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This is the answer that I gave to this question:

There are two distinct words “nafs” and “rooh”, which are both translated as “soul” in English. The word rooh is the same as the English word for soul. Nafs, however, is slightly different. The word nafs is defined as “a feature of the soul. This feature continuously directs people to committing sin.”★ The desire to commit evil acts, such as lying and cheating, is therefore a result of the nafs.

When a person follows the demands of his/her nafs, it grows stronger and demands more. Fighting against its wishes and worshiping more often, on the other hand, weakens the nafs and diminishes its impact on the person’s life. That being said, nafs can also be used to define “the self” as a whole instead of only the evil portion of it.

http://www.sorularlaislamiyet.com/article/17096/nefs-nefis-nedir-nerededir-ve-ozellikleri-nelerdir-anlamadigim-sey-nefsimiz-biz-miyiz-yani-nefis-insan-mi-bu-nefse-karsi-ne-yapmaliyiz.html

My answer was downvoted and deleted...and there was a comment by a moderator saying

We require that answers consist primarily of the words of their author, and that all quotes be clearly marked as such and attributed to their respective authors. If you can abide by these rules, you may post a new answer here

My answer actually does consist primarily of my own words. There is only a single sentence which I quoted (and put quotation marks), and then put a footnote to give the link.

My Question:

Why was my answer deleted? I just checked the rules, and it says that you have to blockquote your quotations. So is it not enough that I put quotation marks (since the quotation is very short)? Also, this doesn't seem to be the only reason my answer as deleted since the moderator says it has to be primarily my own words (which I think it is). So I'm just wondering...is there something I'm misunderstanding?

Thank you in advance

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The entirety of that post is clearly copied and pasted from http://zehrarisale.weebly.com/risale-i-nur/first-word-part-1. If in fact you are the original author of that work (i.e. if you had written the post on the blog, and feeling that it was a good answer to the question asked here chose to re-post the same information as an answer) then yes, it would be welcome on the site.

Given, however, how impossible it is to prove who is and who is not actually the original author of anything on the Internet, and especially given how rampant plagiarism and copy/paste have been on this site, expressly calling out the original source and your own authorship is necessary to prevent it from accidentally being flagged and deleted. If you are willing to make those changes to the post (you should be able to edit the post even while it is deleted) and flag it for moderator attention, it can be undeleted.

See also the relevant meta post at "How can I post my own work from an external site without it being flagged as plagiarism?"

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  • Yes, I actually am the author of that post. I just started that blog but chose not to continue. I started another blog here zehrarisalet.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/first-word-part-1 you can see the same post on that webpage as well. You can also see that this is my blog if you click to see my profile here at Islamstackexchange
    – Artus
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 21:41

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