carefully. Your forgiveness is kindly accepted. However, I stand by my points, and I hope you will look at my words carefully. These articles I referenced, your opinion on them (or mine) is not quite relevant since they are stable and utterly non-controversial. In other words, my argument isn't "weak" for anyone who sees these articles as non-controversial, which I gather would be a majority of WP contributors (just go through their histories). And I reiterate, the point is not that this one should exist because those exist--the point is that problems of denomination and ethnicity can be solved. YellowMonkey, the Christian country article does precisely that, in the second and third sentence: it defines "Christian" for the purposes of the article. (One could get picky and define "Christian" in really narrow ways, of course.) And might I add that your comment, "Firstly, Jewish is an ethnicity, unlike Islam," is a really narrow definition of "Jewishness"--one that would make many of my Jewish friends non-Jewish. So yes, I tend to lump those terms together a little bit (a very American thing, perhaps--that one can choose their own destiny and salvation), and I do think that the article could do a better job of defining what it tries to list, but that's not a reason for deletion. Honestly, Jimmi Hugh, I really don't see what's so "perfectly invalid" here. Or why it should be indiscriminate: Muslim + (scientific or engineering feat) = inclusion. No problem, once "Muslim" is defined one way or another. Unmanageable? why? Drmies (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is unmanageable because it is inherently a synthesis of sources, none of which can be verified in the context of the actual stated fact (read:"because they were Muslim", as opposed to "they were Muslim".) As can already be seen from this schitzophenic article as it stands, there is a natural and indiscriminate move toward facts related to national Islamic acheivement, individual merit in none Islamic countries, and an inherently WP:OR set of facts which draw upon these factors regardless of purpose or the opinion of the developer who in many cases made developments independent of their religion, and which even ignores religion in the case of generic Arab developments. There isn't a set of facts which can be considered purely Muslim, and I don't have the capacity to picture a definition in which that would be possible. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 05:05, 21 January 2009 (
What bias is that? After the Ali shuffle was removed (quite rightly) by the nominator, I don't see what's biased. Editors below say the same thing--without any kind of evidence to back up these serious allegations, or they claim SYN, without even a suggestion of what the "position" would be that's supposedly advanced by the original research. What position? That a Muslim guy invented fuzzy logic? That's not a position--apparently that's a fact. (Even if the article gets that fact wrong, that doesn't change the basic situation--it just means more and better editing needs to take place.) And I've been looking for an example of misquoted sources--can you be more specific? Finally, what "contradicting opinions" should such a list take into account? That a certain person did NOT invent a certain kind of ladder? I'm puzzled; please clear this up, because your arguments sound convincing but as yet lack substance. Drmies (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ref one says the pirates used the boats, not that they invented them. Ref 2 says Yazdi found "an" amicable pair, not which one, and he is listed as Arabic though the Yazdi article says he's Iranian. The next entry is about a 1600s sundial when the first known sundial is from 5000BC. It also mentions a 1600s compass, though these go back (in Europe and the "Islamic world") to the 1200s. The next entry is philosophy, not science or engineering. The next two entries are of unknown reliability as their source is written by a faculty member at a medical university, not an historian, and it was not published in a wp:RS... it is also not a unique feat by far (having been done by others even 700 years before). The next item (the final item in the first section) seems truly remarkable... unfortunately I have been unable to find confirmation of this from non-POV (ie Muslim heritage) sources.[1][2]
That's the whole first section being wrong, misplaced, or questionable. Shall we move on to the second section? NJGW (talk) 05:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing some evidence. A quick look suggests to me that you may well be right about one or more of these things--I no longer buy the first entry, for instance. But what you identify as a 'sun dial' entry isn't just about a sun dial per se, but about a Qibla. Philosophy, many would argue (such as Aristotle--esp. relevant given the importance of Arab/Muslim philosophers in the preservation and transmission of his work), is in fact science--your definition strikes me as narrow (and fortunately I'm not alone). I'll not comment on the next two, since it's late, but I am somewhat bothered by the final note you strike: that a "Muslim" source would be essentially POV. The link (note 10) is not working, and sure, it's on a "muslimheritage" site--but if that site along disqualifies the report from being truthful, then, well, I don't know, but I think we've crossed a line. Are you really saying that only non-Muslim sources can authoritatively speak of Muslim technological feats? Drmies (talk) 06:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All I can glean about the Qibla is that it is a sundial with a compass... wich is odd because you need a compass to set up the sundail anyway. The philosophy entry is about existentialism, which would not be found in a science book or journal today (perhaps a breif mention in a cognitive science text book though)... I see your point, but would argue that under today's definition it does not fit. As for the last entry, I'm not saying that Muslim heritage sites are untrustworthy, only that I could not find a google scholar article which backed up their claim. I found lots of information about the Western scientist who they mention, but nothing in which he discusses the objects they claim he has studied so closely. A heritage site of any sort is going to be POV and fail wp:RS (UNLESS it passes wp:V). I found a cached version"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us in