Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asad Zaman (2nd nomination)

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 Draftify. Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Asad Zaman

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Asad Zaman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This article is tagged as having been previously nominated for deletion, with a result of delete. Has anything changed?
Notability seems dubious. Although he claims to be widely published, there's no evidence he is a public figure. A quick Google news search yielded a few editorials he's published, but no substantive WP:RS coverage. The fact he has published many papers is not necessarily proof of notability (if a tree falls in the forest...)
One final point - the main editor[1] s User:Izzatun Nisa Syahidah an SPA that has edited only this account. The blog links that were recently added seem to be related to the ones which were added by that account - see User_talk:Izzatun_Nisa_Syahidah - in January 2022 and then reverted. There was only one substantive edits thereafter (by an IP editor) until Asaduzaman's edit today. Oblivy (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One update/clarification - without seeing the deleted page it's hard to tell but it seems that the prior listing was a different Asad Zaman. That AfD discussion page talks about modeling and acting which seems to be a mismatch. I still think this article lacks WP:Notability but want to clarify that this might not be a re-creation of a deleted page. Oblivy (talk) 11:51, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I checked the already-deleted article, and it is NOT the same person. As Oblivy mentioned, the earlier article was about an actor and model. Joyous! Noise! 15:58, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As with many of our articles about academics the writer has cited works by rather than about the subject and his works. There seem to be reviews and other papers written by others contributing to WP:AUTHOR and WP:PROF#C1 found by this search, and the vice-chancellorship of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (if confirmed) may pass WP:PROF#C6 - note that in the Pakistani system inherited from the English vice-chancellor is the highest-level elected or appointed administrative post. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:43, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your input.
    With respect, I don't see that the google scholar results support WP:PROF#C1. He authored many articles, it’s true, but where's the evidence of a significant impact on his field recognized by others? I scanned through the cites from the past few years and many are one-off references to something he said or thanks from students and researchers for his assistance. A book review or two, but no substantial commentary on his impact, no festschrift. And more importantly, do we have to read notability into his publication and citation counts? Isn’t that itself original research?
    He is mentioned in a handful of news articles as vice-chancellor of PIDE but that’s just saying he appeared on this panel or submitted that opinion, with no substantial coverage, e.g., [2][3]
    There is one newspaper article discussing his work at PIDE: he was accused of impropriety in making appointments [4] and the ombudsman appears to have found the complaint substantiated at least in part [5]. No doubt this article is low on his list of public mentions! Anyway, is this evidence of notability? It required some structured google searches to locate, and loading the Daily Times article (which pre-dated the ombudsman opinion) required some reverse-engineering of the google URL.
    (A note on the somewhat scandalous material above: I was previously unaware of these allegations. Other than being a bit irritated by the WP:PROMO I have no personal opinion of this gentleman.)
    At best this is a candidate for draftify. The article reads like a cross between a CV and a statement of teaching. It relies in part on his CV website [6] which hasn’t been updated recently and seems to include only one link secondary source, an interview of him that’s just a broken link with no archive available. But if someone (or their assistant) dumps a bunch of self-generated information about themselves into an article, and cites only their own works, it's a sign that there's no substantial secondary coverage. And if there is, then who will do the work to find it? Oblivy (talk) 13:52, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The Google Scholar search that I linked excludes papers written by Zaman himself, as I said, so I don't know where you get the idea that it's based on articles authored by him rather than others' responses. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:52, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was saying there were no articles mentioning him other than those he wrote himself. I was trying to say, rather, that most of his mentions are just that - mentions. If his body of scholarship is discussed anywhere in detail (set aside in anything close to the hagiographic terms of this WP article) I'd be interested to see it. Oblivy (talk) 13:09, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Re: WP:PROF#C6 , does validation of Professor Zaman's position as Vice-Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and President of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists by the institute itself (also here) not meet the criteria for WP:PROF#C6? GxJackson (talk) 04:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep this is a case where some weak argument for WP:NPROF#1 exists with 3 articles with 100+ citations, but none of them seem to be strongly cited year over year. However, together with the vice-chancellorship of (apparently) one of the premier economics institutes in the country, I think he will pass the bar of NPROF. This is clearly somebody who is recognized for his scholarship in his own country as well as internationally as a scholar; by citations alone this would probably not make the bar but with the other elements in the mix I think it manages to pass it. Furthermore, even