Wikipedia's first sentence called it “leading muslim jurist”. Today it says “leading muslim jurist and professor of law”.
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
Hossein Modarressi is a leading Muslim jurist , born in Qom , Iran . He attended the Islamic seminary at Qom where he received a complete traditional Islamic education in Islamic philosophy , theology and law, ending with a certificate of ijtihad , the highest degree in Islamic religious tradition. He also taught there for many years before pursuing his secular education which ended in 1982 with a D. Phil. from Oxford University . He has been a professor at Princeton University since 1983 where he is Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies. He has simultaneously been Golestaneh Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford since 1988, and a Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University since 1990. He has also occasionally taught at other institutions such as Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris , Yale Law School and Harvard where he was the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 2007. He is a prolific author of some thirty books and many articles in English, Arabic and Persian. An Introduction to Shi'i Law (London 1984), Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi'ite Islam (Princeton, 1993), and Tradition and Survival, a Bibliographical Survey of Early Shi’ite Literature (Oxford, 2003).1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 624941824.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Hossein Modarressi is a leading Muslim jurist , born in Qom , Iran . He attended the Islamic seminary at Qom where he received a complete traditional Islamic education in Islamic philosophy , theology and law, ending with a certificate of ijtihad , the highest degree in Islamic religious tradition. He also taught there for many years before pursuing his secular education which ended in 1982 with a Ph.D. from Oxford University . He has been a professor at Princeton University since 1983 where he is Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies. He has simultaneously been Golestaneh Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford since 1988, and a Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University since 1990. He has also occasionally taught at other institutions such as Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris , Yale Law School and Harvard where he was the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 2007. He is a prolific author of some thirty books and many articles in English, Arabic and Persian. An Introduction to Shi'i Law (London 1984), Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi'ite Islam (Princeton, 1993), and Tradition and Survival, a Bibliographical Survey of Early Shi’ite Literature (Oxford, 2003).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 357470731.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 9 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Iranian Islamic studies scholar Hossein Modarressi Tabataba'i ( ; born 1952 or 1942 ) is a leading Muslim jurist and professor of law."Law and tradition in classical Islamic thought: studies in honor of professor Hossein Modarressi, edited by Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed" .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1170766910.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Iranian Islamic studies scholar Hossein Modarressi Tabataba'i ( Persian : حسين مدرسى طباطبايى ; born 1952 or 1942 ) is a leading Muslim jurist and professor of law. "Law and tradition in classical Islamic thought: studies in honor of professor Hossein Modarressi, edited by Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed" .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1292431572. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “leading muslim jurist”. Today it says “leading muslim jurist and professor of law”. 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
leading muslim jurist
Now
leading muslim jurist and professor of law
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.