which the scientist is quoted as saying "when I first discovered these I was told by the museum as well as historians of metal work that that was physically not possible," but there is no attribution and no other google hits for that phrase. It does seem to be a true marvel, but I can't find any wp:V sources for it. NJGW (talk) 15:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you actually looking for sources--I am firmly convinced that this article has a claim to existence but could well do with better sourcing, and I wish more contributors here would do the work like you've done it. That sort of groundwork will also help take care of any (real or unreal) POV bias--but let's face it, *any* claim that a certain inventor or scientist (or president of the US) is of a given heritage or cultural world has a kind of bias built into it. If someone wants to claim that my grandfather, who owned a trucking company, was Muslim and that therefore Muslims make great truckers, that would be OR, and SYN, and nonsense, etc. But individual claims such as made in the article can be checked and verified and (unlike what Gun Powder claims, below) I am not averse to that work--I'm glad to see you aren't either. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 16:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These are not "selected users". These are, without a single exception, users who have participated in the discussion on the Talk:Inventions of the Islamic Golden Age and the Talk:Inventions in the modern Islamic world, edited and helpt improve these articles. As editors who showed an active interest in the topic and gave their input, they have a right to be informed about a pending deletion. See Friendly notices. Note that I deliberately did not inform anonymous users. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, if you've selected them based on their previous work and their interest, then they are "selected users" (a matter of basic dictionary meaning). You can call them "friendly notices," but there is a template for that. This is how you phrased it: "Articles on 'Islamic' inventions: Hello, I saw you were engaged at one time about the sense or nonsense of the article series which has been created in recent times." That's not exactly neutral--note the quotes around the word "Islamic" (in irony?), and note the suggestive "sense or nonsense"--these are not exactly technical WP terms, unless you're talking about "blatant nonsense," in the sense of db-g1, and I'm sure you don't want to do that. Drmies (talk) 15:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did not know there was a template, next time I will use one, of course. "Sense and nonsense" is actually as balanced as can be. Islamic is in "'" because many people do not see the faith as particularly relevant to the inventions - one of the core problems of the two articles here-, hence it is neutrally put, too. Do you want to challenge the right of these users to be informed? Actually, I prefer users who do actual work on the articles, over those who simply pop up at the deletion pages, post keep, but then let others do the cross-checking of dozens or hundreds of sources. If you ask me, it should be even the other way round: Only users who have a record of actively and constructively participating in editing before, should have a right to decide about deletions. That is in this case not you for one. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think any reader of this exchange can discern how spurious especially that last argument is. Are you suggesting that I never did any 'real' work on WP and should therefore shut up? Drmies (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These certainly are "selected users"; as selected by you - in this case based on a criteria, according to you, of them having worked on the article before (although many others have also worked on these articles whom you did not inform) and I notice that many of the editors have not made any edits to any of the articles you have referred to. → AA (talk) — 23:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many did edits. And, Friendly notices makes it clear that editing is not a necessary condition for having the right to be informed about an ongoing deletion process, intensively engaging in discussion already is: For example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and try again. As I tried my hand at cleanup of this article I kept hitting the same problem, the stuff is sourced but the sources are mis-used, mis-quoted, sometimes just plain wrong, and are all "spun" to reach a synthesis (WP:SYN). The editors involved have admitted in there talk or on their talk pages that they edit from a POV. This does not make their efforts wrong, it just adds a skew to their writing that we all have to be mindful of. A rethink from basics is needed. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - WP:SYN. good intentions, bad idea, very poor implementation. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • suggestion There is a true Muslim tradition in science, before the adoption in most Muslim countries of the Western scientific and academic traditions in the 20th century. Before 1850, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the people listed are, in the absence of other evidence, both of the Muslim culture and the Muslim religion. After that there are two possible ways to think of this, and I consider both of them valid: the cultural background, and the religion as such. Since some people of Muslim descent may not actually share the Muslim traditional cultural background to any noticeable extent, it will be easier to do the subset who are known to be of that religion. I note that this discussion is not unique to Muslims, but that we've had similar discussions for many of the scientists of a particular religion or ethnicity articles & categories. DGG (talk) 16:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The article has nothing to do with religion, rather it documents the achievements of Muslims. What is wrong with that? As far as I can see it does violate any policy. LOTRrules Talk Contribs 18:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Suggest. This needs to be approached as a question about how we best cover the history of science and technology, not a question about whether Muslims are "allowed" to record their achievements. First point: I'm not particularly fond of seeing scientific and technological