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Women and bicycling in Islam: what Wikipedia removed

This article covers the debate over women’s bicycling in Muslim societies, including Turkey. Through 2020, the opening paragraph said secular academics worried that Turkey’s Islamist government was putting Islam ahead of science. Today the opening carries the word nowhere, though it survives once in the body. A reader today learns the general religious debate over cycling, not that Turkey’s government was described as Islamist in that debate.

The word “islamist” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

word201520206 October 20232025
islamist1100

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

  • The passage describing secular academics’ worry that Turkey’s Islamist government was putting Islam ahead of science is gone from the opening; a reader no longer learns the government was described as Islamist in this debate.

2015 (revision 626524233):

Muslim women riding traditional bicycles as this one are seen as immodest The proper Islamic bicycle for the Muslim women is a topic of heated discussion in both Sunni and Shia Islam . Prof. Alparslan Acikgenc addressed the issue in a conference in Istanbul saying “a bicycle that is produced with God’s blessings in mind and man’s interests at its fore is an Islamic bicycle”. Secular academics worry that Turkey’s Islamist government is putting Islam ahead of science . Mustafa Akyol argues that the very idea of an Islamic bicycle is indicative of a “mentality that has stagnated Muslim thought”. The Iranian version of the Islamic bicycle has a “boxy contraption that hides a woman’s lower body.”…

2025 (revision 1292415239):

Women biking or bicycling in Muslim world ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) Bicycling in Islam is a topic of discussion in Islam, primarily in regard to its use by Muslim women . Religious scholars are worried in particular about the effects of cycling on women’s modesty (not revealing the body) and mobility (social control). In some parts of the Ottoman Empire , bicycling was taken up by women in the early 1900s. Women have fought against opposition from orthodox religious scholars and conservatives, while moderates maintain that there is textual evidence that Muslim women should be allowed, and even encouraged, to cycle. Regardless, increasing numbers of Muslim women have parti…

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