Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles

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Allah v God: just wondering...

For many years I've reverted drive-by edits in articles like Shahada and restored "God" per MOS:ALLAH in Islamic-related articles. I've done so for the sake of a consistent MOS, rather than seeing anything inherently wrong in using Allah when referring to God in Islam. I suspect I'm not alone in taking that view. But a couple of thoughts occur to me.

• First, outside of active MOS-supporting Wikipedians, it seems clear to me that most people (including most Muslims) expect to see Allah rather than God and don't really get the use of God, however technically correct in English-language terms it is. As a result some of us spend a lot of time reverting drive-by changes of God to Allah. That's fine if Allah were actually wrong and something the English-language RS don't support but that's not the case. Is this a worthwhile use of editor effort? This is exacerbated by it being quite a difficult point to explain the difference between God and god - quite a few native English speakers don't get it let alone 2nd language-English speakers. ("There is no god but God"...) As a result large swathes of Wikipedia articles end up using Allah rather than God and the whole consistency point is lost anyway.
• Secondly, I tried to find the where the decision to prefer God over Allah was made. I was quite surprised to see how few were involved in the discussion and how flimsy the arguments were. (But just to be clear, I'm not saying using "God" is technically incorrect at all.)

Is it time to reconsider this and, if nothing else, to recognise the inevitability of the greater popularity of Allah. DeCausa (talk) 01:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Allah may be more popular among a certain strand of Wikipedia editors who see their editing as part of their religious duty (in Islam, spreading Islamic religious knowledge is a virtue) and who regard the use of Arabic words a an identity marker, or as another form of religious virtue (God made the Quran an Arabic one and the prophet Muhammad spoke Arabic, so using Arabic is sometimes regarded as part of the behavioral pattern or sunna to be emulated).

But the critical point is that reliable (academic) sources on Islam by far prefer the use of God. This is because using Allah may mislead into thinking that it is a proper name for the Islamic God specifically, while in reality it's just the Arabic language word for 'God' (as easily deduced from that fact that Arabic Jews and Christians also use the word Allah for 'God'). Because of this preponderance of God in reliable sources and the concurrent preponderance of Allah in Islamic identity politics, reading 'Allah' really gives a bad impression. It's bad style, and I do think it's worth to continue enforcing it, especially for drive-by edits where the motive clearly is identity politics. It's a bit like with the Islamic honorifics, something we won't ever really get rid of. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:39, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The case around the usage of 'Allah' is one that Wikipedia certainly does not approach in a particularly nuanced manner. The situation is certainly a little more complex than Allah being the Arabic language word for God, because, for a start, which god? It is also more of a name than a common noun. It would be slightly more accurate to suggest that Allah is the Arabic language name for God in the Abrahamic faiths. The evidence that it had widespread currency outside of this context is considerably weaker. Unlike with "God", which in the New Testament is typically derived from theos (god) or adonai (lord), Greek words that are indeed common nouns, there is no such parallel ambiguity with "Allah", which cannot be used to denote simply 'a god', for which the word is 'elah'. There is also the question of whether systemic bias may be at work in the way in which Wikipedia prefers the generic translation of 'God', following what I imagine is the emergent choice of the largely Western Christian scholarship. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"Allah(u)" does simply denote "the God","al-ilah" الْإِلٰه or الْإِلٰهُ, as a contraction of that, ٱللَّٰه or ٱللَّٰهُ, and transparently so. Etymologically, it's no less a common noun than capital-G "God". Largoplazo (talk) 19:15, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Wait, wait, I was just making an effort to explain why reliable sources use God rather than Allah. What Largoplazo says is correct and is also part of that reason. But if a WP editor does not agree with reliable sources and claims that Allah (lit. 'the god', i.e., the one godhead as described in the Abrahamic tradition) is anything other than the closest equivalent in Arabic of capitalized 'God' in English, then that's just not relevant: we follow usage in reliable sources.

Claiming that reliable sources are biased is a non-starter, because that could in principle be used to push any editorial point of view. If reliable sources are biased, then that's just tough luck: we follow reliable sources. Of course they are not biased in this case, and of course when editors claim bias in reliable sources it's almost always due to ignorance on their own part, but in any case bias in reliable sources can only be countered with other reliable sources: if all or nearly all of them are 'biased', then that's just what we will have to work with. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

And I was just saying that Wikipedia's approach isn't very nuanced on the subject. On the etymology side of things, it is worth noting that all the theories are just that, and this also misses the point, which is that "Allah" now has a distinct meaning as a word/name from whatever its etymological origins were, and cannot be used interchangeably as a stand-in for any sentence containing 'the God' - it's more like the other way around: "al-ilah" with an "al-" is by default understood to refer to "Allah" (whichever Abrahamic version), and requires context to denote that a non-Abrahamic god is being referred to. I incidentally wasn't saying that the systemic bias in this instance is something that either can/should be fixed - I was purely noting it in the spirit of enquiry of this thread. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The references in Islam-related articles are to the same being as they are in Christianity and Judaism, so why should we use a different name as if to imply that it's a different being? There are likewise Jews (Ashkenazic Jews, at least) who, while speaking or writing English, nevertheless refer to God as "Elohim" or "Eloheynu" or, as a matter of taboo, "Elokim" or "Elokeynu", or else as "Adonai" or, euphemistically, "Adoshem", but it would likewise confuse readers and convey a misimpression if those terms were used here.

Also, don't Muslims generally know that "Allah" is simply a contraction of "al-ilah", basically "the god"? Isn't that transparent to Arabic speakers? Largoplazo (talk) 19:10, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think that most Arabic speakers know this, but not the great great majority of Muslims who are not Arabs. It's a form of ignorance, really. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The thread has gone off in a slightly different direction than I was meaning - but that shouldn't surprise me. My starting point was that Allah and God have an identical meaning - the single monotheistic deity - and validity in English usage. Iskandar is quite wrong in suggesting that God is any less specific than Allah. But I also don't agree with Apaugasma's suggestion that Allah "is bad style". Plenty of RS use Allah and I'm very doubtful that there is a preponderance of "God" in RS - or at least a preponderance is so apparent that it would make use of "God" by us de rigeur. Perhaps Allah is used by some in identity politics. But it is also used and widely understood by most (I would argue) non-Muslim native English speakers as "God in Islam" (and to whom the difference between God and god is incompletely understood). Making ourselves understood to our readership should, in my view, be more important than fear of being seen to kow tow to those who are using WP to advance a particular religious perspective. DeCausa (talk) 22:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah. BUT. :) Let X be the set of all reliable sources in English that refer to the Abrahamic God by some name. X is X is still X whether someone is writing an article about Saint Paul, the prophet Elijah, Omar Khayyam, or Bertrand Russell. In checking reliable sources for the name by which God is most customarily known, we shouldn't, therefore, get a different outcome in each case. Largoplazo (talk) 00:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

DeCausa, I agree that we shouldn't let purported religious perspectives influence our decision making. But despite popular associations, Allah is not just 'God in Islam', it's also 'God in Judaism' and 'God in Christianity', in Arabic. Just ask one of the c. 1,500,000 Arab Christians about this. You also forget that Allah is potentially misleading, because it may suggest that it's a proper name for some native god different from the Jewish and Christian God. This is in fact a common misconception. Maybe for this reason in particular it very much is de rigeur in RS to use God rather than Allah. This is rather hard to prove, but for starters just look at the usage in other encyclopedic sources like Encyclopaedia of Islam (2 & 3), Encyclopædia Iranica, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, or the Persian-origin Encyclopaedia Islamica: searching for Allah will only yield the article on Allah and articles on concepts or personal names which include Allah, while searching for God will show that God is consistently used to refer to, well, God: [1] vs [2], [3] vs [4], [5] vs [6], [7] vs [8]. Unfortunately Encyclopædia Iranica's search function does not work very well for this, but just ctrl-f "Allah" and "God" in any random Iranica article like [9] [10] [11] [12]. I know that the use of Allah is not completely unheard of in RS, but I'm still curious as to what sources you had in mind. Probably scholars who are neither arabists nor Islamic studies scholars? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@DeCausa: "God", derived from theos, is very definitely less specific than "Allah". E.g.: hits regarding Hinduism. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Not to say that we shouldn't be using "God", if that's the trend in reliable sources, but again, there's some nuance. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment: Back to the original question - where I think the project often gets this wrong is inside of English language quotations, where "Allah" is often expunged for "God" even though, ironically, this style guide makes a clear allowance for English-language quotations. This can be seen on God in Islam, where all of the Qur'anic quotes have had "Allah" replaced with "God" even though all of the various translations linked to at perseus.tufts use 'Allah'. Is this the correct stance on MOS:ALLAH? Iskandar323 (talk) 10:10, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Or on Allah, where in the Islam part the first lines of Al-Ikhlas become: "SAY, God is one GOD; the eternal GOD", which is almost nonsensical, when all of the normative translations make a lot more sense simply by using 'Allah', e.g.: "Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute" Iskandar323 (talk) 10:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

My interpretation of the guideline exempting English language quotations is that this naturally extends to translations. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course, quotations of text in English (even if those quotations are translations) should leave them as they are. Largoplazo (talk) 10:30, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Huh? Quotations should always be literal. They shouldn't even exclude spelling or grammar mistakes, let alone that they should exclude things contrary to the MOS. Please, wherever you find a quotation modified, replace it with the original quotation on sight. That's not to say of course that we couldn't consciously choose for Quran translations that use 'God', as all the best translations in various languages do (Perseus only lists very outdated English translations that are in the public domain). We should probably for the most part be using Arberry (the classic go-to translation for anglophone academia) or The Study Quran (perhaps the new academic standard). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma well said. I agree completely. We do not change quotations, something which I see happening all to often. Doug Weller talk 13:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• It is true, as said above, Allah is a contraction of Al-Ilah (and as a sidenote, I can say as an Arab that at least half of Arabs don't know this). But it has come to be used as a reference to God in Islam. So when it is said that "there is no deity but God..) which God? The ⬡ Bestagon ^T/_C 08:01, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

  The correct way to phrase that question in English is "which god?" (lower case "g") to which the answer is "God" (upper case G). DeCausa (talk) 08:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Sea of blue recommendation

MOS:MUHAMMAD recommends the text Islamic prophet Muhammed, but this is a sea of blue: it is unclear that there are multiple links and unclear where clicking on each part of the text will take you. Can we not just have Islamic prophet Muhammed, keeping the most specific link? — Bilorv (talk) 09:43, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed – I often see this in articles and remove the Islamic prophet link citing the exact same sea of blue reasoning in my edsum. It would probably help if we were not actually recommending it in the MoS. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
• Maybe for this one, editors need to amend the MOS:MUHAMMAD by having a discussion on that MOS' talk page first. Chongkian (talk) 00:25, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

  MOS:MUHAMMAD is a section of MOS:ISLAM, so this is the right talk. Since there has been no opposition, I've made the change (I did retain the link to Islamic though, which may in some cases be overlinking, but since we're explicitly talking about the first reference in the article/lead here, it will often not be in this particular case). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed Oh ya, you are right. Thanks for the explanation and also thanks for the changes made. So far I am ok with the current existing MOS:MUHAMMAD's MoS. We need some simplification here for addressing his subsequent names written in an article, unless it is the first mentioned in an article - more or less. Chongkian (talk) 04:33, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Question about using ﷺ in WP-articles

Obviously there's nothing wrong with using pbuh etc in quotes etc. But should ﷺ be used as a substitute in article text, like in Hadith of Gabriel? It doesn't seem reasonable to me to expect the general reader to know what that means. And if I want to replace it in this, and perhaps some other articles,[13] what should I replace it with? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

First it's important to check whether the 'quote' (put between quotation marks or indented with a blockquote) is really a piece of text literally copied from some source, because I have often found it to be a translation from an Arabic source apparently done by a Wikipedia editor. Per OR policy such translations are acceptable if there is no good source which could be copied from without copyright violation, but 'Wikipedia translations' should not use the explicit Islamic religious convention of leaving ﷺ untranslated. Instead, wherever the Arabic text has صلى الله عليه وسلم (the spelled out version of ﷺ) it should be literally translated, perhaps as "[Muhammad], God bless him and grant him salvation, " (the translation given by Wehr's dictionary, p. 611, lemma صلعم; a ref to Wehr can also be added where appropriate).

