The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus to delete. After extended time for discussion, there is a clear absence of consensus to delete this subject, and no reasonable expectation that further time to discuss will yeild any different outcome. The case for keeping this as a standalone article is fairly thin, but is not utterly implausible. I would suggest further exploration of a potential way to merge this somewhere without losing the information that exists here. BD2412 T 07:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lailah (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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I have serious concerns about this article. First, the quality of sources and OR issues with the article are a problem, and while AFDNOTCLEANUP, there is TNT to consider. Second and more germane is the simple issue of WP:GNG. The best source I see is a short entry, paragraph in the work of amateur scholar Gustav Davidson, whose A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels was published by a reliable publisher (Simon and Schuster; but the author was a poet and writer, not a scholar, and his work didn't generate any academic reviews). And after that we have worse sources - books published by some NewAge-era publishes like Llewellyn Worldwide and worse. There are few passing mentions in GScholar, but there is little to show this topic meets WP:SIGCOV and warrants a stand-alone article. That said, in the spirit of PRESERE, I'd prefer to redirect this somewhere, but where? (Note: due to the low quality of sources present in the current article, which are mostly unreliable or PRIMARY, merge is not optimal, at least, without verification with reliable sources, and as I noted, my BEFORE didn't really find much here). Thoughts _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:33, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:33, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:33, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, many of the books and other sources seem fine. Please include in the Jewish and the Feminism Wikiprojects per, from the page, "Lailah is the only angel recorded with a feminine name and specifically feminine characteristics." Female angels lives (and Wikipedia pages) matter. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Assuming the source for this is reliable.. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:29, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @DanFromAnotherPlace Just wondering if you could comment on the source above? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:49, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It's a set of extracts from the Howard Schwartz book Tree of Souls. It's hosted on Schwartz's personal website, so I assume it accurately represents the contents of the book, but as I've said, I don't think Schwartz can be considered a reliable authority on this subject. Dan from A.P. (talk) 15:45, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep yes there's the odour of BS about some of the sources, but since the basic subject is BS, that's to be expected. https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22angel+Lailah%22&num=10 but in terms of notability this passes WP:GNG in spades. I do understand where @Piotrus: you are coming from but underneath the pile of rubbishy angel and myth books there is actually a kernel of rock hard notability as @Randy Kryn: says. Will any of these angel and Jewish myth articles ever get to a decent encyclopaedic state? Apart from the big name angels featured in the Dead Sea Scrolls I doubt it, but that problem is an issue of availability of objective editors not a deletion critera. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:02, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Better sources for some material can be found in the related Lilith page, and also in the entry in the Encyclopeadia Judaica, which has not been used here at all, and not in the Lilith page either. It needs some work, but it can be rescued. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:14, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Please note we are not discussing the deletion of famous Lilith but of the niche Lailah... no objection to merge and redirect if there is some relevance. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:31, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Warshy: I've glanced over those sources but I can't tell which ones you think might be useful. Could you be more specific? Dan from A.P. (talk) 11:35, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I really wanted to vote keep, but I've spent some time looking for sources and I just can't find the significant coverage required by GNG. Even the primary sources (eg. Sanhedrin 96a; Niddah 16b; Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 3) only mention Lailah briefy. The vast majority of secondary sources which turn up in a Google Books/Scholar search only repeat what those Talmudic texts say, without any additional analysis (eg. Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, Vol 1 p. 56, p. 232).
  The only exception I can find is in the works of Howard Schwartz (cited several times in the article; Myths of Heaven, Gabriel's Place, JBooks article). I don't think these can be considered reliable scholarly works. The idea that Lailah is a female angel is Schwartz's own original concept, which he "wasn’t able to prove". He also puts his own spin on the primary sources by claiming that Lailah watches over the child in the womb and throughout its life; whereas according to Midrash Tanchuma, which he cites as his source, this is the job of the "angel in charge of souls", who is nowhere identified with Lailah. If the article were kept, this dubious information would have to be removed, which would reduce the article to a stub.
  Like the OP, I'd like to retain a mention of Lailah somewhere on Wikipedia, but I can't see any suitable redirect targets. Dan from A.P. (talk) 11:35, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Encyclopaedia Judaica article I pointed to above also says that the names Lailah and Lilith may be from the same root, and are related. If this article is to be deleted, that is where the mention should be kept. warshy ^(¥¥) 15:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing that. It says Lilith is based on similar Babylonian spirits, whose names are "etymologically unrelated to the Hebrew word laylah ('night')." The Lailah article says the two are connected, but this is another item sourced only to the personal speculation of Howard Schwartz. Dan from A.P. (talk) 16:05, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If this page is deleted then Laylah, which redirects to it now, should redirect to Leila Waddell as primary. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your reading of the sources is much more thorough that mine, of course. The relationship between the Hebrew words Lailah and Lilith seems pretty clear to me, even though the EJ does say they are "etymologically unrelated" as you say (Because Oriental linguists found some Akkadian similar words). About Schwartz, the only thing I can say is that Gabriel's Palace was published by the Oxford UP, and should be considered a reliable source. Maybe his ideas should just be attributed. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:01, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- As a person discussed in Talmudic material (though not in the Bible) we ought to have a page on the subject, even if modern sources on him/her are not good. Amalgamation with Lilith does not seem a good idea. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:33, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If the modern sources are not good, then the topic belongs on Wikisource, not Wikipedia... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:47, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Just to note that according to WP:GNG: "Multiple publications from the same author ... are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability". So even if Howard Schwartz's books are considered reliable, keep !voters still need to demonstrate the existence of additional sources which provide significant coverage of the topic. Dan from A.P. (talk) 16:01, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 19:42, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. A case can be made for cutting out or qualifying content, but surely not for deleting the page altogether. This figure is mentioned repeatedly in religious texts - albeit briefly - with more contemporary discussion than a lot of articles on historical people. It doesn't merge well with other articles and it would be a loss to encyclopedia project to delete it on account of relative obscurity. Lailah is of interest to those investigating ancient religion, particularly owed to the uniquely (but ambiguously) feminine connotions, and this article makes it accessible to the public. Vaurnheart (talk) 20:56, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as I'm just not seeing sources for WP:GNG. The Encyclopedia Judiaca entry is about Lilith, not Layla, and I'm ok to merge this article into that one. Simply pointing to a google books search shows that sources mention the subject, not that sources give WP:SIGCOV to it. If someone finds sources that meet GNG, ping me and I'll change my vote.VR _talk 04:53, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep While it is possible that some content would require removal or improvement, I don't see it would be sensible to delete the article as there is enough coverage to retain it. desmay (talk) 14:51, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.