Talk:Islam/Archive 16 and Orazio Gentileschi: Difference between pages

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'''Orazio Lomi Gentileschi''' was an [[Italy|Italian]] painter. He was born in [[1563]] in [[Pisa]] (in [[Tuscany]]) and he died in [[1639]] in [[London]]. He was the father of the painter [[Artemisia Gentileschi]].

Archives of older discussions may be found here:

He is generally named Orazio Lomi de Gentileschi; it appears that De Gentileschi was his correct surname, Lomi being the surname which his mother had borne during her first marriage. He was born at Pisa, and studied under his half-brother Aurelio Lomi, whom in course of time he surpassed. He afterwards went to [[Rome]], and was associated with the landscape-painter [[Agostino Tasi]], executing the figures for the landscape backgrounds of this artist in the [[Palazzo Rospigliosi]], and it is said in the great hall of the [[Quirinal Palace]], although by some authorities the figures in the last-named building are ascribed to [[Lanfranco]].

[[Talk:Islam/Archive 1]]<br>

[[Talk:Islam/Archive 2]]

His best works are ''Saints Cecilia and Valerian'', in the [[Palazzo Borghese]], Rome; ''David after the death of Goliath'', in the Palazzo Doria, [[Genoa]]; and some works in the royal palace, [[Turin]], noticeable for vivid and uncommon coloring. At an advanced age Gentileschi went to [[England]] at the invitation of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]], and he was employed in the palace at [[Greenwich]]. [[Van dyck]] included him in his portraits of a hundred illustrious men. His works generally are strong in shadow and positive in color. He died in England in 1646.

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{{1911}}

== Reverting Edits ==

I have removed following edits by 131.181.251.66 because...

* '''False statement:''' ''Traditionally however, the statement ''Muhammadur rasulullah'' - '''";Muhammad is the messenger of God"''' is appended to the statement by Sunnite muslims''.

* '''No reference for the following statement:''' ''In modern times there has been much controversy over whether the ahadith are necessary for the guidance of an individual. There are groups of God-alone muslims who accept only the Qur'an as being binding and they therefore reject the ahadith as necessary for guidance''.

* '''Vague statement:''' ''from a vastly larger body of sayings numbering in the hundreds of thousands''.

[[User:Hiwamy|Hiwamy]] 04:09, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

{{Commons|Category:Orazio Gentileschi}}

== BIG PROBLEM editing this page! ==

{{artist-stub}}

it is too long. i just tried and have lost half the page!!!! i think we need to move [[Islamic law]] to a seperate page because that is a very long section.

also i wish to change the 'denomination' section to state that SHiah, Sunni and SUfi are distinct currents in Islam. the article states that sufi sects can easily be subsumed into either Shiah or Sunni. this is NONSENCE! anyone who is a muslim will have problems with this view. - [[User:Kara Kadija]]

[[Category:Italian painters|Gentileschi, Orazio]]

:That's partly true, but not entirely. Some Sufis are hard to categorize, but some (like the [[Sanusi]]s or [[Abd al-Kadir]]) are pretty orthodox Sunnis or Shia. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 19:53, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

{{lived|b=1563|d=1639|key=Gentileschi, Orazio}}

:I reverted the page, by the way - I don't think I eliminated anything you wrote (hope not!). Now that you're signed in, you should be able to edit individual sections rather than having to edit the whole page at once. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 20:02, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:creating an [[Islamic law]] page is a good idea. I have added [[Islamic Law]] under religious studies, subheading Islamic studies and under law to the [[List of academic disciplines]]--[[User:Samuel J. Howard|Samuel J. Howard]] 20:12, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

::At the moment, [[Islamic Law]] redirects to [[Sharia]], which is already a reasonable-sized article. Maybe a bit of merging is in order? - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 21:05, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:Thanx 4 the help guys. I agree with a merger of [[Sharia]] and [[Islamic Law]]. I'll have a go at it soon and then try and clarify the issue regarding sufism which i still think is significantly distinct in the main, to be a seperate 'denomination' of Islam, albeit one that crosses over into [[shiah]] and [[sunni]] and indeed there are forms of [[sufism]] that can appear to be , ie are understood as both sunni and shiah at the same time (eg the [[Brelvi]]) . . . [[User:Kara Kadija]]

==Review requested of [[Aashurah]] article==

Could some knowledgeable person please have a look at [[Aashurah]]? It really needs a bit of clarification regarding the meaning of the festival. -- [[User:ChrisO|ChrisO]] 20:54, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

== How should criticism be presented? ==

I am wondering if we should have any "criticism" links section in any of the religion articles. Having one for this article opens it up for all the religion articles, and I can see this section exploding in length for each of our religion articles. It could be used as a form of tit-for-tat attacking. Critics of Judaism, critics of Islam, critics of Christianity, critics of Hinduism, etc., all will have a grand time adding links to all sorts of websites, to websites that are probably not going to be very impartial. Perhaps Wikipedia policy should deal with criticisms like other topics, as discussions within an article. That way we could have peer review and a decent shot at attaining NPOV. Any thoughts? [[User:RK|RK]] 03:03, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

:I agree that the Critics section is ballooning out of control (compare with older versions of the article), but putting a criticism section in the article proper is just asking for even more trouble. Perhaps a culling of links is in order. [[User:Silsor|silsor]] 05:04, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

:: Balloning? I disagree [they haven't much changed since they were implemented] ... AND there are less than the number of "''pro''" links (which most of the others are) ...

:: As to the Critics sections [content and links] ... they are needed to provide alternative views (not just the pro view of the article). They provide resources for editor to use for NPOV, also. They allow citation of those views ... and mabey the articles can attain a NPOV status (as most are not) ... Sicerely, [[User:Reddi|JDR]]

:::<s>Not true. Check 150 revisions ago; none of the Critics links were in the article at that time.</s> "Since implementation" [[User:Silsor|silsor]] 18:17, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be lovely if Wikipedia could have a transliteration preferences pane -- click if you want Qur'an or Koran? Click if you want Trotsky or Trotskii? And then THAT paricular edit wouldn't take place so often. --Michael Tinkler, who has been poking his nose in Wikipedia again.

I faced a related problem in [[Rachel Corrie]], where people kept wanting to link to external articles saying either "Corrie is a saint" or "Corrie is the devil". In the end I found three lists of links of opinions and used those as a replacement. Links to web directories might help a little, for example. [[User:MyRedDice|Martin]] 23:23, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I have removed the following links to websites critical of Islam. I am in favor of discussion on this topic in the article, but this long list has no context, and might violate the conditions of "NPOV". Such lists can easily be abused by linking to hostile or bigoted websites. Maybe as discussion in the article grows, revelvant websites can be added one at a time? Maybe we will find that some of these links are highly relevant, and others are not. [[User:JeMa|JeMa]]

: I have moved back to the article the links to websites critical of Islam.

: Discussion on this topic while the link stay in there should be possible ...

: "''long list''"? not really that long .. there is a "''long''" list of pro sites ... It has context (i.e., the notes to the sides) and the heading of it ... also it allows editors to use them as a resource to give ''BALANCE'' to this unbalanced article ... (which others or I can do in the future (as time permits for me I plan to...))

: ''violate the conditions of "NPOV"''? What? umm no ... the links are one step to provide a NPOV stance ... notice the neutrality disclaimer @ the top of the article? That was there because the Islam article has NO critical info / sites of reference (as someone metioned earlier, it sounds like more of a pro conversion article)...

: "''easily be abused''"? Sure ... but that is why you keep the links [and monitor those] that try to shed light on Islam [pro and con] ...

: Revelvant websites can help editors provide content to wikipedia to ''neutralize'' this unbalanced article ... all the links are relevant and should be included ...

: Sincerely, [[User:Reddi|JDR]]

:JeMa, I support your decision and edit [12:50, 19 Nov 2003 . . JeMa], including the three added links: Notes on Islam, from a Bahá'í Perspective; A history of Islam in America; Jewish Virtual Library - Islam analysis. Realistically, our encyclopedic articles have their limited space allocated for eternal links. I hope we keep this section for neutral academic sources that deal with Islam by worthy scholars who will present the religion and deal fairly with the opposing arguments. Perhaps the academic sites that so vehemently oppose Islam should be placed in a new article like [[Opposition to Islam]]? People using the external links, to further their study in Islam, deserve neutrality, and the links should offer more than pictures of swords and corpses. If a student arrives to this article to study Islam and finds links of material for him/her to reject the study of Islam, than he just may question if this is an encyclopedia at all. Lets work together to further the neutrality of our articles for Wikipedia has great potential. [[User:Usedbook|Usedbook]] 14:13, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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[SNIP links (that belong in article)]

==Is the neutrality of this article still disputed?==

The neutrality dispute notice has been at the top for a long time but nobody seems to be working on this article. Is it just a relic? [[User:Silsor|silsor]] 21:03, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

==Too many links==

We have about 3 pages of links now. How about putting them in a separate article? [[User:Silsor|silsor]] 20:44, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, there are too many links. Some of them appear bias like '"Harun Yahya - An ''Invitation to The Truth'',"' or 'Muslim-Answers.' Ones of Islamic Art (like the "Los Angeles County Museum of Art" one) should be put as a link in the "Islamic art" wikipedia entry. - [[User:Tanna|tanna]]

==Islam - Fastest Growing Religion?==

I did an NPOV modification yesterday, changing the statement "Islam is the fastest growing religion" to "according to many Muslims, it is the fastest growing religion}". Someone changed it to "according to many sources" - without naming any, of course. The edit comment made a reference to CNN, without any specifics.

Are there any sources beyond Muslims repeating, without any attribution, that Islam is the fastest growing religion? "According to many sources" is not a good reference - if there are many sources, surely specific references can be provided?

I will change this back to the NPOV "according to many Muslims" unless I see specific references, or some other convincing evidence that "Islam is the fastest growing religion" is NPOV.

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V]]

: [http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/14/egypt.islam/] - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 05:50, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. Perhaps it might be appropriate for the Islam article to state "according to a CNN item" rather than the very vague "many sources". In general, many Muslims seem to not regard CNN as a reliable source of information about Islam - I am curious why you disagree with this view.

Also, this article provided no numbers or further attribution. Are there any actual, reliable numbers, preferably gathered by a neutral party? Plugging "Islam fastest growing religion" into Google provides mostly Islamic websites that simply repeat this assertion, and to some Christan website that simply deny it. Neither seem to be big on actual evidence.

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V]]

: [http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm] has a bit more detail from a wider range of sources. As you can see, actual knowledge seems pretty sketchy; however, if the U.S. Center for World Mission came up with Islam growing faster than Christianity, I for one am inclined to believe them! In any event, it provides sufficient evidence that "many sources" is correct. I suspect the main factor in this is simply the birth rate. I also note a reference from the World Network of Religious Futurists, led by a rabbi: [http://www.wnrf.org/news/trends.html]. Google also comes up with a few claims that atheism is growing faster; true or false, that would be irrelevant, because atheism is not a religion, but the absence of religion. It should probably also say "numerically highest" - the highest religions in percentage growth rates are of course the small ones (Falun Gong, Bahai, Scientology, etc.) - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 06:12, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, this is much better. So a good NPOV statement would be "According to (list sources), Islam is the fastest growing religion in terms of straight membership numbers, and most of this growth attributed to population growth". Simply saying "it is the fastest growing religion" is too unqualified to be an especially useful statement. I know many Muslims take it to mean that they are getting more converts that anyone else - which, AFAIK, is not the case.

Scientology also claims to be the fastest growing religion - which it is not, since ever their own numbers have not changed for at least a decade - that is part of the reason I tend to be very skeptical of any claims of any religion being "the fastest growing". --[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V]]

: How about "According to sources such as the World Network of Religious Futurists[http://www.wnrf.org/news/trends.html], the U.S. Center for World Mission[http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm], and [[Samuel Huntingdon]], Islam is growing faster numerically than any other religion; the largest factor in this is natural population growth." - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 19:45, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this is true and meaningful and NPOV. Thank you.

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V]]

I have deleted the "attributed to faster birthrates", because it is false and essentially bigoted. While the stats support that Islam is the fastest growing major religion, no reliable sources show that this has to do with birthrates.

I wonder if this could make an interesting (and of course contentious) article: [[Fastest growing religions]]. I've also heard this about [[Pentecostalism]] and [[Mormonism]], though of course the extent to which these are counted separately from general Christianity would also be "controversial".--[[User:Pharos|Pharos]] 21:50, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

==Islam and the Separation of Church and State==

An unrelated question, if I may. Would it be fair to say that the [[Separation of Church and State]] is not part of Islam or Islamic tradition? This is, in my experience, a view shared by supporters and detractors of Islam - although of course they do not agree on whether or not this is a good thing.

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V]]

: Well, that depends what you mean by "separation of Church and State". Really, this separates into two issues:

*Does Islam or the "Islamic tradition" involve rule by religious figures?

:That is the recent Iranian doctrine of ''velayat-e-faqih''; the Ismaili sect of Shiism, and the probably non-Muslim Druzes have similar doctrines. This has very little support in the mainstream tradition; even the caliphs were only rarely well-versed in religious law, and very few Islamic rulers ever reached their position through a religiously oriented career (to say the least!) Exceptions include [[Ibn Tumart]], [[Usman dan Fodio]], and of course the first four "rightly guided" Caliphs.

*Do they involve rule in accordance with religion?

:In a Muslim country - well, yeah, of course. Government figures are supposed to behave in accordance with Islam like everyone else, right? And the secular state was a rare beast in the medieval Middle East, so it's not really clear what "tradition" has to say on that subject.

:To be more precise - traditionally, a state ruled by Muslims is supposed to apply the rules of Islamic law among Muslims, or to disputes between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the rules of the Torah or Church to Jews and Christians. For religions not mentioned in the Qur'an (eg Zoroastrianism), there is no firm legal tradition, allowing it to vary more or less according to the whim of the rulers. The idea of laws without a religious basis (eg extra taxes!) was historically controversial; the idea of legally allowing Muslims to drink, or even non-Muslims to, say, have sex outside marriage, was unthinkable (and still strikes many or most Muslims as reprehensible.) This was blunted in practice by an extremely strong emphasis on the right to privacy - evidence of illegal drinking obtained by looking over someone's wall (even by a policeman), for instance, was deemed void.

What would you say "separation of Church and State" means in Christianity, exactly? [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 21:49, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, within Christianity there is no single notion of "separation of Church and State", but I will summarize the at the risk of overgeneralizing.

Essentially, since the late Middle Ages the Church (and later the churches) have been losing political influence, and although they did not like it, they have since gotten more or less used to it.

In the modern West outside of the United States the statement "the state should not pass laws that are contrary to the Bible" will not be well received even most serious Christians - i.e. people for who religion is not just a once-a-week social outing. In Canada the debate over same-sex marriage, for instance, has not been framed in religious terms - the opposition to gay marriage uses spurious but mostly non-religious arguments.

Are you familiar with the writings of C.S.Lewis? He was a Christian and thus opposed to divorce. But his view was that the UK was a non-Christian nation (in everything but name) and Christians had no business imposing their laws on everyone else - much like the Mohammedans (his term) have no business imposing their laws on others. So if someone wants to get divorced or drink, it is simply not the business of the state. Most modern Protestants - and probably most Catholics - would, I suspect, support this view. (The USA may be different, but it is not a typical Western country.)

So there is no "exact" meaning - the above is as much as I can do on short notice.

But perhaps I should put my earlier question into context.

I often hear, or participate in, a conversation that goes something like this:

Non-Muslim: Which Western freedoms would not exist in an Islamic state?

Muslim: <answers>

Non-Muslim: Man, an Islamic state blows.

What is going on here?

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael Voytinsky]]

Yes, I am familiar with C. S. Lewis (and incidentally, despite his frequently heavy-handed propaganda in the Narnia series, he rocks - anyone capable of producing the Screwtape Letters, or Perelandra, can't be all bad!) As for that conversation - the thing about Western countries is that (as CS Lewis noted) they are for the most part post-Christian. What was it, something like 10% of Britons go to church on Sundays? Under such circumstances, a Christian state would be a real surprise! Muslim countries, for the most part, are not in that situation; as [[Ernest Gellner]] noted, levels of religiosity have if anything gone up, not down, over the past two or three generations, with the spread of the traditionally more religious urban culture as against rural culture and the standardization of religion allowed by mass media and improved communications.

What Muslims thinking of the quite ill-defined concept of an Islamic state are generally envisioning is a utopia practically all of whose inhabitants are devout Muslims - and whose laws, therefore, are framed according to the premise that the potential criminal was brought up in the those moral norms; that even if the citizen drinks, they'll at least feel guilty about it! Christian countries' laws were often framed along similar lines - hence, say, Victorian prohibitions on divorce - until the voices of those who did not accept those norms grew sufficiently loud to force others to take them into account. Even the most partisan supporters of an Islamic state admit that Christian and Jewish religious minorities should - in accordance with tradition - be governed by their own religion's laws, and they usually allow that other _religious_ groups should have the same freedom; but irreligious or merely non-religious minorities strike them not as other belief systems worthy of their own courts, but as unnatural and deplorable results of foreign influence, to be eliminated through education and prevented from practising their sins by law... A society of a different religion, or of multiple religions, makes perfect sense to a traditionally raised Muslim observer, as long as religion is important in it. One where religion is a quite minor factor in people's lives does not. The inevitable presence of the irreligious is the real obstacle to an idealized Islamic state, just as the inevitable presence of egoism is to an idealized Communist (or Christian?) state.

I think that answers your question, but I'm not 100% sure - is that what you were asking? ;) - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 05:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:I have just made the following change to the Islamic law paragraph on the main page:

:"The study of scripture is strongly emphasized, and leads to the modern debate over Islamic law. Since scriptural passages explicitly mention rules concerning slavery, inheritance, divorce, women's attire etc. as well as punishments for theft and adultery, a traditional body of Islamic law has developed. This body of knowledge greatly influenced the traditional norms of Muslim societies. However, its application in Muslim nation-states today is far from uniform. Many Muslim majority countries such as Turkey, Indonesia and Bangladesh have mainly secular constitutions with a few religious provisions. However, conservative Muslims view Islamic law as essential to their religious outlook."