if deemed notable, the article needs major cleanup or WP:TNT. --hroest 17:54, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Pakistan-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 18:00, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep VC of the PIDE, a semi-government owned reputable economic policy making institute, meets somehow WP:NPROF#6. M.Ashraf333 (talk) 06:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree with this, Prof. Asad Zaman is currently the Vice Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and has previously held positions at universities in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Izzatun Nisa Syahidah (talk) 00:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • See Below Delete: I've cleaned up the article. Basically all OR/SYNTH. Removed all improper ELs per WP:EL; rm all unsourced OR/SYNTH from article per WP:BLP; no IS RS with SIGCOV citations to support content or notability, GNG or BIO. BEFORE found nothing from IS RS with SIGCOV. If someone adds IS RS sources SIGCOV to the article I'll look at them. BLPs need clearly IS RS with SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth for both content and notability to avoid abuse per well known core policy (WP:V and WP:BLP) and guidelines (WP:BIO and WP:IS, WP:RS, WP:SIGCOV).  // Timothy :: talk  03:59, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 08:39, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Guerillero Parlez Moi 11:35, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As the editor who first proposed the deletion, and after considering everything that followed, I agree with USER:Tousif.15 the best option should be draftify:
  • As confirmed by User:Joyous! article subject is unrelated to the prior AfD
  • He does appear to have some degree of real-world notability per User:Hannes_Röst, User:Phil Bridger and others
  • There appears to be no path to meet Wikipedia notability standards using English language WP:RS
So it can be moved to draftspace and any persons interested in having an article (as noted above, possibly WP:COI or WP:SPA accounts, but nothing can come of that right now) can fix it if at all possible. Oblivy (talk) 11:54, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draftify, mostly per WP:V and WP:TNT. I don't think there was anything verifiable or worth saving in the as-nominated version. Timothy's stub, despite lacking any reliable sources (it has a footnote to a Google Scholar profile but I don't consider that to be a reliable source and would only use it as an extlink) at least has content that looks like it should be verifiable, and if it can be backed by proper sources might make a claim to multiple WP:PROF notability criteria. That would be independent of WP:GNG, so if they can be verified in reliable sources then Zaman might well be notable even if those sources don't have the depth of coverage that would be needed for GNG. But verifiability is non-negotiable. I don't like the use of draftification for backdoor deletion, but in a case like this where the article is clearly not in shape for main article space, there is plausible case for notability that merely needs verifiable sourcing, and none of the AfD participants has already added that sourcing, it might be the right choice. I could revisit this opinion if better sources are added before this AfD closes. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:23, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep, As notability of Prof. Asad Zaman. He is one of the Editorial Board Members of Journal of Islamic Monetary Economics and Finance (international peer-reviewed and scientific journal which is published quarterly by Bank Indonesia Institute).[7]
    Prof. Asad Zaman also has valid profile in Scopus.[8] Izzatun Nisa Syahidah (talk) 01:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    See reference for Professor Zamad's position as Vice-Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and President of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists (to meet WP:PROF#C6) from the institute itself here and here. GxJackson (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We do not need additional grandiose titles and accomplishments for notability. We need published reliable sources, independent of Zaman and of these institutions, that can say something nontrivial about the significance of these titles and about Zaman's accomplishments under them. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:55, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Echoing user:David Eppstein's comment, I'd add that verifiable content needs to be put into the article space. Proving up the importance of the individual here, without adding properly sourced article text, doesn't mean very much. Oblivy (talk) 07:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Echoing the others here, in 2021, Asad Zaman was selected to be on an advisory committee for the prime minister of Pakistan, as documented on Wikipedia, which points to several external sources to confirm.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Advisory_Council_(Pakistan)
    That clearly fulfills notability criteria #7
    Criteria #6 is fulfilled by his being Vice Chancellor of a major institution: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE)
    I have personally learned a great deal from Professor Zaman and his work in the past four years and have interviewed him twice on my own podcast [in 2020] and [in 2022].
    I must say, I am puzzled with how casually a lack of notability is being assumed rather than considering a lack of personal familiarity. Not to mention the obvious fulfillment of more than one of your criteria, both of which can be verified with a simple search on Google – or Wikipedia. Aliteralmind (talk) 14:57, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    So obviously, I vote STRONG KEEP  :) Aliteralmind (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draft: switchted from delete; I can agree to a consensus draft.  // Timothy :: talk  01:42, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Let me briefly introduce myself before I write something about Dr Asad Zaman.

