Imamatpedia:Manual of style

As a part of the general policies and guidelines of Imamatpedia, this page expected to be followed by all editors of Imamatpedia. These rules are not totally fixed, so can be challenged and improved. If you come to any of these rules that sounds not correct for you or you think they do not help to improve Imamatpedia articles, please discuss them in the discussion page with no hesitation.

Creating New Pages

You have to Make sure the page you are about to create has not be created before. For this, use the search box and make sure you have checked (even double and triple check!) different spellings.

Main Titles

Titles and headings are heading case except for the books.

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

Name (heading case) + "(book)". Example: Ghurar al-Hikam wa Durar al-kalim (book)
For books with the same title from different authors: Name (heading case) + (book by+name of the author). Example: Al-Amali (book by al-Mufid)

For people:

The Shi'a Imams (as page title): ["Imam"] + [name] + [father's name] + [title] + [respect sign: "(a)"], e.g. Imam Muhammad bin 'Ali al-Baqir (a)
The Shi'a Imams (in the text): ["Imam"] + [name without al-] + [respect sign: "(a)"], e.g. Imam Hasan Mujtaba (a)
Descendants of the Imams: [name] + ibn/bint + [father's name] + [grandfather's name], e.g. 'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali' or [name] + [father's name (with title of the "Imam" included)] + [respect sign], e.g. Muhammad ibn Imam Hadi (a) or [name] + [a well-known title], e.g. Fatima al-Ma'sumah.
People whose full names are rarely used and heard: [the famous title], e.g. Shaykh al-Mufid (note: the first al- should be omitted)
Others: [full name]

Imam Khomeini Sayyid or al-Sayyid Non-Arabic names: Beheshti or Bihishti Arabic Names: [first name] + ibn/bint + [father's name] [last name (if exists)], e.g. Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Qummi

Transliteration

See also: Imamatpedia:Glossary of People and Places

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.

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.

Farsi Silent h

When a Farsi word ends with a silent h (Farsi: "ه غیر ملفوظ" or "ه جایگزین کسره") which is pronounced like a short "i", the sound should be transliterated as "a", e.g. kitabkhana (کتابخانه), e.g. Tunayi (تونه‌ای)

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 three correct forms. The second form is preferred in Imamatpedia:

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 Imamatpedia, you might come to a specialized Islamic or Shi'a term. There is a glossary in Imamatpedia you can use in this case. This glossary is written by other editors of Imamatpedia, 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 Imamatpedia, 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 Imamatpedia. By using double brackets (i.e [[*]] ) around a word or phrase it would be linked to a page in Imamatpedia 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 Imamatpedia, 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 Imamatpedia.

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

Imamatpedia 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

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

There is no need to link the dates.

Notes and References

How to refere to oersian websites? (Website of Hawza.net)

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

How about other kinds of works? (articles or theses)

The patronymic particles bint (daughter of...) and ibn (son of...) should only be capitalized if at the beginning of a name i.e. Ibn Sina or Bint al-Huda al-Sadr; however, if it is located between two names, it should be written as bint and ibn in lower case; e.g. Ali ibn Abi Talib and Zaynab bint Jahsh.