:I think this helps address the whole separation of church and state in the way it objectively exists in Muslim countries; namely through a current political debate over national laws and the extent to which they should reflect scriptures. --[[User:Zeeshanhasan|Zeeshanhasan]] 21:32, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

==Islamic and Western Values==

It answers my questions, sort of.

What I am trying to do is to think of some NPOV way to describe the conflict of values between some aspects of Islam and some aspects of the West. (I think it it an overstatement to say that there is a conflict between "Islam" and the "West" - since neither is a unified entity.)

The general view among Muslims, and among educated Western liberals, is that the negative perception of Islam is due to misinformation. I think this view is in many cases mistaken. The negative perception is there because the values are different - not because one side or another necessarily has its facts wrong.

For example, I enjoy drinking alcohol, I see nothing wrong with fornication or gay sex, and I think demolishing the arguments in favour of God's existence is good, clean fun. Further, I think that any attempt to ban the above activities (beyond reasonable restrictions like no drinking and driving, ages of consent, etc.) is morally wrong - and if I found myself in a state that tried to ban these activities I would either fight it (I would not rule out using violence) or go elsewhere. By Islamic standards, I am a bad person. Am I missing anything here?

--[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael V.]]

Islam - like, apart from the alcohol, Christianity and Judaism - is of course opposed to all those things* - and a state dominated by committed members of any of those three religions will almost certainly try to ban, or at least severely restrict, them - as history proves. That does not happen in the West today because no Western country is in fact dominated by committed Christians (nor is Israel dominated by religious Jews, despite the growing power of the ultra-Orthodox); if one truly were, I suspect (along with many a liberal warning against American or Israeli fundamentalists) that you would quickly see their historically recent traditions of accomodating secularism weaken. So yes, there is a deep value conflict at work - but it's not between Islam and the West, it's between revealed religion and libertarianism. And that line cuts right through the middle of the West, through the old Western battle between the "Enlightenment" and the "Church".

And of course what counts as "reasonable restrictions" is very culture-dependent indeed; 100 years ago I guarantee you would have said banning gay sex was a perfectly "reasonable restriction" on fornication! We ban drunk driving because of its consequences to other people; but alcoholism and extramarital pregnancies have terrible consequences for other people too... Where you draw the line on consequences is a very finicky decision, and in fact is the Trojan horse by which restrictions on other people's behavior (aka law) can be reintroduced to almost any degree into non-anarchist libertarianism. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 06:50, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

*Except for arguing God's existence. I don't know any explicit statements on the subject, but presumably that is perfectly reasonable coming from someone who doesn't believe in God anyway! I do know the early Caliphate used to hold religious debates featuring materialists as well as other religions.

==WikiMoron Insists on Bringing Up "Honor Killing"==

Mustafaa - thank you for your comments about secularism vs. religion. I will comment more on this, as there are issues there that need to be added to the Wikipedia, but are very difficult to NPOV.

But first I would like to make a suggestion concerning dealing with the anonymous moron who insists on bringing up honor killings.

I agree with you that honor killings have no place in the discussion of Islam per se. They are not part of Islamic doctrine, and there are many Islamic cultures where this practice is not present - e.g. [[Indonesia]], which is the most populous Islamic country in the world.

Unfortunately, the practice is firmly linked with Islam in the mind of some poorly educated [[induhvidual|induhviduals]], and in this case this [[moron]] may continue adding the totally POV honor killing entry whether we like it or not.

Rather than engaging in a [[Wikiwar]] with him, perhaps this issue should be addressed. I have just done an NPOV edit for the [[honor killing]] entry - perhaps a link to that should be placed from the Islam page, or a summary of that entry should appear under "Honor Killing" heading.

Thoughts? - [[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael Voytinsky]] 03:39, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:Oy. . . the user in question used to go by the handle [[User:OneVoice|OneVoice]], and did exactly the same sort of thing back then. I suggest a phrasing like this, with neutral wording of course: "''Western media often associate honor killings with Islam, and feeble-minded ignoramuses accept this view uncritically, even trying to force it into encyclopedia articles on Islam, but the association is a load of bullshit; as evidence, X, Y, and Z.''"&mdash;and put it in the section on [[Islam#Islam in the modern world|Islam in the modern world]], not in the section on the role of women. How's that? &mdash;[[User:Mirv|No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']] 06:35, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:Or we could write something to the effect that a strict interpretation of Islamic law prescribes severe punishment, up to and including death, for ''all'' adultery (including premarital sex), whether by men or by women; then describe how this law has been interpreted in different ages and places, and mention honor killings in Islamic countries within this context, where it belongs. (But that would be so much harder than saying "Muslim women are liable to be [[murder]]ed, if family members believe that the woman has misused her [[sexuality]]. ''See [[Honor killing]]s''", eh, OneVoice?) &mdash;[[User:Mirv|No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']] 06:46, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, since [[user:69.138.236.221|69.138.236.221]] (a.k.a. [[user:OneVoice|OneVoice]]) ''continued'' to revert to his version without so much as an edit summary's worth of explanation, I've gone ahead and implemented some of my suggestions on top of [[User:Yosri|Yosri]]'s version. How does it look now? &mdash;[[User:Mirv|No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']] 14:47, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Much better. The topic would be worth researching; I'll look into it. I would have thought the link belongs more in an article on [[machismo]] than anything else... [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 17:48, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

==Islam and Fundamentalism==

I have been looking at the following part of the Islam article:

*The Qur'an, also spelled Qur'an or Koran, is the holy book of Islam. Its title means "Recitation" or "Reading". It consists of 114 chapters or Surahs laid out roughly in order of size, the largest being near the front, the smallest near the back. It describes the origins of the Universe, Man, and their relationship to each other and their Creator. It sets out laws for society, morality, economics and many other topics. It is intended for recitation and memorization. The Qur'an is primarily taught from one generation to the next this way. Muslims regard the Qur'an as sacred and inviolable.

The problem with it is that it sounds like all Muslims are fundamentalists.

I mean, a Christian who believes that the Bible "sets out laws for society, morality, economics, etc" would generally be described as a fundamentalist.

Most Christians are not, however, fundamentalist. In a discussion of Christianity it would be highly inaccurate to state that Christians believe that the Bible sets out laws for society, morality, etc. - since not all, and probably not most, Christians believe this.

Does this description of the Qur'an suffer from the same problem? Or are Muslims much more prone to fundamentalism - which is a claim made by some people (e.g. Daniel Pipes). -[[User:Michael Voytinsky|Michael Voytinsky]] 20:15, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

: Yes, I would say virtually all Muslims agree that the Qur'an sets out some rules for society, morality, etc. - though they disagree on whether these rules should be implemented as law. In that sense, virtually all Muslims are "fundamentalist". However, in an Islamic context the word [[fundamentalist]] normally has a more specific meaning - someone who believes that the [[Sunna]] and [[Hadith]], together with the [[Qur'an]], are a ''complete'' source of law and morality, and should form their ''sole'' basis. Fundamentalists in that sense are a small minority, though their numbers vary with the country. But really, the definition of "fundamentalist" is pretty unclear; its usage varies so widely. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 20:36, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the term 'fundamentalism' is much too broad in its usage. It can simply be a western term of derision for all conservative muslims, or a self-applied Muslim term indicating a particular focus on scriptures, as Mustafaa has mentioned. Wikipedia's NPOV would be best served by avoiding the term altogether, as it is so loaded. I prefer talking about Muslim 'conservatives' when I mean conservative religious people, and 'militants' when I talk of groups like Al-Qaeda, etc.

== Removed Jihad reference in Qur'an section==

I removed the following paragraph:

:The Qur'an describes two forms of [[Jihad]] ("struggle"). One form, the "Greater Jihad", is described as a struggle with oneself for mastery of the soul, another form, the "Lesser Jihad", is described as a holy war that Muslims are obligated to wage against those who are enemies of Islam. There are differing opinions as to what forms of conflict are considered Jihad. Jihad may only be waged to defend Islam. However, some groups hold that this applies not only to the physical defense of Muslims, but to the reclamation of land once belonging to Muslims, or even the protection of Islam itself against corrupting influences. The idea of Jihad as a violent war has become more popular in the latter half of the 20th century, especially within the Wahabbi movement and in the [[Islamist]] movement. According to most forms of Islam, if a person dies in the middle of Jihad, he is sent directly to heaven without punishment for any sins.

The Qur'an does not describe two forms of Jihad as above. This paragraph doesn't even belong here. Who put it here? If you're a Muslim, I suggest you check carefully before making a statement on what the Qur'an says or doesn't say. Misquoting the Qur'an is a grave sin. --[[User:Aidfarh|Aidfarh]] 09:33, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

: Dunno, but you can find out by checking the history. [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 18:49, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

:BTW, well spotted - keep checking... The number of errors that creep into this page is phenomenal. I've managed to remove a few, but I've never gotten around to giving it the thorough, careful going-over it needs. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 19:13, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this paragraph? It looks fishy to me (what parts of the Qur'an specify tahref-ma'any as opposed to tahref-lafzy? Is that terminology even normal?), but I'm not sure enough of the details:

:Some parts of the Qur'an attribute differences between Muslims and non-Muslims to tahref-ma'any, a "corruption of the meaning" of the words. In this view, the Jewish Bible and Christian New Testament are true, but the Jews and Christians misunderstood the meaning of their own Scripture, and thus need the Qur'an to clearly understand the will of God. However, other parts of the Qur'an make clear that many Jews and Christians used deliberately altered versions of their scripture, and had altered the word of God. This belief was developed further in medieval Islamic polemics, and is a mainstream part of both Sunni and Shi'ite Islam today. This is known as the doctrine of tahref-lafzy, "the corruption of the text".

- [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 20:35, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

== People of the Book ==

'' Although it is commonly held that this group includes the Jews, Christians and Muslims, it is equally evident that Muslims are the only extant group to legitimately hold this title.'' - I strongly suspect this section is the politically motivated opinion of a small segment of radical Islamic fundamentalists, who promote this view as justification to be intolerant, if not actually violent, to Christians and Jews. In fact, this section is inserted, I believe, as part of a war on the West. On NPOV grounds alone, this section could be deleted, as it is advocating an opinion on the part of the article writer, and not stating a fact. It is NOT "equally evident" that Christians and Jews are today not "People of the Book." Many Christians and Jews will assert that their "book" has not changed from the time that the protections given to "People of the Book" were instituted, and therefore this entire section is, in my opinion, utter trash, and vicious to boot, as this philosophy is used in the Islamic world to justify violence against Christians and Jews. Wikipedia editors should not tolerate Wikipedia being used to promote violence. Bear in mind, that the protections given to "People of the Book" historically were responsible for Islamic society to being tolerant of Christians and Jews living in Muslim countries, as long as they paid the special tax imposed on them. By asserting that Christians and Jews of today are NOT "People of the Book", but rather polytheists, radical Islam sects and the Wahabists such as Bin Laden, justify actions against Christians and Jews. [[User:ChessPlayer|ChessPlayer]] 09:30, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

:Actually, this was put in by an apparent Westerner mainly interested in Buddhism, [[User:Usedbook]] - and I suspect it has more to do with his disaffection with Islam than with a crusade against the West. But it's wrong in any event, so I support your delete. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 07:00, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Chessplayer, I'm glad you've brought this up. Although I agree with your decision to remove the sentence, I'd like to point out that controversy surrounds the term 'People of the Book'. It is evident that Muslims are not equal to 'Jews and Christians', as repeatedly the Qur'an states: <br>

''The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).'' [Surah Al Fatiha 7, Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan edition] <br>''O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as Auliya' (friends, protectors, helpers, etc.)'' [Surah Al-Ma'idah 51, Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan edition] <br>''And the Jews say: 'Uzair (Ezra) is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: Messiah is the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouths. They imitate the saying of the disbelievers of old. Allah's Curse be on them, how they are deluded away from the truth! They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks to be their lords besides Allah (by obeying them in things which they made lawful or unlawful according to their own desires without being ordered by Allah), and (they also took as their Lord) Messiah, son of Maryam (Mary), while they (Jews and Christians) were commanded [in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)) to worship none but One Ilah (God - Allah).'' [Surah At-Taubah 30-31, Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan edition] <br>Thus, we have these two views in the Muslim world which are, as I've stated, ''equally evident''. Nevertheless, it is expressed from notable Qur'anic commentaries that the Injeel/Gospel and Tawrah/Torah documents that passed through certain rabbis and priests became corrupt, thus, ending the older convenants and ushering the new one declared by Muhammad. This is in no way my personal belief but it is a popular one in the Muslim world which should be mentioned in the article. One major abrogation occured in the history of Islam which, according to literalists, rendered the 'People of the Book' status invalid with: <br>''And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.'' [Surah Al-'Imran 85, Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan edition] I'd be interested if anyone could shed light on this issue. What is the current status of the 'People of the Book' today and has it been annuled or did Muhammad keep it? [[User:Usedbook|Usedbook]] 22:35, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

: I said "tolerant" not "equal". Historically, Muslims have been tolerant towards Christians and Jews living in Muslim lands, allowing them to practice their religions and live in peace, based on the teachings of Islam. Islam has not changed, nor Christianity or Judaism; what has changed today is politics. [[User:ChessPlayer|ChessPlayer]] 23:23, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

::Historically, indeed, those claiming to be Muslim have been tolerant ''and'' intolerant towards Christians and Jews living in Muslim lands. Whether or not religious institutions, their creed and documents change is another issue. Returning to the discussion, I'd appreciate seeing more written concerning abrogation in this and other articles. Take care. [[User:Usedbook|Usedbook]] 01:22, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

== Repetition of 'belief' section? ==

Why is section 3 (belief) separate from section 4.2 (Six elements of belief)? There should be only one section on belief, with perhaps a subsection called 'six basic elements' and another called 'additional beliefs'. This would be a much better way of organizing it all.

== Creed/Shahadah ==

There's a little bit of trouble in translating: La ilaha illallah, wa Muhammadan rasulullah. The thing is: I normally translate it to: There is no deity but God, and Mohammed is a messenger of God. The reason: Should we use God instead of deity, it would seem very odd and unclear and confusing: "There is no god but God." And one hearing that would find it hard to understand. But if it is "There is no deity but God." It would be much more logical. Since God is a deity. It is much more clearer, too, than: "There is no god but Allah" since not all muslims speak Arabic, or even non-muslims would find that odd, since it would seem that we, as muslims, have a different God than Jehovah (of the bible), which is wrong. I've already changed it once to "deity" instead of "god" but it was changed back.

I'm suggesting that it is much more logical to translate the creed from Arabic as "There is no deity but God, and Mohammed is a messenger of God."

: I disagree entirely. I think it is quite clear and a well-known rule to differentiate god and God with capitalization, and anyone with a decent knowledge of English should know that. Also, in addition, by saying 'deity' one is pointing to a much more ambiguous term that means nothing else but 'god' or 'goddess.' In fact, by saying 'god' as opposed to 'deity,' it is much more clear that we're speaking of tawhid, or a monotheistic, singular concept, as opposed to, say, one main deity among others. Also, deity almost implies a sense of singular personality and form, whereas Maula/Khoda/Allah is formless. Also, "<small> it would seem that we, as muslims, have a different God than Jehovah (of the bible), which is wrong.</small>" This problem is ''exacerbated'' by the use of deity, which almost implies MORE of a separation between Abrahamic God concepts/beliefs.

: ilaha has always been translated as 'god' and I think, especially in the context of the rest of the article, it's made evidently and plainly clear that the biblical God is one and the same according to Muslims.--[[User:LordSuryaofShropshire|LordSuryaofShropshire]] 18:03, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

==NPOV dispute?==

Would whoever added the NPOV dispute notice please explain, below, why the neutrality of the article is disputed? [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']] 23:25, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

== Six Pillars of belief is incorrect... ==

<original>

Six Pillars of belief

There are six basic beliefs shared by Muslims:

* Belief in God (in Arabic, Allah)

* Belief in Prophets and Messengers (sent by God)

* Belief in the Books (sent by God)

* Belief in the Day of Judgment (Qiyamah)

* Belief in Angels

* Belief in al-Qadr, (Divine Predestination)

</original>

The last, Divine Predestination is not 'shared' by the Twelver Shias. We believe in neither absolute free will nor absolute pre-destination. Humanity has free-will, but within the contraints set by God.

God is Just and to punish someone for commiting acts ordained by Him is injustice. BTW, Sunnis do not believe in Divine Justice for precisely this reason...

Hope that helps.

--azaidi

: azaidi, can you please provide sources for your contention? Note to editors: any attempt to address this should change sections 2.1 and section 10 to keep the two in synch. --[[User:Ibnraza|Ibn Raza]] 16:08, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Quoting from "'''Shi'ism in Relation to Various Islamic Sects'''" by Dr. Abulqasim Gorji (http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/sects/1.htm (point 6.))

<quote>

6. Is man really free to perform actions which are apparently done of his own free will, or is he compelled to perform such actions? A group of the Ash'arites are of the opinion that man's will and power have no effect in bringing about these actions, and it is only God's Will and Power that is effectual in their taking place. This belief is called "Jabr".

The Mu'tazilites hold that the only factor causing these actions to take place is man's will and power. God has only created man and given him power, will and intelligence. As long as God has not taken these forces and potentialities away from him, he can independently do whatever he wants; there is no need for him to be instantaneously and constantly given power, will and other potentialities by God. This belief is called "al&#8209;tafwid".

However, the Shiites believe that man's actions depend on his own will, but not in the sense that he is totally independent in doing them. Rather, just as God is the initiating cause (al&#8209;`illah al&#8209;muhdithah) of man's life, power and will&#8209;that is, God has originally given man these qualities and abilities &#8209; so God is as well the maintaining cause (al&#8209;`illah al&#8209;mubqiyah) of these potentialities and qualities. That is to say, God grants these powers and abilities constantly and perpetually, otherwise man cannot perform any action. Thus, such actions can be attributed both to God and man. This belief is neither determinism nor free will, but something between the two (amr bayn al&#8209;'amrayn).

