Talk:Nasser Khalili

Part of an edit requested by an editor with a conflict of interest has been implemented.

I'm currently part of a GLAM Partnership that involves the Khalili Collections. Because of my COI, I've only been making minor edits to the article. Now that I have a major edit to suggest, I'm proposing it here.

At the moment Khalili's philanthropy and his honours and awards are included under the heading "Personal life". This is unusual for a Wikipedia biography: honours and awards are normally a top-level section. Personal life is normally the section to mention the subject's family, where they've lived and so on. Nothing in the present "Personal life" section is what would normally be considered personal life. Philanthropy is a very public part of this subject's life — it's a main reason this person is notable — so it would be better in its own section. So I suggest: 1) Recognition be promoted to a level 1 heading, within which Honours & awards is a subsection. 2) The heading Personal life is replaced by Philanthropic work, where the existing Philanthropic work subsection is followed by the text below, and the subheading for Maimonides Interfaith Foundation is removed:

Khalili founded the charitable Maimonides Interfaith Foundation in 1995 to promote "understanding, cooperation and peace between Jews, Christians and Muslims internationally through art, culture and education".^[1][2] In the 1990s, he commissioned a series of five paintings by the artist Ben Johnson called the House of Peace to promote "peace and harmony" between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.^[3] The foundation also donated thousands of copies of The Timeline History of Islamic Art and Architecture (Visions of Splendour) written by Khalili himself, to schools in the United Kingdom and Islamic countries.^[4]

Interfaith Explorers is a six-week programme for children in the final year of primary school,^[5] promoting tolerance by teaching them about Abrahamic religions.^[6] Supported by UNESCO,^[5] the course is freely offered to schools and supported by a bank of four hundred online videos.^[6] It was launched at the Regent's Park Mosque and mentioned in a speech by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks as an example of a group promoting interfaith understanding.^[7]

Faith in the Commonwealth is a global citizenship education project started jointly by the Commonwealth and the Khalili Foundation.^[8][9] It gives Training of Trainers workshops to people from the ages of 15 to 29 from different faith backgrounds, including those of no faith.^[10] Over multiple days of training, participants discuss and challenge their assumptions around faith, culture, identity and gender^[10] and are supported in developing social action projects within their communities.^[11] These projects address topics such as hate speech, girls' education, and indigenous people's rights.^[11] The workshops began in December 2017,^[12] taking place first in Nairobi,^[8] in Trinidad and Tobago,^[13] and in Dhaka where it was opened by Biren Sikder, then Bangladesh's State Minister for Youth and Sports.^[9]

The project also offers a global citizenship education (GCED) toolkit: a peer-reviewed course that university students can take to complement their studies.^[10] This has been developed by three universities in Commonwealth countries, working with the Commonwealth Secretariat.^[14] It covers eight global issues in the context of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.^[11] Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland promoted the project during a 2020 trip to Malaysia,^[15] advocating it as in line with the government's policy of Rahmatan lil Alamin or 'mercy to all creations".^[16]

The Global Hope Coalition is a network of three not-for-profit organisations. Nasser Khalili is the chair of Global Hope Europe, while Deborah Lehr chairs Global Hope USA and Li Yongjun chairs Global Hope Asia. Irina Bokova, former Director of UNESCO, is the coalition's honorary president.^[17] The coalition was founded in 2016 and gives annual awards to political leaders and "everyday heroes" who combat extremism and intolerance.^{[18][19][20][21]} Among those who have been recognised are Nigerian feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,^[21] South Sudanese artist and actor Emmanuel Jal,^[22] and Canadian technology entrepreneur and philanthropist Jim Estill.^[19]

MartinPoulter (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

We meet again! Unfortunately, your request cannot be implemented exactly as requested because:

• One of your references is broken—FTMay12 goes nowhere.
• I am not sure that the changes are all good. They seem overly WP:PROMOTIONAL, and the first sentence seems to violate WP:MISSION, when the previous one did just fine.
• "Faith in the Commonwealth", et cetera, should not be italicized per MOS:ITALICS.
• "Interfaith Explorers" seems to not be written in a way that's neutral. Not everyone believes that religion per se promotes tolerance, I'd say that the idea that actually learning about religion promotes intolerance is a significant minority (atheist) viewpoint, so we can't just say that it works. (I'm a Christian, personally, but it just strikes me as not neutral.)

