Redditor Unearths Paper By One “Solehah Yaacob”, Citation Includes The Onion Article

0 Sara Smith November 09, 2025

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A lecturer at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) recently made headlines after she claimed that ancient Romans had learned shipbuilding techniques from Malay seafarers.

This sparked a ferocious debate on social media where critics demanded evidence while supporters of the claim defended local maritime heritage.

The Onion citation in a research paper baffles many

A redditor unearthed a research paper in 2018 titled “Discourse on the Bible Compilation Framework Timeline: A Relation with the Development of Islamic Sources” written by one Solehah Yaacob.

It is unclear at this point if this is the same Solehah Yaacob as the IIUM lecturer.

The paper compares interpretations of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) with Islamic sources like the Qur’an and Hadith, suggesting that some Biblical ideas might have been influenced or reflected by Islamic teachings.

To put it simply: it examines how Bible interpretation has changed over time, the problems caused by misinterpretation, and possible connections or shared ideas between Biblical and Islamic texts.

In this paper, one of the references she had listed was from The Onion, a fake news website that publishes satiricial content purely for entertainment.

Source: University of Malaya, Asian Journal of Business and Accounting

The article from The Onion, titled “Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks”, claimed that the entire ancient Greek civilization was completely fabricated by a group of historians, anthropologists, and classicists who worked non-stop between 1971 and 1974 to forge “Greek” documents and artifacts.

Direct citation of Wikipedia

Another research paper written by Solehah Yaacob, found in the IIUM repository, supports a theory that suggests Malay people are descendants of Keturah, who is said to be the prophet Abraham’s third wife.

The claim has long been a conspiracy theory instead of true fact, and her paper titled ‘Asal Usul Bahasa, Tamadun Manusia Dan Perkaitan Dengan Rumpun Bangsa & Bahasa Melayu’ (Human Civilization and its Relationship with the Malay Language & Race), posits that Keturah was originally from Champa, an ancient Indochinese kingdom in Vietnam which is known as Nha Trang today.

In the paper, she included Wikipedia as a point of reference for Nha Trang.

Many are concerned over the state of Academia in Malaysia

On social media, a large number of people have criticised Solehah’s alleged use of unreliable and satirical sources in her research papers.

They have scrutinised the credibility of her journals, highlighted low academic standards, and the tarnishing of IIUM’s reputation as a university, among other things.

Some also reminded that even their high school teachers warned them not to cite Wikipedia directly in assignments.

The source of reference to The Onion also gained heavy criticism on social media and even popular online forum Reddit.

Many couldn’t believe that a research paper writer would cite information from the satirical news website. They also wondered how the paper managed to get published on official university archives, after seemingly having been peer-reviewed.