</quote>

Also from "'''God and His Attributes'''" by Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari (http://www.al-islam.org/GodAttributes/free.htm)

<quote>

The authentic view of Shi'ism, which is drawn from the Qur'an and the words of the Imams, represents a third school, intermediate between the determinists and the proponents of absolute free will. This school does not suffer from the inadequacies and weaknesses of determinism, which contradicts reason, conscience and all ethical and social criteria and denies God's justice by attributing to Him all the atrocities and injustices that take place, nor by asserting absolute free will does it deny the universality of God's power and reject the oneness of God's acts.

</quote>

Basically there's loads more at http://www.al-islam.org. Most of the stuff they have online are texts of various well-known books... It's an excellent place to double-check any stuff on Shi'ism in particular and Islam in general.

HTH

--[[User:Azaidi|Azaidi]] 11:16, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

==Pre-Islamic practices==

"Some Islamic rituals are similar to pre-Islamic practices from the

Arabian Peninsula&#8212;in particular, the hajj and three of its associated

practices: circling the Kaaba, kissing the Black Stone, and the stoning of

three pillars outside Mecca.

These practices were '''probably''' left over from '''Ishmael''' son of Abraham.???? Abraham had built the first Ka'ba in Mecca.???? Adam ??? Muhammad is a direct descendent of Abraham - WOW - a genealogy of 2500 years" So, the Arab pagans (pre-islam) did the hajj, circling (naked!!), kissing the stone for 2500 year for no reason?? ALL THIS IS A 'BELIEF' - NOT A FACT ; please edit - STAY OBJECTIVE

There is no need to shout or to become angry. The hadith clearly states that men from many countries came to that place to make a pilgrimage; although not an islamic. [[User:Hadj|A.]] 16:23, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

== Please review Muslim religious dress article ==

I've been working on the clothing section and I'm planning a number of pages on religious uniforms/vestments/habits/attire. The only one I've done so far is the [[Muslim religious dress]] article. Since I'm not a Muslim, I'm sure the article could use some editing and additions. Please take a look! [[User:Zora|Zora]] 20:26, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

== Reformation and Inclusive/Exclusive Religions ==

This intro sentence seems suspect and Christian-centric:

:''Unlike Christianity, Islam has not undergone any period of '''reformation'''; however, that is essentially the goal of various liberal movements within Islam.''

Reformation links to [[Protestant Reformation]]. Which begs the question: why would Islam undergo a very specific historical process that occurred to ONE other religion which was in completely different circumstances to Islam today? Furthermore, Islamic fundamentalism seems more similar to Protestantism then than the liberal movements. Maybe if it linked to the general topic of religious reformism, it would make sense.

Secondly, the paragraph on inclusive/exclusive religions seems unsupported, shallow and utterly biased. I checked both the [[Christianity]] and [[Hinduism]] pages and neither of them mention their status as either "exclusive" or "inclusive" religions.

-- [[User:Style|Style]] 15:13, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)

I agree completely that the inclusive/exclusive religions section is very biased, and intended to change it. But lately I am finding that all my edits have been reverted by user 68.94.198.21 - oh well.

I have no idea why reformation was mentioned. However, since it was mentioned, I put in the link to [[liberal movements in Islam]].

--[[User:Zeeshanhasan|Zeeshanhasan]] 18:41, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't particularly want to delete the whole paragraph (I'm new), but it's hard to see how the inclusivist/exclusivist thing could be salvaged as NPOV.

-- [[User:Style|Style]] 05:00, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)

I think you're right, but rather than simply delete this material I've moved it to a new article called [[Islam and other religions]]. I think this is quite justified, as Muslims view themselves as heirs to the Judeo-Christian tradition; so its views of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Native American religions, etc should be in a separate place. --[[User:Zeeshanhasan|Zeeshanhasan]] 10:07, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

== disambig header ==

I took out the disambiguation header for [[Yusuf Islam]] because there are many people who have ''Islam'' as part of their names ([[Islam Karimov]], [[Afrika Islam]], and [[Islam Akhun]] are a few I pulled up in a search) and we don't need to [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguate]] all of them here. [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']]&nbsp;[[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|^(m)]] 21:11, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

== Complete replacement of online sources? ==

Someone named Saeed Bak (new to Wikipedia, no user page) has taken out most of the online sources and replaced them with Salafi websites. This is blatant sectarian attack. I'm reverting the article. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 10:24, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Persistent Salafi propaganda attacks ==

We've had at least three attempts in the last 24 hours to replace the external links with ones pointing only to Salafi websites. The users involved, Saeed Bak and 195.235.227.10, are new to Wikipedia, do not have user pages, have not engaged in dialogue, and seem dedicated only to "capturing" the article for their viewpoint. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia myself and am not sure of the best way to deal with this. I'm not sure it's vandalism in progress, so I reported it in Requests for Comment. We've had to do three reverts in the last day; I don't know if this will be enough to discourage them. If anyone else has any ideas for dealing with this, please pipe up! [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:51, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Zora, you might want to place a gentle and polite informative comment in the article source at the problem ___location like this (press 'edit' to see source): <!-- Your edits have been noted and appreciated. We welcome all edits that comply with our policies and we hope to see more of you in the future. If you have questions, please visit the Discussion tab for this article. --> [[User:Hawstom|Tom]] - [[User_talk:Hawstom|Talk]] 17:12, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Saeed Bak and 195.235.227.10. We value your contributions and we hope to see more of you. Be sure to read [[WP:NPOV]] to understand our absolute and non-negotiable policy on bias, and feel free to drop by my user page to say hi at any time. [[User:Hawstom|Tom]] - [[User_talk:Hawstom|Talk]] 17:12, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Chart template ==

I was just wondering how the Islam chart on the right was added to the page, as the template and text contained in the chart is not present in the "edit this page" text.[[User:Pizzahunks|Pizzahunks]] 11:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:It's a [[wikipedia:template|template]]; the text <nowiki>{{Islam}}</nowiki> transcludes it into the article. If you want to edit it go to [[Template:Islam]]. [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']]&nbsp;[[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|^(m)]] 14:59, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Editing online sources ==

The recent Salafi attempt to hijack many of the links was noteworthy only because they deleted all the other links instead of just adding their own.

The links section seems to me to be growing, as followers of various sects try to stake a claim on the attention of Wikipedia readers. This is eventually going to make the links section worthless as a research tool.

I'd suggest that any links to specific sects, teachers, whatever, be limited to Wikipedia articles specifically devoted to that subject. Links in the main article should either be academic, or for sites and organizations without any pronounced sectarian position. Good general knowledge sites.

If there are any links to sects or teachers that don't at present have their own Wikipedia articles, we should create the articles. We should make sure that all such articles are connected in some way to the main Islam page, so that no group is featured and no group is shut out.

Any comments? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 11:32, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: Mirv, thank you for adding the links to the Open Directory. The directory contains most of the links that I had edited out, plus others. It seems to be truly all-inclusive, so is a good resource. This is a great solution! [[User:Zora|Zora]] 21:41, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::Yes. . . but probably only a temporary fix, I'm afraid. This article seems to require merciless link-trimming every month or so. :-) [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']]&nbsp;[[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|^(m)]] 21:53, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== The Prophet's wives ==

I am no muslim scholar, but I am suspicious of an anon removing many of the names on the list of the wives of The Prophet. There are only two listed now, I am pretty sure that Muhammed had more than two wives. Someone who actually knows about Islam please check this edit. --[[User:Sunborn|{{User:Sunborn/sig}}]] 05:05, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Edited Qur'an section ==

Someone had added a line to the Qur'an section of the article stating firmly that the Qur'an had been revealed by Allah and had never been changed or altered in any way. While this view is widespread among Muslims, it is not the view of impartial scholars in the field, nor even of Muslims who accept academic textual criticism and see the Qur'an as a man-made object.

Preaching a particular point of view is directly contrary to the main Wikipedia guideline, NPOV. The Islam article has been increasingly elaborated by zealots and reads more like a religious tract than an encyclopedia article in places.

So while I was at it, I removed a number of other passages from the Qur'an section that glorified the Qur'an without conveying any real information about it. I also added the sentence re obscurities in the text of the Qur'an -- which I'm prepared to buttress with cites, if necessary. Note that the sentence doesn't say that there ARE obscurities; just that critics say that there are obscurities. I'm aware that this is a controversial subject! [[User:Zora|Zora]] 21:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

Alberuni has restored the old Qur'an section and accused me of adding POV material. This is strange. Religious propagandizing is NPOV and any hint of that other people might dissent is POV? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:01, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:Why don't you read the existing version and comment on what you find POV. [[User:Alberuni|Alberuni]] 02:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: It's POV to state that all Muslims regard the Qur'an as sacred, inviolable, a guide to science, etc. as there were and are Muslims, like the Mu'tazilites, who see it as human-created thing and not a proper object of worship. By implying that ALL Muslims believe the statements listed in the article, you are saying that a prominent philosophical school, a Caliph, and many present-day reformist Muslims are NOT properly Muslims. It's also POV to edit out the statement re obscurities in the Qu'ran.

:: The next section, on the revelation of the Qur'an, also needs work, as it completely ignores the process by which the Qur'an was actually collected and written down. In the most widely accepted story, it was the Caliph Uthman, who released the "official version" between 750-756 C.E. and ordered the destruction of the other versions. So that's at least 28 years between the death of Muhammed and the collection of the Qur'an for versions to proliferate and one, by processes now unknown, to be chosen as the "official" version. Then of course there's the Shiite belief that sections of the Qur'an that were favorable to Ali were suppressed and the current Qur'an is not complete. And there are the scholars who point out there is no real evidence for the story re Caliph Uthman and that only research in Qur'an graveyards, looking for the earliest possible texts, will find real scholarly evidence.

:: The section may seem NPOV to Muslims of a certain POV, but to someone outside the magic circle of belief, it looks biased. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 04:40, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::Why don't you go work on the definitions in the "Jew" article and see how far you get if you note that some Jews deny that Jews are, and always have been, a "nation." [[User:Alberuni|Alberuni]] 04:54, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: That's not a particularly useful response. Are you assuming I'm Jewish? I'm not. The difficulty of rooting partisan passion and prejudice out of one article is no excuse for leaving it in another. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 06:03, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::::No I am not assuming your religious heritage. I am just pointing out that on the Jew page, concepts of Judaism by Jews take precedence over critiques of Judaism by non-Jews. Yet, here the critiques of Islam by hostile and bigoted non-Muslims are considered NPOV and the views of Islam by Muslims are considered POV. [[User:Alberuni|Alberuni]] 14:32, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::::This Talk page could do with a little effort for civility. It's funny how nobody thinks their own group is treated fairly, but other groups always seem to have hidden supporters among the WP community. You may want to go and ask [[User:IZAK]] if he thinks that Wikipedia is particularly pro-jewish. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 12:25, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::::What you omitted about the Qur'an is part of Muslim belief. It's not POV to describe what Muslims believe about the Qur'an. I noticed that you also added this POV line "Critics say that translations are shunned because translation highlights the many obscurities in the text of the Qur'an, one of the first written works in the Arabic language" .. Can you back this statement with some explanation and facts? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 07:48, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

I'm putting a dividing line (rule) because we're getting very indented.

I had to do some searching to find the quote I rememembered, and here it is, from the notorious 1999 ''Atlantic'' article. [http://www.derafsh-kaviyani.com/english/quran1.html]

GERD-R. Puin speaks with disdain about the traditional willingness, on the part of Muslim and Western scholars, to accept the conventional understanding of the Koran. "The Koran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,'" he says. "But if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims -- and Orientalists -- will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible -- if it can't even be understood in Arabic -- then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not -- as even speakers of Arabic will tell you -- there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on."

So there's one quote, from one prominent scholar. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 09:13, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:Ok, that's the claim of one Western scholar, though he doesn't quote a Muslim so we can check his claim. Now all you need to do is quote a Muslim scholar who gave this reason for avoiding the translation of Qur'an. If this was really the reason, it should be easy to find it, wouldn't it? After all, R. Puin claims that that's the reason *Muslims* gave for not translating the Qur'an. Now you need to show that Puin claim is correct by finding that quote from a Muslim [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 14:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: I think you miss the point. Someone can feel uncomfortable with something, and shy away from it, without even putting into words why it feels so frightening. That's what Puin is saying. Translation makes Muslims think about problems with the text of the Qur'an, it makes them uncomfortable, they shy away from it. That may not be the TRUTH, but it's true that it's his view. Here's another quote, from Hurgronje:

:: "This book, once a world reforming power, now serves but to be chanted by teachers and laymen according to definite rules. The rules are not difficult, but not a thought is ever given to the meaning of the words; the Qur'an is chanted because its recital is believed to be a meritorious work. This disregard of the sense of the words rises to such a pitch that even pundits who have studied the commentaries -- not to speak of laymen -- fail to notice when the verse they recite condemn as sinful things which both they and the listeners do every day, nay even during the very common ceremony itself."

:: Reminds me of a magazine article I read recently about a celebration in Pakistan for children who had memorized the whole Qur'an. Public ceremony, feast, special clothes, praise. None of the children knew Arabic, but they could rattle off the suras. So how useful is that, really, for being a good Muslim? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:24, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::That's the view of one man, Puin, then, and he is also completely wrong. I am pretty sure about that. It's easy to check that the debate about translation involved around the question whether it's permissible to translate God's literal words (as Muslims believe the Qur'an is) into something else. It had nothing to do with what Puin claimed.

:::Contrary to Puin claim, Saudi (and others) seems eager to give away [http://dawah.faithweb.com/dawah/free.htm free translations] of the Qur'an.

:::As for reading the Qur'an without comprehension, just search the web; every Islamic site that I found preached against that, like ([http://www.understanding-islam.com/rq/q-033.htm 1]), ([http://www.ymofmd.com/books/wtq/Chapter_5.htm 2]), and ([http://www.al-islamforall.org/litre/englitre/iintrqwund.htm 3]).

:::In other words, the line that you inserted was completely false (unless you can find some evidence to back it up or explain the above sites). [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:02, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: I don't dare ask what kind of magazine that was. Your critiques of the Qur'an and Muslim practices reek of Orientalist condescension and hostility. They are basically superficial outsider attacks on the Islamic faith and against Muslims who practice a faith in God that your cited authors find alien and incomprehensible. Translation of the Qur'an invites interpretation and loss of the original meaning. Look at the history of the Bible and the numerous sects that have emanated from the various translations, King James version, etc. Translations of religious texts always lose fidelity and are subject to misinterpretation, such as the Biblical saying that, "It is harder for a rich man to enter heavan than it is to thread a camel through the eye of a needle." Well, it sounds rather impossible, doesn't it? Until you learn that "camel" was the incorrect translation of the Aramaic word for both "camel" and "camel hair". Then you realize it is not impossible, just very difficult. Big difference in meaning. To obviate the loss of meaning by faulty translation, the Qur'an can only be translated if the Arabic text is provided alongside. You can be sure that an English only translation is not authorized. The children who memorize the Qur'an in Arabic also have the opportunity to read it in their native tongues because it is no doubt translated. Memorization of the original provides students with the poetry of the Arabic version which cannot be duplicated in translation. It is also itself a challenging mental exercise, similar to English students memorizing sonnets by Shakespeare without necessarily understanding their meaning. So please, keep the insulting, hostile critique of Islam for another page, like [[Orientalist Diatribes Against Islam]]. You may be surprised to know that Islamic scholars have discussed the issue of translation for centuries and if you really care, you might find this [http://www.quran.sorg.uk/ieb_quran_RashidRida.htm article] of interest.--[[User:Alberuni|Alberuni]] 00:40, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

==The sidebar==

--> [[Template talk:Islam]]

== Classic ==

Some pinhead is disrespecting Islam and updating the Texas Revolution entry. Hilarious!

==the "creed"==

I moved the hyphens to the proper morphological boundaries: ''L&#257; il&#257;h&#257; ill&#257;ll&#257;h; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-ll&#257;h''. Wouldn't it be more correct to give the full ''i'rab'', though, i.e. ''L&#257; il&#257;h&#257; ill&#257;-ll&#257;hu; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-ll&#257;hi''? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 15:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

&#1613;Sounds good to me. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 16:23, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:ok. you may have noticed I'm on a "unify arabic transliteration" campaign, at the moment. Another thing is this: I am not a native (or even fluent) speaker, but according to my understanding, it should be ''Muhammadu-rasulu-ll&#257;hi'' rather than ''Muhammadu-r-rasulu-ll&#257;hi'' (''rasul'' in construct state). I found both versions on the internet. Which is correct? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 18:25, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::The latter; Muhammadun rasuulu llaahi > Muhammadur rasuulu llaahi, by the regular contraction n+r > rr. I think the process is termed [[sandhi]] in English. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 20:44, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::Wait (sorry if I seem to abuse this page for arabic lessons), you mean to say that the first ''r'' is really nunation, i.e. indefinite state? Then the literal translation would be "there is a certain Muhammad who is the messenger of God" rather than "(the well-known) Muhammad is the messenger of God"? In that case, the properly hyphenated transcription would be ''Muhammadur-rasulu-ll&#257;hi''. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 08:39, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not exactly; just as some names require the definite article (eg ''Al-Amiin'' or ''al-`Aas''), some require the indefinite article (eg ''Faatimah''). It has no particular implication of indefiniteness, because it would be impossible to say *al-Muhammad to mean "the Muhammad" (that would rather be taken to mean "the praised".) Incidentally, good work on this unification business - how did you learn Arabic? - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 22:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:just from books, and from a few expatriates... I would have expected ''Muhammadu'' for "the Muhammad" and ''Muhammadun'' for "a Muhammad", but I believe you, of course. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 09:39, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Edited Qur'an section ==

I've attempted an NPOV discussion of what most Muslims believe, rather than stating those beliefs as if they were facts. I will rewrite the main Qur'an article too, but that's going to take me some time; I ordered WAY too many expensive books from Powell's and I'm going to have to read them once they arrive. Plus there are a fair number of books I'd like to read that are out of print and unavailable. Dunno what I'm going to do about those.

