wikishia:Manual of Style

This page is a part of the general policies and guidelines of Wikishia and is expected to be followed by anyone who wants to edit any content in WikiShia. These rules are not revealed by God, so they can be challenged and improved. If you believe that any of these rules are not correct or they do not help to improve WikiShia's articles, please try to discuss them in the discussion page.

Creating New Pages

Make sure no one has created the page you're about to create before.

Use the search box
Try different spellings

Before clicking on "Create the page "..." on this wiki!" double and triple check your spelling.

Main Titles

"The" never comes in the beginning of title except for names of books, organization, or the like. Titles and headings are heading case except for the books.

For verses and sermons: Title + "Sermon"/"Verse". Example: Al-Shiqshiqiyya Sermon, Al-Sadiqin Verse
For Hadiths: "Hadith" + Title. Example: Hadith al-Thaqalayn
For books:

Name (sentence case) + "(book)". Example: Ghurar al-hikam wa durar al-kalim (book)
For books with the same title from different authors: Name (sentence case) + ("by" Author). Example: Al-Amali (by al-Mufid)

For supplications:

If the supplication is known after its narrator: "Supplication of" + narrator. Example: Supplication of Kumayl
If not: Name + "Supplication". Example: Al-Sahar Supplication

For people:

The Shi'a imams: ["Imam"] + [name] + [father's name] + [title] + [respect sign: "(a)"], e.g. Imam Muhammad b. 'Ali al-Baqir (a)
Descendants of the imams: [name] + [father's name] + [grandfather's name], e.g. 'Ali b. Muhammad b. 'Ali' or [name] + [father's name (with title of the "al-Imam" included)] + [respect sign], e.g. Muhammad b. al-Imam al-Hadi (a) or [name] + [a well-known title], e.g. Fatima al-Ma'suma.
People whose full names are rarely used and heard: [the famous title], e.g. Al-Shaykh al-Mufid.

Whenever an author is mentioned in the text with the title "author of the book (Sahib Madarik)" in English, the author's original name should be noted, and the title "Sahib" should be removed. For example, the title Sahib Madarik should be changed to Sayyid Muhammad b. Ali al-Musawi al-Amili or Muhammad Hasan al-Najafi instead of Sahib Jawahir'".

Others: [full name], e.g. Sayyid Muhammad Beheshti, or [first name] + [father's name] [last name (if exists)], e.g. Hasan b. 'Ali al-Qummi

Transliteration

There are a lot of articles with non-English words in them, that could be hard to pronounce for one who is not familiar enough with Farsi or Arabic. Those names are transliterated only in the first line of the article, according to the transliteration method of Encyclopaedia of Islam, published by Brill.

For example, the name شيخ عباس قمی is transliterated as Shaykh ʿAbbās Qummī.

There is already a Wikishia:Glossary of People and Places in WikiShia that you can use to know about transliteration of the name of a specific person of place. However, the glossary is written by WikiShia users, so feel free to improve it by adding new names and transliterations.

Here's the table of Arabic letters which need spacial characters:

Letter	Symbol
ء	ʾ
ع	ʿ
حاء	Ḥ , ḥ
صاد	Ṣ , ṣ
ضاد	Ḍ , ḍ
طاء	Ṭ , ṭ
ظاء	Ẓ , ẓ
آ	Ā , ā
او	Ū , ū
ای	Ī , ī

Apart from non-English names, there are some non-English words; note to not capitalize the first letter of, such as: zakat, salat, rijal, etc.

Names and Epithets

There are names starting with an "al-" (e.g. al-Hasan, al-Husayn, al-'Abbas, many more). These names could be known only by referring to Arabic sources (although searching in authenticate English references helps) pay special attention to names.

The title "imam" has two correct forms. The seconds form is preferred in Wikishia:

as an Arabic word, coping the form of the name after it: "al-Imam al-Sadiq (a)"
as an English word, doesn't come with "al": "Imam al-Sadiq (a)"

Translation of Specialized Terminology

Using non-English sources to improve the articles in WikiShia, you might come to a specialized Islamic or Shi'a term. There is a glossary in WikiShia you can use in this case. This glossary is written by other editors of WikiShia, so feel free to improve it by adding new terms and translations.

Translation of the Qur'an

Never translate the verses of Qur'an. All the translation should be taken from Holy Qur'an: Translated by Ali Quli Qara'i "Phrase by Phrase English Translation" also available at al-Quran.info

Section Headings

Use equal signs (=) to mark a text as a section heading:

==Title== for a primary section
===Title=== for the next level (a subsection)
and so on to the lowest-level subsection, with =====Title=====.