Cite 6 doesn't include the word tolerance, but the juxtaposition makes it seem like UNESCO is saying religious education supports tolerance. Why is the royal family being left out, when they seem to be the most enthusiastic supporters?

• I don't know that "Faith in the Commonwealth" deserves this much weight. Certainly some, but this article is about Khalili, not it; we don't need to know where every workshop has been over the years nor who opened it in Bangladesh.
• Likewise, I don't know that it matters who the other presumably (due to them not having articles) non-notable chairs of the "Global Hope Coalition" are.
• Why do we need Rahmatan lil Alamin? Seems like an unnecessary foreign term. Why is it capitalized when translation isn't? Wikipedia:Writing better articles § Use other languages sparingly
• I think "everyday heroes" needs so-called before it.

I also have some general comments about the article. This person is obviously very, very notable. However, it seems like he's never done anything wrong in his life. Where did his money come from? Perhaps Karl Marx has had too much influence on me, but I find it hard to believe that unless someone played the lottery (or the stock market from a small amount of money, I suppose), they made a billion dollars without upsetting anyone or doing something unethical. Is it inherited? I'd expect this information to be in § Financial, which probably should be called § Finances.

My second comment is about the lack of a photo. File:Wikimedia UK Khalili Collection partnership.webm seems to have one, though, so that ought to be easily remedied, take a screenshot of it and use a template similar to {{c:Template:YouTube CC-BY}}. If not, ask Mr. Khalili for a photo for his bio. You can, right? Not sure if you've ever met him, or if you're just being paid indirectly through his foundation.

@MartinPoulter: I also slightly changed the organization of the article from what you requested. Please let me know when you reply where you want the text given the new organization. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 09:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: Thanks a lot for your work on this. You make some valid points and you've definitely improved the article with the restructure. Some of my detail was excessive, but it's a judgement call, which is part of the reason for inviting other editors to look at the proposal. Answering specific points:

• FTMay12 isn't my ref. It's an interview with the Financial Times, already in the article- ref 7 in the present version.

Y In future, if you're going to want to use sources by their names in the article, or other similarly complex requests, please make a complete draft in your userspace of the entire article. That will prevent any miscommunication about desired layout of sections as well. You can link to Special:Diff in future WP:ERs if you want to have multiple requests open at a time which don't need to be added together.

• My opinions about religion or religious education aren't in the proposed text. I'm trying to express what the charity aims to do. Fine to add "intending to..." or another qualifier to make that clear.

Y

• I Googled Deborah Kehr and it looks to me like she deserves a Wikipedia biography as head of multiple organisations, so I created a redlink. Nobody pretends Wikipedia is complete, so nothing should be inferred from the lack of an article about her. Li Yongjun has won an award for preserving China's cultural heritage, so is probably notable too. I hadn't looked deeply into it, but thought he deserves the benefit of the doubt. But I accept that maybe this is too much detail for the present biography.

Y Right, I'm not really asserting that they're not notable, I'm just presuming that. Of course Wikipedia isn't complete, but at the same time, someone very notable, who became so in the last five years, is very likely to have an article. So, as a shortcut, we can sometimes use not having an article as a proxy for notability. What was really the problem wasn't the red links, certainly they're allowed, it was, as you mentioned, WP:TMI.

• Quoting "everday heroes", which I did, has the same semantic effect as prefixing with "so-called".

Y OK, I accept that.

• Neutrality requires that we fairly summarise the reliable sources about the subject, not that we find wrong things a person has done to "balance" their life morally. There is already text and references in the article addressing how he made money.

? Sorry, not buying this argument. I'm not asking you to seek a false balance. I'm questioning whether someone at this level of notability, with an article this long, who is as old as Khalili, can really have 100% of the content be flattering. We have a whole article called criticism of Mother Teresa. Also, the article is not clear at all about how he got so rich. It says his parents were art and antiques dealers. Many such families exist, very few of them create billionaires powerful enough to get people to write about them when they might not even care what their Wikipedia bio looks like. More information is definitely needed: how much was inherited? Did he use it as seed money to start businesses, or did he primarily grow it through investing? Whether any interesting, independent and reliable criticism of how he earned it falls out is up to the sources, but if it's not there I won't hold that against you.