I've left a question mark where there should be the Unicode for Qur'an in Arabic. I would also appreciate it if someone could put A.H. dates in parentheses after the C.E. dates -- or, if you wish, put the A.H. dates in the place of honor and add the C.E. dates in parentheses. I should think that more Wikipedia readers are going to recognize C.E. dates, which would mean putting them first, but ... it doesn't really matter as long as both are available. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:Many errors there:

:(1) The rest of the article spells the name "Muhammad," not Muhammed.

::Aargh. I've been doing so much reading, and the name has at least three common variants. Sorry. I'll edit. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:(2)The Qur'an originally didn't have vowels but this was not a problem at that time. They wrote everything without vowels (not just the Qur'an). They knew how to pronounce the words; it was their native tongue.

::Reading Arabic without the vowels is like reading English without the vowels; t's hrd bt t s pssbl. But you can perhaps see why some sentences might be hard to parse. Islamic commentators argued long and hard about some sections, and there are still several accepted interpretations of some of the rasm. I don't think you can just shrug this off as "that's just the way it was".

:::No, it was never an issue for early Muslims. You don't know what you are talking about. Notice the so-called "vowels" (or diacritic marks) are not even used that much today. See for example [http://www.aljazeera.net Al Jazeera] site. Only a few diacritic marks are there. This was not a big problem for Arabs. Notice that the "vowels" (or diacritic marks) were not put in the Qur'an by Uthman (he didn't see any problem there). They were invented much latter by Haljaj.[[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 09:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::please be polite. yes, diacritics are still not commonly written. But it's not as simple as you would have us believe. vowelless scripts were an improvement over earlier syllabaries in about [[1000 BC]] ([[Ugarit]]), but one that has been superseded for more than 2500 years now. The adherence to such a system shows, shall we say, a remarkably conservative attitude. The diacritics are a half-hearted medieval patch that can be used for disambiguation. It can be argued that arab illiteracy wouldn't be quite as high if the language would use a more convenient alphabet. It may not have been a problem for native arabs, but even in early Islam (8th century), a substantial portion of Muslims were converts. The desinences were lost very early, even among native speakers. The very reason the diacritics were introduced was that people didn't know how to recite the text without them, so it certainly was not "never an issue". [[User:Dbachmann|dab]]

::::: 8th century isn't "early." That's like 70 years latter. You didn't show it was problem earler at the time of Muhammad or immediate after his death [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 12:00, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::::I consider "early Christianity" to be more or less the first three centuries (pre-Nicaea) (of a total 2000). I consider early Islam to be the first 200 years or so (of 1400) or the age of conquest. No, Muhammad probably didn't need the diacritics. But then he didn't need the letters, either, seeing as he had other sources, so to speak. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 12:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::::: Not just Muhammad but the Arabs at the time or immediatly after his death. The section on the Qur'an seems confused about "seven reading" and what happened at the time of Uthman and so-called "vowels" (or diacritic marks) that were put in much latter by hajjaj. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 13:12, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::::::Yes, we need to get that correct. However, Muhammad's dialect must have been one of the latest to preserve desinences (i'rab), and already at that time, many native arab speakers didn't have them. For non-final vowels you are right in principle. But note that no matter how good your arabic, many non-vocalized forms, and also notably forms without shadda (or even worse, undotted letters, also commonly used in those days), are ambiguous, and you have to *guess* the meaning (eg. person, verbal voice, mood, verbal stem). Now, to have to guess what may have been the word of God is of course not acceptable (and I am convinced you could get some pretty far out (but grammatically correct) readings from an unvocalized quran!). The intricacies of this belong on [[Arabic alphabet]], however. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 09:34, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: This had nothing to do with why Muslims (early or now) memorized the Qur'an. The vowels were added for nonnatives by [[Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef]] (d 714) latter on when Islam spread to other parts outside Arabia., and only after that these vowels became part of the written language.

:: Again, there wouldn't be seven accepted readings of the rasm (some scholars accepted more) if it hadn't been a problem even for Arabic speakers. Though I will say that some of my sources argued that it was an increasing problem as the Arabic of the Qur'an and colloquial Arabic diverged, under the pressures of distance and mixing with the tongues of the conquered peoples. Which is why there's a story about the redactors of the Qur'an under Uthman being advised to go to the Bedouin of the desert if they didn't understand something. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::You don't know what you are talking about. The seven readings has nothing to do with these "vowels" (or diacritic marks). That is totally different issue. There were seven "Ahruf" ("letters" or "dialects") of the Qu'ran which according to a hadith, Muhammad referred to as all having divine authority. This has nothing to do with vowels. [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html Read this article] to clear at least some confusion. (Read the article before you reply here again). [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 09:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: I've just looked at that article, and spent about three hours flipping through books and websites. The question is whether or not the seven ahruf mentioned in a hadith of Bukhari (died 870 C.E.) are the same thing as the seven acceptable pointings, or vowellings, of Uthman's rasm, as defined by Ibn Mujahid in 934 C.E. (322 A.H.). The only source I found that tackled this head on was an actual Christian missionary source, Gilchrist. So I'm a little suspicious of it. I much prefer academic sources, and I can't find any on this particular topic. (At least until my book order from Powell's arrives!) Gilchist says that the hadith, or the hadith tradition, had previously been interpreted as sanctioning all existing traditions of Qur'an recitation, even though there were more than seven known. Ibn Mujahid identified seven of those traditions as the seven ahruf and rejected the rest. His ruling prevailed. Of his seven traditions, five are not recited often, if at all, leaving one majority tradition (Hafs) and one minority tradition (Warsh).

::::: That site also has a section on [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Gilchrist/ Gilchrist]. Did you see it? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 00:03, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: By academic standards, the hadiths are LATE sources and unreliable. There's no evidence at all as to what the hadith understood as the seven acceptable variants, and no evidence to confirm or deny that Ibn Mujahid made the right choices in matching existing recitation traditions to the hadith. I'm probably going to look over this paragraph in the Qur'an section and make sure it's accuration in the light of my recent travails. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:(3) Mu'tazili argument was that the Qur'an is created by GOD (not created by human as the article claims). Others argued that if God is eternal then his knowledge and words (like the Qur'an) must be eternal too. At any rate, whether the Qur'an is eternal or a creation of God is not a big issue among ordinary Muslims. It's not an article of faith to believe that the Qur'an is eternal.

:: Hmmm. I think you're right. It's a subtle point, but important. Eternal versus created by Allah at one point in time for one particular purpose. OK, I'll revise. But ... there seem to be a lot of Muslims out there who DO believe that the Qur'an is eternal and perfect. YOU tell THEM not to threaten scholars. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: Only Western scholars and Christian evangelicals (while debating Muslims and having to defend trinity) seem to be obsessed with this theological debate. You don't have to believe that the Qur'an is eternal to be a Muslim (I doubt most Muslims even heard about this theological debate).

:: No, their side has won so thoroughly that they don't even KNOW that there's another side.

:(4) The article goes on to repeat the claim by some western scholars that Muslims don't like textual criticism and that textual criticism of the Qur'an is in its infancy; ignoring the fact that the books these scholars write (like Arthur Jeffery's book on the variants of the Qur'an) are borrowed entirely from Muslim writers/scholars like Abu Hayyan (930-1023), [[Suyuti]], and Ibn Abi Dawud (from whom Jeffery got material for his book). [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:06, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: Um, no. Academics and scholars are increasingly trying to break out of the trap of relying exclusively on LATE Islamic sources. They're trying to find extremely old Qur'an manuscripts, working on paleography and dating, looking at inscriptions and archaeological evidence, and scouring contemporary reports from non-Muslim observers (who had their own axes to grind, of course, but it's at least an outside viewpoint). They've come up with some off-the-wall theories (IMHO) but I think we're getting somewhere in the course of arguing them. And yes, a lot of Muslims think textual criticism is blasphemy. Some of the online commentators I read were certainly quite angry. Angry enough, in fact, that some scholars publish under pseudonyms so as not to attract fatwas, a la Rushdie. Or murder attempts, like the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz.

:: Not that Christians and Jews didn't/don't react much the same way to textual criticism. I don't think it went as far as fatwas, but there was public vilification and lost jobs and social ostracism and suchlike. Humans! We can be so ugly ... [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: You are relying again too much on that Atlantic article and so making completely silly points (like that article did). If you knew anything about Rushdie affair, you would have known that the reason he got in trouble was because he supposedly insulted Muhammad (by calling him Mahound) and calling his wives prostitutes.

:::: I haven't even read the book (I don't particularily enjoy Rushdie as a writer) but as I understand it, the author gave the names of the Prophet's wives to the inmates of a brothel. A shocking juxtaposition, but not a declaration of any sort. Are you suggesting that it's NOT PERMISSIBLE to diss Muhammad, his wives, the Qur'an, Islam, in any way, and that death is the appropriate punishment? And then you claim that there's no problem doing research on Islamic history?

::::: No, what I said was that the book had nothing to with textual criticism of the Qur'an. To give that as an example that Muslims are against "textual criticism" and "scientific research" shows the person is really confused and doesn't know what he is taking about [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 00:03, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: BTW, my reading hasn't been limited to the Atlantic article. But I don't see why you have so much animus against it. It still seems like a reasonable article to me. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: This had nothing to do with questioning the text of the Qur'an (like that Atlantic article claimed). There was nothing about the Qur'an in his novel. The phrase "Satanic Verses" was not invented by Rushdie. He got it from [[William Muir]] (no one issued a death sentence on Muir). As for the manuscript evidence, these scholars completely ignore the fact that primary source for the preservation of the Qur'an was memorization. You cannot ignore that part (as these scholars do). [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 09:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: Since when did I ignore it? I said that there were several accounts of the chain of transmission -- some stressing oral transmission, some stressing writings -- and that given the nature of the writing system at the time, they could be seen as much the same thing. Any "manuscripts" would have been ambiguous at some points without an oral tradition to disambiguate them. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Besides everything I said above, if you are really interested watch this [http://islamicity.com/Video/ch21_7B.ram debate] on the Qur'an. You will see arguments for both sides here. That will clear some confusion about what issues are. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 10:25, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: I looked at the first few minutes of the debate. Hey, it's a debate between Christians and Muslims, and I'm not even a Christian. If I have a side, it's the side of trying to figure out exactly what happened -- which I hope is the scholarly or academic side. I'm definitely not on the "Christian" side.

::::: What does that have to do with anything? I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian, but yet I watched the debate. Watch the whole debate. You will see many of the same arguments about Ibn Masoud, variant text , and seven reading. 00:03, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: And to add more to the errors (and POV) in this section, the article goes on to repeat the same POV assertion from confused Atlantic article (as if it was a fact), that Muslims are hostile to scientific research of the Qur'an (ignoring thousands of books written on the topic by both Western and Muslim scholars). The section from A to Z is messed up [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 14:51, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: I said many Muslims are -- and frankly, the responses I'm getting here rather supports the conclusion. One incident I didn't mention -- one researcher in early Islamic history, Suliman Bashear, who taught at the University of Nablus, was thrown out of a second-story window by students who felt that his research was un-Islamic.

::::: The response you got was from me, and I am not Muslim. You got that response because you inserted confused POV and other weak and condfused arguments in the article. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 00:03, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Under attack again ==

I reverted one anonymous edit that replaced the whole "Belief" section with "Islam is shit". [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:33, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:This is unbearable. I've been watching this page for two days now, and it has been vandalized about five times. Is there an option to protect a page from anonymous edits while still allowing logged-in users to edit? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 08:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

==transliteration, capitalisation, diacritics==

I have given some thought as to how to present arabic terms in this (and related) articles. There are several stages of "latinization"/"anglicization":

*arabic in arabic script: &#1575;&#1604;&#1573;&#1587;&#1604;&#1575;&#1605;

*arabic phrases in scientific transliteration: ''l&#257; il&#257;h&#257; ill&#257;-ll&#257;hu''

*transliterated arabic words in english context: ''All&#257;h''

*arabic words, dropped diacritics: ''Usul'', ''Din''.

*"english orthography" phonetic transcription: Usool, Deen

*hybrid arabic words with english morphology: Sunnite, Shiite

*Arabic loan-words in English: Moslem, Muslim, Islam, Allah....... Admiral, magazine, alcohol

They all have legitimate uses, but we should not mingle them randomly. For example, "Deen" next to "Usul" (or "Usool" next to "Din") is inconsequent. My suggestion is:

*for entire phrases in arabic, like the creed, to use scientific transliteration with no capitalisation (it's tempting to capitalise ''Muhammad'' for example, but the name of God is difficult to capitalise consistently, because looks weird to have ''Ll&#257;h'' besides ''All&#257;h''.

*For newly introduced terms, give full diacritics (''All&#257;h'', ''D&#299;n''), but later occurrences can well drop the diacritics (''Allah'', ''Din''), since many readers will not know what to make of them anyway, and people who want to know can take the information from the first occurrence

*loanwords and words with English morphology can be treated as English words (no italics): Muslim, Allah, Islam, Sunnite.

*transliteration options: the "official" transcriptions of alif, gim, shin, ayin are &#702;, &#487;, &#353;, &#703; but it doesn't do any harm to use ', j, sh, `

[[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 08:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Mustafaa's edits to Qur'an section ==

Many of the edits were OK and I'm not going to quibble over them. However, Mustafa quotes hadith as being the actual words of the historical figures, which no scholar would accept. Hadith are late and unreliable. An oral chain of transmission hundreds of years long cannot be taken as reliable for reproducing every single spoken word, though it might indeed be evidence for the gist of the matter transmitted. Also, Mustafa seems to paper over disagreements in the actual sources, and put together a synthetic version that stresses the reliability of the Qur'anic transmission. Again, this is putting piety over scholarly rigor. I'll be working on tweaking the para -- when I finish doing some mending for my daughter, and baking some cookies to send to her at college. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 00:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: More confused assertions. No scholar accepts hadith? LOL.

:: Skeptical, cautious scholars would accept hadith as being PRIMARY sources for the time that they were written down, if that can be documented. Bukhari rejected thousands of spurious hadith, which were invented in order to glorify Islam, buttress current political or legal arguments, etc. But there's no way to KNOW if the ones he, and the other reputable collectors, reflect in any way things that happened hundreds of years ago. There may be truths there, there may be falsehoods, they may be mingled, and there's no way to know. So hadith are SECONDARY sources for the times they purport to describe. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::You claimed that no scholar accepts hadith. That was a factually incorrect statement. Many Western scholars do. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 15:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Many scholars accept sciences of hadith (isnad or different methods to see if a hadith is authentic or fabricated and such).

:: Isnads are fabricated easily enough. In fact, academics say that the more impeccable the isnad, the more likely it is that the hadith is fabricated. [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:::Only obnoxious "academics" make that claim. There is assumption here that everyone is a liar and everything is fabricated, and if isnad proves that a tradition could be true, it must have been deliberately fabricated. If you don't make that stupid assumption, then isnad does help to see if a tradition could be believable or not. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 16:51, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::You can also reject hadith if they include anachronisms, etc. But when it comes down to it, you don't know. Any written document that can be dated, or dated inscription, or archaeological dig, take precedence over oral tradition. If they corroborate some aspects of an oral tradition, that's great -- it means that the tradition is more likely to be true. But there's too darn little of the evidence that can be used to corroborate oral tradition. It will be wonderful if researches start using some of the new dating methods and date manuscripts with something other than paleography (which is a slippery "science"). [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::No written document goes back to the original source. You always have copies of copes of copies, etc. How do you know that Pluto and Aristotle existed? There is no manuscript that dates back at that time. Jewish historian Josephus wrote Jewish Antiquities (supposedly 94 AD). How do you know that a guy called Josephus existed? All the manuscripts are much older. If the historian Josephus didn't exist, there goes your source for much of history. It would be hard for you to prove 99% of history if you take this idiotic approach that everyone is a liar and everything is fabricated. You have to assume that historical record is correct until there is a reason to believe otherwise. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 15:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: Yes, well, that's what textual criticism is all about. You have umpteen texts, of various dates, and perhaps some minor differences between them, and you're trying to figure out how they're all related and what the lost original might have looked like. Indeed, that's what history is all about -- being very clear about primary and secondary sources, dating things as precisely as you can, and collating different types of information to see if they can be used as cross-checks. That's the reason that historians don't just work with documents any longer, but pay a great deal of attention to archaeological digs, rock inscriptions, and the like. Historians have to be detectives and doubt everyone, because people DO lie and fabricate.

:::: I speak as someone who trained as an anthropologist but actually ended up spending a lot of time in dusty archives. Also a lot of time collecting stories from people, trying to figure out their sources and motives, and get some sense of what "really" happened. As elusive as that is. If as a scholar you are truly devoted to looking for "truth", you soon realize that it's as precious and as elusive as salvation, or enlightenment, or whatever your religion calls it. The quest should make you humble. Not that it always does, alas. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:01, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A few question some collections that Muslims consider authentic, but to make that into no scholar "accepts" hadith is silly. If you really believe that no scholar accepts hadith (what a joke) .. can you explain why do you believe Uthman compiled the Qur'an and not Muhammad himself (what source are you going to use to prove that?)

:: I didn't say that I believed Uthman did the collection. The section that I wrote said that Muslim scholars say. I'm not at all sure that Uthman did it. I think it's more likely than not, but the exact details given may be wrong in all kinds of ways. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::See above. You have to prove that they wrong (one by one). You cannot assume that that everything is wrong, like Wansbrough did. He assumed that all Islamic sources are fabricated and ended up reaching a really idiotic conclusion that Qur'an was "written" (or came into existence) in the 8th century. This shows that a "scholar" can also be an idiot. The Islamic empire was stretched from India to North Africa around 8th century. If the Qur'an came into existence in the 8th century , there should have been dozens of different versions in different parts of the world. Shows how stupid the guy is [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 15:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Hadith" are just oral traditions .... all scholars have to use it. Without that, you don't know if there was a guy called Uthman who even existed. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: You see the problem. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: I would certainly question your wholesale rejection of the hadith - ''some'' hadith are unreliable, but a considerable body of scholarship exists dedicated to sifting out the unreliable ones - but I'm happy to add the proviso "according to Muslim historians". As to the supposed papering over of disagreements - I'll be interested to see what you can come up with; such claimed examples as I've seen are single-letter differences with no effect on meaning. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 00:23, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: You didn't have to add "according to Muslim" historians. Many (or most) Western scholars accept that. Only very few people question these facts (like Wansbrough). She claims that the "scholars" don't accept early Islamic sources (what a joke). If that's the case, why did she wrote that Western scholars have compiled the Qur'an in chronological order? Where did these scholars get this data from?

