The 1416-year-old religion of Islam had a golden age. It was an era that was marked by scientific temperament, remarkable inventions and discoveries. If you believed it, then you too are a victim of a myth that was consciously created and mainstreamed by a Wikipedia editor, ‘Jagged 85.’
The year was 2012. The infamous editor was banned from the ‘free encyclopedia.’ But the damage was already done. He had made over 87,000 article edits since 2005. He used dubious anecdotes, fraudulent quotations and unverified sources to peddle the narrative that Muslims made massive scientific developments and revolutionised mankind through their discoveries and inventions.
My latest article is about how a rogue Wikipedia editor confabulated and misattributed thousands of inventions and concepts to Muslims
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) October 1, 2026
This trolling made its way into blogs, articles, books, and TV programs. You might even believe some of his lies!
Link: https://t.co/4wYDCYPMm3 pic.twitter.com/yFOIaXqrSs
The long list of his make-believe claims includes –
- Muslims invented funnels and sieves
- Al-Razi invented dissolving substances and sublimation
- Jabir ibn Hayyan invented cheese glue
- Ibn Sahl first described the parabolic mirror
- An Islamic water clock from the 12th century had the earliest copper pipes
- Avicenna formulated momentum as weight times velocity
- The Brethren of Purity proposed a heliocentric universe in the 10th century
- Darwin drew on Ibn Miskawayh’s work to develop the theory of evolution
- Al-Ghazali directly influenced Descartes’ later philosophical work
- Taqi al-Din invented the telescope sometime in the 1570s
- Avicenna discovered microorganisms
- Muhammad ibn Musa discovered gravity between planets
- Al-Biruni discovered elliptical planetary orbits
- Al-Jazari invented flow regulators and feedback control
- Raqqa had a major glass factory where 300 different glass recipes were used, or—most amazingly—Al-Battani discovered relativity a millennium before Einstein.
He had made hundreds of fake claims and maliciously attributed them to papers and history books. These lies now regularly feature on X as they have infiltrated scholarly literature.
“It has been found that many edits involve the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements. In addition, there has been a severe misuse of sources: misrepresenting what a source has asserted; reporting only one side from a source; quoting out of context; inventing claims using a source related to the topic but which does not verify the claim. Jagged 85 was indefinitely blocked on 17 September 2012, and was community banned on 22 September 2012 (ANI permalink). The cleanup lists below show all article edits made by the user,” reads the Wikipedia page of its former Editor.
The modus operandi was simple. His claims had some shred of truth, which he would extrapolate to make sweeping claims of scientific breakthroughs. American internet personality Jordan Lasker (who uses the pseudonym Cremieux Recueil) explained it in his Substack post –
“Take the claim that Muslims invented funnels and sieves between 721 and 925. Jagged_85 did cite a source, it just didn’t say what it was cited for. What it actually provided readers was a list of laboratory equipment used by Muslim scholars, among which one could find funnels and sieves. The crucial issue, however, is that it never said they invented them, and in fact, it showed that they had been in use since Antiquity by Roman and Greek scholars. That last bit went unmentioned in places where the work was cited,” he pointed out.
The strategy was to make the work look scholarly while drawing sweeping, exaggerated conclusions from the citations. Lasker highlighted 2 other such cases.
He wrote, “What about the claim that Al-Razi invented dissolving substances and discovered sublimation? There was a source cited for this claim too, but what it said was that Al-Razi described their operations, not that he discovered them. That achievement was given to the Greeks. Jabir ibn Hayyan’s invention of cheese glue? Sourced to a document that said he translated a medieval recipe; other sources show us that adhesives of this variety were in use in ancient Egypt. Ibn Sahl inventing the parabolic mirror? This came from a source that mentioned plenty of earlier investigators.“
Jordan Lasker highlighted one case from 2010 when ‘Jagged_85’ invented the notion of “Avicennian logic” and deliberately conflated it with Avicennism.
The manipulation exposed a vulnerability in ‘verifiability principle’ of Wikipedia. Because ‘Jagged_85’ often cited print journals and obscure library books that were unavailable online. As a result, typical amateur editors with no access to libraries had no way to verify his claims. And the intentional distortion by the Wikipedia Editor soon found a place in scholarly discussions.