• There were previously photos in the article that were deleted as not properly licensed, but I think this is in progress.

? In progress? Do you mean you messaged WP:OTRS?

• I've never met Prof. Khalili and I have no idea what he thinks of this article about him, or if he cares. It seems you and I both agree though that the article could be improved and that's the point of this discussion.

Y Adding an image does improve the article, there's no reason to be defensive. I'm not accusing you of any wrongdoing.

• My request: could there be a mention of the Global Hope Coalition and of Faith in the Commonwealth in the "Philanthropy" section? These are activities that have coverage and that are relevant to Prof. Khalili, but I totally take on board that my proposed text went into excessive detail.

Y Of course, I didn't propose removing them entirely.

MartinPoulter (talk) 10:51, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@MartinPoulter: Replied point by point. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 14:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: Hi again, I saw that you okayed the addition of the Global Hope Coalition and Faith in the Commonwealth to the article, so thought that meant you were going to add them, but I see these haven't been added. The other points aren't relevant to this edit request. With respect to the images, I didn't mean to imply that I was uploading an image. I think someone connected to Khalili is doing that and this requires them to get written notification from the photographer and to share that with OTRS. I don't know the financial detail beyond what's in the article.

Just to get back to basics, this edit request is here because I'm making a request for you (or another uninvolved editor) to add content that I ought not to because of COI. We've made progress on what needs to be added — in fact we seem to have come to an agreement! — so what remains is to act on it. You seem to think that you're requesting me to make an unrelated change to the article! Of course this Talk page can be used to discuss what about the article could be improved- and there's lots of things. But there's no reason to target questions to me as I don't have any special knowledge and there are a lot of reliable sources already linked in the article or listed on the Talk page above this discussion. Nothing stops you using those. Again, I don't see why the question about financials is being directed at me in the context of an edit request which isn't about that topic.

I don't know what point you're making with the Mother Theresa comparison. There are entire books criticising Mother Theresa, so it's natural for that to be summarised in a Wikipedia article. Same with other people when there is extensive published criticism. That doesn't imply there should automatically be criticism articles or sections for other people who are old, rich, or whatever other criteria. We have to be guided by sources that actually exist, not what someone speculates might exist. Especially since this is a BLP, claims need to be well-sourced, not "His article is long and he is in his seventies, therefore..." MartinPoulter (talk) 12:54, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@MartinPoulter: Especially since this is a BLP, claims need to be well-sourced, not "His article is long and he is in his seventies, therefore..." ← I am, of course, well aware of WP:BLP, and have written BLP's, most recently Hiroyuki Nishimura (69.6% as of Diff/965822591). I'm not the paid editor though, nor familiar with the sources, nor do I have any interest in volunteering my time to become familiar with the sources that exist on this subject (other than ones you provide, and any others I might have to find if the ones you provide are dubious!). I also wrote quite plainly Whether any interesting, independent and reliable criticism of how he earned it falls out is up to the sources, but if it's not there I won't hold that against you., meaning I was willing to trust you despite your COI if you had replied with e.g. I have read almost every reliable source I am aware of about Khalili, and have found no criticism worth mentioning of how he attained his wealth, nor of his character.

Regarding your understanding of the COI ER process, I do not, as a general rule, implement part of an edit request. As with Inkian Jason on Talk:Wheely § Draft, my WP:ER process is to compare every change in the draft to the article and ask for changes to the draft until I believe it meets Wikipedia policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and reliable sourcing,^{[‍WP:ERREQ‍]: §§ General considerations & Responding to requests} after which I implement the entire request. This is to be done per my interpretation of WP:COIRESPONSE No.1. Again, I don't see why the question about financials is being directed at me in the context of an edit request which isn't about that topic. ← So that, when I add five paragraphs of glowing praise on Mr. Khalili's behalf, I am sure that my edit is morally correct vis-à-vis WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV.

So, those're my thoughts on the issue. But, of course, I don't need to be the reviewer if you think I'm sorely mistaken. I will understand if you re-open your COI ER, and won't be offended. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 02:29, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

I have created an improved draft of this article at User:MartinPoulter/Nasser_Khalili. This diff summarises the changes I've made. I think this is a clear improvement over what is there at the moment, but of course I'm open to discussing any of the changes individually. Being involved in a GLAM partnership with the Khalili Collections, I'm prevented by a COI from pasting in the whole draft myself. Below I list the problems with the existing article that this new version is designed to fix.