However, if an English-language source is literally copied from and ﷺ occurs as such in the source (as it does in the source used in Hadith of Gabriel), it should not be changed without switching out the entire quote and using another source. We just cannot afford to change the content of a supposedly literal quote. Note that scholarly sources will never use the untranslated ﷺ, which as noted is an explicitly religious Islamic convention. Religious sources like sunnah.com should be avoided (I also wonder whether this one in particular can be used without copyvio?), but I guess that in many cases nothing better is (easily) available.

If the only worry is intelligibility for the reader, it may be considered to add "[= "God bless him and grant him salvation"] after ﷺ or to explain its meaning in an explanatory footnote. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:58, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Or, rather than the bracketed aside or footnote, possibly wikilink it? ﷺ - I know wikilinks are mildly discouraged in quotes, but this seems like the least interruptive form (although it goes to a page in general on Islamic honorifics and not directly to an explanation of that specific one.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

My personal preference would be in-text "explanation" at first mention/wikilink (footnote second choice), I think it's generally good for "inside language", see Four Noble Truths for example. In this particular case, the wikilink is a bit hard to spot. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

That the Hadith of Gabriel text could be per source didn't even occur to me :/ I have no objection to that, but an added explanation like [14] is good, I think. It can be cited if necessary. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Academic sources, translations etc. also spell it out, instead of using "ﷺ". Therefore, I would stick to spelling out, until "ﷺ" becomes frequent in published papers. Until then, I see no reasons to use "ﷺ" in the first place. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 14:04, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Quotes should be literal, this should be first priority. I believe that this essential and universal editorial principle is crucial enough to seek wider community input about it if some editors would like to break it. Thus, since replacing ﷺ by an English translation changes the literal content of the quote, if the source we quote has ﷺ, we write ﷺ. If we explain it in-text, we should use square brackets, per another universal editorial principle also reflected in MOS:BRACKET (hence [15]). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:28, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

In the particular Hadith of Gabriel case, it may be possible to find a source that doesn't use ﷺ. Whether this should be done is a different question. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:31, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Btw, we should perhaps mention ﷺ somewhere on the article it redirects to. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:19, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

At first I had doubts about the decision of the contributors at the Indonesian Wikipedia, but I feel somewhat relieved after reading this discussion. @Apaugasma answered it sensibly and clearly, it can be used as a reference for other users who may have questions. Addendum: in the Indonesian Wikipedia itself, the use of ﷺ (generated by id:template:saw) is only allowed to be used for citations and sources (references, although it's not recommended), while ﷺ remains in widespread use in the Arabic Wikipedia. ▪︎ Fazoffic _{( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ)} 13:57, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Which makes sense, since afaict by zooming in a lot, ﷺ is arabic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistency in the use of "-iyya" and "-ism" in articles about Islam

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam

In articles about Islam on Wikipedia, in both titles and text bodies, there is a widespread inconsistency in the use of suffixes forming the nouns of systems of belief, doctrines and movements: some occurrences use the Arabic suffix -iyya, while some others use the Western suffix "-ism", and still others use the noun-adjective rather than the noun (e.g. Hanafi school instead of Hanafism), giving the impression of an unsystematic and confusing approach to the subject. Given that almost all Islamic -iyyas, i.e. Islamic branches, currents, doctrines, sects, schools and orders, are also often rendered with "-ism" (e.g. Ashariyya = "Asharism", Zaydiyya = "Zaydism", Ismailiyya = "Ismailism"), I suggest to adopt a consistent style and switch to "-ism" in every case, given that this is the English Wikipedia. It would also be better to avoid diacritics (i.e. not "Ash'arism" but "Asharism"; not "Isma'ilism" but "Ismailism"), since they are unuseful and overcomplicating for English readers. Æo (talk) 12:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I 100% agree. You should write the above into the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles.Tiny Particle (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The presence or absence of diacritics is determined by WP:MOSAR, which differs for the letters 'ain and hamza. More broadly, I have been actively involved in ironing out some of these inconsistencies, and there is definitely already some internal logic governing why madhhabs (law schools) are listed as "X school", but theological branches (philosophical or ideological schools) are "isms". Iskandar323 (talk) 09:40, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

@Tiny Particle, @Iskandar323: Thank you for your your opinions and apologies for the delayed reply. I have added a section about this matter to the Islam MoS, as requested. Here. Please check and give your contribution if needed. Æo (talk) 15:41, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

A discussion should definitely be raised on the guideline talk page first. Guideline pages are fairly formal (less so than policy, but more so than essays), and so any major changes to them require substantive discussion beforehand. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

The regular WP practice is to let this type of thing be decided by most common usage in reliable sources (RS). It's true that most of the time RS will more commonly use -ism terms rather than -iyya terms, but in some specific cases where the reverse might be true, having a rule enforcing the use of -ism could turn out to be problematic. My impression is that adding this to MOS:ISLAM would be a form of wp:instruction creep, and that it's better to change instances of -iyya to -ism on the basis of a perusal of RS (and taking the opportunity to actually improve the articles in the process!).

It's also important to note that Asharism is extremely uncommon in RS (312 results on GS, and many of those are not RS), while Ash'arism without doubt is the common name (1560 results on GS, mostly top-quality sources). The case of Ismailism vs Isma'ilism is less extreme, with 3160 results for the former vs 1390 results for the latter (at least on GS Ismailism clearly wins, though Isma'ilism by no means is as marginal as Asharism, and in my personal experience actually is more common in the best sources). Anyways, comparing both cases shows that RS in some cases adopt contrary conventions than in others. It would be very ill-advised to force one convention on all terms, thereby creating monstrosities such as Asharism. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:57, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree with what @Apaugasma has said above. ─ The Aafī (talk) 17:38, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

This gets very complicated, we sometimes need -iyya instead of -ism. Many Muslim sources also use -iyya instead of -ism, and homogenizing this means having to change everything -iyya to -ism (am I right?). Although this sounds mixed, I do not agree that the whole -iyya should be shifted to -ism because -iyya seems to be more popular in the Muslim world than -ism, which tends to be used only in the West. Then, doesn't Wikipedia use a more commonly found naming standard? ▪︎ Fazoffic _{( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ)} 06:45, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

When you say "more popular in the Muslim world", do you mean in Muslim English-language sources? Don't forget we should be steered by English-language usage in sources that meet the WP:RS criteria. DeCausa (talk) 06:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Bearing in mind that en.wiki defers to English-language sources, as a general rule I have found that -iyya endings tend to be better preserved in academic literature, where strict transliterations find more favor, while -isms are favored by sources aimed at accessibility. What this in effect means is that more mainstream topics tend to get -ism-ified, while more obscure topics see a greater prevalence of -iyya usage. However, imposing any kind of rule moderating this would likely be to go against WP:COMMONNAME in many instances, and so would be disempowered, since WP:COMMONNAME is policy and style guides are style guides, so in cases of dispute between policy and style guide, policy would still win. More generally, it's mainly just a WP:AINTBROKE-type issue. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I tend to agree if this matter is returned to WP:COMMONNAME, it looks better than laying down a rule that seems to go against it. In my opinion, the word 'inconsistency' is inappropriate, because their usages (-iyya and -ism) are equally widely used. ▪︎ Fazoffic _{( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ)} 02:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

NPOV usage of "the prophet Muhammad" or "the prophet"

MOS:MUHAMMAD currently states:

The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet (including with a lowercase 'h') in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; or just Prophet preceding "Muhammad" — recommended action is to simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad" except when it is the first reference in an article, or the first reference in the lead, in which case it may be rendered as "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" if necessary.

Reliable sources (RS) very commonly use the phrases "the prophet Muhammad", "the Prophet Muhammad", or (at second mention) "the prophet" or "the Prophet" to refer to Muhammad. Therefore, only allowing the use of "Muhammad" or "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" runs contrary to NPOV ("If a name is widely used in reliable sources (particularly those written in English) and is therefore likely to be well recognized by readers, it may be used even though some may regard it as biased").

I am hoping that enough editors familiar with RS on the subject –who will not require any evidence for the fact stated above– will reply here, but for the majority of other editors some preliminary evidence (all either from top publishers or top scholars in the field) is [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24].

Also for the benefit of editors not familiar with RS on the subject, I'll briefly explain why high-quality RS adopt this seemingly religious or non-neutral usage. "Muhammad" is one of the most used names in the world, and especially in historical Islamic contexts there are a ton of Muhammads (a common usage was to call every first child Muhammad after the prophet). Now it is a peculiarity of historical primary sources that Muhammad's fuller name Muhammad ibn Abd Allah was hardly ever used, a pattern also adopted by modern secondary sources (e.g., his fuller name does not even appear in the lead of the Encyclopaedia of Islam article on him here). However, because there were and are so many Muhammads, simply "Muhammad" is often ambiguous enough to warrant disambiguation. To deal with this, scholarly secondary sources commonly disambiguate using "prophet" as if it were part of his name: 'which Muhammad?' is not answered by 'Muhammad ibn Abd Allah', but by 'the prophet Muhammad' or 'the prophet'.

When Wikipedia editors are writing about Muhammad and are confronted by a situation where just "Muhammad" would be ambiguous (even if only slightly, which covers e.g. all instances where otherwise a full name would be used), there is absolutely no reason why they should not –per NPOV– follow the common usage of RS with regard to this and use "the prophet Muhammad" or (after first mention) "the prophet". Though generally Wikipedia editors should be allowed to adopt the expressions used by the very RS they are using to write their articles, in line with the broader guidelines on capitalization in Wikipedia's Manual of Style ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") it does make sense to disallow the capitalized "the Prophet Muhammad" or "the Prophet". I therefore propose to change the guideline to something like the following:

The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet (including with a lowercase 'h') in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; or just Prophet preceding "Muhammad" — either simply use "Muhammad", or use the neutral and lowercase phrases "the prophet Muhammad" / (optionally after first mention) "the prophet", except in the first reference in some articles, where "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" may be used for clarity.

It may be a good idea to go through an RfC for this, but before we do so I would like to discuss any possible objections and/or alternatives. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:42, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Editors at WT:ISLAM and Talk:Muhammad have been notified of this discussion. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I basically agree. The style guide as it stands overreaches and should leave more flexibility for disambiguation options on a case by case basis. The current emphasis on using "Muhammad" all the time, even in place of "the prophet", is clunky and leads to repetitive, unnatural prose. The proposed de-emphasis on needing to say "Islamic" on the first mention is also important, as this is redundant on obviously Islamic articles, and frequently redundant in general, since "prophet Muhammad" has a very clear primary topic as a phrase. These changes are more generally a positive per WP:NOTBURO. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:53, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that there are very few if any case where simply "the prophet" would be both needed and appropriate. While there may be times when going into a paragraph that it may not be clear which Muhammed from history we are talking about, are there really many cases where, say, Muhammed the prophet was talking to Muhammed the dentist... and said dentist is not at least as well known by his last name and more properly referred to by it? Perhaps you have some examples of just that problem (not, to be clear, necessarily dentistry), but barring that, it just seems to be suggesting a usage that does carry a bit of bias, at least the implication that he was a creator of accurate prophecy. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:55, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Any given article on a pope, such as Pope Francis, might occasionally naturally say something like "yada yada yada, the pope did X", or "Mx Y asked the pope Z", just as an article about an artist might say "the artist did X", etc. These are just normal descriptive sentences. It does not imply that the pope is an affirmed intercessor between Catholics and God, or that an artist is genuinely artistic: these are just job titles, as routinely used in sources, and so NPOV to repeat. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

@Nat Gertler: for example, when one writes about the fifth Shia Imam Muhammad al-Baqir and then wants to mention the prophet, just writing "Muhammad" would be highly ambiguous. Even if al-Baqir himself is referred to as "al-Baqir" at second mentions, "Muhammad" would still be easily misunderstood as just another reference to Muhammad al-Baqir.

The problem is that "Muhammad" is only a single name: whereas "Jack Smith" would become "Smith", what to do with the (ubiquitous) "Muhammad"? Whereas a discussion of "Jack Smith" and "Jack Johnson" would soon be talking about "Smith" and "Johnson", what with "Muhammad al-Baqir" and "the prophet Muhammad"? Here "the prophet" serves as as concise and clear reference: "al-Baqir" and "the prophet". Note that I myself needed to resort to this in the first sentence of this comment. How could it be done differently?