Lasker noted, “Despite this, if you look up Avicennian logic or Avicennism today, you can find distorted notions of what Avicennism is, and plenty of people talking about Avicennian logic, as if it’s a real thing, with attributions to the sources used by Jagged_85. But these attributions are false; the sources don’t support the claims scholars have made about them, and because they were miscited in the ways Jagged_85 cited them, we know they got their backing from his Wikipedia edits.“
The story of a Wikipedia editor Jagged 85 (now banned) who faked 8,115 pages making 63,298 edits before he (or she) was detected. Many of their edits are still there.
— BURKOV (@burkov) March 14, 2020
Jagged 85 always provided reliable sources for their claims. Ho…https://t.co/lyzEm7mRCK https://t.co/BOAwsa3uqf
The lies peddled by ‘Jagged_85’ to attribute Islamic influence on literature, medicine and psychology influenced his co-religionists as well, including University of Manchester professor emeritus Salim Al-Hassani. This was evident when the duo claimed that Muslims invented the elephant clock. They were later cited, and the fake story became mainstream.
Leftist propaganda channels like CNN also helped in mainstreaming the lies.
Lasker pointed out, “False claims laundered from Wikipedia make it into academic circles and further into the zeitgeist, because they inform people about things they can say and should believe. They go further than that because they are believed, and because, in these cases, they are plausible—by virtue of academic acceptance, Wikipedia presence, scholarly bona fides, etc.—and people want to believe them.“
“It is fashionable to talk about an exaggerated Muslim Golden Age and era of invention. Muslims are newly being introduced into Western societies, so just as Christopher Columbus began to be celebrated to welcome Italians into America, we now find it worthwhile to talk about how Western scholars and historical geniuses were actually inspired by Muslims in ages long past, forgotten, and perhaps even intentionally obscured…Who knows how many Jagged_85 edits have survived in the public consciousness, making people feel wrongly ‘informed’ about Islam and the Muslim world? Knowing just a few dozen of them, I can personally attest that I see them multiple times a year,” he concluded.
OpIndia dossier and its 6 key revelations
OpIndia had published an extensive 187-page dossier in 2024. Wikipedia, in all its communication, purports that it is a free-for-all online encyclopaedia which depends on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to generate ‘free knowledge’ for the entire world.
They essentially claim that Wikipedia is a free, fair and ‘neutral’ platform. Wikipedia’s pronounced ideological bias has been carefully and structurally cultivated.
There is existing research, including the analysis of Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sengar, which has detailed how Wikipedia is not neutral. The research cites three prior researches to bolster its case. Research by the Manhattan Institute published in June 2024 by David Rozado concluded that Wikipedia heavily leans towards the Left.
The Critic Research focuses on two internet policies of Wikipedia – Neutral Point of View and Reliability. The research concludes that it is
the editors who decide which sources are reliable to be cited and which are not.
Those considered reliable lean Left and Right-leaning are blacklisted. Therefore, a Neutral Point of View merely means that ‘reliable sources’ are represented thoroughly. Not that all points of view would be represented.
Third is Larry Sengar who has widely criticized Wikipedia for being Left-leaning, unreliable and biased. While Wikipedia claims that everyone is free to edit, the truth is that there are only a handful of people who have the ultimate say in what content is added and what isn’t.
It is also a handful of people who have the power to ban edits, ban editors, decide disputes, delete pages, lock pages, override content etc. There are merely 435 active administrators across the world who have sweeping powers. There are only 10 active members of ArbCom.
It is also true that there are many editors and administrators who are actively paid by the Wikimedia Foundation under the ‘editor retention program’. Further, the Wikimedia Foundation pays many of them in the name of ‘grants for projects’.
Wikipedia indeed has a solid hierarchy just as any other publishing house with strict editorial control and editorial lines that the editors and administrators toe. The Tides Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation give money to each other, but chart it as ‘anonymous’ donations
because they are not obligated to reveal details when it’s a donor-directed fund.
The Wikimedia Foundation has enough money to keep Wikipedia alive and running for decades, even if does not earn another penny either from donations or donations from corporations. The fact that the Wikimedia Foundation continues to get donations and grants much beyond what it needs to run Wikipedia, in the name of Wikipedia, points to a few things.
Firstly, the Wikimedia Foundation is spending millions in grants to further its own business interests. Second, it is extending grants to Left organisations with the money it collects in the name of keeping Wikipedia alive and claiming that without these donations, Wikipedia would
cease to exist (a lie).