• Lots of broken links, links to outdated sources, and bare URLs.
• Links to Khalili publications when third-party sources exist
• The Sydney Morning Herald article is listed as its own source, but it's just a reprint of the Bloomberg profile.
• Some WP:PEACOCK or otherwise unencyclopedic language
• In particular, the lead needed an overhaul because of some confusing language and because it was not a summary of the article. The fact about Bernie Ecclestone buying a house from Khalili arguably deserves mention in the article, but it's a bit tabloidy to have it in the lead as though it's central to understanding who Khalili is.
• The descriptions of most of the collections have been updated, drawing on articles about each collection which have passed AFC and DYK review.
• The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art being "curated by Julian Raby" seems to have been true at one point but is presently contradicted by https://www.khalilicollections.org/islamic-arts/#read-more so I've removed it.
• Images have been provided to represent each of the eight collections.
• Two items owned by Khalili are the subjects of WP articles: Khalili Imperial Garniture and Jami' al-tawarikh, so I've described and wikilinked both.
• A lot of the sources about Khalili refer to his philanthropy, but there was not much about philanthropy in the biography, so I've rewritten that section. "In 2012, he pledged over £1.5 million in support of his charity, The Maimonides Interfaith Foundation, in celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee." - removed because I couldn't find a source.
• Property development section: "Khalili acquired the freehold in 2009" removed because I couldn't find it in the sources. There is no need for the images in this section to be enlarged, so I set them to default size.
• The Recognition section had some duplication and was written in a very inconsistent way. The UNESCO goodwill ambassador subsection did not give an impression of what he does in this capacity.
• The Financial section overlapped heavily with the Business and collecting career section, so I merged it in.
• It is customary for a biography of a published author to contain a bibliography, so I've added a new section for that. I don't have the title of the first book he wrote, but I am still hoping to find that out and include it.
• New, short section on Personal life. It's common to put family details in their own section towards the end.

Again, the proposed solution for these problems, and the supporting refs, are in the draft in my userspace and I'm very happy to further discuss changes if that is necessary. Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 16:01, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Philafrenzy, Edwardx, and No Swan So Fine: - three editors who have made numerous edits to this article and have removed promotional material - in case they can help. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:30, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your transparency and your enormous work on this article and his wonderful collections. I concur with all of your above changes and your dedication to improving flow and prose - which is a rare ability on Wikipedia! The article still preserves the enigmatic nature of Khalili's Kane like grandiloquent collecting, and serves as brilliant glimpse into the life and motivations of a fascinating London character. I hope the GLAM partnership with Khalili will prove to be an inspiration to other collectors and custodians of the memory of humanity. No Swan So Fine (talk) 22:36, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

@No Swan So Fine: You're very kind. If you agree that my draft is an improvement, could you please paste it in to replace the current article? Thanks so much, MartinPoulter (talk) 22:44, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Done. No Swan So Fine (talk) 23:50, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Clicking "Thank" is not enough: I'm extremely grateful! MartinPoulter (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ganesha811: referring to this edit, I see your point about there being an entire article about the collections which we don't want to duplicate, but I think there is scope for discussion about how long of a summary we have. Your edit removed about 1,100 words; about one third of the article's total body text. The collections are the main reason for this person's notability, so I don't follow your point in the edit summary that the text is "not about Khalili the person". Surely documenting the person involves giving most weight to what they are most notable for. Now there's more body text about property development than about the collections, which does not at all reflect the coverage of those aspects in reliable sources. As you've seen in reviewing an article about an individual collection, each of the eight collections has had third-party coverage as well as an extensive official catalogue. Just because a sub-article exists doesn't mean there can't be a lengthy summary in the main article: see Vincent van Gogh for example. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

MartinPoulter, I think that's fair and I'm happy to discuss the edit, which was WP:BOLD. I think coverage of Khalili's work to collect the antiquities would be good to have for this page, but the material seemed to me to be exclusively about the collections themselves - their contents, significance, and provenance. I agree that as it stands now, the section is a little short, but I think it should be expanded with material about how, why, and when Khalili built these collections, and *not* with the kind of material that was removed, which in my view really does belong on the linked page. The Van Gogh comparison misses the mark - he was an artist, not a collector. Ganesha811 (talk) 12:58, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