More important to keep in mind though is that is my attempt at explaining why this is the common usage in reliable sources. But strictly speaking, this should be irrelevant: the real reason why we should adopt this usage is the fact that it is the most common one in reliable sources. Hope this helps, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:49, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Then that seems like a good time to lead in by including the full Muhammad ibn Abd Allah name in establishing matters, and then rely on the last name to separate from others of the same first name. Zooming over to Merriam-Webster the first three definitions of prophet all include some actual special ability. This makes it more in line with such terms as "psychic" or "messiah", which we would similarly avoid as a generic unqualified descriptor. (Our use of "Islamic prophet" is much in line with, say, "self-proclaimed psychic"; it indicates the source for the point of view of the term, rather than making it Wikipedia voice.) Our style guide, while it can be inspired by that of others, is not reliant upon it, particularly when we must live up to policies. Things are considered reliable sources for their content, not for their style. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:45, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to make a small adjustment on my views and the stating thereof (not that I expect anyone's going to notice this far up the thread.) He should not be referred to as the prophet while speaking historically; that is different when discussing in the context of belief (I.e., "The religion holds that Muhammad is the final prophet. Some adherents believe that the prophet should not be depicted in art.") This is akin to, when explaining the story of Noah's ark, we don't have to say "That dude who the Jews call God flooded the earth." It's an in-continuity reference. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the current guidance is too rigid and doesn't reflect real world RS usage. But, we wouldn't want someone demanding that Alexander always repetitively be "the Great" in every mention, based on the MOS and RS. Ultimately, I see this as literally a stylistic question (i.e. good writing style) rather than a NPOV or RS issue. I'd prefer it to keep "Muhammad" as the primary/default position in any given article but allow "prophet Muhammad" as an alternate where local consensus identifies specific instances in an article where it would be beneficial eg ambiguity or other context. Not keen on just "the prophet". That does seem to me to push the envelope of an encyclopedic neutral tone, as well as being a potential ambuiguity issue. DeCausa (talk) 19:08, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Disagree with a major premise though accepting of some of what came after it. Regarding "If a name is widely used in reliable sources ...": When sources refer to Muhammad as the Prophet, they aren't doing that because they consider that his name. It isn't like writing "Bill Clinton" for William Jefferson Clinton.

If other sources are doing it out of reverence, well, we're not doing that here. If it's because they're following a style guide that says to do that, well, we have our own style guide that says not to. Of course, disambiguation in context is fine, just as in articles where we normally refer to the subject by family name, we will still switch to the first name in passages where other members of the subject's family having the same family name are being discussed. But, even then, lower-case "prophet", as in the proposal. Largoplazo (talk) 19:28, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

DeCausa and Largoplazo, thanks for your feedback! I think it's safe to say that publishers like Brill [25][26], Cambridge University Press [[27]][28], or scholars like Hoyland [29] are not doing this out of reverence. If they do it because of their style guides, a strong reason would be required for us to do things differently, not to do them similarly. The NPOV principle of neutrally following RS of course primarily applies to the POVs expressed in RS, but also to many other things. Some of these things are explicitly mentioned in WP:NPOV (e.g. names commonly used by RS, as in my quotation from WP:POVNAME above), while others are not explicitly mentioned (e.g. epithets commonly used by RS, "the prophet" indeed not a being a proper name, though like all common epithets it is functionally equivalent to a proper name). Still, in most cases the principle holds. If someone believes the general principle of neutrally following RS does not hold in this case, I think they ought to explain why.

Obviously, someone insisting that we use "the prophet Muhammad" throughout an article could and should be opposed on purely stylistic grounds. The fact that it would theoretically be allowed by MOS:ISLAMHON does not mean that MOS:ISLAMHON would prescribe it. This is not what MOS:ISLAMHON is for. In the main, MOS:ISLAMHON is an interpretation of NPOV as applied to Islamic terminology: it determines which terminology is generally regarded as non-neutral and which is regarded as neutral. Editors should be looking at RS to determine this. Using "the prophet" may seem non-neutral, perhaps even more so than "the prophet Muhammad" (it shouldn't normally be ambiguous, by the way, because it's used as a shorthand for "the prophet Muhammad" in second mentions), but this notion should be effectively dispelled by the fact that it is regularly used by RS ([30][31][32][33][34] all use "the prophet" in this way).

In general, I think that rather than starting from the preconceived notions that we as editors may have, or from the norms set by the current guideline (which may both influence and be influenced by these preconceptions), we should start from looking at the usage in RS. There may be reasons for us to deviate from that usage in RS, to be effectively non-neutral as NPOV uses that term, but these reasons should be set out and argued for. Simply stating that doing exactly what RS do is not neutral enough should be a non-starter. At the very least, it should be specified what standard of neutrality apart from NPOV is being used (e.g., Doug seems to be hinting at such a standard below), and why that standard is more important than NPOV.

I'm sorry to be bludgeoning this a bit, but I believe this clarification may be helpful. For those who only partially agree, please consider formulating an alternative text. I'm sure there will be something we can agree on. Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

The strong reason not to follow other style guides is our goal of internal consistency. Other guides may choose, in their writings about different subjects in different contexts, to follow the respective practices of the communities particular to those contexts, without regard to the appearance that that then gives that they treat certain religious figures with a level of honor not accorded to their other religious figures or non-religious figures. If Muslims refer to Muhammad as "The Prophet" while Jews don't refer to Moses as "The Prophet", Wikipedia should not be calling Muhammad "The Prophet" while calling Moses only "Moses", giving the impression that Wikipedia holds Muhammad in higher regard.

I can't think of any secular reason why anybody would find it a problem just to refer to Muhammad as "Muhammad". Largoplazo (talk) 22:49, 21 September 2023 (UTC) Largoplazo (talk) 22:36, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we have a general goal of internal consistency, assuming that means consistency across articles. We want things done correctly in all articles, but if there are several correct options, we don't demand that all articles use the same one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• Agree - I think the best approach here is to avoid using it most of the time but not have a rigid exclusion of the phrase as non-neutral. In this context it is like saying "the founder of Islam" for disambiguation, and any halfway intelligent reader will not read it as an endorsement of a religious claim. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 19:36, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
• Although I understand the argument above, how is this issue different in principle to calling Jesus either Christ or Jesus Christ? Both affirm his deity, while just Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth does not, per MOS:JESUS. Using “Prophet” acknowledges that he was indeed a prophet. Doug Weller talk 20:48, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

  Hi Doug, I'm not sure whether it actually is different in principle, I even suspect that it is not, but it is different with respect to usage in RS (I suppose RS do not normally refer to Jesus as "Jesus Christ" or "Christ"?). Now RS do have good reasons for this common usage, which are specific to Muhammad and would not translate to the case of Jesus, mainly revolving as they do around disambiguation and style (as I've tried to explain above). It may be true that RS on Islam consider the principle of not appearing to acknowledge prophethood/divinity less important than clarity and unencumbered style. Doubtlessly RS are also adopting each other's usage, and referring to Muhammad as "the prophet" may simply be something of a scholarly tradition.

  As also pointed out by Iskandar323 above though, insisting on using only "Muhammad" really does lead to clunky prose, so the question is rather why Islamicists did not develop a more secular-sounding alternative (there is no equivalent to "Jesus of Nazareth" for Muhammad, but they could have used Muhammad ibn Abd Allah). The question for us, on the other hand, is whether to follow RS, or to continue using our Wikipedia-only and rather clunky alternative of using only "Muhammad". Good reasons to go against RS are needed. Do you think that a principle of using secular-sounding terminology across the board would provide such a reason? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29 Yes, definitely, no exceptions. We are definitely a secular encylopedia. Doug Weller talk 07:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed that we are definitely a secular encyclopedia. The principle of using secular-sounding terminology despite contrary usage in RS might need some elaboration though. I don't think there's a policy or guideline about that yet, and it would be most helpful to have one. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 08:40, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• A reasonable solution to solve the commonplace ambiguity issue. Support. Albertatiran (talk) 22:51, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary. If the writing becomes clunky, or in those instances were Muhammad is ambiguous, then just use Islamic prophet Muhammad or Muhammad, the prophet of Islam to clarify. Wikipedia has its own (manual of) style, so the sources or other style guides using 'prophet Muhammad' aren't really that relevant here. This seems more like a style issue rather than a WP:NPOV issue; but if it were a NPOV issue, then using 'prophet Muhammad' violates NPOV (see MOS:JESUS, for example, as linked by another editor above: Many articles refer to Jesus Christ; the word "Christ" is a formal title, used by those people who believe that Jesus is the son of God and the messiah. This usage violates Wikipedia policy, and it never hurts to remind editors to refer to him as "Jesus of Nazareth" or simply "Jesus." Some1 (talk) 23:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

  Were there so many Jesuses around in either Jesus' time, or subsequently in Christian historiography, that ambiguity regularly crops up? I suspect the problem is somewhat diminished in this case, and the case for options less wanting. "Christ" is also far more of a proper name and a title than "prophet", which is a far more generic designation. There are hundreds of religious figures named prophets in history; only a handful of messiahs. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  I think a lot of us would object to "Christ" ('The Anointed One') as another non-neutral honorific.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:57, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think I suggested otherwise. My point was that "upper-case "Christ" (a proper name) and lower-case "prophet" are not terms on the same level or especially comparable. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:10, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  The upper-case "Christ" is not a proper name... Its not the dude's last name. Have you perhaps been misled by the expression Jesus H. Christ and associated? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Dictionaries often treat it as a proper noun, e.g. Collins, or note that it can be used as a name. It's a hybrid title/name. You wouldn't use "christ" lower case. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:43, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

• "Reliable sources (RS) very commonly use ... 'the Prophet' to refer to Muhammad" simply isn't true of sources that aren't Muslim ones (i.e., sources independent of the subject). We have MOS:DOCTCAPS and related rules for a reason. It is arguably reasonble to, in particular contexts, refer to "the prophet Muhammad", when there's some need to make it clear that we're talking about someone filling a prophet role, but we should never do this in an honorific fashion because doing so by definition is not WP:NPOV. I'm not opposed to adding some clarifying wording about this, but it has to be consistent with DOCTCAPS and the rest of MoS, and the NPOV basis for those rules in the first place. I'm not sure either sets of proposed wording above are really doing the trick, but am open to additional wordsmithing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:40, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe somethign like: Muhammad: Do not use an honorific "the Prophet" or "[the] Holy Prophet" (whether capitalized like this or not) in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad". Simply use "Muhammad". In a context where explanatory wording is necessary, he can be referred to, at first occurrence, as "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" or simply "the prophet Muhammad" if the Islamic context is already clear. Similarly, do not apply honorifics to names of imams, Jesus (Isa is Islam), or other figures.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:46, 22 September 2023 (UTC); revised based on feedback below. 07:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  "In the above, as I've mentioned above, I'm not sure why it should be stylistically mandated that "Islamic" be used before "prophet Muhammad"; this would likely introduce a lot of needles redundancy on pages about obviously Islamic subjects, and, as a parallel, imagine how clunky it would be to always have to use "Hebrew/Israelite prophet" when introducing the likes of Jeremiah or Isaiah in prose. Again, context provides. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:05, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Sure; revised.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Sounds like the problem is that we DON'T use "Hebrew/Israelite prophet" and other such constructions. We should. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:04, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Apaugasma has provided numerous RS above to support his point, so the first point here seems like quite a hollow rebuttal here. On the contrary, it is incredibly easy to find RS with a far more liberal stylistic approach than is used here. Britannica likewise has no qualms about alternating between terms in its prose, and this is hardly surprising, as this is very much how the literature proceeds, so it is very much WP:NPOV. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  You can keep asserting circularly that it "is very much WP:NPOV", but you're not getting much agreement. And Britannica's house style is not our house style, or we would not have an MoS, we would just refer to theirs. We don't care what some other publication chooses to do, because their policies are not our policies. WP takes neutrality more seriously than other encyclopedias. And the fact that a few examples or poor writing can be found "in the wild" (cf. WP:CHERRYPICKING) doesn't make it a norm in offsite, non-Muslim writing (nor, for that matter, is it likely to be provable that the writers in question are/were not Muslims choosing to use the honorific for faith-based reasons).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:40, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, you're simply dead wrong about this. Please see my comment below. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:26, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yet another circular assertion. Just repeating youself and recycling the same evidence we've already seen is the fallacy of proof by assertion AKA argument from repetition. The same argument and evidence has not been convincing to other editors so far, so just regurgitating it isn't going to change any minds.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:20, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  It's true that if one amount of evidence ("a few examples or poor writing") doesn't matter, perhaps no amount will, though your wording suggested to me that you would have liked more and better evidence. Meanwhile, if you are going to stick to your position (i.e., that using "the prophet Muhammad" is not the norm in offsite, non-Muslim writing) in the face of any and all evidence against it, while coming up with no evidence in favor of it, that position seems to be rather baseless. Please consider trying to prove your assertion by citing offsite, non-Muslim writing which does not use "the prophet Muhammad". If it's not the norm, it should be easy to find, and I'm really, genuinely curious about what you could come up with. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