development as a series of "inventions". How new ideas and technologies were implemented is just as important as how they were thought up. Also, timelines are much harder to maintain in an NPOV state than prose articles (they are prone to the inclusion of poorly-sourced factoids). So... history of science and technology. Can we break it up geographically? Yes, we can and we do. And in the Middle Ages, the Islamic world was a cultural entity, often called "the Islamic Empire". It had a distinct scientific and technological tradition, currently being presented in a UK TV series by Jim Khalili. We cover all that already, but some readers will be asking: What next? What happened to that tradition? Well, from the early modern period until 1918 the Muslim world was roughly equivalent to the Ottoman Empire. Therefore we should have an article on Science and technology of the Ottoman Empire that this article can be merged into. What we do with the post-1918 material, I don't know. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I endorse this line of reasoning and that of Mcorazao below. They show why the title is SYN and how to fix it, and how to turn this into a useful article rather than a POV list. NJGW (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. An article should only be nominated for deletion if it has no grounds to exist in the first place, not because the current state of the article isn't good enough. YellowMonkey hasn't provided any reasonable rationale to nominate this article for deletion. The reason why I originally created this article is simply because the previous article from which much of the information was drawn (Timeline of Islamic science and engineering) was getting too large, so I created this article as a sub-article and moved all the information after the 16th century here. If there is any problem with the title or the scope of the article, these can be addressed without having to resort to deletion. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 19:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete & Redesign. I think the article in its current form needs to go but I think in a larger sense there is some useful content that could go in a useful article. To begin with this article is essentially a list article, albeit a well formatted list which is inappropriate. More than this, though, the connection between all the accomplishments is just the tenuous relationship of religion. Articles with such tenuous relationships seem more like entertainment than education. I think an article discussing, in an encyclopedic fashion, accomplishments of predominantly Muslim nations or nations of the Middle East or some such thing would be useful. But even at that, the article should not be a list but rather a general discussion with specific accomplishments highlighted. --Mcorazao (talk) 19:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Muslim, it seems to me, means a lot more than just "religion." As DGG has suggested earlier, there is a large cultural/geographic component to it, and to claim that the article claims that this is a purely religious matter is to muddy the waters. The article does not claim that there is something really Muslim or Koran-inspired about, for instance, fuzzy logic. In short, the article does not state that there's something intrinsically religious about any of these inventions, though some (the Qibal comes to mind) are inspired by the demands of religious practice. Can the article do with clarification of that basic term? Sure. Can it do with some more content (I mean text, context) for some of these periods? Sure. Can individual entries be sourced better? Probably. Should an entry like Muhammed Faris 1985 space trip be left out? I think so, personally. But as Jagged85 points out, quite rightly in my opinion, these are matters that can be dealt with in the normal editing process and certainly don't require deletion. Drmies (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly disagree with this attitude. Islam is a religion not an ethnicity or a culture. This hypothesis implies, for example, that Coptic Egyptians either are Muslim or else have more in comon culturally with the British Christians than Muslim Egyptians. Both are ridiculous. Islam is a religion period. Certainly it is true that many regions that are predominantly Muslim share a common culture (this is not, however, universally true) but to suggest that this means that the culture and the religion are one and the same is offensive. The point I was making above is that some of the accomplishments listed were made by individuals who spent their careers in countries that are not predominantly Muslim and so were more a product of those cultures than the cultures of predominantly Muslim countries. And again, the Muslim world is not confined to the Middle East. To suggest, for example, that the cultures of Saudia Arabia, Kosovo, and Indonesia are all more similar to each other than other cultures simply because of their Muslim majorities is ridiculous. --Mcorazao (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why a weak keep? I am lead to believe it is notable, and admittedly needs to address some issues. The article has nothing to do with religion, it's just that they happen to be MuslimsLOTRrules Talk Contribs 13:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's absurd! It clearly states Muslim in the title. If I added a non-Muslim to the list, it would be removed, because they are listed purely "to do with religion". The fact they happen to be Muslims is exactly what it is about, and your claim that the Religious element is unimportant is precisely the argument for every single Delete vote. You are correct, they do just happen to be Muslim; you are correct, the article should have nothing todo with the their religious affiliations; you are wrong though in believing that makes the article Valid; that is the definition of an indiscriminate list. It defies reason that you could state such a core reason why the article is invalid, anti-policy, and turn that into a keep vote. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Islam has no bearing on what these people did. Being Muslim had nothing to do with their scientific discoveries and inventions. They are notable not because they are Muslim; they are notable for what they did. --vi5in[talk] 18:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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