The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was no consensus. People agree to a varying extent that the article has problems, but disagree about whether this requires deleting (or draftifying) it, or whether they can be fixed through editing (including moving, merging, renaming). A renomination (a shorter one, please!) is possible if after some time no improvement has occurred. Sandstein 10:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Initiating Article for Deletion process to understand larger community view.
Does topic 'Superstitions in Muslim societies' has enough encyclopedic notability to be an independent Wikipedia article? ** Should it be kept or deleted ?
If keep then, Whether it is okay to keep in main space or it should go to draft name space until further improvements
Or Whether redirected to any of alternate title options:
A) Superstition in the Muslim world
B) Superstition in the Islamic world
C) Islamic views of superstition
D) Folk beliefs in Muslim societies
E) Irrational practices in Muslim societies
F) Pseudoscience and superstition in Muslim societies
Comment of personal view : The real problem, regrettably is, definition section in the article 'Superstition' itself is not fully developed to incorporate various definitions and comparisons to parallel other terms like super natural, Magic, folk beliefs etc.
Since some of the terms overlap here and there, in an off hand judgement people can be deceived Superstition and cultural side of folk beliefs is one and the same and that beliefs in super naturals, miracles and magic are not superstitions.
Whether you will prefer to call "Superstitions in Christian/Hindu/Jew societies" to rather be called 'Folk beliefs in Christian/Hindu/Jew societies.
Wikipedian has general reluctance towards some kind of criticism of religion and some other counts. Many prefer suppress or subvert titles for some or other reasons, some examples are like Criticism of Hinduism was getting diverted to Anti-Hindu sentiment it seems yesterday only it has been restored back. Similarly title Criticism of Pakistan still gets diverted to Anti-Pakistan sentiment. Whether Criticism of some thing and Anti- some thing sentiments are same things?
Same intellectual gymnastic is being attempted against title Superstitions in Muslim societies calling it to be something else to find civil ways to stifle inclusion of inconvenient opinions as much as possible. Double standard of some are such that on talk page of Superstition people take position that Superstitions are not folk beliefs but those are folk beliefs in case of some religious communities, On superstition of other religion they vote it is superstition but for other religion it is not superstition. In one reliable source some thing is refereed as superstition then only it will count superstition but other reliable source uses more politically or religiously correct word magic but not superstition then it is not superstition.
And when other Wikipedian community members look other way considering some of the articles are not our baby then things get tough and it risks wastage of time of people who would otherwise contributing positively hence it is very important that articles go through AfD process to know what community wishes to support and what it does not. So contributing editors do not end up wasting their time. Over to Wikipedia community.
Thanks in advance for participating in discussions irrespective of your views or differences, many greetings and warm regards Bookku (talk) 04:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
According to M.M. Knight, when one does not speak for real Islam (i.e.'an abstracted ideal' that floats above, Muslim, human cultures but speaks for 'lived traditions') it is preferable to use the term Muslim instead of the term Islam or Islamic.[1]
M.M. Knight further says, terms 'Islam/ Islamic' imposes claim of normativity, which is distinct with lived experiences hence need not be conflated.[2] (Pl. do read again)
Keep The sources demonstrate that the topic is notable. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing not deletion per WP:NOTCLEANUP. Fussing about the exact title should be done by Move requests per WP:TITLECHANGES. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The article doesn't give a clear delineation between superstition and religion. Therefore anything in Islam (potentially all of Islam) can be considered superstitious, as all Muslims believe in a supernatural omnipotent deity (God in Islam). Bookkutried to addcircumcision and halal meat to the article as examples of Muslim superstition.
The article also includes things like Bangladeshi women not eating certain fish or duckmeat (Superstitions_in_Muslim_societies#Bangladesh). That's more nutritional pseudoscience, with no connection to Islam. And mothers believing food should not be taken during the call to prayer is more akin to Grace (prayer) that many Christians practice.