• The sources I cited above are a purely random selection of authoritative sources (Brill, Cambridge University Press, Encyclopaedia of Islam), and the fact of the matter is that all high-quality reliable sources regularly refer to Muhammad as "the prophet Muhammad" or "the prophet", as well as simply "Muhammad". The only problem here is that Wikipedia editors are not willing to look at what reliable sources are doing. The notion that this kind of usage is only found in religious Islamic sources is simply an inaccurate preconception.
  I would like to challenge editors here: please cite a high-quality source that does not speak about Muhammad as "the prophet Muhammad", or as "the prophet" as a variation for simply "Muhammad". Let's first establish what actually is NPOV here, because there are far too many editors here who think they know what it is without ever looking at one reliable source.
  Here's another boatload of reliable sources to look at for anyone who is willing: [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Yes, these (as [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] already cited above) were 'selected' in the sense that when looking for sources, I only included academic reliable sources and excluded the many non-independent religious sources which also share this usage. I'm aware of the limitations of this evidence: it shows beyond any shadow of doubt that high-quality RS routinely use "the prophet Muhammad" and "the prophet", but it does not show that the RS which are doing this constitute a majority. That's why I would like editors to come up with RS that avoid using "the prophet Muhammad" and "the prophet". ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:39, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

See above where I explain why it's irrelevant, for multiple reasons, what style other publications choose to use. They have their considerations and we have ours. It doesn't matter if you find 5,000 sources that never, ever, ever, simply refer to him as "Muhammad", but, instead, always as "The Prophet" or "the Prophet Muhammad" or "Muhammad PBUH" (because we also had that discussion here), because, whether they do so out of devotion, or because they give priority to repeating what they see in their sources over neutrality across their own writings, our considerations are ours, and we need take only those into account. Largoplazo (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

If you think NPOV has nothing to do with this and should be disregarded, that's fine. The challenge here is to establish what NPOV is (assuming it's understood that Wikipedia's 'neutral' means 'not different from what is found in RS'), for those who do think it's relevant. Perhaps you might want to establish (in a separate comment) what Wikipedia policy our considerations here are based on if not NPOV. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I said nothing that remotely resembles not considering NPOV important. Well, maybe I did. It depends on whether you're playing fast and loose with the Wikipedia meaning of NPOV. My strongly rejecting treatment here of Muhammad as meriting special nomenclature accorded to nobody else mentioned in this entire encyclopedia, regardless of what any other source does, is very much neutral. NPOV here generally refers to neutrality in the gathering of facts from sources and according them due weight. We aren't talking about facts here, we're talking about writing style. When 5,000 sources refer to Muhammad as "the Prophet", that isn't a statement of fact, it's a style. A non-neutral style that we should not be adopting.

As I asked above, does it bother you not to have "the Prophet" all over the place whenever Muhammad's name is mentioned? Regardless of what justifications you give as to why "The Prophet" should be OK to use here, can you come up with a single neutral, secular reason why it's a problem not to, why it isn't OK just to write "Muhammad"? If not, then the clear answer is to stick with what nobody has a problem with (other than for personal devotional reasons) instead of switching to something that many people have a problem with.

It's no different from the fact that we write "God" here and never "G-d", even in articles that are steeped in Orthodox Judaism that cite numerous resources that use "G-d". Largoplazo (talk) 21:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

What is "special nomenclature", what is "neutral"? The criteria you seem to be using to answer these questions (loosely, 'we treat all historical religious figures equally, regardless of what reliable sources are doing') appear to have no basis in policy at all, or at the very least have nothing to do with anything said in WP:NPOV. That's why I said you may be of the opinion that NPOV is irrelevant for this particular decision, even though it is clearly not just about style, but rather about a certain conception of neutrality that is not covered by NPOV.

I think SMcCandlish has it right when they say below that the current guideline is based on a consensus process: if a majority of editors agree with a certain set of criteria (like the ones you seem to be using), then our decision will be based upon that, even if these criteria have no basis at all in policy, even if they tend to go against it (the 'regardless of RS' bit). I think it would help enormously if editors would acknowledge that in some decisions they disregard NPOV, and if they would write a new neutrality policy which takes account of some of these common exceptions to NPOV, where we are striving to be neutral in another sense than the one indicated by NPOV.

As for your inquiry above about whether I regard it as a problem to only use "Muhammad", I initially did not respond because I'm probably already writing too much here. The answer is that while there's no problem at all with using simply "Muhammad", and while my proposal leaves that open as a perfectly acceptable option, it's often far from ideal because of the ambiguity and style-related reasons I explained above, and so disallowing the alternatives routinely used by RS does tend to create some problems. The night-and-day difference with expressions like PBUH and G-d is that those are either never or almost never used by RS, and so it would constitute a major breach of NPOV to use them. I'm afraid that the Orthodox Judaism articles you are thinking of are simply not citing reliable, academic, secondary, scholarly sources. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as WP:CREEP. The original wording "recommends", clearly allowing for exceptions for clarity, which seems to be what this proposal is asking for anyway. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  As it often goes with these things, "recommended action" is de facto taken to mean "policy says" in actual editing (just one recent example [53][54][55][56]). That's why my proposal is explicitly allowing more than the current text does, in line with RS. It is relaxing a rule that was invented by Wikipedia editors and which has no basis at all in RS, which is the very opposite of WP:CREEP. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  In that example, the removal of "the prophet" by UrielAcosta is an improvement. I don't see why the sentence They were named ghulāt by other Shi'i and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly exaggerated veneration of Muhammad... needs the prophet before Muhammed; Muhammad is already wiki-linked and the usage is not ambiguous. Largoplazo's question can you come up with a single neutral, secular reason why it's a problem not to, why it isn't OK just to write "Muhammad"? is a good one. Some1 (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  I answered Largoplazo's question above (my last reply to date under my own 'challenge' comment). Briefly, because it sometimes creates ambiguity- and style-related issues, as I've tried to explain in my earliest comments. But my reply here with regard to the removal of "the prophet" by UrielAcosta in the Ghulat article will also provide a fine of example of why using just "Muhammad" is sometimes suboptimal.

  The first, somewhat trivial reason why adding "the prophet" is better here is that it may not be immediately clear to everyone which Muhammad is meant, or who this Muhammad is supposed to be. It may be hard to imagine this when you already know, but not all readers have the same background knowledge, and such basic clarity is essential in an encyclopedia. Readers are not supposed to have to click on wiki-links to confirm something basic like this: at first mention (and it is indeed a first mention in this case), it should almost always be specified that we are talking about the prophet Muhammad.

  A second, perhaps more substantial reason here is as follows. The fact that the ghulat venerated the prophet is of some significance here, because venerating anything or anyone but God is considered shirk by most Muslims (shirk in turn is considered the single greatest sin in Islam): this dynamic largely defines what the ghulat are. It's also why in the same sentence you quote we are specifying that Ali and his descendants (whom the ghulat also venerated) were the Shi'i Imams, which is another fact many readers will already know about but is still highly relevant to mention. What sets the ghulat apart from other Shi'is is that they tended to divinize the prophet and the Imams.

  No wonder then that the source used here has According to ʿAbd-Allāh b. Ḥarb’s doctrine, the prophet Moḥammad as well as ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb and his descendants, the Imams, were gods (āleha). Now what was the reason not to use the word "prophet" here? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:06, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  That's all easily solved by just adding the word Islamic in front of the word "prophet", which MOS:MUHAMMAD already currently advises doing: recommended action is to simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad" except when it is the first reference in an article, or the first reference in the lead, in which case it may be rendered as "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" if necessary. (emphasis mine). Some1 (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, except that "Islamic" would be redundant here (as it often is, as others in this discussion have also remarked). Rather than appealing to the letter of the guideline and adding something suboptimal I opened up a talk page discussion, with much of the substantial reasoning given above. Still, UrielAcosta could still appeal to the letter of the guideline (as they appeared to do in their revert) and insist that whatever the source says, it is not allowed per MOS:PBUH. I would really prefer not to have to go through such hassles at all (this is not the first time!), and I also believe it would be highly perplexing and frustrating to other actual academics specializing in Islam who would try to write something here. That's why I came here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:43, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  It might be "redundant", but as you stated before: "not all readers have the same background knowledge, and such basic clarity is essential in an encyclopedia". Some1 (talk) 01:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  But in the same sentence as Sunnis and Shias are mentioned? And where the subject has already been defined as being about Muslims? That seems wholly redundant. And why actively require this? It's clunky and an actually much better example of WP:CREEP, i.e. having a style guide dictating what editors could better steer by themselves. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  If readers know about Sunnis and Shias (and that the "subject has already been defined as being about Muslims") then I'm sure they know about Muhammad (I'm sure more readers know about Muhammad than the two denominations of Islam), so adding the two words the prophet before Muhammad (when Muhammad is already wiki-linked) isn't providing any additional "clarity". On the other hand, if readers don't know much about Sunnis and Shias/the ghulat/everything Apaugasma wrote in the third paragraph as the second reason for adding 'the prophet' above, then adding Islamic prophet Muhammad is going to help readers. 'Clunky' or 'redundant' are subjective. Some1 (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  Well I wouldn't mind at all to have a discussion about that in any specific article under the circumstances where –as in what I am aiming for– MOS:MUHAMMAD wouldn't be constraining us to do anything in any way. The problem at hand is that it currently leaves only two options open ("Muhammad" or "the Islamic prophet Muhammad") where there is at least one other, extremely often used option ("the prophet Muhammad") that is for some reason verboten.

  I think this discussion nicely illustrates why my efforts here are very much meant to go against WP:CREEP. Ask yourself: would you or UrielAcosta have come to the Ghulat article to change "the prophet Muhammad" to "Muhammad" or "the Islamic prophet Muhammad", if it weren't for MOS:MUHAMMAD instructing editors what is allowed recommended and what is not? See Special:Contributions/UrielAcosta: 'fixing' stuff per MOS:MUHAMMAD (aka MOS:PBUH) is one of their main activities. I don't blame them, mind you; I blame the guideline. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:01, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  "recommended action" is de facto taken to mean "policy says" in actual editing (just one recent example) No Apaugasma, that is where "recommended action" is de facto taken to mean "recommended action"; UrielAcosta explicitly and correctly allows for clear common-sense exceptions, but this is not one of them. There is no increased clarity in adding "the prophet". And no, a proposal prescribing permitted use (using an imperative, no less!) is most certainly not relaxing a recommendation you believe to be taken as policy. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  As I've explained just above in my replies to Some1, there is increased clarity, and it's highly relevant here in context (which perhaps requires some subject expertise, but read my explanation above). The very source cited uses it (I quoted it above). Yet you yourself now seem to argue that "recommended action" means this simply must be done in this case, no discussion warranted or needed? If the common-sense of editors who know nothing about the subject does not immediately see why it should be there, it must automatically be removed?

  Well, in my experience, that's much too strict, there's no policy-based rationale (outside MOS:MUHAMMAD itself) for it in the first place, and it leads to countless removals (even re-reverts, such as here) where it is actually very much appropriate to use it. Nota bene for something the whole aggregate of RS are doing as a matter of routine (I'm going to post another survey of randomly selected top scholars each last one of them routinely using "the Prophet" as a general reference to Muhammad below).

  My proposal is meant to be more relaxed than the current text, in the sense that it is aiming to allow more and to disallow less (I think it does), but it seems that's not what you would prefer? If you're for relaxing the rule, please formulate a text of your own, that would be highly helpful! If you're against relaxing the rule, WP:CREEP is simply not the right argument. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:45, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

• What is a Not Reliable Source? It's simple. Whenever a source writes "Joseon Dynasty" instead of Joseon Kingdom, or simply Joseon, that source is a Not Reliable Source. All these respectable scholars are most than often rückgratlos, as described in the famous slip of tongue quoted by Sigmund Freud. The historical Muhammad was a remarkable organizer and head of State. No less, no more. Our ways of speaking about him must reflect this fact. Pldx1 (talk) 21:19, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  Well, it might be more precise to say that sources that happen to use some wording we might consider sort of aggrandizing are not necessarily "unreliable"; they might actually be very well-researched and respected when it comes to factual matters. They're simply not reliable for how Wikipedia should write encyclopedic prose for our particular audience. The sort of argument above that because some sources (even a whole bunch of them) "popularly" like to use certain wording means magically that Wikipedia "must" also use that wording is completely bogus reasoning, known as the common-style fallacy. No external sources dictate how Wikipedia has to write. Only we determine that, through a consensus process that takes such sources into consideration but is not controlled by them like a puppet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:28, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Pldx1: are you saying that sources which use "the prophet Muhammad" are Not Reliable Source? That would clash kind of unfortunately with the fact that nearly all sources which WP:RS currently regards as reliable sources (independent, secondary, scholarly sources) do use "the prophet Muhammad". It would mean that the great majority of sources listed at Mu'awiya I#Bibliography would be Not Reliable Source, and that both that article and all other FA's we have on Islamic topics would need to be demoted and stripped, because they are largely based on Not Reliable Sources.

