The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 05:48, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Sunni Islam → Sunnism
• Shia Islam → Shiism

– More appropriate title; see Protestantism and Sufism for consistency. Also names of other religious sects do not use the name of the main religion in the title, unless the name of the sect is ambiguous on its own. Reinstating modified earlier request. Mast303 (talk) 02:54, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak oppose - per WP:RECOGNIZABILITY the divide between Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy is much more notable such that the vast majority of people would instantly recognize Protestantism as being a subset of Christianity. Can the same be said for Sunni, or Shia? Taking Protestantism as an example, that term is significantly more common than Protestant Christianity as demonstrated by this ngram 1. The same cannot be seen for Sunni Islam 2 or Shia Islam 3, where the longer form is more common. Estar8806 (talk) 03:47, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment – As I specifically mentioned in the previous RM, we need evidence of usage in reliable sources showing that the proposed targets are in fact the most wp:common names for the subject. There are four other wp:criteria for article names apart from consistency, and among those recognizability and naturalness are strongly determined by how commonly a name is used. Against that the consistency concerns of the OP are weak, which has already pointed out in the previous RM (Chalcedonian Christianity uses the name of the main religion in the title, and Sufism is not a separate denomination at the same level as Sunni and Shi'i Islam), to which I might add that in any case there are enough examples where the common names of Islamic currencies are not -ism words: Hanafi school, Ibadi Islam (which might well need a move to Ibadism though), Murji'ah, Ahl al-Ra'y, Ahl al-Hadith, Ahl al-Kalam, etc. What is important here is common usage in sources, not some form of unattainable and undesirable consistency in having everything called Fooism. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 04:22, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Many sources do use Sunnism and Shiism (or Shi'ism); see for example 1, 2 and 3. The 3rd one is a credible educational institution. I might add more. Mast303 (talk) 05:05, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  We don't need a source to show that it is sometimes used. We already know that. What we need is for someone to prepare a representative and neutrally selected sample of the very best sources on the subject (let's say, the best sources on Islam), and inquire which term is most common in them. I'd say we need to look at 15 sources at the very least to get a vague idea, though 30 or 50 would be coming closer to being somewhat representative.

  An easier but far less qualitative test is Google Scholar (hence: GS), which has 22,100 hits for "Shi'ism", 15,500 for "Shiism", 8,900 for "Shia Islam", 6,610 for "Shi'a Islam", 5,350 for "Shi'i Islam", 4,430 for "Shi'ite Islam", 4,280 for "Shiite Islam" and 832 for "Shii Islam". It has 33,600 hits for "Sunni Islam" and 9,530 for "Sunnism".

  Counting together all versions that have 'fooism' vs those that have 'foo Islam', GS yields 33,930 hits for 'fooism' (24,400 on the Shi'i side and 9,530 on the Sunni side) and 55,102 hits for 'foo Islam' (21,502 on the Shi'i side and 33,600 on the Sunni side). So if we want to streamline the two articles and adopt something consistent, GS clearly suggest Shia Islam and Sunni Islam (precisely how the situation is now, though Shi'a Islam and others are a close call). If we would adopt the most common name for each article individually, per GS it should be Shi'ism and Sunni Islam (overwhelmingly in both cases). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 06:02, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose move per ghits provided above. O.N.R. ^(talk) 09:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose: Mainly based on recognizability and naturalness. -ism words are terrible things and best to be avoided except where unavoidable, and here they are readily avoided already in a manner that concisely provides infinitely more clarity to those not already familiar with the terms "Sunni" or "Shia" (or Sunnism/Shi'ism) - they will know from "Islam" (which adds little length) that it is a type/form of Islam. Also, as noted already by others, "Sufism" is not a true parallel, as this is a non-denominational mystic tradition with Islam that does not discriminate by branch. There is also Ibadi Islam to consider, as also noted above, and which the current two terms are also currently consistent with. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - per WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and the careful consideration provided by the editor Iskandar323. Comparisons with the term "Sufism" don't make sense here, since Sufism conveys the mystical and ascetic dimension of the Islamic religion as a whole and broadly speaking of the entire Muslim world (see also the redirects Islamic mysticism and Mysticism in Islam), not just a few historical denominations or branches of Islam.

  Moreover, I would point out that the leaderships, beliefs, theologies, escathologies, and practices of Sunni and Shia Muslims are quite different (for example, see Imamate in Shia doctrine and Mourning of Muharram), although they belong to the same religion and share a common history since the split of the Muslim community due to the succession to Muhammad (see Sectarian violence among Muslims). For these reasons, I find the current titles of both articles to be appropriate as they are. GenoV84 (talk) 17:24, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME/WP:RECOGNIZABLE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME - never heard of the proposed move targets compared to the current titles. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:33, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]