The biggest issue is that reliable sources never deal with the broad topic of "Superstitions in Muslim societies". There are good sources on Superstition in Iran, Superstition in India, but never a source that attempts to find superstitions of all 1.6 billion Muslims. The folk practices of Muslims in Senegal differ greatly from those of Muslims in the Philippines. It would be similarly hard to lump the folk practices of all Christians together into Superstition in Christian societies.VRtalk 12:18, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment: Here I see things differently
1) While 'superstition' is a criticism coming from side of rationality and sciences, plus in this case from non muslims and ex Muslims, evaluating their opinions from religious point of views is gross mistake. Saudi's attack yemen and Houthi so you won't have side of Saudis or you won't have side of Houthis on encyclopedia ? That is an exclusivist position a mere intellectual gymnastic.
2) Here is a lecture of one Prof. Najaf Haider on a Muslim students platform saying branding and rejecting other views by just calling them imperial or orientalist is not correct. (I can quote him detail but YouTube lecture is always better) The youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5OtQ09Cls4 And there are many critics of Edward Said's Orientalism they too have equal right of being worthy of encyclopedic value for their opinions. If some one believes in evolution he has right to criticize and being encyclopedic note taken of, Same is true for any clergy of any religion excluding them because they are not Muslims, or Ex Muslim has not remained Muslim anymore is most unfair. If Muslim societies did not go through enough introspection is not their mistake. An anti superstition article is supposed to be primarily written from opponents point of views , and not supporters point of views.
3) I am pressured from talk page to avoid https://www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-4-other-beliefs-and-practices/ on pretext that it does not include word superstition. As if Exorcism is superstition issue when written with word superstition but not if word supertition is not included. Same is true for words supernatural and magic if some one writes with word superstition then those are superstition other wise not is a logically fallacious position. If some one wants find name for this logical fallacy then here is list of logical fallacies
4) Following Bibliography talks global level superstition issues, One find excuses not to include resources that does not mean resources does not exist.
Ultimately some people believe that topic can be suppressed through subversion by spliting and diverting but those many more pages will be available to include content so it is self defeating strategy they will obviously experience if they succeed in suppressing title. Here at least I write all sides many more pages many other people wont do that.
Any ways it's for community to decide, I am crossing my fingers let me have my own share of superstition.
The "Islam Vs. Superstition" you cited seems WP:SELFPUB. The other source is reliable but it seems to have more to do with Jinn and Islamic mythology than superstition.VRtalk 15:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
IMHO Sciences, atheists and ex Muslims are due stake holders in the issue because topic is non believer view. And in any case those talk pages get meager page views that one should complain about. Superstition is not a topic supposed to be written from religious point of view still we wrongly we add it to religion related project post notices there and complain when real stake holders are informed. Project:Islam and other project religions are much coordinated for conservative views, where as modernist are not and I can prove that with example if some one wants Still if you want you send message to talk:Islam and other religion related article talk pages I don't have any issue, rather I will welcome that.
Very very amusing findings and logic :)) Where were you when I campaigned for updating Islamic advice literature and Islamic literature on various Islam related article talk pages? Those articles are missing people of great analogies and to call in objection of coat track and what not. In the article and here too I have quoted Books of Islamic point of view too, That you don't want to see. On Wikipedia policy pages I criticized equalizing criticism and anti some thing feelings with neutrality.Each of contributors to the article I invited including you, how else did you get the intimation of AfD?
You have been already filtering so much so whatever is going to remain is correct on your point of view, then why are you so afraid of deletion discussion from any atheist or ex Muslim ? Funnily enough there are hardly any views (Literally average views are Zero (pl. read again) to those talk pages still you are bent upon making issue out of? Why it is supposed to matter any one? I already said they are the real stake holders and unfortunately they are hardly represented on Wikipedia. How many of them came on any Wikipedia talk pages for. I still said you post invite to 100 Islam related article talk pages against my one posting, I have no issues. Through and through I have avoided making it personal and you want to have a chance on that count what for? Let us discuss on merit and it is rational and scientific views have the merit (Pl do read again).