  Rather, an approach like the one suggested by SMcCandlish and some others above would seem to be in order: these sources are reliable, but we are choosing of our own accord to not do what they do. In some decisions, we entirely disregard NPOV and base our guidelines instead on editorial consensus. I think that last sentence at least reflects what often happens on Wikipedia, though I would like it so much better (even though I'd still disagree with it) if it were also openly acknowledged. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

• MOS:GOD says we use capital letters: the Prophet. While we use a capital G for the Christian deity, we should also use a capital P for Mohammed's title. Switching to a small P for Mohammed should also trigger a switch to a small G for Yahweh.—S Marshall T/C 22:57, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

  what it actually says for anyone wondering is "The same is true when referring to important religious figures, such as Muhammad, by terms such as the Prophet". It actually doesnt say its imperative or acceptable to call him simply "the Prophet", just that when one does, one should capitalize it. It also seems to be referring specifically to the use of "the Prophet" to refer to him without using his name, not that when he is called "the prophet Muhammad". JM2023 (talk) 00:14, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  I did a quick search on "the prophet", and I find that a number of articles about non-Islamic prophets use "the prophet <Name>" as an identifier. I see a few that says "the Prophet Elijah", but most use lowercase, the same way that you would write "the artist <Name>" or "the farmer <Name>". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing Thanks. That's what I would hope to see. Doug Weller talk 07:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support allowing more flexibility. Wehther this specific proposal is the best way to achieve that I don't know, but it's clear from reading the discussion here that the present wording is overly rigid and contrary to good writing style. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
• Partial support. I can appreciate the concerns about neutrality that have been expressed, and I agree that it's best to simply use "Muhammad" in contexts where that unambiguously identifies the prophet – however, in my experience, "the prophet Muhammad" is far-and-away the most common way of disambiguating him from other people by that name. That usage is also widespread in high-quality sources, as has been shown at various points in this discussion. Thus, while the term "the prophet Muhammad" should only be used judiciously, I think it has a clear and worthwhile use case on Wikipedia. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:05, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose refering to muhammed as "the prophet" clearly makes a wikivoice implication of his religious beliefs being accurate. I also want to Comment that RS should not matter in MOS discussion, how we style our articles should solely be up to us, how outside sources style should not be treated as anything other than a visual reference to point at. Googleguy007 (talk) 15:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support flexibility per Thryduulf. We're way past the level of detail necessary for a decent style guide. If I want to refer to the prophet in my prose, and it's obvious who I am referring to; then there shouldn't be anything that prevents me from doing that. If we applied the same logic to Queen Elizabeth II, then I wouldn't be able to refer to her as "the queen" because it implies there is some merit to the beliefs of the Church of England. The Jacobites would probably object to that! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  Not a proper analogy at all, since QEII would still have been queen even if she (or a predecessor) had disbanded the CoE. The title has nothing to do with religious beliefs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  If you don't like that logic, then I'll raise you the fact we openly refer to beings like Jupiter as gods with absolutely no issue. I see zero reason why we aren't allowed to refer to subjects beings as "prophets" when, somehow, the word "god" isn't sacrosanct. It's a standard only applied to Islam, and the best thing we can do is loosen the restrictions to allow for better article prose. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:27, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  Roman gods are probably best identified as Roman gods and not just as gods, but the situation is absolutely not analogous. The woodshop of Roman gods died out ~1500 years ago, whereas ~1/4 of the people alive today are Muslims. So calling Muhammad a prophet is privileging members of one religion over all others in a way that calling Jupiter a god does not. UrielAcosta (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  @UrielAcosta: There are people who worship Roman gods today.

  I also don't see how calling Muhammad a prophet privileges Muslims. If we call someone a Saint, it doesn't privilege Catholics over Orthodox Christians (for example). It's just the term used in that religion, and it wouldn't make sense to call them something else. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:57, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  He's not my prophet. He's not billions of other people's prophet. He is ONLY a prophet in Islam (& perhaps offshoots thereof), so calling him a prophet on Wikipedia privileges Muslims over non-Muslims just as calling Jesus a god would privilege Christians over non-Christians.

  UrielAcosta (talk) 22:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yet, it's okay to call Jupiter a god despite the fact he is also worshipped in an active religion (a point which you seemingly ignored)...

  Also, it's interesting you say calling Jesus a god would privilege Christians over non-Christians. I don't know if you noticed, but that's not against the Manual of Style. In fact, it's pretty common to refer to Jesus as "Jesus Christ", and I have some news for you about what Christ means.. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, that should say "worship" & not "woodshop" UrielAcosta (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  It's generally customary to just fix your typos rather than draw attention to them. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  I would imagine that in Wikipedia we are only speaking of Jupiter in the context of discussing a belief; there is no historic Jupiter whose actions we are describing. This is in contrast to Muhammed, who is a genuine historic figure, reasonably documented. There are times when we are speaking of Islamic belief, in which context referring to him as "the prophet" may be appropriate, but if we're talking about his actual actions in a way where we are discussing history, that's where the POV problem arises. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 12:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support relaxation of any rule that prohibits the use of "the prophet...", as I can see that sometimes flexibility and/or disambiguation could clarify prose and/or present a better reading experience. It's a case-by-case thing, reliable sources vary flexibly, and we don't need to enforce a rigid rule here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support per the usage in RSes and to allow for more flexible text. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Evidence of usage in RS

From the discussion above I've gathered that not everyone believes that the common usage in reliable sources (RS) is relevant here. However, since the question of allowing "the prophet Muhammad"/"the prophet" in wiki-voice is undeniably a neutrality issue, and since I suspect that most editors share my believe that neutrality on Wikipedia is determined by what RS are saying and doing, I think this discussion warrants a subsection focused on evidence of such RS. Those who do not believe it to be relevant can ignore it, and should perhaps consider opening another subsection focused on determining a different basis for what MOS:MUHAMMAD should say, or what standard of neutrality it should be based on. Those who do believe RS to be relevant to the discussion are highly encouraged to gather evidence. (please, please, please help me out here)

In particular, I would like to dispel the notion that "the prophet Muhammad"/"the prophet" is only used by religious Islamic sources to refer to Muhammad, and establish that it is routinely used in this way by RS. I would also like to review RS about Islamic topics that are not using "the prophet Muhammad"/"the prophet", if such can be found.

I will start, for the sake of completeness and for easy reference, with repeating the links to RS I've already given above showing this usage. I found those by searching Google Scholar and Encyclopaedia of Islam for 'prophet Muhammad'. [57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74]

Since there have been concerns about possible cherry-picking (using online search functions, it's hard to find out how RS are referring to Muhammad without looking for 'prophet Muhammad', because that seems to be the only way to find RS that are actually dealing with, well, the prophet Muhammad, as opposed to some other prophet or some other Muhammad?), I decided to take another approach and look at those monographs written by the crème de la crème of historians of Islam which I happen to own, and see what they are doing:

List of sources with limited quotes

Cook, Michael (2014). Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective. Princeton University Press. P. 13 "Thus the tenth-­century philosopher Abū ʾl-­Ḥasan al-­ʿĀmirī, in a work in praise of Islam, emphasized that thanks to their ethnic tie (al-­nisba al-­jinsiyya) to the Prophet even those Arabs—­the majority of them—­who had remained in their homeland at the time of the conquests had been honored by the fact that Islam could be called “the religion of the Arabs” (dīn al-­ʿArab) and the resulting state their kingdom (mulk al-­ʿArab)." p. 94 "The text to which the article is devoted is a seventeenth-­century Tamil life of the Prophet Muḥammad whose title combines two literary terms, the Muslim sīra and the Hindu purāṇa." Crone, Patricia (1980). Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge University Press. P. 4: "The work is late: written not by a grandchild, but a great-grandchild of the Prophet's generation, it gives us the view for which classical Islam had settled." Donner, Fred (2010). Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. Harvard University Press. P. xi: "The notions that the prophet Muhammad (died 632 C.E.) and his followers were motivated mainly by factors other than religion, and that the Umayyad family, which ruled from 661 to 750, were fundamentally hostile to the essence of Muhammad's movement, is even today widespread in Western scholarship." P. 41 "Others included 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, a very wealthy member of the powerful clan of Umayya, whose generosity was often put at the prophet's service and who married the prophet’s daughters Ruqayya and (after the former's death) Umm Kulthum; [...]" Hoyland, Robert G. (2015). In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. Oxford University Press. P. 1 "But when one turns to Muslim accounts to read about the post-630 world, then it appears that the prophet Muhammad’s preaching was carried at breakneck speed from its birthplace in west Arabia across the whole Middle East by Arab soldiers [...]" p. 45 "Both were from the prophet’s tribe of Quraysh, but whereas the former was from a clan that long opposed Muhammad, Abu ‘Ubayda had been a close companion of the prophet from the very start of his mission." Kennedy, Hugh N. (2016). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (3rd ed.). Routledge. P. xiii "This work is intended as an introduction to the history of the Near East in the early Islamic period, from the time of the Prophet to the vast upheaval caused by the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the mid-fifth to eleventh centuries." P. 19 "However, it was neither a nomad community nor an agricultural community which produced the Prophet Muhammad." Lewis, Bernard (1993). The Arabs in History. Oxford University Press. P. 31 "It was in this milieu that Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was born." P. 32 "When the problems of governing a vast empire brought the Arabs face to face with all kinds of difficulties which had never arisen during the lifetime of the Prophet, the principle was established that not only the Qur'́ān itself, the word of God, was authoritative as a guide to conduct, but also the entire practice and utterances of the Prophet throughout his lifetime." Madelung, Wilferd (1997). The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge University Press. P. 1 "No event in history has divided Islam more profoundly and durably than the succession to Muhammad. The right to occupy the Prophet's place at the head of the Muslim community after his death became a question of great religious weight which has separated Sunnites and Shi'ites until the present." P. i (abstract) "In a comprehensive and original study of the early history of Islam, Wilferd Madelung describes the conflict that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, between his family, Hashim, and his tribe, Quraysh, for the leadership of the Muslim community." Stroumsa, Sarah (1999). Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rāwandī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought. Brill. P. 8 "Rather, it was the very message of Islam, its very foundations -The Qur'an and the Prophet- which they rejected." P. 14 "We would also have to take into account cases like the mu'tazilite leader Thumama b. al-Asras, to whom Baghdadi attributed deprecating remarks about the Prophet." P. 41 "Much in our sources points to some Shi'i sympathies, at least in some part of al-Warraq's life; and yet he is said not only to have spoken derisively of the Prophet Muhammad, but also to have expressed particular animosity to 'Ali because of the blood he had spilled."

Not unexpectedly from my perspective, most of them used the expression "the prophet Muhammad" (Donner 2010, Hoyland 2015) or "the Prophet Muhammad" (Cook 2014, Kennedy 2016, Madelung 1997, Stroumsa 1999), and all of them routinely used "the prophet" (Donner 2010, Hoyland 2015) or "the Prophet" (Cook 2014, Crone 1980, Kennedy 2016, Lewis 1993, Madelung 1997, Stroumsa 1999) to refer to Muhammad. What was perhaps somewhat less expected was that for both expressions, the capitalized version occurred more often, and that use of simply "the Prophet"/"the prophet" was even more widespread than "the Prophet Muhammad", with all surveyed sources using it.

