Talk:Qanun (law)
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Wikipedia is not a dictionary
editThe phrasing of the first sentence or two is more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia. See Writing better articles: Avoid using "refers to". I'm not an expert myself so I don't know how to fix it, but it should probably be changed to something like this:
Qanun (Arabic: قانون, romanized: qānūn; Ottoman Turkish: قانون, romanized: kānūn) is the body of laws established by Muslim sovereigns ...
...
The term ḳānūn derives itself from the Ancient Greek word κανών, kanōn (which is also the root for the modern English word "canon"). ...
Even moving the "derived from Greek" part is tricky because of the citations: I don't have access to the book "Between God and the Sultan" and I'm not sure how the Greek-English Lexicon is relevant to that section.
Although, if it's the best way to phrase it, by all means keep the "may refer to", but use italics:
Qanun [...] is a word that may refer to laws established by Muslim sovereigns ...