Note: The highest heading level technically possible is =Title=, but do not use it in articles, because it is reserved for the automatically generated top-level heading at the top of the page containing the title of the whole article.

Note: The headings should be title cased, e.g:

==Teachers and Students==
==In the Viewpoint of Shi'a Scholars==

Links

Links between the articles are one of the most important aspects of WikiShia, that make it a "wiki". Whenever you see a word or phrase in an article that a reader might need more information about, you can simply link that word or phrase to any other page in WikiShia. By using double brackets (i.e [[*]] ) around a word or phrase it would be linked to a page in WikiShia with a same title.

for example, [[Imam 'Ali (a)]] is the first [[Imam]] of Shia. renders: Imam 'Ali (a) is the first Imam of Shia.

Uploading

When uploading a picture on WikiShia, make sure that:

- You've chosen a related name for your file so it could be found easier

- You've added enough information and description about the file

- You've mentioned the source of the file

Images

Images should add information to the article or visualize the text. Images are not for decoration. Images should have appropriate captions, explaining the relevance of the picture to the subject. Number of the images should be proportional to the volume of the article.

Artworks should be from famous artists and the information about their creator should be mentioned.

Labels and Messages

Labels are used when you need to inform other editors about a current situation of an article. Technically, labels are also templates and are used by adding a template code at the beginning or on top a section in articles. These are some of the most common labels in WikiShia.

Above labels are automatically assigned by {{Editorial box/doc}}, so there's no need to add them manually. Below labels should be manually added.

{{Cleanup red links}}
{{Incomplete}}

Dates

WikiShia uses both Lunar Hijri and the Gregorian dates in the articles. The style of adding the dates is simply writing the Lunar Hijri date first, then the Gregorian date after a slash "/". For example,

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was born on Jumada I 15, 597/February 28, 1201

This is when the exact date is known. But when the exact date is not known, there are several possibilities:

The exact day and month is not known, but we are sure about both the Lunar Hijri and Gregorian years: 597/1201
Only the Lunar Hijri is known, not the exact month and day: 597/1200-1

Dates in Leading Section

In leading section, only the Year of birth and death should be inserted, but the complete date (Year, Month, Day) will be given in the information box and biography section.

Example:

In Leading section: Imam Khomeini (b. 1320/1902 - d. 1409/1989) the best known as Imam Khomeini was one the most important Shi'a marja' ...

In Infobox and Biography section: Birth: Jumada II 20, 1320/September 24, 1902 and Death: Shawwal 28, 1409/June 3, 1989.

Lunar Months

The lunar months are spelled as follows:

Muharram, Safar, Rabi' I, Rabi' II, Jumada I, Jumada II, Rajab, Sha'ban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhu l-Qa'da, Dhu l-Hijja.

Linking the Dates

This is how dates should be linked (both blue and red):

Days: Ali (a) was born in Rajab 13
Years: Event of Karbala happened in 61 AH.
Months (only if the exact day is not mentioned): Qadr is the name for three nights in Ramadan.
Centuries: Only Gregorian centuries should be linked.

Categorization

Only Gregorian centuries are used in categorization of any entry in Wikishia. For example, Imam Khomeini is categorized as Category:Scholars of the 20th century.

Notes and References

Wikishia uses the notes and bibliography system according to the Chicago style 16th edition. In notes (which are mentioned mid-text using <ref> tags and then are shown using the {{notes}} template) the shortened citation is used, and in the references part the full details of works is mentioned. In both notes and references full transliteration is used.

Numbers

The following points should be taken into account when writing numbers:

Numbers from 1 to 99, should be written in letters: like one, thirty, ninety-nine and so on.

Numbers more than two digits should be written in numbers: like 345, 788, and 1274.

Numbers like 100, 300, 1000, 10,000 have to be written in letters: like hundred, three hundred, thousand, ten thousand, and so on.

Exception: If the number comes at the beginning of the sentence, it is written in letters anyway, even if its refering to a year.

Numbered and Bulleted Lists

Bulleted lists are made adding a * before the line and numbered lists have # instead. There should not be an empty line between a numbered list, if so, the numbering will discontinue. The numbered list is used only when the order of the items are important.

Italicization

Names of the books should be Italicized: al-Ghadir fi l-kitab wa l-sunnat wa l-adab (book)
Names of the TV Series and Movies should be Italicized: Velayat-e Eshgh TV series; Imam Ali TV Series; The Message (1976 film)
Names of the artistic works like painting and etc: Mawlud-i Ka'ba painted by Mahmud Farshchiyan.