I am Dr Atiq ur Rehman, an Associate Professor of Economics and Director of Kashmir Institute of Economics, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. My profile is found here http://economics.ajku.edu.pk/Faculty/Detail/15

I am direct student of Dr Asad Zaman and know about him in great details.

Dr Asad Zaman has held many prestigious positions. A brief overview is as under a. Dr Asad Zaman has written large number of academic papers, see his scholarly contributions at following https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=U9Cl-pgAAAAJ b. He is author of a number of books, see some of his books at following https://www.amazon.com/Books-Asad-Zaman/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AAsad+Zaman c. He has been Director General of International Institute of Islamic Economics, International Islamic University for a long period. His profile on the website of IIU can be found at following https://www.iiu.edu.pk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/academics/short_cv/iiie/asad_zaman.pdf d. He has been Vice Chancellor, Pakistan top policy think tank and University. His profile can be found here https://pide.org.pk/research-author/asad-zaman/ e. He has been president of Pakistan Society of Development Economics and in this capacity, has presided several meetings of PSDE, the largest forum of economists in Pakistan. The proof of his presidential address are found here https://www.jstor.org/stable/43831316 f. Dr Asad Zaman has been member of Monetary Policy Committee of Pakistan, the committee that is responsible for deciding monetary policy committee. Please see the proof at following https://www.sbp.org.pk/cmad/2021/MPC-19-Nov-2021-Eng.pdf g. Dr Asad Zaman has been a member of Monetary and Fiscal Coordination Board, a board which include the representatives of Government and Central Bank. See the proof here http://pid.gov.pk/site/press_detail/15509 h. Dr. Asad Zaman has been a member of the Economic Advisory Council of Prime Minister of Pakistan. The proof is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Advisory_Council_(Pakistan) https://www.dawn.com/news/1430355 i. Dr. Asad Zaman is Editor of International Econometric Review, a prestigious academic journal https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ier/board j. Dr. Asad Zaman is editorial board member of Journal of Islamic Monetary Economics and Finance, seethe proof here https://www.jimf-bi.org/index.php/JIMF/about/editorialTeam k. Dr. Asad Zaman has been member of governing council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the custodian of national data. See the proof here https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files//other/newsletters/newsletter_jan_march_2015.pdf l. He frequently writes for newspaper, see the proof here https://asadzaman.net/category/writings/newspaper-articles/ m. He is public speaker and orator, see some of his speeches at his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@AsadZaman7 n. His work is often cited by top economists as it may be seen from the citations of his scholarly work. Therefore, Dr Asad Zaman has significant impact both in academic circles and in policy circles outside academia. Therefore I think it would extremely inappropriate if his introduction is deleted from Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiqajku (talk • contribs) 05:57, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Draftify. I agree with David Eppstein that the case notability seems to be there, but neither the nominated version nor the current version of the article seem to be ready for the Article namespace. The current stub seems worthwhile to incubate. --Kinu t/c 06:26, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]


From what I understand from previous remarks, DRAFTIFICATION is just an INDIRECT DELETION. So in order to write a new entry, I would like to know what is wrong with the previous one. To my best understanding, it fulfills all Wikipedia requirements, just as Dr. Asad Zaman easily fulfills all Wikipedia requirements for notability.

Lots of primary source information by COI editor

Asad Zaman (born 1955) is a Pakistani professor, economist and social scientist. He has been a member of Monetary Policy Committee of State Bank of Pakistan. Previously he has served Vice Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad, member of the Economic Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister, and Director General of International Institute of Islamic Economics, International Islamic University, Islamabad. He earned his PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1978, MS in statistics from Stanford University in 1976 and BS in mathematics from MIT in 1974. He is also the editor of International Econometric Review, and on the editorial board of many other journals.