Please keep in mind that these are absolutely top scholars, publishing with top publishing houses (they all have wiki articles which can be checked for that). Despite the fact that I found no RS not using "the prophet Muhammad"/"the prophet", I would still be highly interested to review such sources if other editors can find them. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Can you explain why you see using "the Islamic prophet Muhammed" over "the prophet Muhammed"/"the prophet" as an NPOV issue? I can envisage arguments for it being an NPOV issue in the opposite direction, but in this direction it seems analogues to using "boot" instead of "trunk". BilledMammal (talk) 04:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi BilledMammal! The neutrality issue is whether to use the word "prophet" at all before Muhammad's name, and whether to use "the prophet" as a bare reference to him. I'm trying to dispel the wiki-myth that these usages are religious in nature and therefore 'non-neutral'. At the very least I want to show that the simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad" is using the term "NPOV" improperly, since NPOV is about being neutral towards RS, and RS all (without exception, it seems) use "the prophet Muhammad", "the prophet", or (most often) both. Whether to use "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" instead of these is a purely stylistic issue. I guess that my first proposal did not make that entirely clear, which is why I would like to workshop a new proposal in the subsection below. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:01, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

To generalize this a little, I disagree that when it comes to nomenclature we can copy the most common terminology in reliable sources and always get an NPOV-compliant name. For example, consider Ivan the Terrible. Reliable sources consistently use that name for him - but reliable sources also agree that this name is not neutral, and that due to the changing definition of the word "terrible" it no longer reflects how he was perceived at the time or his behavior as a leader.

When it comes to what to call someone, reliable sources have concerns beyond neutrality, such as recognizably and conciseness. We shouldn't feel obligated to copy them, and copying them doesn't mean that there isn't an NPOV issue. BilledMammal (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

While this may be true for Ivan the Terrible or the ghulat, in the case of the term "Prophet" the RS quoted above would not be using it in the way they do if they would believe it to be non-neutral. There is absolutely no indication that they do in fact believe this. Most strikingly, editors here do not seem to be wanting to actually look at RS to evaluate what they believe, to cite evidence from RS, preferring instead to stick to their assumption that "Prophet" is indeed non-neutral. There has been absolutely no attempt to ground this in RS, apparently because it is not merely an assumption, but a conviction.

Now editorial conviction can and sometimes does trump RS, but it would be enormously helpful to (please!) drop the pretense that doing the exact opposite of what all RS are doing should somehow be NPOV. I'm begging you all, please enter the discussion of how RS are actually using the term "Prophet" in relation to Muhammad, or admit that RS are irrelevant and that we are basing this on our own norms and values as Wikipedia editors (which would benefit from being discussed in a separate subsection). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:09, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, this is based on reliable sources. It's been many years since I've read into this, but the notion that referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" is one of religious affirmation is one that I have seen discussed in reliable sources. I'll try to find and access the works, but it will take some time and I am a little short on that at the moment. BilledMammal (talk) 22:25, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

O wow thanks, it would be very interesting to take a look at such sources! It would also be interesting to see how we can square what they are saying with the fact that all the RS I cited and quoted above are routinely referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet". Would the sources you are thinking of perhaps be of the opinion that historians of Islam as a group are advancing an Islamic religious POV? Seems rather like a conspiracy theory to me, but I'm curious! Take all the time you need, I think this discussion will be staying here for a good while. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:50, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

If I remember correctly they don't discuss why other sources might use it; they were older books so they may predate more common usage? In any case, as I said below my guess is that it is used for the same reason that "Ivan the Terrible" is used. BilledMammal (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Workshop proposal

One of the problems above seems to be that I took a badly worded text, and carved an even badlier worded proposal out of that. Please also take into account that English is not my native language; I can use all the help I can get. There have been concerns about WP:CREEP, and indeed I believe that the old text was too complex and too constraining, so it's probably a good idea to workshop a new proposal.

Given the evidence above of common usage in RS I believe the only expression that is actually problematic is "Holy Prophet", and we should mainly have something advising against that. Apart from this, the expression "the prophet" can carry religious overtones if overused or used entirely instead of "Muhammad" or "the prophet Muhammad", so I believe it's prudent to advise editors only to use "the prophet" as a variation on the other two expressions (as it is actually done in RS). This would yield something like:

Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad" — recommended action is to use just "Muhammad", or neutral and lowercase expressions such as "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad". Use of "the prophet" should generally occur as a variation on "Muhammad" or "the prophet Muhammad".

However, given the fact that capitalized "Prophet" was predominant in the RS evidence above, and since MOS:GOD is already advising to use a capital for the standalone expression "the Prophet", we might also consider the following option:

Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad" — recommended action is to use just "Muhammad", or neutral expressions such as "the Prophet" or "the Prophet Muhammad". Use of "the Prophet" should generally occur as a variation on "Muhammad" or "the Prophet Muhammad".

What do you think? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:01, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I would oppose this, largely per my comment above. "the Prophet" has NPOV issues in that it advances the point of view that he was the Prophet; the final one. From an Islamic perspective that is true, but from a secular and neutral perspective he is just a prophet. "the prophet Muhammad" moderates those issues slightly, but even there I believe the status quo is more neutral. BilledMammal (talk) 16:21, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

My reply continues to be that reliable sources are irrelevant because our editorial concerns aren't theirs. If you want to include a proviso only for disambiguation purposes, then it can allow "'the prophet" or 'the prophet Muhammad' in cases comparable to a passage about a piano player Smith and also Smith's same-surnamed spouse that might need to refer to the former as 'the piano player' to avoid ambiguity. And never 'Prophet' with a capital P." Largoplazo (talk) 16:31, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Largoplazo, thanks for clearly stating your belief that RS are irrelevant and that we should follow our own editorial concerns. Would you consider opening a new subsection to elaborate what exactly our editorial concerns are? I do believe this to be an interesting line of inquiry: if not RS, what does determine for us what is neutral, and how can we ground this conception of neutrality in policy? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm inclined to allow Prophet Muhammad on first use and possibly the Prophet on subsequent uses in articles dealing with Islam or the Islamic world where he is not the central focus or where there are multiple people called Muhammad mentioned in the article. It is a bit like using the Buddha instead of Siddhartha Gautama. Or Saint Peter instead of some other phrase if Peter alone would be confusing. Note I would use a capital letter for Prophet as that is a title given by others (not wikipedia) while a lower case letter makes it a descriptive adjective, or noun, so saying he is a prophet. Erp (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello Erp, I'm finding those comparisons helpful. "Prophet Muhammad" should indeed mainly be used on first mention, and "the Prophet" should be used sparingly and only on subsequent uses, but is there any way to integrate that in the guideline text without being overbearing? Perhaps you would like to have a go at it and formulate your own proposal text? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Here is the status quo for reference:

The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet (including with a lowercase 'h') in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; or just Prophet preceding "Muhammad" — recommended action is to simplify and NPOV to just "Muhammad" except when it is the first reference in an article, or the first reference in the lead, in which case it may be rendered as "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" if necessary.

I think the status quo is fine and neutral as is. But if we were to allow the usage of the "[P]rophet Muhammad" outside of the first reference, I'd suggest:

(The) Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad" — recommended action is to use just "Muhammad" except when it is the first reference in an article, or the first reference in the lead, in which case it may be rendered as "the Islamic prophet Muhammad" if necessary. In cases where ambiguity or confusion exists, the "Prophet Muhammad" or "the Prophet" may be used as a variation on "Muhammad".

I agree with Erp regarding the capital P. 'Prophet Muhammad' is more of a name, 'prophet Muhammad' implies that he's actually a prophet. Some1 (talk) 17:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

RS patently do not use "Prophet Muhammad" or "the Prophet" only where ambiguity or confusion exists, but routinely and without discrimination, wherever they believe it's appropriate. I find the notion that we as Wikipedia would have any neutrality concerns different from those that top-quality RS have entirely unconvincing, and I'm appalled by the fact that such a wholly unprecedented concept of neutrality is thrown about in arguments without ever specifying what that neutrality consists of, or how it can be grounded in existing Wikipedia policy.

The concept that referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" would advance the POV that he was the (final) Prophet is an editorial opinion that is absolutely not shared by RS, and that seems to have no further basis either in RS or policy. As such, as much as I appreciate the effort of formulating an alternative proposal (thanks Some1!), any proposal that is grounded in and reinforces that unfounded editorial opinion is somewhat of a non-starter for me personally. I would, however, encourage refining it if need be, so it can perhaps serve as an option in an eventual RfC. Thanks again, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

The neutrality issues are that it serves as a religious affirmation; Muslims believe that Muhammad is the final prophet, and simply referring to him as "the Prophet" is an affirmation of this belief. It is no different to referring to Jesus as "the Messiah".

In general, referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" (or Jesus as "the Messiah") could be seen as Wikipedia taking a religious stance; since there is no harm caused by our current policies I think it is best to avoid this. BilledMammal (talk) 22:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

About the religious affirmation, I gather that this is a prevalent opinion here, but what is it based on? I'm very interested to see the sources about this you promised above! Meanwhile, do you believe that all the RS I cited and quoted in the evidence section are affirming that Muhammad was indeed the final prophet? Remember that they're all referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" all the time. Frankly, in my view such a belief would more or less amount to a conspiracy theory. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:50, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I see it as analogous to the "Ivan the Terrible" situation; reliable sources use the name despite it being POV for reasons unrelated to it being POV. BilledMammal (talk) 22:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

But it's not analogous. There are not millions of people on the earth today for whom Ivan's alleged "Terribleness" is a matter of religious conviction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: okay, I see. I think it will be very interesting to discuss what the reasons for RS' use of it unrelated to it advancing a religious POV are, but it will probably be better to do that once we've read the sources discussing it as advancing a religious POV. Looking forward to that! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:19, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I suspect the reasons include (a) the name being an extremely common given name in Islamic cultures (in contrast to Jesus in most English speaking cultures) so quite a few articles might require disambiguation if just Muhammad is used, (b) "Prophet Muhammad" being unambiguous in whom it is referring to and considerably shorter and clearer than other phrases. I also suspect that some of us here were raised in a religion or culture where 'prophet' is suppose to apply only to Christian or Jewish 'prophets' (ignoring that the Hebrew Bible also refers to prophets of Baal and Asherah, 1 Kings 18). We have no problem with 'the Buddha' (awakened one) since that term is not used in Christianity or Judaism and does not invoke in us a feeling that Wikipedia is claiming Siddhartha Gautama was an awakened one. Or for that matter "the prophet Isaiah" is used fairly frequently in Wikipedia with apparently little complaint (I might be overlooking a style policy but there is nothing in the talk for the article Isaiah). Erp (talk) 04:06, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

WP doesn't have to be particularly concerned with Muhammad being a common name; it is not a common mononym of notable subjects. Using "the Prophet Muhammad" is a very different proposition from using "the prophet Muhammad", as the entire discussion makes very clear; conflating them is just muddying the water further. What the ethmology of a non-English term like Buddha is is irrelevant; it does not signify 'Awakened One' in English, but Prophet certainly signifies things in English, being an English word, and many of them would be non-neutral implications. Thus, again, this discussion. Isaiah: Again there's a big difference between "the prophet Isaiah" and "the Prophet Isaiah".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:55, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I have to staunchly oppose this using of capitalized Prophet – or Holy Prophet or holy prophet or Holy prophet or holy Prophet, ever. We cannot in Wikipedia's own voice declare something or someone "holy". This "workshop" subsection is simply an excuse to ignore all the concerns raised in the main section of this discussion and just re-re-re-present the same proposition which clearly has no consensus. It's fallacy of argument from repetition and proof by assertion. Just saying the same thing over and over again is not going to convince anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:52, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, it appears like you've misread the proposal: it recommends against using "Holy", just like the current text does. Apart from that, rather than proof by assertion I think I've been working hard on proof by evidence: the evidence section above pretty firmly establishes that the norm among top-quality RS is to refer to Muhammad as "the Prophet" or "the Prophet Muhammad". It does seem that a fair number of editors do not consider this fact by itself sufficient to change the guideline, which is fine. Meanwhile, I do think the discussion is advancing. If you have more concerns about that it would perhaps be more fitting at my talk. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:19, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not mis-reading anything: given the fact that capitalized "Prophet" was predominant in the RS evidence above ... we might also consider the following option: Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad" .... As for your supposed "proof by evidence", see the discussion on my talk page. Digging up examples that specifically support your viewpoint, out of literally millions and millions of source references to Muhammad, sure seems like the cherry-picking you say you are not doing, and accuse me of "casting aspertions" for even mentioning that rule by name. See post below about aggregate-level evidence, which is what we actually care about.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

It's trivially easy to demonstrate that just "Muhammad" by itself is overwhelmingly prefererd in source material, even accounting for some subset of these being references to someone else who was named after "the" Muhammad: [75][76][77][78]. But look what happens when you substitute in the kind of wording that would not be used by a neutral writer: [79].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Ngrams aren't terribly reliable for things like this, because phrases that do not contain "prophet" will always cover an enormous amount of instances where ... the prophet is simply not meant. But yes, my experience reading RS on Islam would tend to confirm that for each instance of "the prophet Muhammad" there are often at least five instances of simply "Muhammad", and five instances of simply "the prophet". That's because "the prophet Muhammad" is mostly used at first mention, and subsequent mentions are mainly "Muhammad" or "the prophet". Ngrams counts numerous religious sources which often use the expression "the prophet Muhammad", but if Ngrams were solely based on RS, the instances with simply "Muhammad" would come up in much higher proportions. However, that is all completely meaningless for our purposes. In fact, the Ngrams evidence is absolutely worthless: it doesn't even cover instances of "the prophet", and this isn't about proportional numbers of instances anyway.