::: I said Islamic scholars; I should have said Muslim. And it's not just Wansbrough, Crone and Cook, and the like. They're just the most radical of the recent scholars. There have been any number of skeptics during the last 100 years of academic study of Islam. I was just looking over a 1916 essay by Hurgronje (recently published online by Distributed Proofreaders -- I was one of the proofreaders) and found a quote saying that scholars "knew" less and less of Islamic history, and that this was good. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::You are a little behind. As far as I know, Crone (not sure about Cook) has revised most of her earlier views. That leaves you with Wansbrough. You can remove Crone from that list. And 1916 essay? A lot of nonsense was written in 1916, as it is being written now. Nothing new there. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 15:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::: So the fact that it was written in 1916 proves it was nonsense? I was surprised, as I was proofing it, by how contemporary and clear-headed it seemed. As to Crone, Cook, and Wansbrough -- I've only read excerpts from their works. I've got a Wansbrough reprint on order and I'm not looking forward to reading it. His style is horrible. As for ''Hagarism'', the book that cocked a snook at staid academia, it's out of print, the local libraries don't have it, and the used-book services list one copy at $400. Anyone have a pirate e-book copy? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:01, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How does she know that the there were at least seven different readings and variants, or that Uthman burned variant readings? What were some of these variant readings? If you reject all Islamic sources, then you don't know any of this ever happened [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Right, we don't know that. All the evidence for it is late, hundreds of years after the events. Bukhari died in 870 C.E., and Uthman's recension was supposedly done in 650-656 C.E., or thereabouts. A two hundred year old oral tradition will get all the details right? Doesn't seem likely to me. I'm not saying that people can't memorize things and pass them on, but you need a social context for the memorizing (a college of memorizers, frex, ready to criticize deviance) and usually a poetic form as a framework (harder to alter things). Most scholars, even the skeptics, would agree that there was such a context and framework for the Qur'an, but it's not clear that there was such a thing for the hadith. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::By the way, even what you wrote about why Uthman standardized the text is not entirely correct. There were several different readings (supposedly authorized by Muhammad). These readings didn't change the meaning, but some Muslims started to argue that their reading (or dialectic) is better than the others. In response to these arguments, Uthman standardized the text to the reading (or dialectic) of Quraish (the tribe of Muhammad). [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html Read this] article. The article is just a collection of quotes from Tabari and other sources.

::: But the story of the several different readings is, I believe, found in a hadith from Bukhari, which is 300 years from the time of the story. Does anyone know of an earlier source? It's possible. I wondered if it would be in Ibn Ishaq and an hour of searching later, I can't find anything. Just the story of the Satanic verses, and the missing aya re stoning for adultery. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 13:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::Now it has become 300 years? LOL. You are getting desperate there.

::::: Well, I wrote that at 4 AM and it was tired. Yes, it's a mistake. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:01, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How do you know that a guy called Bukari existed? What's the oldest manuscript? How do you know Ibn Ishaq existed? At any rate, to answer your question, Ibn Ishaq sira survives only via the edition of Ib Hisham (died . 834 -- not that early than Bukari). But now you need to prove that Ibn Hisham existed [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]]

::::: Yes, that's a problem too. Especially since Ibn Hisham is supposed to have edited Ibn Ishaq and taken out some things he considered scandalous. More scandalous than the Satanic verses section, which some Muslims completely refuse to accept?

::::: Figuring out which evidence is reliable is a big problem, since I'm using mostly secondary sources, many of which are not at all rigorous. If I'm reading an Islamic site that says "it is related in a hadith that ... " often enough the source for the hadith is not given. Perhaps it's from one of the respected collections, perhaps it isn't. (And of course, even if it were, its reliability is not guaranteed.) The Christian missionary anti-Islam sites are only interested in ammunition to upset Muslims, not in ferreting out the truth, so they'll just use anything. Nobody seems to talk about oldest surviving document, except in the case of the Qur'an. Some of the Western scholars, like Karen Armstrong, are so nicey-nice that they're not going to doubt ANYTHING that a majority of Muslim scholars believe.

::::: My own take is that the later you get in Islamic history, the more sources you have, the more outside sources you have, the more cross-checks possible. There's also less incentive to fabricate, since details of the reign of a particular Abbasid caliph, say, aren't usually considered the basis for Islamic law and practice. But everyone who had a pronounced viewpoint in religious matters had an incentive to fabricate hadith to support their claims.

::::: It's not just Islam that does this. There are late Hellenic and Christian authors like Pseudo-Dionysius, trying to give their ideas spurious prestige. Most of the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures are pious frauds -- but then they don't even try to be historical. It's just the Buddha preaching to an assembled multitude of devotees and celestial beings, in never-never land.

::::: So while I'd reject most Hadith as history, I don't think they're necessarily useless from a religious viewpoint. If someone of great piety and learning had an idea to convey, and chose to attribute it to Muhammad, the attribution may be wrong, but the idea or sentiment may be helpful. However, that's me speaking as a religious person, not as a scholar. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:01, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::That's why there was this controversy. The opponent of Uthman argued that Uthman is suppressing readings (or dialectic) authorized by Muhammad himself (notice Uthman was killed by some people due to this controversy). [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

=== history ===

To avoid clutter, I will put responses to different parts here:

If the oldest manuscript is hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of years latter, how do you know that everything is not a lie and fabricated? If you assume everything is fabricated, you cannot know anything about history. Archeology cannot give you a detail history of say Romans. That's not the answer. As for comparing different manuscripts, you can also compare different oral traditions in different cities and countries and see if they are consistent. That's a part of sciences of hadith (i.e. if a hadith was reported by different people at different places in such a way that it would make it impossible for all of them to conspire -- that would make it a stronger hadith). You can examine each tradition one by one and give a reason to reject each, but you cannot start with assumption that everything is fabricated and everyone is a liar (like Crone did in her book). That's clearly stupidity.

As for Satanic Verses, they do give reasons why they do not accept the story. Like [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/sverses.html Satanic Verses]

And Karen Armstrong is not an Islamic scholar, but someone like Montgomery Watt is. I don't think he (like most other scholars) reject all Islamic sources. Only a very few loony "scholars" start with the assumption that everything is fabricated. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

==Paragraph removed==

Zora wrote:

: Because of the widespread belief that the Qur'an in heaven, the Qur'an revealed to Muhammad, and the Qur'an codified by Caliph Uthman are identical and perfect, many Muslims have been extremely hostile to the attempts of scholars to study the Qur'an with the same tools of textual criticism and scientific research that have been applied to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

Something kinda like this might be worth putting in, but I question its NPOV status. The traditional study of [[isnad]] ''is'' textual criticism, refined to a rather high degree, and is exacting enough that its standards would exclude almost all of the [[Bible]] from consideration.

:: Isnad, proof by assertion, hardly constitutes "textual criticism." For example, no hadith claims to be revelation from Allah [[User:Tompaine|tompaine]]tompaine

::: Huh? Of course not. It would be thoroughly contrary to Islam to imagine that Hadith were revealed by Allah. I'm not sure what you think "isnad" means. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 00:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:: Academic scholars do not consider this a sufficient guarantee that the oral traditions recorded reflect occurences several hundred years ago. People can be honest, upright, and well-meaning, but still distort the truth. An isnad can be forged. Claiming that isnad is reliable IS a POV. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:32, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Several hundred? From [http://www.geocities.com/mutmainaa/tafakkur/famous_hadith.html this site] Malik ibn Anas died 795 (so his collection must be earlier than his death), Abu Dawud died 818, ibn Humama died 826, Muslim died 875, Darimi died 869, Bukhari died 870. None of that is several hundred years. At any rate, as I said, you can examine each hadith one by one, you can consider that if a hadith is reported by several different people at several different places (making it impossible for them to collaborate; thus making it a stronger hadith), you can examine the isnad and criticize that, you can give other specific reason to reject a specific hadith (like if it can be proven to be false logically or if it contradicts a stronger narration or historical fact), but you cannot start with assumption that everything is fabricated and everyone is a liar. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:13, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::You know, Zora, it's really quite patronizing to treat "academic scholars" as a category with no overlap with "Muslim scholars". - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 11:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: I think it sounds patronizing because I'm tiptoeing around the subject. There ARE people like Suliman Bashear and one fellow -- Al-Rawandi -- who seems to have taken Crone and Cook quite to heart. I found another scholar who might be Muslim, guessing from his name, Sajjad Rizvi. I found this review he wrote [http://www.cjcr.cam.ac.uk/publications/reviews/rev/01011.html] [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:::: Al-Rawandi is not a Muslim; he is just another pseudonym anti-Islamic bigot, like Ibn Warraq. Moreover, there are Arab Christians too. Just because you have a name that sounds Arabic doesn't mean the guy is a Muslim. Moreover, there is no way you can be a "Muslim" if you believe the theories of Crone and Cook. It would be like claiming that Christians have taken the theory that Jesus never existed to heart. At any rate, forget the Muslims, many western secular scholars are critical of Crone book. The book was published in 70s, and I don't think their radical theories took off any big way. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:30, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: by googling and it seemed so sound and balanced that I've just spent $200 I can ill afford on books that he recommended. $100 on just one book, by Herbert Berg, on weighing the hadith evidence. [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:::: Why would you spend money on books that are recommended by a guy who praises a book like Crone that is universally rejected by even most western scholars? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:30, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::Anyway, given Bashear's experience (being thrown out a window for his views) I can see why a scholar living in a Muslim country might worry about being too skeptical. But it's more than just that. It's that the ulama and the universities in Muslim countries aren't teaching the controversial material and students aren't exposed to it (so far as I can tell). It's that even if students find these things on their own, they're going to hesitate before possibly alienating themselves from their friends and families.

::: (I recall a graduate student at the University of Chicago who was raised Mormon, and still kept the Mormon Word of Wisdom (no caffeine drinks, basically). I asked her if that meant she still believed in Mormonism. No, she said, but she loved her family and she was not going to do anything that cut herself off from them.)

::: So it's most likely that Muslim scholars living outside Muslim countries are going to feel free to investigate these charged matters, and there simply aren't that many of them yet. Just wait a few decades. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 20:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A more accurate phrasing might be: "... attempts of non-Muslim scholars to find evidence that the Qur'anic text has evolved through time and changed between the time of [[Muhammad]] and the time of its standardization, using, among other arguments, [[textual criticism]]-based methods analogous to those applied by Western academics to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures."

:: That's not a bad phrasing, except for the use of the term "non-Muslim". I keep seeing this. History or criticism is acceptable only if written by a Muslim. Translations of the Qur'an are acceptable only if done by a Muslim. IMHO, beliefs aren't worth much if they're such hot-house plants that they must be insulated from all outside examination. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:32, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: "History or criticism is acceptable only if written by a Muslim." - says who?

:::: Quote:

:::: "Certainly, not all Western writings on Islam have the same degree of bias they run the range from willful distortion to simple ignorance and there are even a few that could be classified as sincere efforts by non-Muslims to portray Islam in a positive light. However, even most of these works are plagued by seemingly unintentional errors, however minor, due to the author's lack of Islamic knowledge."

:::: By Robert Squires, a convert. Source: [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/orientalism.html]

:::: If I clicked around, I could multiply quotations. There seem to be quite a few vocal people out there who believe that only Muslims should study Islam. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 20:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::: No one has ever said only Muslims should study Islam. The guy you quoted basically said that Western writings on Islam are distorted. Big difference between what he said, and what you claimed he said. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Non-Muslims' historical work can certainly be of value. However, by definition only non-Muslim scholars can be attempting the enterprise described above,

:::: Huh? Here you're saying that believing Muslims will not engage in any academic study that threatens the edifice of Islamic scholarship. Whereas earlier you were challenging me to come up with the names of Muslims who are doing such study. I'd just like you to stop and consider whether Islam is the whole edifice of inward-turning Muslim scholarship, or whether it's between Allah and the soul, with no human or human-created intermediaries. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 20:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::: No; I'm saying that a believing Muslim will not set out with the ''goal'' of proving "that the Qur'anic text has evolved through time and changed between the time of [[Muhammad]] and the time of its standardization", whereas an unbeliever may well set him/herself that goal. I'm certainly not saying, as you seem to suppose, that if a believing Muslim found that the results of their study contradicted "the edifice of Islamic scholarship" (edifice? why the subtle implication that it's monolithic?) s/he would refuse to publish. And incidentally, when was I "challenging me to come up with the names of Muslims who are doing such study"? - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 23:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

and in practice we can observe that their own ideological biases very often play a crucial role both in their goals and in their conclusions. Witness the Atlantic article you linked to, which accurately observes that "Western Koranic scholarship has traditionally taken place in the context of an openly declared hostility between Christianity and Islam." - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 11:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:Most academics start with the assumption that the Qur'an is a human creation with a history, and that this history should be studied. (An assumption, they would say, required of any inquiry into scripture, not just into the Qur'an.) They start with the question, &#8220;What do we really KNOW?&#8221; and work from dated manuscripts, archaeological inscriptions, and the like. If one believes that the Qur'an is a divine creation with no history, the very endeavour will seem blasphemous.

What does this somewhat idealized description of academics' psychology have to do with the article? I could maybe see it as a proviso attached to a section on these "textual critics"' views, but as it stands I would argue that it adds nothing of substance to an article on Islam. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 22:48, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, it may be time to take these debates to the [[Qur'an]] article, which I've worked over a bit lately. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 22:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: Of course that's a POV. She inserted a POV (and a completely false one she got from that Atlantic artcle) that western scholars can't study the Qur'an because of fear of death. She hasn't apparently seen thousands of books written on the topic in the past 200 years. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]]

::: OneGuy, I'm trying to be patient and civil, but I'm feeling irked by the way you exaggerate my positions and then sneer at them. It's as if you're more concerned to WIN than to look for what's true. [ [[User:Zora]] ]

:::OneGuy, I would understand if Zora at this point would decide to ignore you. It is one thing to point out somebody's mistakes, and Zora has shown prepared to admit mistakes. It is another thing to keep bickering about it, or trying to ridicule someone. Are you even aware how ''your'' behaviour appears to the observer, the way you keep making bad-faith assumptions about somebody who consistently replies coherently and politely? WP is not just about being right, it is also about good grace and allowing people who you believe are wrong to have a say in the article (properly NPOV-contained). [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 07:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::Well, I don't think I have been that impolite :)) I disagreed with her and showed why some her statements are incorrect. She wrote this in the article: "Muslims have been extremely hostile to the attempts of scholars to study the Qur'an with the same tools of textual criticism and scientific research."

::::Now what is "hostile"? Disagreeing with "scholars" (which is very legitimate) or threatening them physical harm? Since she mentioned Rushdie above, it's safe to assume by "hostile" she meant physical harm. What western secular scholar has ever been threatened for writing '''scholarly''' books on the Qur'an? Thousands of books have been written on the topic. I know some cases against Muslims in Muslim countries who were critical but never against a western secular scholar for '''textual criticism'''. That was one of the problem with that Atlantic article that annoyed me [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 08:13, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::::You have a point, and you may have been justified reverting her and giving your reasons. "Muslims have been hostile..." is certainly an unacceptable wording: no matter how unified Islam is compared to Christianity, Muslims are still individuals, and have individual views or tendencies, so obviously a qualifier, at the least "some" or "many" is required. But it's not okay for you to bash Zora now every time she says something, no matter what, just because she once made a dubitable edit. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 09:01, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::::: Actually I had modified the early, too sweeping sentence to say "many Muslims" -- many being a weaselword. I don't know what results you'd get if you polled every Muslim in the world <g> [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:49, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::::: Well, I don't think I ever "bashed" her or used ad hominem argument. All my replies were on the subjecct [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 11:07, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Zora's latest revision ==

I started expanding Mustafaa's version of the section, taking things that he had stated as fact and showing that there were in fact various versions rather than just one. The section started getting so long and convoluted that I decided that all the minutiae should go into the main article. I then cut the Qur'an compilation section drastically, trying to be NPOV. Let's see if this version is satisfactory. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mostly looks fine. However:

: Many Muslims believe that Abu Bakr, the first caliph, ordered Zayd ibn Thabit to collect all the authentic verses of the Qur'an and that this collection, privately treasured by Muhammad's daughter Hafsa, was used by Uthman and is the basis of today's Qur'an.

::Hafsa is the Prophet Muhammad's wife, and the daughter of his companion and later the second Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab.[[User:68.12.105.37|68.12.105.37]] 00:30, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Can you give any examples of Muslims who ''don't'' believe this, or historical accounts which contradict this?

:Because the Qur'an was first written in the Mashq, Ma'il, and Kufic scripts, which write consonants only and do not supply the vowels, there was some disagreement as to the correct reading of many verses.

This theory is debatable to say the least; oral transmission has always been a primary path of transmission for the Qur'an. At least two equally plausible explanat

ions for the qira'at's differences exist:

* Dialect differences among the tribes, specifically alluded to in some hadith as affecting the pronunciation of the Qur'an;

* Differences in the Prophet's recitation at different times.

: Eventually scripts were developed that used "points" to indicate vowels and distinguish between look-alike consonants.

These are two separate issues. The chronology of the former is not disputed; the latter, however, seems to be disproved by several early inscriptions, notably [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/jones.html PERF 558] (22 AH), where dots are used sporadically to disambiguate some words, while not yet being obligatory as they are in modern Arabic.