Draftify The sources are strong and plentiful, and comfortable enough to establish notability. There is also plenty of material there (more than enough for a final year honours degree course, never mind a Wikipedia article!), possibly too much even. My main issue with this is that it's on one hand too sprawling, on the other hand seems incomplete (eg. there's a section on South Asia, but no comparable sections on any other regions). Major editing is needed, possibly by multiple editors, to bring it up to scratch, and I feel this would be best done in the draft space. (PS: This must be the longest and most convoluted AfD nom ever!) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
General Comment (not related to above comments): Just for example, lead had a very pragmatic factual and reasonably neutral intro statement. Muslim individuals and communities have at various times practiced superstitious rituals, practices, and beliefs. (Bring any academic Islamic scholar and won't disagree) This statement avoided whole sale stigmatization of the community. They were afraid of reasonable statement based on missionary but reliable extract. Since they insisted I included a statement from a Muslim University professor which targets whole community. They were insisting for academic ref I gave academic ref but now that is inconvenient so they place a tag is it unreliable source! And this kind of convenient soft censorship (People are so blind in opposing they don't even realize some one has written really some balanced statement) and rest of Wikipedia community indifferent wastes time and energy of well meaning contributors, then I feel it's better article gets deleted, so we can divert our energies else where. Bookku (talk) 17:40, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nominating your own creation for deletion, and then bludgeoning all non-keep comments? I find this a waste of other people's time and it is a rather pointy abuse of the Articles for Deletion process, just to draw more attention. But since you insist on following this path again: speedy delete under criterion WP:G7. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:54, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Just bemused with expertise in victim blaming and have even list of rules which even objects to right to reply. Personalizing the conflict to divert attention from content dispute, Kudos! I do not have Phd in Wikipedia rules, but as a layman editor I understand rules being misused to frustrate positive growth of an encyclopedic article to a level article's substantial contributor gets tired and themselves brings for deletion. And that is success of you people I do appreciate. Bookku (talk) 02:56, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Improve and possibly rename (Islam and superstition?) but keep; superstition is a notable area of study and cultural practice and is quite distinct from either mythology or other fields of discourse and endeavour. Jinns might be mythological, but practices of people to avoid harm jinns might cause a person is superstition. There is also scope for discussion of the attitude of orthodox Islam to the folk practices of Islam's adherents which are often grounded in a specifically Islamicate notion or doctrine but which incorporates practices considered shirk by the erudite. In Uzbekistan for instance is a shrine of a well which produces water which, to the superstitious, contains a healing spiritual residue imparted to the spring by the righteousness of the prophet Jonah (I think it was). There are those who say that to visit the Great Mosque of Kairouan seven times is equal to the power of the Hajj once. Witchcraft has particular aspects in Islam, and Islam has particular attitudes towards witchcraft. Black cats, owls, snakes, toads, scorpions, etc. all have less-than rational associations in the Islamic world distinct from the same creatures' superstitious powers in other parts of the world. The Koran is used for bibliomancy. Then there are millenarian and apocalyptic superstitions, the long and distinguished history of Islamic astrology, and the amulets and talismans. Tariq Ramadan speaks here about Islam and superstition for 40 minutes, which is about how long a Wikipedia article should take to read ... GPinkerton (talk) 05:24, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
GPinkerton there seem to be two separate topics you mentioned: (1) Islamic view of superstition and (2) "Non-Muslim view that some/all aspects of Islam constitute superstition". For #2, consider Jerry Coyne who regards "all religious belief" as superstition. #2 probably belongs at Criticism of Islam. #1 would be better covered at shirk as some of the sources currently used in the article are actually talking about shirk (see this edit that I just made) and even the Tariq Ramadan link you shared talks about superstition in connection to shirk. VRtalk 20:14, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment:Here I want to point out few nuances
1) All shirks are not necessarily superstitions, rather considering them shirk itself could be superstition, for and example for some/few Muslims Game of Chess can be Shirk, but for category #2 considering it shirk itself is rooted in superstition.