Rather, what we need to find out is how many sources use "the prophet" and "the prophet Muhammad" routinely and multiple times, versus how many sources largely or entirely avoid these phrases. I've given a sample of sources routinely using the phrases above. They were selected for being top scholars and for being in my library, which is definitely not cherry-picked. A simple way to refute my evidence would be to look at a sample of similarly high-quality sources, and see whether they are using the phrases or not (I suggest searching pdfs). If just a few editors would make this exercise, we would soon know where we're at. Meanwhile, note that we're having this discussion in the complete absence of even one high-quality source that largely or entirely avoids the phrases. If that's the norm, such a source should be easy to come up with, so why not start with that? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 06:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I suspect you did not actually look at the ngrams at all, and have just blindly assumed they are searches for "Muhammad". They are not. Ngrams on specific phrases like the ones I used, that are almost always, in published books that the ngrams are analyzing, going to pertain in particular to "the" Muhammad, not to your neighbor named Muhammad-something, is actually quite good data.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Additional aggregate data: if we search for "Muhammad" at Google Scholar (excluding journal authors by that name) [80] and wade through page after page of results, ignoring the ones that are obviously false hits, we see over and over again the historical figure being referred to as simply "Muhammad", while "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" is quite rare, sometimes clearly non-neutral writing by actual Muslims, e.g. "... the career of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ...". But in the end maybe none of this matters. External writers do not dictate to us how we have to write at this project. There are obvious neutrality issues with writing "the Prophet Muhammad", no matter how many off-site writers you can find who don't see it or don't care. Our WP:CONSENSUS policy ensures that our own judgement about what is best for this project carries the day, whether it agrees with some off-site publishers' preferences or not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I of course did look at the Ngrams, but they are simply meaningless as evidence for the reasons I've explained. The Google Scholar results are also meaningless for the same reasons. This is not about the proportion of how often simply "Muhammad" is used vs how often "the prophet Muhammad" is used. It's about whether "the prophet Muhammad", as well as "the prophet" without "Muhammad" but still referring to him (which can't even be properly selected from the aggregate data because it requires interpretation of textual content), occurs at all in any given reliable source. There's no way to check this but by actually looking at reliable sources.

This should be easy for you though. My claim is that something (top quality RS on Islam use "the prophet"/"the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad as a variant for simply "Muhammad") happens almost universally. To disprove the claim, all you need to do is to find a significant amount of counter examples. I'm challenging you to find just one (I suggest looking at sources used in FA-Class Islam-related articles). If you're not willing to do that, that's fine, but please stop coming up with bogus evidence. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 08:40, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

You haven't "explained" anything, you've simply engaged in meaningless hand-waving. It absolutely and obviously is about the proportion of one usage versus another (in combination with our own internal concerns about neutrality); just a headcount of how often you can find use of "[p|P]rophet", in an essentially endless supply of source material, without contrasting the infrequency of its actual use versus that of the barer alternative, is utterly meaningless. And everyone here understands that. I strongly suspect that you do as well, since the alternative is that simply have no understanding at all of what aggregate data is and how basic statistics works. "all you need to do is to find a significant amount of counter examples": That is automatically already done by [81], which digs up lots of reliable journal sources. By trying to enumerate them all is a total waste of time, since this has nothing, at all, ever to do with how many isolated sources can be found by editor A versus what head-count of contrary sources can be found by editor B; such a contest will, by definition, always be won by whoever has more time to waste on it. All that matters (aside from our NPOV concerns) is what the aggregate data shows proportionally. And please stop recycling the same arguments on my talk page. Keep the discussion here. Other editors do not have infinite time to spend re-re-arguing the same material with you. Cf. also WP:SATISFY.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:50, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

The expression "the prophet Muhammad" is usually used to introduce the prophet at first mention, and is followed on subsequent mentions by a much, much larger number of references to either simply "Muhammad" or simply "the prophet" (e.g., Madelung 1997 uses "the Prophet Muhammad" once, simply "Muhammad" –this includes other Muhammads– 948 times, and simply "the Prophet" 308 times). So you find that simply "Muhammad" occurs more often than "the prophet Muhammad"? That's entirely to be expected. There is absolutely no way in which your data can show how many individual sources do or do not use the expression "the prophet Muhammad", much less whether any of them ever uses "the prophet" to refer to Muhammad. Yet that is the only thing that counts here. Please take a break, come back, and think about it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I can't speak for SMcCandlish, but the point is that there are reliable scholarly sources that do use "Muhammad" without 'the prophet' preceding it (not counting the first reference). It doesn't matter how many sources don't use 'the prophet', the fact is that there are reliable, scholarly sources that do not use 'the prophet' before 'Muhammad' (again, besides the first reference). There really aren't any good or strong reasons to use 'the prophet Muhammad' in Wikipedia prose (aside from the first reference where he can be introduced as the 'Islamic prophet Muhammad' if necessary), when 'Muhammad' would suffice. Some1 (talk) 12:10, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are sources that do not use "the prophet" before "Muhammad", like Madelung 1997 just mentioned, who uses "the Prophet" 308 times though, or Crone 1980, who uses "the Prophet" 54 times (vs "Muhammad" –including other Muhammads– 296 times). What standard of evidence would you have liked? The distribution of "the Prophet Muhammad" vs simply "Muhammad" vs "the Prophet" within each individual source is what it is, for mundane stylistic reasons –"the Prophet" is mostly used as a variant for simply "Muhammad", which normally occurs most often within one source. But this is about neutrality, not about style, nor about what 'would suffice'.

Why would a source that considers using "the Prophet" to refer to Muhammad as advancing a religious POV use it 54 times? We are talking about Patricia Crone (please read that article) here! If Crone considers it neutral, why should WP editor Some1 find it non-neutral? Perhaps because a dozen other scholars never use "the Prophet" to refer to Muhammad? Okay, let's see these sources! Do you believe me when I say I'm genuinely curious to see them? Or perhaps Some1 and other editors like them set their own standards of neutrality per WP:CONSENSUS and don't care about Crone et al.? Also fine, but then please stop unfairly and arbitrarily criticizing perfectly good evidence about Crone et al.: without evidence to the contrary, the conclusion clearly is that they believe using "the Prophet" to refer to Muhammad is perfectly neutral. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:52, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Hypothetically, if an editor went to the Murder of Samuel Paty article and changed non-quote instances of "Muhammad" to "the Prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" (e.g. "He showed some of his teenage students a caricature of [the Prophet] from the satirical magazine...", "She alleged that one of the cartoons portrayed an image of [the Prophet] naked with his genitals exposed."), I would find those changes non-neutral. You can find those changes neutral, but I find it non-neutral as there's nothing wrong with just simply using "Muhammad" in that article without all the (religious) connotations that '[p]rophet' has (he has already been introduced as the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the first reference and there's no ambiguity either). Some1 (talk) 18:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Some1, it's very revealing that you unnecessarily chose to quote derogatory and insensitive comments about Muhammad in a discussion about writing style. Albertatiran (talk) 19:39, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

@Albertatiran: How are those comments derogatory and insensitive? BilledMammal (talk) 04:53, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal I didn't get that either. Doug Weller talk 06:57, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal and Doug Weller: I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding; probably better to let that slide. I've been thinking about this some more, so please allow me to elaborate on my answer below:

1. In my current proposal, simply "Muhammad" or "the prophet"/"the Prophet" are both acceptable, so an editor making the change Some1 describes would fall under MOS:STYLEVAR: changing this in this way would per se be inappropriate unless there is a very substantial reason, and prior consensus should be sought on the talk page.
2. My current proposal says that Use of "the prophet"[/"the Prophet"] should generally occur as a variation on "Muhammad" or "the prophet Muhammad". Clearly, the hypothetical editor described by Some1 would not be using "the Prophet" here as a means of stylistic variation.
3. Though the hypothetical editor could try to discuss their change on the talk page, I don't think they would get a lot of traction. The new MOS:MUHAMMAD would not help them in any way (or actually, it would speak against them, per #2), but I don't even think the reason why they would be rejected is an issue of neutrality. The reason why "the Prophet" would be a bad choice here is because it puts the religious/anti-religious controversy in sharper relief, and hence adds to the shock value (which I believe is also what provoked Albertatiran reaction; there's no reason to cause that in our readers if we can easily avoid it). This has nothing to do with the alleged POV equation between referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" and recognizing that he indeed was a real, or the final prophet: what it recognizes, and puts into relief, is that Muslims regard Muhammad as a real and final prophet, and it is only that what makes the subject of the article under discussion so controversial.

The alleged POV equation continues to appear to me as a wiki-myth. It's just a common epithet, routinely used by reliable sources, and any intelligent reader will plainly recognize is as such. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:22, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

@Some1: I would tend to agree with you in this case, but it would very much be a matter for discussion at Talk:Murder of Samuel Paty. This kind of thing should not be decided at the level of MOS:MUHAMMAD, because context is much too important. Note that we currently have editors going around disruptively removing instances of the word "prophet" in purely historical articles: the current guideline is simply overbearing. But I respect your opinion and those of other editors around here. I think consensus may be clear enough towards keeping the current text to forego initiating an RfC. Trying to update this may be a matter for a later time. Thanks for the discussions we've had, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:33, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussing whether Muhammad (570--632 CE) should be preferred to Muhammad (570-632 CE) would properly be described as a "Manual of Style" topic. But the question of whether this Muhammad should be called “The Prophet” or “one prophet among others” is clearly a question about “what is said,” not about “how to say it.” Should we rewrite the Choe Je-u article using “The Prophet Choe Je-u” or even “The Holy Prophet Choe Je-u, hallowed be His name”? Pldx1 (talk) 17:07, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that the clearest comparison in the religious status of the prophet Muhammad is to the messiah Jesus in Christianity. Thus, prophet and messiah should both be capitalized or both should not be capitalized. Take your pick -- but it seems unfair to me to say the "prophet" Muhammad should be lower case and Jesus the "Messiah" should be uppercase. However, if you look at the articles Messiah and Messiah in Judaism you will see "messiah" used in both lower case and upper case. So as a "Manuel of Style" topic, we should be consistent. Some will doubtless say that upper case "Messiah" is a title and thus should be capitalized. It seems to me "Prophet" in the context of Muhammad is also a title. I also note that the title Buddha is always capitalized. If we capitalize "Messiah" and "Buddha" as titles, should we also capitalize "Prophet" as the title of Muhammad? There's a question of consistency and equality here. Smallchief (talk) 14:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I would say closer to the use of the word "prophet" with say "Elijah". The article on him uses both "the prophet Elijah" and "Prophet Elijah" though mostly Elijah. Other articles like Elijah (oratorio) use "the Prophet Elijah" and "the prophet Elijah". Cave of Elijah uses "Biblical prophet Elijah" and "prophet Elijah" and so on. One can also find the use of "the prophet Elisha" in Wikipedia (Woman of Shunem) or of "the prophet Jeremiah". In Zoroastrianism in Iran and Zartosht No-Diso is "prophet Zoroaster" and Baháʼu'lláh has "the prophet Zoroaster". I am being careful to avoid mentions that are in quotes or titles of say artworks. Another similar word might be for instance "saint" as in Saint Peter. Erp (talk) 03:43, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Sounds to me like we have a problem with how we refer to Elijah, then. I'd say that our phrasing should make it more clear that his desgnation as a prophet is areligious matter and we should refer to him simply by name. In other words, the problem isn't the way we handle Muhammad, it is how we handle other religious figures. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:41, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - I see no issue with the current guidance -- and it is indeed already worded in such a way that it's not an absolute prohibition, so that's not a reason for changing. It's just a straightforward application of WP:HONORIFICS and WP:NPOV. It's MOS, not policy, though, so it's theoretically possible there could be an exception where there might otherwise be confusion. I suspect that most of those cases could be fixed by simply rewriting a passage, but we should always consider that there can be exceptions ... and that's what the existing guidance already does. For what it's worth, I'd also oppose a proposal that proposed "lord and savior" as an appropriate alternative name for Jesus or anything else that puts religious beliefs (or honorifics in general) in wikivoice. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:15, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - Rhododendrites has articulated my own feelings. P.S. In reply to one of the comments above, there is no credible evidence of Muhammad's existence. Just saying. Tiny Particle (talk) 10:32, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Reply: the position that Muhammad did not exist is fringe. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉)