This is all I notice for the moment, but I'm still looking into the whole issue. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 23:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

OK, made minor edits. See if that's better. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 00:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cool; that addresses the last two issues very well, thanks. But for "Many Muslims believe that...", I'd still like to hear examples of Muslims who don't believe this, or historical accounts which contradict it. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 00:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

Just a side note. Surfing around, I found a review of Atlantic Monthly article by a Muslim [http://www.malaysia.net/lists/sangkancil/1999-01/frm01043.html here] [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:I miised that part below above and will respond here:

So the fact that it was written in 1916 proves it was nonsense? I was surprised, as I was proofing it, by how contemporary and clear-headed it seemed. As to Crone, Cook, and Wansbrough -- I've only read excerpts from their works. I've got a Wansbrough reprint on order and I'm not looking forward to reading it. His style is horrible. As for ''Hagarism'', the book that cocked a snook at staid academia, it's out of print, the local libraries don't have it, and the used-book services list one copy at $400. Anyone have a pirate e-book copy? [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:No, I meant a book can be "nonsense" whether it was written in 1916 or now. Before Wansbrough, there were scholars like Goldziher (d 1921) and Schacht; though they only rejected legal traditions by claiming that these were forged because of the disagreements between sects. They accepted historical traditions (with some skepticism). Crone, Wansbrough took this to extreme. This is not original "invention" by Wansbrough, Crone., etc.

:Now how is it possible that everything was fabricated deliberately only 100/150 years after the death of Muhammad in the vast Islamic empire? How can everyone be a liar? How everyone collaborated (while living in different parts -- like Iraq, North Africa, Palestine, Iran, and even as far as India, with each other to fabricate their history?

:Hagarism? All I know about the book is that (like Wansbrough) she rejects all Islamic sources (claiming everything is "fabricated") and recreates the Islamic history by using non-Islamic sources. But why aren't the non-Islamic sources fabricated too? How does she know they are not liars too? Why would non-Mulims (as far as Armenia -- some of her sources) know the history of Arabia and early Islam anyway? She claims that early Muslims didn't use the words "Islam" and "Muslim" but called themselves Mahgraye, descendants of Abraham by Hagar. She got the title of her book from that, apparently.

:But if non-Islamic sources called the invaders "Mahgraye," that doesn't mean this was the name used by the invaders too. How stupid could she be? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 11:03, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And, if it comes to that, has Crone never heard the Arabic word [[Muhajir]]? Or does she not realize how little that word has to do with [[Hagar]]? I've read that book, and, while it was useful for its quotes from non-Islamic sources, its thesis struck me as completely valueless; one could as easily doubt the historicity of [[Alexander the Great]]. Furthermore, she ignores some early attestations of the word [[Islam]], such as [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/abasa.html a 71 AH tombstone]. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 11:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== OneGuy's edits ==

OneGuy made a number of edits using the term "early Islamic sources" or "Islamic sources". This is not really clear, as there are many "sources" recognized by historians, and the historians' problem is mainly with the hadith, as being oral tradition. So I changed Islamic sources to hadith, and made a few other tweaks. I hope that the section is clearer now.

:: This is absolutely clear. To claim that only Muslims believe that Uthman compiled the Qur'an is not true. That's factually wrong. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 10:58, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

Oh, and Mustafaa -- I know now where the "several stories" came from. Several commentators, among them the dread Ibn Warraq, picked up on discrepancies between the several versions recorded by Bukhari. Bukhari collected several versions of the same event, and told them in different ways.

* Abu Bakr orders the collection and Hafsa keeps the leaves.

* Abu Bakr, Hafsa, Hafsa gives leaves to Uthman.

* Uthman orders a committee to collect Qur'an texts.

* Uthman gives the committee Hafsa's leaves and they use the leaves.

So we have several pieces of story, told in different ways. There's the final piece, that Mustafaa included and that comes from a different source, in which the committee does its work, compares the results to Hafsa's text, and lo and behold! they are exactly the same.

It seems clear that Bukhari's hadith can be assembled into two stories, one involving Abu Bakr and Hafsa, and another involving a committee charged by Uthman to assemble the Qur'an. If the Abu Bakr story is true, then there's no need for Uthman to order the committee to collect texts. He would already have known of his predecessor's work. Then the committee story would be false. If the committee story is true, then it is likely that the Abu Bakr story is false. This problem is neatly solved by the other source (I know I found it online, and didn't write it down -- darn it) which claims that Abu Bakr collected the Qur'an AND Uthman collected the Qur'an, and they miraculously agreed. Thus turning a discrepancy in the hadith into a marvelous proof of the inerrancy of the whole process.

:There is no contradiction here if Zaid was only collecting the entire text in one book, and latter Uthman purpose was to standardize the text by destroying all the other variant collections. Where is the contradiction?

:By the way, there other hadith too that show that Zaid was involved in the collection, like this [http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/bukhari/bh4/bh4_61.htm one].

::"Zaid bin Thabit said, "When the Quran was compiled from various written manuscripts, one of the Verses of Surat Al-Ahzab was missing which I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting. I could not find it except with Khuzaima bin Thabjt Al-Ansari, whose witness Allah's Apostle regarded as equal to the witness of two men. And the Verse was:-- "Among the believers are men who have been true to what they covenanted with Allah." (33.23) [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 17:22, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My own view -- which I have tried to avoid writing into the article -- is that the revisionist historians have been TOO determined to stand Muslim scholarship on its head, and that it's reasonable to assume that there was a Muhammad and that his followers did memorize his revelations/speeches/sermons/poems. However, I doubt that his followers were thinking in terms of a complete scripture; they were only saving things that they thought should be saved, and hence from the very beginning the personal or congregational collections began to diverge. The divergence only increased in the decades after Muhammad's death, when the Muslim empire expanded enormously, early converts were killed, new converts flooded in, etc. At the same time, the early unity of the ummah unravelled. Hence the necessity for a common version of the text, to unify a disintegrating community. I really do think Uthman created a committee, which tried to collect all versions and bring them into some kind of harmony. However, they couldn't be too cavalier about excising repetitions, or contradictions (presumed abrogations), or modifying the texts such that the groups then using them wouldn't recognize them. Hence also the arrangement of the suras by size -- much the same kind of thing as listing actors in alphabetic order, so as not to imply anything about rank or precedence. IMHO, the Qur'an's untidy, repetitious form is politically motivated. And it could be said that as a political ploy it failed, considering the sad death of Uthman and the community splitting into Sunni, Shi'a, and Kharjite factions. [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:Well, I am sorry to say but you are wrong. You are free to be skeptical but at least the skepticism should be based on facts, not wishful thinking. The differences between [[Sunni]]s, [[Shi'a]]s, and [[Kharijites]] had nothing to do with the text of the Qur'an. That was a political dispute and became a serious problem much latter during the caliphate of Ali (and latter). I know some isolated reports about some Shi&#8216;as complaining about the text and missing suras, but almost all Shia's unanimously reject these reports. Notice, that despite all the problems, wars, and disagreements between early Muslims, there is no sect that disagrees about the text. This shows that disagreement about the text was never really a problem. Secondly, given that memorizing and reciting the Qur'an in prayers always had been a part of the religion, if there were versions that differed significantly, they would have survived. Why don't we have such versions? If the text of the Qur'an is exactly as it was taught by Muhammad, that doesn't mean it's "uncreated" or "literal word of God." I am not a Muslim. I don't believe in God. Why do you have to use this weak argument about how the text differed in response to "uncreated" theory? That was another problem with that Atlantic article. Instead of questioning the interpretation/understanding of Quranic text by Muslims today, it went irrelevantly promoting silly far fetched theories of Crone [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 12:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In other words, I believe the committee story and think that the Abu Bakr-Hafsa story is a fiction, devised to give an earlier pedigree to the Qur'an.

But that's just me, trying to make sense out of a welter of sources. I certainly wouldn't write that into an article. I should note that while the believers in the uncreated Qur'an would probably be offended by this version, I can see a liberal Muslim appreciating the presumed attempt of the committee to include everything, to please everyone, and to reconcile all the factions.

That's a laudable aim. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 09:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm now more or less satisfied with the current state of the article - a good NPOV effort, as far as I can see. As for the multiple hadith, the most interesting thing I've found relating to that is the report of Khalid ibn Iyas ibn Sakhr ibn Abi al-Jahm, who (according to [[Ibn Abi Dawud]]'s ''al-Masahif'') later compared the Madinah mashaf (which I assume refers to Hafsah's text) to the Uthmanic text, and found 12 differences, 11 of which are single-letter differences, and none of which affect the meaning of a verse. To my mind, that suggests that, perhaps for political reasons, Uthman wanted an independent edition, and having prepared it, found that the 12 differences were insignificant enough to ignore. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 10:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and one important point - what date is your reference for "However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which the account is based and will say only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750 CE, the date of the earliest known complete Qur'an manuscript -- or at least the earliest known and accepted as such by all researchers."? Because I've seen several of the Sanaa manuscripts listed as first half of the first century AH (though I suppose they may not be complete.) - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 10:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: Yes, her date of 750 is not correct. Did you read this article by [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Dome_Of_The_Rock/Estwitness.html Estelle Whelan] This article is not written by Islamic-Awareness apologists. They apparently scanned it from the Journal Of The American Oriental Society. So here is a scholar contradicting the date 750 by dating the Qur'anic verses on the Dome of the Rock to 691-92[[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 14:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

The important thing is the word "complete". You can't point to just one page or one inscription and say, "Look, the Qur'an existed then". That's proof only of the one page, or the one aya, or whatever. Since even the sternest of the skeptics believe that there were proto-texts from which the Qur'an was assembled, the issue is the date at which the complete version was created. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

As for differences over the Qur'an being ''the reason'' for the splitting of the community, no, that's not what I meant. Having reread my words, I can see why they can be interpreted that way, but perhaps I was not precise enough. IMHO, squabbling about the text of the Qur'an was one symptom of the general malaise and disunity. Uthman tried to fix the symptom, but the underlying problems ended in his ugly death and all the wars and factionalism that followed. As to the underlying problems ... well, that's another flamewar. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: Despite all the disagreements and wars, no sect ever developed that disagreed about the content of the Qur'an. Muslims memorize the Qur'an and recite it in prayers. If there were more suras or drastically different version, they should have survived. Nothing like that happened. That's strong evidence that Islamic version of what happened is more likely than the theory of latter development or significantly different version of the text. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:56, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: Not so. The Kharjites (surviving as Ibadis in Oman, I understand) rejected the story of Joseph, as being a salacious interpolation, the Shi'a speak of missing verses, and Ibn Ma'sud held to his version of the Qur'an and rejected the Uthmanic version, at least for a time. But since it seems to me, at least, that Uthman's presumed committee made every effort to combine versions that were already cherished, it's not surprising that complaint was muted. People would be much more apt to complain if familiar material were omitted or altered. Instead, they got their familiar material plus EXTRA GOODIES <g>. Just speculation, of course. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:41, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Not quite - one very minor extinct sect of Kharijites, the Maymuniyya, rejected the story of Joseph, on the grounds that it contained a love story. The Ibadis do not. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 00:59, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::: As I said, Ibn Ma'sud did not reject Uthmanic version. All we know about that is that he '''initially''' refused to destroy his copy. He probably had personal notes in it or some other attachment to his own copy. He continued to support the Caliph. Shi'as don't speak of missing verses. There might be some isolated claims by a few Shi'as here and there, but Shi'a community has a whole doesn't speak of missing verses. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 10:39, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Different versions or different copies? ==

OneGuy, I just noticed that you changed my "versions" to "copies". Mustafaa has slowly and painfully educated me as the importance of oral traditions of recitation, and that's why I used "versions" -- it can refer to oral or written versions. "Copies" can only refer to written versions. Since it is very clear that there were different oral traditions, I think the article needs to be changed back to "versions". I'll wait a bit to make the changes, however. I've got REAL LIFE stuff to do. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

: "variant version" and "version differed" is redundant. "version" by definition means "different." The paragraph where this is mentioned is talking about the copies that were destroyed by Uthman, not "oral" memorizers of the Qur'an. Where is it "clear" that there were different version of memorizers (other than dialectic)? Post evidence for that [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 02:13, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: OneGuy, you've changed the para back to saying "copies" even though it's been made CLEAR to you that it's not just a question of manuscripts differing, but of differing oral traditions as well. The whole question of ahruf and quirirat (sp?) and how/whether they are the same thing, hinges on both issues, and there's been a great deal of scholarly back and forth on the subject. You're making the para just plain FALSE with your insistence on being right. Please let go. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:55, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::Ok, then I will explicitly say qirat/ahruf [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:41, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

----

No! Nahin! You're assuming that the seven ahruf mentioned in various hadith are the same thing as the qira'at (seven authorized oral recitations -- I think that's a better transliteration -- dab or Mustafaa might know better). In fact, Muslim commentators have argued over the exact meaning of ahruf. Some say that the ahruf were levels of meaning, some that they were rhetorical devices, etc. The most common view seems to be that the ahruf were different dialects, and that Uthman decided to standardize on the Quraysh dialect and suppress the others. Dialectical differences apparently involved differences in the rasm. Qira'at, on the other hand, are different readings from the same rasm. Hence saying that ahruf and qira'at both refer to the same thing is extremely misleading.

Now that's just the Muslim commentary. You'd get even more divergent formulations if you included ALL scholarly opinions. The non-Muslim scholars are less focused on harmonizing hadith and more on accurately dating and describing Qur'an manuscripts. Which is why the (probably) pre-Uthmanic fragments from Sana'a are so important.

Mustafaa and I wrote that para the way we did because there are so many different views. If we explained all the different views thoroughly, the Qur'an SECTION of the Islam article would be longer than the Qur'an article per se. We've got to be NPOV, we've got to be accurate, and we've got to be succinct. It's like walking through a minefield. That's why it was so wonderful that Mustafaa and I seemed to have negotiated the minefield successfully. Please, appreciate all the constraints involved and don't drag in disputes that it would take too much space to unpack. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 07:53, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:No, I am not assuming that qirat and ahruf are the same. I gave you the link to this [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html page] Why would I assume this when I gave you the link? Qirat (and there are more than seven) are supposedly minor differences due to the missing diacritical marks/pronunciation. The ahruf (supposedly) were seven dialects of different tribes at the time of Muhammad, not just differences due to missing diacritical marks and pronunciation. The word "readings" describes both and doesn't assume that they are the same. Looks fine to me. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 09:02, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:And this [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/green.html page] [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 12:58, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::I noted that [[Qur'an]] does not explain the terms [[ahruf]] or [[qira'a]]. qira'at are called "readings" there. I think the distinctions should be made clearer there. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 14:39, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: Ok, I did, and added a wiki link there so distinction between qirat and ahruf would be on separate page [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 14:56, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::no, I meant the [[Qur'an]] article itself. Also, it would be cool to have a list of what the differences actually are (for both ahruf and qira'at. Are the different ahruf even preserved, or have they all been destroyed?). [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 15:20, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::: From the link I posted, "The forms matched the dialects of following seven tribes: Quraysh, Hudhayl, Thaqîf, Hawâzin, Kinânah, Tamîm and Yemen." Then he quotes a source according to which, "the phrase 'alayhim (on them) was read by some 'alayhumoo and the word siraat (path, bridge) was read as ziraat and mu'min (believer) as moomin." After Uthman, apparently, the dialect of Quraysh became the only standard. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 15:47, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

::::I like the [[moomin]] part (*ducks*). Seriously though, let's work this into the article (or create a new [[qur'anic variants]] or something. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 15:57, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: Guys, this is why the Islam article as a whole is over 32K and you get a warning message every time you edit the whole article. You can't stuff EVERYTHING into the main article. The Qur'an article is the place for material about variants, not the Islam article. NO, let's take out ahruf and qira'at, not confuse the reader, and switch to working on the Qur'an article.

:::: I've noticed the same phenomenon with the Hawai'i article. There's a whole community of people dedicated to working over the Hawai'i article, and they argue, and add, and the article is TOO LONG. But no one is working on the various linked articles that are actually supposed to contain the detail.

:::: There's got to be a name for this wiki madness/main article fixation. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:48, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::: The section about the Qur'an is fine as it is now. It's not big, nor confusing. Leave this and go to the Qur'an article [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 19:29, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::::Sorry, Zora. I ''meant'' the [[Qur'an]] article. I know this is is Talk:Islam, but since you all are on both pages anyway, just brought it up here. Sorry for the confusion. (and, yes, I know the problem, from e.g. [[Human]] or [[God]]). [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 10:45, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Another try at pesky para ==

I just spent an hour fussing over one para in the Qur'an section. I left the discussion of dialects and ahruf to the Qur'an main article and condensed the whole question of copies, versions, variants, whatever, to "provenance". I hope this will do. Using "copies" gives entirely the wrong impression, as we're in fact talking about "copying" as creating manuscript lineages (there's probably some technical term for this, which I don't know), which can branch and then mingle again, and surviving manuscripts as being located in a particular lineage. Scholars can map these lineages in great detail for some old texts, but not -- alas -- for the Qur'an. Yet. Perhaps further investigation of Qur'an graveyards and scientific dating of old manuscripts will give us a much better picture of developments between the death of Muhammad and the compilation of the currently-known Qur'an. Then we can rewrite the article <g>. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:09, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:Scholars can map them from "old text" because old manuscripts of other literature are very different from each other. This is not the case with the Qur'an. There are only minor differences between the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an, Tashkent manuscript, Istanbul manuscript, (plus more full manuscripts after that). How are you going to do this with the Qur'an when the variations in "old text" are insignificant?

