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Case file

Abu Hamza al-Masri

An Egyptian-born cleric and former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in London, now incarcerated in a US federal prison. The 2010 opening described his preaching of "a violent and politicised interpretation of Islam, also known as militant Islamism or jihadism." The word survives once in the article today but is gone from the opening, which now says he "preached Islamic fundamentalist views." A reader today learns he held fundamentalist views, and not that the opening once named that preaching militant Islamism or jihadism.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “militant” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 1.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010

Abu Hamza al-Masri (أبو حمزة المصري Abū Ḥamzah al-Maṣriy ) (born 15 April 1958) is a former night club bouncer and Egyptian Sunni activist known for his preaching of a violent and politicised interpretation of Islam, also known as militant Islamism or jihadism . He is currently in prison in the United Kingdom .1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 369535895.
Today
“militant” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 1. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
militant011100
terror102334
islamist011211
jihad010000
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 between 2005 and 2010.

Then

fundamentalist islamic cleric and one of the most distinctive radical islamic figures in the united kingdom

Now

former night club bouncer and egyptian sunni activist known for his preaching of a violent and politicised inte

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.

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