Wikipedia’s Bias on Religious Leaders. Case in Point: Prophet Muhammad

This article is part of a Wikipedia Religious UnReliable Sources series.

As one of the most powerful sources of information, Wikipedia alters people’s perceptions of a wide range of issues, such as religious leaders. As with any other open-source philosophy, Wikipedia’s bias is constantly debated, mainly when focusing on spiritual topics.

As we focus on specific biography articles, be that of Prophet Muhammad, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Pope Francis Bergoglio, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson or others, we will be better able to see the effect existing policies create amassing collective bias of all Wikipedians.

The depiction of Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam and a figure sacred to over a billion Muslims, has been an issue of concern most recently due to the efforts by some notorious Islamophobic groups in their endeavors to dictate his representation. Editors with critical, almost anti-Islamic perceptions are opposed by proponents of the classical Islamic texts. For instance, Karen Armstrong, a noted scholar of world religion, writes a plausible and balanced history of the Prophet Muhammad, a reformer of 7th-century Arabia and a founder of the state. However, her work is constantly placed alongside Robert Spencer, a hostile critic of Islam.

The issue of bias in the perception of Islam was extensively studied by John Tolan, a historian of religious and cultural relations between the West and Islam and professor of History at the University of Nantes, France, concluding in his Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today: “The prophet was a figure of contention among rival Christians, Protestants and Catholics…. Muhammad was a positive (if flawed) figure for a few of these reformers, and even more so for Unitarians.” This portrayal is totally in contrast with the Medieval Christian portrayals of Muhammad, which “were almost invariably negative.” Despite the more enlightening views of Islam, misrepresentation of the religion and the Prophet Muhammad in Wikipedia is still rife.

Improving Wikipedia’s Religious Content

Wikipedia’s treatment of religious leaders is symptomatic of one of the website’s main flaws concerning religion. The “reliable sources” policy, which was meant to help avoid the use of distorted biasing information, can itself be biased. Religious or theological work is given less importance in favor of secular or critical sources, and this brings biased portrayals. This conflict between objectivity and bias is particularly striking because of the phenomenon of terrorism or fear of it in the 21st century, which has tainted the representation of Muhammed, the key 7th-century religious figure.

Though through the years, Wikipedia has played a significant role in serving as a resource in forming public sentiments, there is still a question of depicting equally well the life, political ruling and religious teachings of the religious figures whose spiritual and political standing are intertwined. Another drawback of Wikipedia’s user-generated model is that editor biases will affect the portrayals; thus, the platform has to set higher thresholds. Therefore, it can only guarantee that it does not take sides and provides sheer factual and historical information by providing equal coverage of religious personalities. The biases highlighted by other articles in this series all boil down to disparities calling for increased editorial responsibility and better ways of presenting religious leaders.

We want to hear from you! If you are a religious leader, a parishioner, or a Wikipedia editor who has come across something in this area, we encourage you to contact us at wrn-info@proton.me. Your insights and expertise are very valuable in ensuring that accurate and comprehensive information is available to the public.