:The problem is not with the Qur'an or it's manuscripts. The problem is with insisting to apply the method "map them from old text," even when the very old text (like Tashkent) is almost identical to the present text. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 06:57, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:: Any difference is good for the mapping. If a copyist makes one error, all texts copied from that copy will have the same error. Anyway, it's not so much a question of later versions of the Qur'an, which should differ in the pointing and calligraphy only, as of the very very earliest versions. Now if you believe that the Qur'an took its final form under Abu Bakr, we're not going to see variation. But according to the German scholar who's working with the Sana'a fragments, he's found one fragment already where the suras are in a different order. The order matches a tradition about the version of the Qur'an that Ibn Masud didn't want to give up. So that confirms a tradition (which should make you happy) but also shows that there were variations. So far, however, these variations seem to be minor -- which should also make you happy. I'm willing to believe in very few variations, if that's what research shows. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 07:29, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:::I will take the words of that German scholar with some grain of salt, especially because of his comments in Atlantic article. Ibn Masud only '''initially''' refused to give up his copy. This can be explained by the fact that this was his personal copy and he might have personal notes in it. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 11:07, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

== Criticism ==

There is no criticism of Islam in this argument at all, no criticism of Jihad, no criticism of Fundementalism, no criticism of the Hadith. There is plenty of criticism in the articles of other religions e.t.c [[Christianity]], [[Judaism]], [[Buddhism]], [[Sikhism]], [[Hinduism]]. I'd like to see some criticisms being brought into this article or at least another article being created for the very same subject. It is simply not fair that other articles contain very veciferous criticisms and this holds none. Too much POV from one side.

:Likewise you will not find detailed criticism of the Crusades, the sex scandals in the Catholic Church, etc., in the article [[Christianity]]; [[Judaism]] doesn't give any space to the views of [[Tacitus]] or [[Israel Shahak]]; [[Hinduism]] has a brief mention of the [[caste system]] and doesn't even have a cross-reference to [[Hindutva]]; and so forth. Could you be more specific about the vociferous criticisms you claim to have spotted in articles on other major religions, please? [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']]&nbsp;[[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|^(m)]] 05:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::The difference is that the Crusades were not encouraged or demanded by the Christian holy scriptures. Jihad is considered the 6th pillar by many.

:::Isn't the OT part of Christian scriptures? There are a number of wars and massacres (even killing of children and animals) commanded by God [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:Furthermore detailed criticisms of [[jihad]], [[Islamic fundamentalism]], and the [[hadith]] would be out of place in this overview article; the place for such criticisms would be, oddly enough, in the articles [[jihad]], [[Islamic fundamentalism]], and [[hadith]]. [[User:Mirv|&#8212;No-One]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;''Jones'']]&nbsp;[[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|^(m)]] 05:44, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::Should we remove all criticism from the [[Christianity]], [[Judaism]], [[Buddhism]], [[Sikhism]], [[Hinduism]], placing it instead in other pages? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 20:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Factual error ? ==

the article states "Since Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, claims descent from the monotheist tradition of the biblical patriarch Abraham, it sees itself as an Abrahamic religion."

is this true? Or does Islam believe/state that Abraham was a Muslim...there is quite a difference. [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 20:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that Islam sees itself as an Abrahamic religion - in fact, as ''the'' Abrahamic religion, of which the other two are deviations. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 20:58, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

''the other two are deviations'' from the religion that Abraham/Ibrahim practiced. That would make Abraham/Ibrahim a Muslim. Do you disagree? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 17:00, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course - like Moses, Jesus, Adam, and every other prophet. What I disagree with is that this is different from it "seeing itself as an Abrahamic religion". - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 21:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:AH....perhaps I am starting to understand. Are you saying that Islam "sees itself as THE Abrahamic religion" (Abrahamic religion meaning religion of Abraham the person) as opposed to "an Abrahamic religion" ? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 15:34, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's not a bad way to put it - it sees itself as "Abraham's religion", and Judaism or Christianity as "Abraham-based religions". The term "Abrahamic" in English seems to encompass both those meanings. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 14:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

article editted to be the following: ''Islam sees itself as being the religion of [[biblical]] [[patriarch]] [[Abraham]] and his son [[Ishmael]]. It holds that [[Judaism]] and [[Christianity]] are derivations and therefore also [[Abrahamic religion]]s. '' [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 15:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Stance on Issues ==

Can someone start a section on where Islam stands on issues such as capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc. This would be a great addition to this article. Thanks [[User:Monkeyman|Monkeyman]] 05:32, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

: I don't think you could possibly write such a section, any more than you could write an article on the Christian stand on any of these things. There are lots of Christian and Muslim sects, lots of clerics and believers, and lots of opinions. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 07:21, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::I know very little of Islam which is why I came to this article. An overview of their stance on issues would be a good primer for someone like me. Surely they have stated opinions about such major issues, no? [[User:Monkeyman|Monkeyman]] 17:42, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::: Those are U.S. political issues, and there is an article on Islam in the United States, I believe, with links to the various U.S. Muslim organizations. If there are any statements to be made, they'd probably be found on those web pages. But the organizations might not have discussed and taken stands on these issues. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:40, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:::: They seem more like worldwide social issues rather than U.S. political issues. I checked out the "Islam in the United States" article but there's nothing listed relating to the above issues. Will check out the links and see if I can find anything. [[User:Monkeyman|Monkeyman]] 18:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The position of a number or Christian organization is quite clear on some of these issues. The Catholic Church, Anglican Church, and a number of other demoninations issue statements/encyclicals. These could/should? be quoted directly.

[[Al-Azhar University]] is considered the/a preeminent source of [[Sharia]] (Islamic Law) decisions for [[Sunni]] Muslims. Statements issued from Al-Azhar could/should be quoted for this article. Alcohol and drugs would appear to be trivial. Does anything state that Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol?

Google: Islam alcohol --> http://islam.about.com/od/health/f/alcohol.htm and http://2muslims.com/directory/Detailed/226100.shtml#INTOXICANTS for instance

[[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 17:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc.": capital punishment is specifically permitted by the Qur'an (being merciful is said to be better, but is left to the discretion of the murdered person's family); alcohol is forbidden, though this prohibition is in practice ignored in some countries; the others, there is no single Islamic position on, but a reasonably typical Islamic position would be against illegal drugs and abortion. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 21:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Permitted" ? never required? no offenses that are punishable only by death?

Will you be adding this information to the article? You might be better versed in the matters at hand. I dont mind doing so, if you decline. [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 15:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC

----

I would strongly oppose venturing into these hot-button U.S. political issues in the article, which is already TOO DARN LONG. Monkeyman to the contrary, these are U.S. political issues for the most part. They have their own pages, I presume, and information on the stands of various religious organizations could be added there, if necessary. Or in the Islam in the U.S. article. Or someone could start a new article on "Major religions' stand on abortion" or whatever. But given that the Islam page is already controversial, and a target for vandalism, it would be just asking for trouble to mix other controversies into it. (by [[User:Zora]] signature omitted [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Islam&diff=0&oldid=7787139]

Would you support removal of the same matter/issues from the other pages mentioned, among which are [[Christianity]], [[Judaism]], [[Buddhism]], etc ? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 18:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

: A quick glance at the other articles you mentioned shows no mention of the laundry list of issues, that I can see. The Buddhism article has a section on vegetarianism, because that comes up IN THE CONTEXT of Buddhist religious practice. The issues for which you want opinions may be burning issues for U.S. political discourse, but they aren't central to most people's religious practice. So there's no removal necessary. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please see [[Roman_Catholic_Church#Criticisms]] The question was "Would you support removal of the same matter/issues..." [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 20:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:: That's in the Roman Catholic Church article, not in the Christianity article. The RC church has a unified hierarchy, makes official pronouncements, and takes stands on U.S. political issues. Some officials even take stands on U.S. candidates. The RC church makes the news for doing so. So far as I know, the various Muslim groups in the U.S. have taken public stands primarily on religious discrimination issues. Now if you want to comb their web pages for stands on various issues, or write to them and ask them for their stands, that could be an interesting article. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 21:39, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::Ok, so far the reasons for not adding this information is: The article is already too long, it's a target of vandalism, they're not social issues ... they're political issues, the information would be better suited for a different article, and that it would be impossible to write such a section. Well you're right, it was foolish of me to expect an article on Islam to deal with modern issues that people are faced with and discuss every day. Am I taking crazy pills??? [[User:Monkeyman|Monkeyman]] 20:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:::There should be article on this topic. Why not right a separate article and then that can be linked from the main article like other articles are linked from different sections? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 21:05, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:::look, this is an article on Islam, not on [[Sharia]]. We duly link to Sharia, and your stuff belongs there. The only bindingly uniting scripture in Islam is the Qur'an, and as Mustafaa said, it addresses alcohol and capital punishment. Gay marriage and abortion are simply not covered, and will be part of islamic nations' politics, ''not'' of Islam itself. Sheesh, this would be like treating [[Flat Earth]] on [[Christianity]]. Sure, some popes were bashing people around over the question, but that doesn't make Flat Earth a central tenet of the christian faith. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 10:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fair point - [[Sharia]] is in many ways a better place to discuss such issues. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 15:01, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sharia is separate from Islam? As I understand it, which may be quite flawed, Sharia provides Muslims THE WAY TO LIVE, providing guidance based upon the Qur'an, Hadith, Tasfir (etc.), answering numerous questions of daily life that are not explicitly stated in the Qur'an. Examples might be "How does one pray?" "What are the actions to be performed?" "What are the words to said?"

Islam without Sharia is hard to imagine. The two are deeply interconnected...one being the religion, the other being the way to live/actualize it. One could/should make the same arguements regarding [[Christianity]] and [[Canon Law]] (be it Catholic (one variety), Lutheran (several varieties) or Anglican (one variety moving to two? based upon recent consecration of an archbishop in the US) all of which have worldwide organizations), [[Judaism]] and [[Rabbinic Liturature]].

Your thoughts? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 15:36, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course Sharia is deeply relevant to Islam; but it's too large a topic to cover in such detail in what is already too large an article, and it has its own article. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 15:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Once, the Talk page was the place where editors discussed the improvement of the article, not a '''substitute''' to reading the article. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 17:09, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== hot-button U.S. political issues ? ==

How about suicide bombings vs martyrdom operations, Rushie and the Satanic Verses (Iranian Fatwah), Pim Fontyn (sp?), Theo van Gogh: Defenders of Islam vs its detractors? Western liberalism vs Islamic (Sharia based) states. There are many issues. These do not seem to be ''hot-button U.S. political issues'' but rather important to quite a number of societies and states around the world...and we havent even bother to talk about India and Indonesia (the most populous predominently muslim) country. [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 15:36, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:fair enough, we do have a "Islam in the modern world" section, where such issues would be at home. We may have to fork it into a new [[Islam in the modern world]] main article soon, though. There is also [[Islamism]] which is wholly devoted to the fanatics. And there is [[Islam by country]] for regional issues. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 17:16, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) &mdash; FFS, there is even [[Islamist terrorism]]. Could be added to the See alsos. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 17:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

==The shared struggle between Christians and Muslims against the predominant Judaism==

Is this true? At what time (date, please) since 622 has Judaism been predominant? Seems a strange statement given the Catholicism of Rome, the Eastern Orthdoxy of Byzantium and the Zorastrianism of the Sassanids. [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 16:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's "predominant Judaism and polytheistic religions". But the statement is still crap. we cannot cite half the qur'an here, this may end up on [[Qur'an exegesis]] or something. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 17:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed from the article. Where would such an idea come from? Anyone know? [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 18:38, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::You guys might be happier deleting text from [[Jew]] article. How's the weather in Tel Aviv? --[[User:Alberuni|Alberuni]] 18:47, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Alberuni, calm down. Dab's certainly no Islamophobe, and the deleted text was pretty tangential. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 18:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Islamophobe? I read the deleted passage as islamophobe, suggesting inherent antisemitism (ok, antijudaism) in Islam. Maybe I should reconsider. Maybe I didn't get the point of the paragraph. The "How's the weather in Tel Aviv?", however, makes me think, maybe not. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 19:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The sentence under scrutiny is:

"The shared struggle between Christians and Muslims against the predominant Judaism and polytheistic religions at the time "

It is probably correct that (Judaism+polytheism) was predominant in Muhammad's time. Probably polytheism was dominant, entirely on its own (this would make it a correct but misleading statement, like, e.g. "the Judaism, polytheism and Mormonism predominant at the time". Let us for argument's sake assume that Judaism and polytheistic religions were predominantat the time. Then we still need to show that the quoted passage is evidence of a "shared struggle between Christians and Muslims" against these scourges. IMHO, it is only evidence that Muhammad liked Christians better than Jews. It is no evidence that any Christians in the area were even aware of the man, let alone considered themselves part of a joint struggle with him, as is implied here. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 19:25, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The statement "The shared struggle between Christians and Muslims against the predominant Judaism and polytheistic religions at the time " may be accurate or factually inaccurate. Do you have a reference to back up the factual accuracy of the statement? I would suspect that Christianity and Zoraster (sp?) were the two dominant religions around 600. If you have information otherwise, I am very interested in reading it. If the only source is the Qur'an, thats fine....then the statement should state such. ''The Qur'an states that the he shared struggle between Christians and Muslims against the predominant Judaism and polytheistic religions at the time..." [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 20:15, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, the prevailing religions part is correct, if badly phrased - polytheism, and to a much lesser extent Judaism, were certainly the prevailing religions of the [[Hijaz]] at the time (the prevailing world religions, if my guess about world population is right, were Hinduism and Buddhism), although in Arabia as a whole Christianity also had a significant presence. But it's also true that "it is only evidence that _ liked Christians better than Jews" - or, at least, better than the particular Jews of the Medina area, who opposed Muhammad - and, indeed, while one individual Christian famously supported Muhammad (Waraqah ibn Nawfal), there is no record of any Christian tribes supporting him at that time. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 23:45, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

: I think there were far more Jews than Christians at least in Medina at that time [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]]

:: I don't believe there were whole Christian tribes in that time and place. Waraqah bin Nawfal was a convert.[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 02:19, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

::: Not at that place, no, but there were much further north, like the Banu Tanukh. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 02:55, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

::::can we just rephrase the statement? from "shared struggle" to "premonition of exlusivist tendencies" or something? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 08:57, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see any need for the statement; it's a little tangential to this article. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 17:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll remove it. [[User:Lance6Wins|Lance6Wins]] 17:28, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Knowledge ==

Would someone please sort out the [[Isa]] page, as it seems to be written from the POV of a Christian missionary. [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 19:39, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Another request -- Muslim year ==

As a non-Muslim, I have only the sketchiest idea of the yearly cycle of Muslim religious celebrations, special events, etc. I know that this differs from sect to sect and place to place; it is also partially covered by notes in [[Islamic year]] and articles re the various festivals. But it would be nice to have an article that tied everything together, with descriptions of differences between sects and countries.

I'm particularily interested in the um, housewife's point of view. What must be done at home, in the way of cooking and sewing, etc., to make things happen. Special dishes to be cooked, that sort of thing.

Request probably sparked by looming Thanksgiving dinner. At least I'm going to a potluck. Time to cook Persian rice (with lots of butter) and Punjabi green beans <g> [[User:Zora|Zora]] 23:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where I come from, the only events celebrated are [[Eid al-Adha]], [[Eid al-Fitr]], and (kinda) [[Mawlid an-Nabi]] - but the whole of [[Ramadan]] is an occasion for unusually good food after sunset. It sounds like an interesting article idea, but it's hard to imagine who would have the knowledge to deal with all the regional differences... - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 23:49, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

----

I just googled for Islam holiday, read some stuff and then realized -- if the lunar calender is shorter than the solar calender, so that the holiday cycle precesses eleven days a year, that means that the festivals can occur any time of the year. This seems very strange to me, as I'm used to holidays/weather/foods in season all being linked. Not just the Christian calender, but the Buddhist calendar too. (We basically celebrate New Year and Buddha's Birthday, which we do with a birthday cake, being Westerners.) What does it feel like INSIDE that sort of precession?

I suppose someone could outline an article and leave bits to be filled in by Muslims from different regions ... [[User:Zora|Zora]] 07:03, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

----

Islam runs on a exclusively lunar calendar, hence the Muslim holydays come about 11 days earlier each year. Christian holydays follow a solar calendar with fixed dates, but for Easter which is always a Sunday, always after the [[vernal equinox]] (more on this at [[Computus]]). Judaism combines the two approaches running on a lunar calendar that is compensated/corrected for the length of a solar year so that Passover is always after the vernal equinox. The Jewish calendar has two methods of varying the length of the lunar year. One is to introduce an extra month [[Adar|Adar II]]. The other is to choose which lunar months to lengthen by one solar day and which to shorten by one solar day. (The lunar month is not an even number of solar days...therefore to prevent the new moon from occuring at a time other than the beginning of the lunar month, one must have lunar months of differing number of solar days.) The calculation of the Jewish calendar has been fixed for about 1,644 years now.

If you can read [[lisp]], then the calendar programs included in the [[emacs]] distribution have all the information you need to understand these three (and many other) calendars in great detail. The [[Rambam]] states that the math is not beyond what a school child could master in 3 or 4 days. Have fun! [[User:69.138.236.221|69.138.236.221]] 01:20, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

==NPOV==

Firstly, I believe obvious Muslims should excuse themselves from editing this page, as they definitely have a POV. Secondly, the article should indicate that Qur'an *prescribes* killing infidels. (Among other things) [unsigned]

:([[User:68.107.102.129|68.107.102.129]] deleted my response, here it is restored)

:In response to the anonymous user I need to point out that they are a vandal who doesn't understand the concept of NPOV, here are some contribs from this user:

:*[[Islamophobia]]: Islamophobia is the fear of having your head cut off.

:*[[Infidel]]: [[Islam]] calls for the killing of infidels, which may be the reason why [[Muslim]] countries rarely live in piece their non-Muslim neighbors.

:*[[Qur'an]]: The Qur'an is the training manual for terrorists.