Here I repeat M.M. Knight, who says, terms 'Islam/ Islamic' imposes claim of normativity, which is distinct with lived experiences hence need not be conflated. and term Muslim is better for lived experiences[1] Few times few Muslim individuals and communities might not have allowed Chess, but other times many Muslim individuals and groups play chess. So subject of Superstition is mainly about lived experiences of Muslims. So per Knight I prefer to retain word 'Muslim' while talking about superstitions rather than Islam.
Similar to Knight says, Article Shirk constitutes primacy of Islamic normativity hence does not give proper justice to concept of Superstition.
2) While Non Muslims ought to have right to Criticize superstitions in Islam and being taken note of in encyclopedic article, but it is not necessarily only non Muslims criticize superstitions in Islam, Many cultural Muslims and modernists criticize various superstitions among Muslims in different ways remaining religiously or politically correct to avoid blasphemy laws and violent retaliations.
3) Part of those Shirks which are superstitions get covered in Superstitions in Muslim societies, Forcing merger of Superstitions in Muslim societies in Criticism of Islam forces normativity again and will cover only incomplete picture of superstitions in Muslim Societies because there will be tendency to lesser coverage of shirks as superstitions.
4) And shirks as superstitions taken together with other superstitions if forced in to article on Criticism of Islam, Article of Criticism of Islam will get too long and one will need to split again withing if not few hours within few days certainly.
5) Again Wikipedia can and does have WP:Summary articles, various superstitions in Muslim societies are not tangent but directly related to the topic, personally I do not find it logical to consider them unrelated or coat track, Causing unnatural split and merger of the article Superstitions in Muslim societiesBookku (talk) 13:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Delete Per WP:TNT (short version): extended version below:
1. Notability of the topic. Not entirely clear cut. It looks like a decent article topic but a quick search shows scholarly works about ‘Superstition in Islam’, which is a much more restricted topic, or ‘Superstition in Country/Region. Culture X’. This is the first clue as to why this article is in difficulties. The topic is very broad indeed and writing a decent article on it would require bringing in a gigantic amount of sourcing covering overlapping but non-congruent sources, which always creates the danger of WP:SYNTH.
2. Approach to topic: Assuming the notability of the topic, readers would expect us to provide some high-level discussion of it based mainly on widely-recognised and authoritative sources. I don’t think the current article does this at all. What are the major schools of thought about Superstitions in Islamic societies? What do they agree and disagree on? Reading this article, I’ve no idea. Instead, we go straight into a deep dive what specific individual writers have to say on amulets, cosmology, and the challenges of Islamic revivalist projects. Seriously, I ask anyone to read the lede two or three times, out loud, and tell me what it is about.
3. If you did a google book search for ‘superstitions in Muslim societies’ and just cut and pasted dozens of links to different texts, this is what you would end up with. A reader working through this gets a glimpse of various things various people have said, but if they want that they can just google it themselves. There is really no coherent treatment of the topic, and no effort to understand and summarise different views for the benefit of the reader. Booku seems to think that other editors are on a mission to apply ‘intellectual gynmastics’ to their articles, or to ‘stifle inconvenient opinions’, or that people care passionately about whether the title refers to ‘superstition’, ‘belief’ or something else. I don’t know, maybe others do worry about these things. What concerns me is that this just isn’t an encyclopedia article and I can’t see how it will improve our readers’ understanding of the topic. It’s bad writing.
4. There is a case for saying that if the topic is probably notable and the article could be rescued, we should leave it to develop. Yes, with about a year of concentrated work. I’ve rescued some pretty hairy articles in the past, that have taken weeks, and I certainly wouldn’t attempt this. Without a sound knowledge of this area of anthropology it would take months just to read through what various people have said on related topics to form the basis of an article, let alone write it. If anyone is keen to volunteer for this work that would be fantastic, but I think we have to recognise that ‘someone will come along later and fix it’ isn’t realistically going to help with this one. If we don’t take it out of mainspace now, it will sit for years unimproved or become a target for POV-pushing.