All of this happens behind the garb of keeping ‘knowledge free’ and Wikimedia uses this trope to skirt the law of the land, especially in India, as would be demonstrated further in this paper. According to the Wikimedia Endowment Fund page current, here are some notable patrons of the Tide Foundation run endowment fund which is noteworthy:
- Amazon – $5 million+
- Google.org – $2 million +
- George Soros – $2 million +
- Musk Foundation – $2 million+
- Facebook – $1 million+
- The Rothschild Foundation – $50,000+
The Tides Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation provide donations and grants to several anti-Hindu, anti-India organisations and elements.
They have given grants to Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR) which has links to Islamists and Khalistanis and was formed in 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups, Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI).
The Tides Foundation has disbursed grants to the Association for India’s Development (AID) which has campaigned for Naxal Binayak Sen, funded Arvind Kejriwal’s NGO and also has connection to separatists.
Further, Tides has funded AMAN Public Charitable Trust (AMAN) – The trust lists several prominent organizations as partners, including the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Tides Foundation, Ford Foundation, Oxfam, European Commission for Humanitarian Organisations, and others.
Aman has received funding from the Tides Foundation, which has been linked to various organizations that promote left-leaning agendas, including anti-Hindu and anti-India narratives. Aman Public Charitable Trust is connected to the NewsClick-China funding scandal, where it is alleged that Chinese entities funded NewsClick to disrupt Indian sovereignty.
NewsClick’s founder, Prabir Purkayastha, was arrested on charges of receiving more than ₹80 crore from Chinese companies. Dilip Simeon,
the Chairman of Aman Public Charitable Trust, was named in the NewsClick FIR by Delhi Police for his involvement in attempts to sabotage India’s 2019 General Elections.
Tides Foundation also has worked with Alliance India, which is chaired by DY Qureshi. Links have also emerged in the research with the OCCRP, George Soros and the Adani Attack.
Wikimedia Foundation funds Arts+Feminism which spread fake news about CAA in India, leading to violence. It also funds Whose Knowledge, which in turn is connected with Equality Labs and Black Lunch Table.
It also funds Black Lunch Table separately. It is pertinent to note that Whose Knowledge, funded by the Wikimedia Foundation partners with Art+Feminism, Equality Labs and CIS – all of which receive funds from the Wikimedia Foundation among others.
It also partners with ‘Black Lunch Table’ – which is also funded by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia Foundation also funds Access Now. On the Board of Access Now is Seema Chisti.
Seema Chisti, who is the wife of Communist Sitaram Yechury and editor of TheWire, is also an advisor at National Foundation for India –
which funds AMAN along with Tides Foundation, Ford Foundation and others.
Other advisors include Dhanya Rajendran of The News Minute and P Sainath. Interestingly, Dhanya Rajendran and P Sainath, both have featured prominently in the NewsClick-China funding case.
Apart from funding through CIS-India, we also found that Wikimedia pays individuals like ‘ArtWhoring’ for collaborations in promoting programs like ‘Know The Wiki’.
Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, has no presence in India. It has declared in the BBC documentary controversy that it is a foreign entity and therefore, Indian courts have no jurisdiction over it.
Despite having no presence in India, it has consistently funded entities and individuals to further its own business and ideological interests in India.
Wikimedia Foundation regularly solicits donations from India. That donation, since it comes from individuals, it not against the law. However, Wikimedia not only takes donations from India, it spends millions of dollars in India as well.
All of this, while refusing to submit to Indian laws. While it continues to toe a rigid editorial line on Wikipedia, it insists that it is an intermediary and not a publisher.
By definition, an intermediary is not supposed to follow a specific editorial line. It is meant to merely be a platform for the public to air their own views. However, that is not the case with Wikipedia.
Firstly, not everybody can air their views on Wikipedia. Secondly, only a small group of editors and administrators have the final say on the nature of content that is added in any articles, making the articles one-sided, biased, and toeing a specific ideological line.
Thirdly, several of these so-called ‘volunteers’ are paid by the Wikimedia Foundation to further their ideological and business interests.
The sources that are allowed to be quoted in Wikipedia articles also suffer the same bias, often injected by editors and administrators who are directly paid by Wikimedia Foundation.
With all of these realities, Wikipedia does not fall under the intermediary category, but the publisher category – additionally – a publisher that is actively undermine the interest of India without following the law of India – financially or editorially.