For more biographical material, see “Reflections on an MIT education”, “The Education of an Economist”, and https://asadzaman.net/about-me/.

Books like “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East”, “Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not”, and many others, explore the reasons for the great divergence in growth rates of European Societies and the rest of the world. This question has been one of the central foci of Dr. Asad Zaman’s research over the past few decades. He argues the global conquest and colonization by the West led to shock-and-awe, and an inferiority complex in the East. Conquest of the Mongols was easily overcome, but the loss to the West occurred on the intellectual battleground. This is the real source of current difficulties of the Islamic Civilization. Imposition of alien structures of knowledge, and foreign colonial institutions, unsuitable to Islamic societies, has prevented the development of indigenous analysis and institutional structures. He has proposed the “Ghazali Project”, described in greater detail later, as a solution to this problem.



PUBLICATIONS:

The Google Scholar author page for Asad Zaman lists more than a 200 published articles, with more than 2000 citations. The top 3 highly cited papers are listed below:

Econometric applications of high-breakdown robust regression techniques This paper was of seminal importance in popularizing the use of robust techniques in econometrics.

Islamic economics: A survey of the literature This paper breaks from an orthodoxy which holds that Islamic Economics can be harmonized with Western economics. It argues strongly that the two approaches are diametrically opposed in many different ways. This theme is further clarified in a later paper on Islam Versus Economics.

Interindustry variation in the costs of job displacement This paper provides an exposition of the merits of empirical and Hierarchical Bayesian estimators in cross section data sets.

Also, Statistical foundations for econometric techniques is a highly cited advanced econometrics text. The back-cover quotes Nobel Laureate Lawrence Klein: “Asad Zaman's … provides highly informative insight for economists. He has taken econometrics back to its most fruitful origins … ”

Downloadable copies of over 80 publications by Dr. Asad Zaman are available from his author page at https://ssrn.com/author=289526. The top three downloads include “Islamic Economics: A Survey of the Literature”, already discussed earlier. The other two are:

Rise and Fall of a Market Economy This paper uses the analysis of Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation to argue that market economies create market societies, with destructive social norms of greed and competition. The spread of market societies has led to multiple crises and looming planetary collapse. It is the need of the hour to replace the market mechanism by social mechanisms based on generosity, cooperation, and social responsibility.

The Empirical Evidence Against Neoclassical Utility Theory: A Review of the Literature This paper surveys the massive amount of empirical evidence against neoclassical utility theory, which is the foundation of modern economics.

Radical Views:

At the heart of Dr Asad Zaman’s radical views is the idea that “Social Science” makes a false claim to universality, while it is based upon European societies, and restricted to the West in applicability. Arguments for this claim are detailed in the following two papers.

“The Puzzle of Western Social Science” Why does modern social science claim to be universal in application, when it is easily seen to be based on the European experience? The paper argues that Max Weber’s insistence that social science should be value-free led to the concealments of values within an apparently objective, rational, and value-neutral framework.

“The Origins of Western Social Science” This paper argues that loss of faith in Christianity led to re-opening of the major questions concerning the meaning of our lives, the origins of the universe, and standards of conduct. Western social science developed from the attempt to find answers to these fundamental questions, and hence can be regarded as the religion which replaced Christianity in Europe. The answers which it produced are radically opposed to the answers provided by traditional religions across the world, and hence not compatible with Christianity or Islam.

Surprisingly, Dr Zaman also rejects Statistics and Econometrics as elements of the Western Social Sciences. In “Fisher’s Failures and the Foundations of Statistics”, he argues that Fisher developed the current methodology to enable reduction of large amounts of data to a few sufficient statistics primarily because of lack of adequate computational capabilities. This methodology is now obsolete but remains in place due to intellectual inertia. Similarly, in “A Realist Approach to Econometrics”, he argues the Econometrics is nothing more than fraud by numbers. Regression results come out of the impossibly stringent assumptions of regression models but are falsely attributed to the data.