5. If Booku is willing to
do a great deal of work on this then I don’t object to draftifying or userfying it, but if they aren’t planning to take that on and nobody else is volunteering here, I think it should go. We would be better served by a completely fresh start at some later time, with a better initial handling of the material. One of the signs of a well-written article is that it is usually possible for other editors to continue building it. If we look at it and think ‘where on earth would you start?’ it ought to go. Mccapra (talk) 12:17, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Delete It is better to move the relevant content to relevant articles than having an independent article on this subject. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 14:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Keep or merge, as the topic is still discussed at length through different concepts in my view. A merge to Islamic mythology as suggested above would be fine too if the consensus goes against keeping it as a standalone article. Mar4d (talk) 15:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Keep The sources and citations in the article support its notability. It could use improvements, but so do many articles. Dimadick (talk) 01:30, 26 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Dimadick: so how would you define "superstition"? Some sources (particular atheist) say "all religious belief" is superstition, while authors who are Muslim tend to consider superstition a form of "shirk" (see this edit), and other sources have their own definition. Many sources currently in the article don't even use the word "superstition", let alone define it.
The article currently cites this journal article, which doesn't define superstition but says Regarding superstition about ... fruits like pineapple might cause miscarriage. That seems more like pseudoscience and folklore than superstition. VRtalk 18:30, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We already have an article which defines superstition:"a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation". Dimadick (talk) 18:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Using that definition, which Islamic beliefs would you say are "false" or "resulting from ignorance"? This is a POV question that should be covered neutrally at Criticism of Islam. We can't use wikipedia's voice to describe some or all of Islam as "irrational", per Dayirmiter below.VRtalk 18:50, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
VR's and Dayirmiter's positions are self contradictory and explained below in detail. But in brief below VR says, "Superstition in Judaism seems to be about the "Jewish view on superstition" so believers of this or that religion can hold other's superstitions as superstitions and use the word Superstition in Wikipedia title but non believers can not !?
Delete The term "superstition" is a pejorative used to dismiss the belief of another and thus inherently carries a point of view. Though it might appear in Wikipedia in a form such as "source X considered belief Y superstitious", it should not be used in Wikipedia's voice, e.g. in an article title. Whatever is of value in the article under discussion should be integrated into other articles, if possible. Dayirmiter (talk) 10:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sounds very interesting but fallacious and self contrasting intellectual gymnastics. The funny argument implies as if term 'Superstition' has been invented by Wikipedians but that but term seems to be in use at least since 13th century in European languages.
While almost every other belief system dismisses other belief system as 'superstitious' irrespective of alternate terminologies of respective language like Haram, Shirk and سِحْر sihr/sahar With this funny argument, Wikipedia should not have any articles for any belief system. Neither Wikipedia should have article for Mythologies and Magic because words myth and magic too reject many other beliefs at least to an extent and used as pejorative too. Sunni's reject Shia and Sufi beliefs as Shirk so Wikipedia should not have article on Sunnis ! How does such proposition sound? Nor Wikipedia should have any 'Criticism' articles because any and every criticism can be termed and perceived as pejorative by some one or other.If any such rule is implemented sincerely most problem will be to Muslim and Islam related many regular articles because no one other criticizes various forms of Superstitions as much as Muslim world does.
Last but not least some one in one of earlier comments tried to equalize terms Shirk in Islam and Superstition. First no one comes to delete article Shirk for being pejorative, secondly Shirk represents dogma where as Superstition represents rational inquiry I don't understand how both can be equalized?
For the same people articles like Superstition in Judaism will be Okay even they won't have objection to central article Superstition as long as it discusses all other beliefs than their own.
