Wikipedia's first sentence called it “born in damascus in 1641 into a family of islamic scholarship”. Today it says “eminent sunni muslim scholar”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2015 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2015
Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma′il al-Nablusi (an-Nabalusi) (March 19, 1641 – March 5, 1731), an eminent Muslim scholar and Sufi , was born in Damascus in 1641 into a family of Islamic scholarship. His father, Isma'il Abd al-Ghani, was a jurist in the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam and a contributor to Arabic literature .1He was orphaned at an early age. Abd al-Ghani did not trace his descent to the city of Nablus as some laymen think, hence his surname Nabulsi has nothing to deal with the city of (Nablus).2Before the age of 20 he was teaching and giving formal legal opinions ( fatwa ). He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi .3He then studies in isolation in his house for 7 years studying divine experiences.4He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He travelled extensively, seeing Istanbul (1664), Lebanon (1688), Jerusalem (1689), Palestine (1689), Egypt (1693), Arabia (1693), and Tripoli (1700). He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age.5He left behind hundreds of written works.6
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 660028374.
The opening as it stood in 2010
His father, Isma'il Abd al-Ghani, was a jurist in the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam and a contributor to Arabic literature . Abd al-Ghani traced his descent to the city of Nablus in Palestine , hence his surname Nabulsi ("of Nablus"). Abd al-Ghani showed diligence in the pursuit of Islamic knowledge and before the age of 20 he was both teaching and giving formal legal opinions ( fatwa ). He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age. He left behind hundreds of written works in virtually all the Islamic sciences.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 356677442.
The opening as it stood in 2020 4 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Shaykh 'Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma′il al-Nabulsi (an-Nabalusi) (19 March 1641 – 5 March 1731), was an eminent Sunni Muslim scholar and Sufi , was born in Damascus in 1641 into a family of Islamic scholarship. His father, Isma'il Abd al-Ghani, was a jurist in the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam and a contributor to Arabic literature . The family was Damascene , but came originally from Nablus and Jerusalem . Before the age of 20 he was teaching and giving formal legal opinions ( fatwa ). He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi , and spent seven years in isolation in his house studying the mystics on their expression of divine experiences. He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He travelled extensively, seeing Istanbul (1664), Lebanon (1688), Jerusalem (1689), Palestine (1689), Egypt (1693), Arabia (1693), and Tripoli (1700). He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 949145199.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 7 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Syrian Islamic scholar (1641–1731) Shaykh 'Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma′il al-Nabulsi (an-Nabalusi) (19 March 1641 – 5 March 1731), was an eminent Sunni Muslim scholar , poet, and author on works about Sufism , ethnography and agriculture .I: A-Ak - Bayes (15th ed.).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1157664082. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “born in damascus in 1641 into a family of islamic scholarship”. Today it says “eminent sunni muslim scholar”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
born in damascus in 1641 into a family of islamic scholarship
Now
eminent sunni muslim scholar
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