@Tiny Particle: just to prevent misinformation from spreading, I feel I should point out that the position that Muhammad did not exist is currently a fringe position among historians of Islam. Muhammad's historicity was questioned by some scholars in the 1980s following the publication of Crone & Cook's 1977 monograph Hagarism. Crone & Cook's questioning of the reliability of the evidence inspired the rise of a strongly revisionist school. Even revisionists largely regard Muhammad as having at least existed (as did Crone & Cook themselves), but after the publication of Hagarism scholarship for some time came to be strongly divided between pro- and anti-revisionist camps, and in this polemical climate theories proposing that Muhammad never existed were also being seriously discussed (on the impact of Hagarism, see e.g. the summary in Kennedy 2016, pp. 300–301). However, in the 1990s and 2000s the sharpest edges of the revisionist school were substantially dulled. For example, Crone's student Robert G. Hoyland in his 1997 monograph Seeing Islam as Others Saw It carried out an examination of the non-Muslim sources for the earliest Islamic period. He argues that non-Muslim sources are more supportive of the Islamic narratives than the sceptics have suggested (Kennedy 2016, p. 301). Chase F. Robinson's 2003 Islamic Historiography likewise argues that a work like Ibn Hisham's Sira may tell us more about the attitudes and concerns of the early 'Abbasid period than about the facts of the Prophet’s life, but he does not reject the historicity of the entire corpus. (Kennedy 2016, p. 301) The current position on the state of the evidence is well summarized by Kennedy 2016, p. 301-302: The debate is certainly not over, but certain issues seem to have been clarified. Few would now support the extreme sceptic position which says that we do not and cannot know anything about the early history of Islam. On the other hand, the old certainties have disappeared, and it is clear that early Islamic sources have to be read with a much keener awareness of when, why and for whom they were composed. Compare, e.g. Donner 2010, pp. 52–53: Our situation as historians interested in Muhammad’s life and the nature of his message is far from hopeless, however. A few seventh-century non-Muslim sources, from a slightly later time than that of Muhammad himself but much earlier than any of the traditional Muslim compilations, provide testimony that —although not strictly documentary in character— appears to be essentially reliable. Although these sources are few and provide very limited information,they are nonetheless invaluable. For example, an early Syriac source by the Christian writer Thomas the Presbyter, dated to around 640 —that is, just a few years after Muhammad’s death— provides the earliest mention of Muhammad and informs us that his followers made a raid around Gaza. This, at least, enables the historian to feel more confident that Muhammad is not completely a fiction of later pious imagination, as some have implied; we know that someone named Muhammad did exist, and that he led some kind of movement. And this fact, in turn, gives us greater confidence that further information in the massive body of traditional Muslim materials may also be rooted in historical fact. (my bolding) The final nail in the coffin of ultra-revisionism seems to have been the arrival of several new 7th-century Quran manuscripts in the 2010s, such as the Birmingham Quran manuscript in 2015 and the (reconstructed) Sanaa manuscript first in 2012 and then in 2017, which refute the hypothesis central to most ultra-revisionist theories that the Quran is the product of a period after Muhammad's lifetime. These days, seriously questioning the historicity of Muhammad seems to be something that mainstream scholars stay away from, leaving it to counter-jihad types such as Robert B. Spencer or Hans Jansen (also a principal witness at the trial of Geert Wilders), or scholars who appear to be notable mainly or only for being ex-Muslim such as Sven Kalisch. The revisionist school as such does still exist (I myself subscribe to it), but ultra-revisionism, including 'Muhammad-myth theory', is considered fringe today. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:21, 4 October 2023 (UTC) @Apaugasma: that was a considered reply what was an off the cuff remark. I set up the Islamic archaeology. Is there any archaeological evidence? Tiny Particle (talk) 09:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC) @Tiny Particle: as you know, archaeology on early Islam faces the problem of the Saudi regime's hostility toward archaeological surveys. But the known archaeological evidence on Muhammad is fairly late: the earliest coins mentioning Muhammad as the prophet and leader of the new faith date to 66–67 AH/685–687 CE, and other inscriptions doing the same abruptly start to appear in abundance around 72 AH/691 CE (Hoyland 1997, Seeing Islam, pp. 549–551; cf. Milwright 2010, pp. 26–27). This, together with the fact that citations of the Quran appear equally late (early 8th century), has fueled much of the earlier speculation, which tended to regarded Islam as a late-7th-century invention created to provide a retrospective religious justification for the Arab conquests. However, a closer inspection of the non-Muslim literary evidence (as carried out by Hoyland 1997) has shown that the Arab conquests from the very start were accompanied by a new religion (Muhammad in particular is mentioned by (Thomas the Presbyter, Sebeos, the Khuzistan Chronicle, and John bar Penkaye; see Hoyland 1997, p. 549), and new manuscript evidence strongly suggests that the Quran dates to before c. 650. The now commonly accepted explanation for the late appearance of archaeological evidence is that the expansion of the Arab state either was based on –or at least in some way depended on (this is controversial)– an alliance of 'Believers' (Mu'minun), which included not only Muslims but also (non-Chalcedonian, and therefore often anti-Byzantine) Christians and Jews. Public appeal to Muhammad and the Quran rather than to the Amir al-Mu'minin ('Commander of the Believers') and to the one Abrahamic God in which all these 'Believers' put their faith is an evolution associated with late-7th-century Umayyad politics (see Hoyland 1997, pp. 554–559; cf. the title of Donner 2010). What the revisionist school has taught us is that at least on the public and political level, Muhammad was a much less central figure in early Islam than traditional Muslim accounts would have use believe (but cf. Quran 3:144 "Muhammad is naught but a Messenger", 33:40 "Muhammad is not the father of any one of your men"), and perhaps even (though this is controversial) that Islam itself was not absolutely central to the 'Believers' movement which inspired the Arab conquests. However, any notion of there having been no Muhammad, or of Islam as originating in the late 7th century, is now definitely obsolete. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:17, 5 October 2023 (UTC) This really doesn't need to be argued here any further. You both know where your user talk pages and and where Talk:Historicity of Muhammad is. You're just pinging people's MoS-page watchlists for no reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC) ...er...we are not arguing, Apaugasma is a professional who, as I stated, gave a "considered" reply (having been thought about carefully) and who is someone I can see myself working with to improve the encyclopedia. I have already redirected our conversation to a different talk page. You are the one starting an argument. If you feel the need to have the last word, please post on my talk page and not here. Tiny Particle (talk) 23:25, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose "Prophet Muhammad", upper or lowercase, has undeniable religious connotations. This is an NPOV issue that tangentially affects MOS; if I had to choose between maintaining NPOV and slightly improving prose in the couple dozen articles where this might be an issue, NPOV wins any day of the week. "Prophet" is not comparable to job titles like pope or imam; it also isn't comparable to Buddha (we call the Buddha Gautama throughout most of our article on him anyway). If you have an issue with the use of "prophet" or likewise for other religious figures, bring it up on that talk page and I'll support you in removing it, but rewriting a guideline in way that will waste endless amounts of editor time (as religiously inclined editors try to use it to defend adding prophet everywhere) for very limited apparent benefits is a bad idea. AryKun (talk) 09:05, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Plus, our guideline is already "recommended", so if this is really an enormous detriment to the prose of some article, just discuss on the talk page and change it. We don't need to dilute the guideline to introduce justifications for non-neutral text (no matter how RSes use it, "the prophet" does have a non-neutral implication in the eyes of ordinary readers). AryKun (talk) 09:08, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  I do not cease to be amazed by the appeal to NPOV to justify doing the exact opposite of the whole assembly of RS. I respect the editorial opinion that "the prophet" has non-neutral implications, and I appreciate that according to policy editorial opinion is sovereign, but the fact of the matter is that this editorial opinion itself has no basis in policy whatsoever. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:18, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose No good reason to rewrite our guideline and the reasons give above by AryKun and Rhododendrites. Doug Weller talk 10:34, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - there is no reason for us to use phrasing that implies the actual prophet-hood of Muhammad or anyone else. Any such claims should always be qualified by who exactly considers the person to be a prophet ("Islamic prophet", "Hebrew prophet", etc). If we are not doing this for persons considered prophets by other religions, then we should fix those uses. Also, the idea that this would help with disambiguation seems farfetched, even admitting the large number of Muslim males over history that have had the name Muhammad. How many of them would actually be referred to as just "Muhammad"and not by their surname or epithet or patronym? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:45, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Some1.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 05:05, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't really want to start an argument here but I had no idea this whole discussion was happening when it did

I just said pretty much the following at the NPOV noticeboard but for the record here it is again here, because I believe that the above discussion made UrielAcosta feel justified in changing "the prophet Mohammed" to the "Islamic prophet Mohammed" at Regency of Algiers. He should not have done so for the simple reason that the article is not about the prophet Mohammed, who is mentioned only in terms of a Moroccan dynasty that claimed he was their ancestor and was given a special status by the Ottoman Empire because of this.

Let's remember the Holy Roman Empire and the Crusades before getting judgey about this. Not to mention papal infallibility. I am supremely indifferent to sharifian genealogy but these people were out there in the scope of the article repeatedly invading the Western Oases, and ten-odd other men named Mohammed were deys of this or pashas of that. Sometimes there was a Pasha Ali of Constantinople, another in Algiers and still another Pasha Ali in Hungary or Croatia. Some of them had one or more nicknames in which case we didn't need to use the title, and in one case had to have a conversation with Cewbot's operator about how a particular Ali was not the same Ali who is a Tunisian football player on some team in France right now this evening, because he put down a mutiny in Algiers in 1725. And yes I am still annoyed about that too.

English Wikipedia makes some pretty ethnocentric decisions and I try not get judgey about that either.

Why is somebody using good electricity to change "the prophet Mohammed" to "the Islamic prophet Mohammed"? Was there ever a Hindu prophet Mohammed? A Shinto prophet Mohammed? It's a descriptor people, not a term of reverence. I mean. I am not about to go to war over any of this, and standardization of appellation is good and I spent a lot of patience on my Arabic speaking co-editor also for whom transliteration is a means of expression, however while standardization is a thing so is unnecessary disambiguation. I have have very strong feelings about the legitimacy of the House of Windsor, but I don't insist that the only proper name for the king of England is "Charles".

My thoughts about this are approximately the same as those I have previously expressed about the incarnations of Vishnu, the visions of Joan of Arc, the historicity of miracles, skinwalkers, trickle-down economics, Double genocide theory, Kievan Rus', Le Juif et la France and whether Scotland should Remain.

1. Some people believe these things
2. I do not
3. I think these beliefs/stories/delusions are notable
4. Yes, some of them are reprehensible.
5. Notability does not require them to be "real"
6. It is unlikely that we can agree on a definition of "real"
7. I consider William Gibson a prophet but decline to argue about this
8. People should be able to look these things up
9. We should carefully avoid endorsing any supernatural claims of any kind.

TL;DR these should not be mass reverts Elinruby (talk) 22:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

This is really a bit too long to be helpful. But I understand the need to rant, so let me post my own one.

I agree that the current formulation of MOS:MUHAMMAD enables the disruptive edits of UrielAcosta as discussed at NPOVN. However, as I've expressed several times before, I firmly believe that UrielAcosta is not to blame; the guideline is. It goes against every single relevant RS on the subject. I have spent almost all my time from 21 September 2023 until 5 October 2023 trying to convince editors that the guideline should be adjusted to the common usage in RS (see the green bar here for a survey), but other editors have either utterly refused to look at relevant RS, or argued that whatever RS do is not relevant since per wp:consensus we make up our own style guide rules.

Despite repeated requests to do so, no one has offered a standard of neutrality independent from RS to base the supposed 'neutrality' of our guideline on. NPOV is based on representing RS, so that's a non-starter. Basically, writing "the prophet Muhammad" is not neutral because Wikipedia editors say so. Yes, this means that they condemn the whole assembly of scholars working in the field as non-neutral, whether they realize it or not. It's especially this last aspect which makes me want leave Wikipedia and never come back. If this website insists on ignoring RS and on letting opinionated anonymous editors decide, editors who are entirely ignorant about the subject and its scholarly literature, it's absolutely useless for scholars to try to participate here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:41, 3 May 2024 (UTC)