Talk:Shams al-Ma'arif

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bonjour,

j'aimerais obtenir ce livre que j'ai cherché depuis longtemps. merci alpha oumar souare.

General notability, and sourcing issues

I was originally going to nominate this article for deletion, but weighed against it. There does seem to be a claim of notability, tenuous as it might be. This rests primarily on the fact that it's accepted by one minor Sufi sect, which could be something notable, though I've found little to support the idea that it's actually of any importance, or actively promulgated within the group. The other possible assertion is that it has [sometimes] been suppressed throughout history. However, countless texts (including many extant ones, both ancient and recent) have also been given the same treatment.

The citations also don't appear to actually be referencing anything. If one looks, they'll notice that the citations are lined up one after another, and don't seem to be used to actually serving as references for anything substantive within the article text. It looked fishy, and I was correct; the citations are just being used to prove it exists.

Davies and the other Oxford Press book are little more than light blurbs, and thus can't really meet the criteria of "in-depth coverage".

Several other references are to works by one non-notable New Age author, and neither the content there passes muster (synth mentions), nor could these possibly be considered reliable sources.

None of the references seem to predate the 1970s, and honestly, none of them seem reliable (in the RS sense of the word)... Most of the ones that I could identify appear to be be works by very recent Sufi writers, none of whom seem to meet notability guidelines themselves. Even in these, I doubt this work gets much more than a passing mention.

The last several citations likewise support a single claim, as the former ones did in proving the text exits. They show it's been translated. Each "reference" is simply the subject's title, but in different languages.

I did do a preliminary good faith search, and didn't find much different (in English, at least).

However, I'll continue searching, and see what I can round up. I didn't send the article to AfD because it occurred to me that if I could find a preponderance of reliable sources that at least mention the title, it could confer (or rather, confirm) notability. I do think Wikipedia needs more articles on antiquarian books, but the majority receive little attention in academia, let alone the rest of the world.

To that end, I'll keep looking, and just tag the article. If you can help, please do.

It's possible that the work is notable, but unfortunately antiquity doesn't bestow notability; sources do.

Quinto Simmaco (talk) 01:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]