Rejecting Western Social Science as a Eurocentric religion leads to the obvious question of what should replace it? Dr Asad Zaman sketches an outline for a discipline of Uloom-ul-Umran (the science of living together) based loosely on the methodology of Ibn-e-Khaldun, the founder of the social sciences. He has also developed alternate approaches to Statistics, Econometrics, and Economics, outlined in the COURSES section given below.

Islamic Economics

Rejection of Western Social Science obviously leads to a call for rebuilding the entire domain of knowledge from the ground up. Dr. Zaman argues for replacing Western Economics by Islamic Economics. A few of his key papers in this area are:

“The Normative Foundations of Scarcity” This illustrates the theme that Western Social Science is built upon hidden moral foundations. The apparently objective concept of scarcity is based on three moral principles, discussed in the paper.

“The Crisis in Islamic Economics” The paper argues that orthodox attempts to build Islamic economics in harmony with Western Economics have failed, leading to a crisis. This is because of the attempt to combine contradictory bodies of knowledge. Alternative foundations on which a genuine Islamic economic theory could be constructed involve recognizing the freedom of human beings to choose between good and evil. The goal of an Islamic economics is to create a spiritual transformation in human beings, and to use material means to bring this about.

“Islam's Gift: An Economy of Spiritual Development” This paper explains how an Islamic approach to economics would be concerned with the spiritual development of society, as opposed to the accumulation of wealth.

The Ghazali Project

Dr. Zaman characterizes the current problem facing the Islamic Civilization as being similar to the one faced and resolved by Imam Al-Ghazali a millennium ago. Shock-and-awe of translations of the complex and sophisticated Greek philosophies led the Mu’tazila to conclude that reason (=Greek Philosophy) was on par with revelation (=Quran). In his landmark book “The Incoherence of the Philsophers”, Al-Ghazali demonstrated major flaws underlying these philosophies, and created alternative approaches based on Islamic foundations. Dr. Zaman argues that today the Modern Mu’tazila have accepted the Western Social Sciences as being on par with, or superior to, a thousand years of developments within the Islamic intellectual tradition. To counter this, it is necessary to reject the Western Social Science as being built upon moral foundations antithetical to Islam. For more details, see the Ghazali Project.

COURSES

A Western education automatically creates a Western worldview, which conflicts with Islamic teachings. The greatest challenge facing the Muslims today is to develop an alternative to a secular modern education. The puzzle of how an Islamic methodology can affect the teaching of apparently objective and secular subjects is addressed in “Useful Versus Useless Knowledge”. Dr Zaman has developed several online courses, freely available, to illustrate:

Capitalist Economics (an Islamic Approach): This course treats economic theory within its historical and cultural context. The course covers Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, and relevant theoretical materials.

Descriptive Statistics: An Islamic Approach: This basic course on descriptive statistics explains that numbers cannot be analyzed in isolation from their real world meanings and application context. Once real world context, and “useful knowledge” is taken into account, then Islamic concepts play an important role. See post on “Statistics: An Islamic Approach?” for further explanation.

Fundamental Probability Concepts: An Islamic Approach. Focusing on what is useful, as opposed to theorem/proof/axiomatics, is like focusing on driving, instead of teaching how the car engine works. This set of six lecture teaches basic concepts of probability theory for one variable case at the level of Mood, Graybill and Boes, using the bare essential mathematics required.

Econometrics for Muslims: Focusing on materials which matters for applications, and excluding many standard topics which have theoretical value but no application, creates an unusual approach to econometrics.

Social Media

Dr Asad Zaman blogs at the WEA Pedagogy Blog and the Islamic Worldview Blog. He also has a YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/AsadZaman7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiqajku (talk • contribs) 09:46, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The COI comments here will obviously be ignored, but this does raise a problem with the article being drafted, if it will only be restored restored without improvement. The draft close (should I happen) should stipulate that the draft should only be moved to mainspace after review by AfC.  // Timothy :: talk  09:58, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draftify per the arguments above to that effect, with the proviso that any promotion back to article space can only happen after a careful review. XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 15 April 2023 (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.
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