Bookku the Superstition in Judaism seems to be about the "Jewish view on superstition". One of the sources is published by Aish Hatorah and another source is authored by the Chief Rabbi of Vienna. Islamic views on superstition are similarly important and they should be covered at Shirk (Islam). Non-Muslim views that all of Islam is superstition are also important and should be covered at Criticism of Islam.VRtalk 19:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks, VR has self contradicted / self goal himself on the this same discussion page. I do see following multiple drawbacks:
1) VR says, "Superstition in Judaism seems to be about the "Jewish view on superstition" so believers of this or that religion can hold other's superstitions as superstitions and use the word Superstition in Wikipedia title but non believers can not bring word 'Superstition' in title Superstitions in Muslim societies !? (Read again)
2) If all (each and every) shirk in Islam are 'Superstitions' as VR says then why not translate that title "Islamic view on superstition"? for better understanding of larger audience? But theologically that would be borderline case.
The nuance is, basically concept of Shirk is dogma, where in God is not supposed to have any real or perceived competition.And not a strict rational scientific inquiry. I have given example of game of Chess earlier so do not repeat more examples here.
While basic concept same, many Islamic schools themselves do not agree on details about what is shirk and what is not shirk, nor Wikipedia article Shirk covers all examples of Shirk in detail beyond basic theological positions.
3) And why every other Wikipedia reader should be forced to read part of Muslim Superstitions through Islamic lens? and part of Muslim Superstitions through non−Islamic lens ?
4) Not only position that, word 'superstition' can be used within article if used by believers but not by non believers is strange, but it can be used globally can be used in articles but can not be used in title when word 'Superstition' comes along with word Muslim or Islam too is surprising and difficult to be explained logically.
5) Position that 'Wikipedia title are Wikipedia's voice' too is fallacious. One can all the way say some criticism is in the article is Wikipedia's voice and so don't include criticism. Or don't include word Criticism in in article title, One can always stretch to don't use 'rights' word in Human and Women rights article, Don't use word 'Modernism' in Wikipedia articles because it is at variance at traditional position and Wikipedia should not be used for that purpose and so on.
6) Wikipedia article Criticism of Islam can include subsection of Superstitions as sub topic but
A) In Criticism of Islam All of the criticism is not superstition related, Superstitions among Muslims itself is a extensive sub topic which deserves to have independent article.
B) As I have earlier pointed out with scholarly reference of Knight that word 'Islam' enforces a theological Islamic normative position, and lived experiences and behaviors among Muslim individuals and communities can be at variance with the Islamic dogma. For example some superstition is observed in a particular community at particular point of time, supporter of some or other school of Islamic thought can always come and claim this superstition has nothing to do with Islam so don't cover in the article. So any title other than Superstitions in Muslim societies will fail to cover topic in to it's potential best level, this would be injustice to editors and readers of Wikipedia who want to cover and read the topic to it's best potential.( Pl. do read again)
Keep. Supersticion in individual, major religions is a notable subfield of study. The article already cite a number of academic publications. More: [3]. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:05, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The source you gave says "Islam, Eastern Christianity, and Superstition according to Some Early Modern English Observers". The author is not asserting that Islam is superstitious, rather documenting allegations of superstition against Islam. The article further says That the orient in general and Islam in particular were a rich source of both heresy and superstition was not a new notion in the early modern period. Those who accuse Islam of "heresy and superstition" are obviously critics, and so this belongs at Criticism of Islam.VRtalk 20:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Supersticion of religion x is a valid and stand-alone notably subset of criticism of said religion. (And I am not sure if a relevant Vann diagram would make it a full subset, orif it also overlaps with topics outside criticism.) Also, I am surprised we don't have Superstitions in Christianity/Superstitions in Christian societies yet... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Question: To emphasize the point I expressed above, I would ask if any participant in this discussion can point to an example of a person who has asserted that his or her own seriously held belief or religious practice is "superstitious" or "a superstition". Since the answer is almost certainly 'no', I repeat: if the quality "superstitious" is to be attributed, it needs to be presented as the opinion of the attributor, not as some kind of "settled fact" - as is implied when the word is used in the title of an article. Dayirmiter (talk) 20:15, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry, I find this argument very amusing :)) and 'A very far stretched argument'. See some parallel examples: "Theories in Science are always revised, hence many claim, that many claims in Sciences are not settled facts, so you don't use word 'Science' in Wikipedia article titles" :); "Definitions of What is 'Islam' or What is 'Christianity' or What is 'Hinduism' are subject to various different different schools of thought, so there are no single settled definitions, for example Wahabis, Shia, Sufis, modernist, Islamic feminism views on Islam are entirely different So what is 'Islam' is not a settled fact, So you don't use words 'Islam', 'Christianity', 'Hinduism' in the Wikipedia article titles." :))
Pointing out dirty water (i.e. questioning superstitions) is primarily business of Skepticism i.e. of skeptics, So this article needs to be viewed from point of skeptics first.