There is a separate article about the charitable foundation led by Khalili, the Khalili Foundation. This article is badly out of date, so I've created a userspace draft with more content and more sources. See the edit request on the article's Talk page. Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 09:49, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

This request has been actioned. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:31, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed a way in which this biography does not comply with the Manual Of Style. MOS:NATIONALITY says "neither previous nationalities nor the country of birth should be mentioned in the opening paragraph unless relevant to the subject's notability" and that the nationality we attribute should be "the country, region, or territory where the person is currently a national or permanent resident". The style guide says to only mention the country of birth if the person was notable while in that country. They give the example of Isaac Asimov: though he was born in Russia, he is introduced as "American" rather than "Russian-American" or "Russian-born American".

Sir David's official biographies at and describe him as "British", not "British-Iranian", and mention him leaving Iran in 1967. The Bloomberg profile confirms the basic details of his life. It's clear that the things he is notable for happened while he is permanently resident in the UK. So while it's right that the article describes Sir David's childhood in Iran, the nationality we ascribe when we introduce him should be "British".

This seems to me to be a very straightforward change, so I'll go ahead and make it, but other editors are welcome to revert and discuss. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:30, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

To the list of Honours and awards, please add Freedom of the City of London, which he was given yesterday (6 November 2025). Source: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/freedom-of-london-for-jewish-art-scholar-whos-amassed-worlds-largest-collection-of-islamic-art/

Many thanks in advance, MartinPoulter (talk) 14:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NotJamestack (talk) 16:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. In the Honours and awards subsection of the article there is a list. Please to the end of this list add "Freedom of the City of London (2025)" with this source: "Freedom of London for Jewish art scholar who's amassed world's largest collection of Islamic art". Jewish News. 7 November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-09. Cheers, MartinPoulter (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Please use a "change X to Y" format. NotJamestack (talk) 15:02, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a change but an addition. Are you saying that you don't understand the instruction I've given above? Would it help to think of it as a change from the existing list to a list that is one item longer? MartinPoulter (talk) 20:52, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

You have been asked to use a "change X to Y" format. Also, you seem to have disclosed a conflict of interest. Is that true? NotJamestack (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I've given a "change X to Y" format in my comment above; I'm requesting the change of a specified list to a list which is the same but has an additional item at the end. As you can see on this Talk page and the fact I've used the COI edit process to request this edit, I acknowledge a conflict of interest. Can you explain what the barrier is? MartinPoulter (talk) 11:46, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

WP:CHANGEXY says "Insert X after Y" is an acceptable format. So I'm asking that after the list item 'Knight Bachelor "for services to interfaith relations and charity" (2020)', please insert a new list item with the following wiki code * [[Freedom of the City of London]] (2025){{cite web|url= https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/freedom-of-london-for-jewish-art-scholar-whos-amassed-worlds-largest-collection-of-islamic-art/ |title=Freedom of London for Jewish art scholar who’s amassed world’s largest collection of Islamic art|date=7 November 2025 |work=Jewish News|access-date=2025-11-09}} MartinPoulter (talk) 12:03, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

The user below has a request that an edit be made to Nasser Khalili. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. Summary of request: More detail about his knighthood from Pope Benedict The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 481 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

• Suggested change: In the Recognition section, after "Pope Benedict XVI further elevated him to Knight Commander in that order (KCSS) for his pursuit of peace, education and culture among nations.", add a new sentence:

Pope Benedict described Khalili as having "in one person the great wisdom of a Chief Rabbi, a Cardinal and a Grand Mufti".

• Rationale: Other editors are better-placed to evaluate this, but this compliment from the Pope for someone's interfaith work, in the course of giving them a knighthood, seems like a big deal.
• Citation: the Jewish News article (reuse ref 76 in the current version). "Freedom of London for Jewish art scholar who's amassed world's largest collection of Islamic art". Jewish News. 7 November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-09.

Thanks in advance for any response, MartinPoulter (talk) 11:42, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm torn on this one. It's an undeniably impressive compliment, but I think it might be a bit much; Khalili's honors largely speak for themselves. Not going to accept or decline it outright, I'll leave it open for another editor. DiscoursesonLivvy (talk · contribs) 05:15, 15 April 2026 (UTC)