ACAMEDICIAN Dr Sharifah Munirah Alatas has called on Universiti Malaya (UM) to withdraw a journal article that cited a satirical news outlet as factual evidence, describing the episode as “an academic embarrassment” that undermines the integrity of Malaysian scholarship.
The paper entitled Discourse on the Bible Compilation Framework Timeline: A Relation with the Development of Islamic Sources’, was published in 2018 in Jurnal Al-Tamaddun (Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 83–94) and authored by Solehah Yaacob, a lecturer at a public university.
Munirah, who is the former Deputy Director and Principal Research Fellow at the Allianz Centre for Governance at UM, said the article contained a paragraph referencing an alleged announcement by historians at the National Geographic Society that “ancient Greece was entirely fabricated” — supposedly made “on Monday.”
She revealed that the paragraph had been copied from The Onion, a well-known American satirical news publication.
The parody article, titled Historians Admit to Inventing Ancient Greeks, was published in 2010 and also featured in Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of the Planet Earth (2007).
“There are three serious problems with this paragraph, rendering the entire article unworthy of publication in its present form,” Munirah said in a Facebook post.
“The entire paragraph is footnoted to The Onion. This demonstrates ignorance of what satire is and how it should never be used as factual evidence in scholarly discourse,” she added, noting that the text had been reproduced without explanation or contextualisation.
Munirah also pointed out that Jurnal Al-Tamaddun, published by UM, is indexed in Scopus, the Emerging Sources Citation Index, and the ASEAN Citation Index, and is ranked as a Q1 journal in cultural studies on the Scimago platform.
She argued that such lapses in editorial oversight “tarnish the credibility of Malaysian academia” and urged the journal to retract and review the paper.
“In my opinion, the Al-Tamaddun article must be retracted, revised, and put through the peer review wringer before it can be re-submitted,” she said.
Munirah further warned that the misuse of satirical material as academic evidence reflected a deeper malaise in the country’s research culture.
“Academics must understand what satire is and how to identify it. Oversights like this contribute to the miserable state of scholarly standards in Malaysia,” she said.
Solehah, the article’s author, has previously drawn controversy for suggesting in a lecture that the Prophet Muhammad’s wife, Siti Khadijah, may have had roots in the “Malay realm” — a claim she later retracted, saying her remarks had been edited out of context.
Meanwhile, Professor Tajuddin Rasdi said Solehah’s research should be debated by experts in relevant fields rather than dismissed outright.
“She could propose that there are connections worth exploring, but she cannot assert them as facts without solid evidence,” he said, adding that academics should focus on building knowledge “in the pursuit of truth.”
“I am waiting for experts in maritime history or Islamic discourse to challenge or rebut her findings. She has the right to cite any sources she deems relevant — that is part of her research process. However, those who believe she has erred should engage her work through scholarly debate,” Tajuddin added. - November 10, 2025