(Non Violent, Human rights respecting) 'Right of conscience'(Which I do respect as Human right) does not make any beliefs automatically rational or scientific. (Pl. read again at least couple of times)
Rational or scientific inquiries are most times, than not, very very objective. Any rational or scientific inquiry does not become subjective, just because a defender defends his position against skepticism with right of conscience.(Pl. read again at least couple of times)
Rather than giving primacy to skeptics, giving primacy to scholar of same school which is under criticism is erroneous, logically fallacious and subversive since who is being criticized is having conflict of interest in defending their own school of thoughts.
No doubt defender has stake in pointing out all is not dirty water but their baby too is standing there by pointing out the baby. And so we do have already given space in separate section Superstitions in Muslim societies#Islamic responses
Primary business of religion is parenting of humanity for good values is their baby. And so religions do have separate articles to display their own babies. In those articles skeptics and criticism will have secondary place.
Because their are skeptics of skeptics, right of skepticism does not vanish. Since there are no settled positions among skeptics, one should not have Wikipedia article titles with skeptical or critical words is very fallacious one. (Pl. read again at least couple of times)
Even with beginning of article formatting to collection of sources as first and main contributor intended article to be well proportioned and well balanced. So as earlier said it contains responses section to take note of various other perspectives. Of course a referenced article progresses as the referenced writing progress.
Yes it's true that I do have soft corner to strong rationalism, Sciences and modernism; Still the fact is, with kind of neutrality I approached the article, not being used to neutrality an anon got confused and commented on article talk page that article retains traditionalist biases and is quasi-modernist also.
While importing section magic into the article I did not delete traditional Islamic position of deciding magic in licit and licit. Actually main points as per main theme of the article are still to be covered in that section.
In bibliography section I included in traditional point making Abdelazeez, Abu (2020-05-20). Islam Vs. Superstition. And wish we expand the article more with his points of views too. I included one traditionalist source in article Shirk too, probably you or some one deleted for being self published.
I brought article early in main space with a hope that all can contribute to the article and enrich it with multiple perspectives.
WP:CSECTION says at one place, "..don't split off articles with the purpose of purging a Wikipedia article of its legitimate criticism." Retaining the same spirit I change this sentence a little bit to request all others "..don't intend to purge article's title and content with the purpose of purging a Wikipedia article of its legitimate criticism." (Emphasis added)
And rather than positively expanding article with diverse point of views, unfortunately some are focused in a singular mission of how to purge any likely hood of criticism, and that is concern.
"...it will usually be appropriate to have a "Criticism" section or "Criticism of ..." subarticle. Integrating criticism into the main article can cause confusion because readers may misconstrue the critical material as representative of the philosophy's outlook, the political stance, or the religion's tenets..." Here I emphasize again that, Spirit/essence of this policy allows for present article title Superstitions in Muslim societies and I request all others to join in expansion of this article with all possible perspectives to let it realize best potential of a well balanced and proportionate article, as Wikipedia's encyclopedic project expects.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.