:That should be enough evidence, but there is more. [[User:Edward|Edward]] 12:53, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Muslims shouldn't be allowed to edit [[Islam]], just like Christians shouldn't be allowed to edit [[Christianity]]. Otherwise Wikipedia will turn into one big mosque [unsigned]

:unsigned comments should be excused from Talk pages. Also, if you were to suggest that adherents of a particluar religion should not edit articles related to that religion, you would probably have little success on VP. It would be directly opposed to the WP idea that people should have the possibility to insert information on whatever area they are most proficient in. It is more likely that a Muslim has background knowledge on Islam than, say, a Mormon. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 14:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:: There are plenty of scholars who study Islam and know more about it than religious fanatics. (I know a thing or two about Islam, having studied it in college, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert). Anywho, the ratio of non-prejudiced (academic, say) scholars of a religion like Islam to Muslims is too low, and if Muslims are allowed to continue policing Islam-related wikipedia content (which they do with a religious fervor, of course), Wikipedia will never have a NPOV on these issues. IOW it is daft to say that someone with a religious view is allowed to edit the associated article if NPOV is the real, not imaginary, goal. [[User:68.107.102.129|68.107.102.129]]

:::of course there are experts. But WP has to make do with the editors it gets. You are welcome to add your knowledge. Luckily, you don't have to be an expert to npov-police an article. And articles on religions certainly do have to be npov-policed, no doubt about that. Still, even the more radical Muslims are welcome to include their povs, as long as they are not portrayed as fact, but duly flagged as minority opinions. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 16:34, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

:::68.107.102.129, what is this NPOV nonsense. You must voice your concerns if you add such a notice. Just the fact that the article has Muslim editors is not a concern. If you think the qur'an is a "killing manual", you do not know "a thing or two about Islam", as you claim, nor do you have a clue about NPOV. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] 18:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== Possible Overstatement ==

"or at least the earliest one accepted as correctly-dated by all researchers."

:I just have a problem with the word "all" in this case; it doesn't seem any date will be agreed upon by ALL researchers&mdash;[[User:Ashdurbat|Trevor Caira]] 16:03, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:: OK! Time for weasel-words. Use "most" <g> One thing that academic writing teaches is the adroit use of qualifiers to barricade statments against an easy attack. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:47, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::: Who are these "most" researchers? And how do they explain that Taskent manuscript doesn't have vowel and diacritical marks? These were introduced by [[Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef]] (d. 714) in written Qur'ans. He must have introduced them long before his death. Hajjaj became the governor of Kufa around 690s. Why would a Qur'anic manuscript 50 years latter still not have vowel marks? [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 23:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

----

According to Islamic-awareness (a Muslim site):

: A few words of caution concerning the dating of the Qur'anic manuscripts need to be mentioned. It is to be remembered that assigning a date to an undated early Qur'anic manuscript is rarely simple especially in the absence of Wakf marking. There is a tendency to assume that those in large scripts and without vowels are of the earliest date. This assumption, true to some extent, is nevertheless misleading in two respects. It ignores that fact that small as well as large masahif of the Qur'an were among the earliest written and that both types continued to be written thereafter. Though the assumption that manuscripts with the vowels must be considered later than those without is true in some cases, it is not always so, for some very early manuscripts of the Qur'an, originally written without vowels, may well have been voweled later. Furthermore, the first vowel system came into use shortly after the first masahif were written. There are also examples of later masahif which were unvoweled even after 3 centuries after hijra!

I can't put my finger on it at the moment, but I also ran across a discussion of Qur'an dating that pointed out that the large Qur'ans used in mosques were particularly difficult to date, as the scripts tended to be both self-consciously elaborate or monumental, and archaic. A Qur'an intended for private reading may have had the vowel markings, and one intended for mosque use would do without them.

Brandon Wheeler, a professor of Islamic studies, regards this [http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/quran/kufi_393.html] Qur'an as the oldest complete and dated Qur'an. It's from 1002 C.E.! [[User:Zora|Zora]]

:: Well, by "complete" Qur'an Wheeler obviously meant a manuscript that is not missing any pages. Taskent is missing a few pages; thus, "incomplete" according to Wheeler. However, that is irrelevant to what I said. Missing a few pages (like all old manuscript do) is not a problem in this case. It's '''almost'' complete [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::: Um, it's not COMPLETE unless it's COMPLETE. Almost complete doesn't cut it. Then you start getting arguments about how complete the manuscript must be to be considered complete.

:::: No, Taskent is a complete Qur'an that is missing a few pages. That fact needs to be mentioned [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:56, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One Islamic site says that this [http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_1st_quran.htm] is the oldest Qur'an known, late 8th century C.E. However, it is not clear if it's complete.

I can't remember where I got the 750 C.E. figure. [[User:Zora|Zora]]

::I have seen some people claim that Tashkent manuscript is around 750+. That's where you got it from. The argument they use is that Taskent is in Kufic script and Kufic script only appears on Abbasid coin (thus, 750 date). However, if Kufic script first appeared on Abbasid coins that doesn't mean it didn't exist prior to that. Ummyad were ruling from Damascus till 750 and that's why probably Kufic script didn't appear on coins till Abbasids in Iraq. Doesn't explain why Tashkent manuscript doesn't have vowel or diacritical marks. See the pictures [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/samarqand.html 1] [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 01:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::: But the Islamic-awareness excerpt I posted says that you can't take the absence of pointing as an indication of age. With which I'd agree.

:::: Still, but there is no valid explanation why Tashkent manuscript doesn't have vowel marks, and it's definitely one of the oldest Qur'an [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 03:56, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::::: I've said it TWICE, and it's quoted from a Muslim site: absence of vowel marks doesn't prove anything. It's not an anomaly. Qur'ans that everyone would accept as 300 years after the Hegira don't have vowel marks. I can't remember if it was on that site, or another, that a sort of explanation was given: there were conservatives who felt that adding anything to the sacred text, even vowel marks, was wrong. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::: I understand that there are scientific tests now that can give dates plus or minus 20 years (IIRC), but that they require too much material for the testing. No one wants to sacrifice a chunk of an old Qur'an to find out how old it is. I do wish that we had some objective dating method -- then we could dispense with all these arguments about calligraphic style, pointing, etc. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 03:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

D'oh. Islamic sites tend to date the Qur'ans down, academic sites often to date them up. Plus a lot of Islamic sites tend to cruise the academic literature looking for the earliest dates they can find, and cite them, without noting that they usually come from Abbot, who wrote in 1939 and is not the latest word in scholarship.

I think we should probably link to both the Wheeler and the Islamic sites I noted, and give both dates. Because I'm NOT a graduate student in Qur'anic studies at a university with a large library, I'm not at all sure that I'm up with the latest research. I have to piece together info from Google and Questia (an online scholarly library, but with limited holdings), plus the shelf of books I've been able to afford. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 01:19, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

==unhappy with the "See also" section==

why are there only three links, and why the three that are there? Certainly, [[Jihad]] should be linked from somwhere in the article text. also, [[Islamism]] should be linked from "Islam in the modern world", together with [[fundamentalism]]. The "See also" is a bit superfluous, compared with the good "Islam" Template. [[User:Dbachmann|[[User:Dbachmann|dab]] (<small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|T]]</small>) ]] 17:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

== ''shah&#257;datan'' ==

The ''Kalima'' is introduced as the ''shah&#257;datan''. Shouldn't that either be ''shah&#257;dah'' and mention the Kalima? Isn't ''shah&#257;datan'' Persian, if that? Arabic would be ''shah&#257;dat'ein'' for two ''shah&#257;dah''s?[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 01:46, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

: In Arabic, two shahadas is shah&#257;dat&#257;n in the nominative, shah&#257;datayn in the oblique. It is technically correct, if somewhat unusual, to call the shahada/kalima the shahadatan, since it involves two statements. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 11:46, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::So what are we documenting? What the Kalima is called? Or what a committee of Arabic scholars would recommend that 1.2 billion people should be saying? Almost every Muslim I have met in Africa, South Asia, Arabia, and North America will never have heard of that way of referring to it. And I am talking about Arabic speakers, too.

::My apologies if that sounds testy, and I hate to say this to you, but the logic above sounds very like the argument from the other side in the "discussion" on the definition of "Islamism"&mdash;that since it should "technically" mean that, we should use the technical definition in this encyclopedia as the "official" meaning.[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 19:32, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Hey, relax. I have no objection to it being changed; I'm just pointing out that it's not wrong. Now what to change it to is another question. I suppose technically you can call it the Kalima, but where I come from, it's overwhelmingly more often termed the Shahada. I've only rarely heard the former usage. From what you're saying, I imagine it's the other way around where you come from. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 21:31, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

== The Muslims are unique in that their holy book tells them to kill members of other religions ==

... Last time I'm changing this today. You are not even trying to discuss your reverts. If there is no possibility for consesus, I will have to ask for arbitration.

:Might help if you did that, yes. Also, getting an account and/or logging in might help you do that. BTW, you might want to notice that the[[Islam#Exclusivistic_Thought_in_Islam|Exclusivistic Thought in Islam]] sub-section covers part of what you are saying.

:If you do want to have a discussion, here's my POV: your statement is rather unqualified. "...tells them to kill" implies/means that the book just says "kill them". You are saying/implying that the book says just kill them in all cases. Most other editors disagree that that is the case. The book does say kill them; but in self-defense. Care to comment?[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 22:28, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

==My recent edit==

Sorry; the recent edit I alluded to wasn't anon, it was by Tom Paine. However, it's still wrong, and the topic has been thoroughly discussed both here and at [[Qur'an]]. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 00:34, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

== Deleted feminist link ==

An anonymous editor (new to Wikipedia) added an external link to a site promoting Islamic feminism. I deleted it (despite a certain sympathy) because I felt it was a specialized topic, best discussed in its own article. I don't think there's any such article. If there isn't, I'd suggest that the anonymous editor start one. I'd do it myself if I weren't grotesquely over-extended. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 15:19, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

=='''''Islamic''''' sect==

Why is it important to say '''''Islamic''''' sect in the following:

:''Mainstream Muslims regard Muhammad as the 'Last Messenger' or the 'Seal of the Prophets' based on the canon. However, there have been a number of Islamic sects through the ages whose leaders have claimed to be follower Prophets, or whose devotees have regarded them as Prophets or incarnations of God himself.''

It wouldn't be Buddhist sects whose leaders claimed to be follower Prophets to [[Muhammad]], would it? Also, just saying "sects" would keep the writer/editor out of the discussion of whether those specific sects are "Islamic" or not&mdash;and, even more perilously, who gets to decide. BTW, traditionally, Muslims would have said "Muslim sects" not "Islamic sects", but I guess most post-modern Muslims have given up fighting that fight.[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 19:52, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

: Yeah, this is a tricky one. I felt that leaving out Muslim or Islamic in a description of the sects would make the sentence applicable to many thousands of break-away Christian, Buddhist, etc. groups too. Indeed, that's how I first read it. But if I put it in, it makes a judgement about who's Muslim and who's not. You're right there. How about something like:

: "However, there have been a number of sects through the ages whose leaders have proclaimed themselves the successors of Muhammad, perfecting and extending Islam, or, whose devotees have made such claims for their leaders." It would take another sentence to add in claims of being incarnations. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 02:39, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::Yes. Something likethat would work. Though in an article on Mohammed, you did read it wrongly at first. Hmmm. I guess that's the parallax of my being too close to the topic.[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 03:44, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

== Reasons for reverting ==

An anonymous editor removed the sentence that Ifaqeer and I had crafted with such pains, re sectarian leaders claiming to be Muhammad's successor. It seemed to me to contain useful info, frex in making sense of Bahai, Ahmadiyya, etc. He/she also made a few other minor edits, of which I retained only one. Others may wish to inspect his/her edits and see if you agree with me. I wish the anon editor would take a username and join the debate on the talk page. I'm guessing that he/she just hasn't learned the rules of the game yet (nor have I, I think). The mechanics of editing are easy compared to learning HOW to collaborate well. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 03:34, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:you are kind to even mention this. I think it is fair to rollback anonymous edits to sections with complicated histories without comment. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 08:49, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

== God, Allah, six beliefs ==

An anon editor replaced God with Allah in the confession of faith, and I reverted it. So far as I know, Allah is just Arabic for God, and the replacement seems to be a sly way of saying that Muslims worship a different god than Jews or Christians. Which I don't believe that Muslims would admit.

OneGuy, I'm also going to question your reversion of the edit that deleted the heading "Six beliefs". After a moment's boggle, I had thought that the edit improved the section's readability. It's not necessary to say "six beliefs" twice, after all. I'm not going to change it back before discussing it with you, however. I don't think the original edit was motivated by anything other than copyediting concerns, which I share.

Comment? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:Zora, hmmm. I see what you mean about the implication. But then the Arabic text reads "La Ilaha Illah Allah"--"None god/worthy-of-worship except Allah". Which draws a distinction between the generic word "god" and the one and only "God", Allah. But maybe I am over thinking it.[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 23:25, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

:corresponding roughly to the distinction god vs. God. the ''i'' in ''ilaha'' is an alif al-wa&#7779;l so that you have ''lah'' "a god" vs. ''al-lah'' "the God". Same word, different state (see [[Arabic grammar]])[[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 13:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

::I think it's also a pun on ''la'' "no" vs. ''lah'' "god". Your ''illah'' for ''illa'' probably qualifies as blasphemy :p -- the literal translation of the 'creed' would be "not any-god if-not the-God". [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 13:30, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

==[[List of Islamic and Muslim related topics]]==

The [[List of Islamic and Muslim related topics]] was created using a program I wrote that uses google to create a list and wikifies them. Many of the relevant topics might be missing and some irrelevant ones are probably in the list. I cleaned it a bit. Please add more to the list or remove irrelevant ones. Strangely Wikipedia doesn't have an article on women and Islam [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 08:57, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

==rv 203.101.42.15?==

this user is tearing through the article, I suppose with the best intentions, but all edits seem questionable for reasons of style, accuracy and npov. Shall we summarily revert them, or does somebody want to sort them out? (the MU-Islam "etymology" is particularly unenlightening. man. we ''had'' this information, less obfuscated. read first, edit later) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 13:09, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:I suppose this is [[Yusuf Estes]]. He is adding his website to lots of Islam related articles, and turns his ''Talk'' page (for some reason) into a big vanity article, it appears. (the article itself was made quite 'vain' too, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yusuf_Estes&diff=8067666&oldid=8067607 this edit]) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 13:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

==Growth of Islam==

Higher birth rate of Asian and African countries is the main reason for overall percentage increase of Islam. Clear example of that is this [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islam_by_country&diff=9061742&oldid=9052689 page]. I wrote a program to create these tables and do calculations. Initially I used the file from census.gov that had estimates of population of each country for 2004 (or was it 9-30-2004?). census.gov updated their file to 2005, so I switched to that file. The Muslim percentage increased from 22.646% to 22.792%, a jump of 0.15% in just 4 months? The only change I made was switching from 2004 to 2005 file. See [[Islam by country]] [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 04:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

And for comparison with Christianity, see [[User:OneGuy/Christianity by country]]

[[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 21:00, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== My recent changes ==

I removed a link to a website that looked distinctly commercial, and also removed several paragraphs in praise of Bahai which seemed inappropriate in this article. If people want to find out about the Bahai, they can click on the link. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 06:15, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Zain Engineer's edits on the Qur'an section ==

Zain modified the Qur'an section slightly to suggest that there was one invariant oral tradition, exactly reflecting the revelation to Muhammad and Muhammad's words, which was later written down by Uthman. This may be a common belief among non-scholarly Muslims, but all my reading in Qur'anic studies suggests that the opposite is in fact true: there were (slightly) variant oral traditions, which were collected or harmonized by Uthman's recension, and that variations in the reading of the Uthmanic rasm have justified varying traditions of Qur'anic recitation. All of this is discussed in Islamic sources; it's not something being pushed by outsiders.

An analogy might be made to Christians who can believe in the absolute inerrancy of every word of the Bible only because they don't know anything about scholarly Bible studies -- as carried out by Christians.

But this is probably something that should be discussed in the Qur'an article -- which I never have given a good vetting. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 09:17, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:Disagree there, Zora. While Zain can get passionate, in this case, he was just pointing out that "''Muslims believe that Qur'an available today is same as that revealed to Prophet Muhammad without any alteration''". And he did not remove the following statement that "''Written Qur'an was compiled by the third Caliph, [[Uthman ibn Affan]]...''". The analogy might be as it may, but the state Zain left that para in is exactly what mainstream Muslims believe. Yes, it's like devout Christians' belief that the writers of the Gospels were divinely inspired. But in my experience in living in Africa, India, Pakistan, and the US, I can tell you without qualification that the analogy is not perfect. the belief in the incorrupted nature of the Qur'an is much, much more widely held than the Christian analogy. (Note here I am not arguing the actual truth or otherwise of the proposition.)

:Having said that, I don't think your recent edit has really changed the meaning from where Zain left it. And I think either is an improvement over what was thee before ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islam&diff=9119903&oldid=9111567]).[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 10:12, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Zora please read NPOV policy carefully. If some thing is disagreed you can't put a disputed statement unless you site your source. You can't say it is incorrect until you mention which source rejects it. Similar I can't claim it is true until I mention who claims it is true. As the statement which I changed, source was Muslim believe. It should tell about mainstream Muslim believe.

Now as far as 'true' version among 'non-scholarly' Muslims is concerned I'll like you to know following things.

In arabic there are different levels of 'truth/believe'. One level is when one hears about the truth. Second is when he makes distant observation. Third is one sees it. Fourth and highest level is when one observes it personally. It equivalence can be thought as fire. And following levels

#One hears about some fire in some place.

#He sees smoke from a distance.

#He sees the fire from little distance from his own eyes.

#He touches the fire and his hand burns.

Most 'non-scholarly' Muslims have the level of 'believe/Truth' to 4th level. They witness the people remembering qur'an by heart [[Hafiz]] in their routine. They see [[Hafiz]] reciting entire qur'an in front of them without any dispute. I have personally not observed a single instance when a [[Hafiz]] gets in dispute with the person correcting him in ramzan (Who is also an [[hafiz]]). There are rare instances when he forgets what comes after it. But Never he disputes. So personally with two [[Hafiz]] there. There is not a single dispute. So having possibly million of [[hafiz]] non-Scholarly muslims don't even believe that issue exist.

This can be very evident from Islamic history too. No need was felt to have a single written form of qur'an by muslims, until many [[Hafiz]] died in a war!.

Your believe will be mostly regarded in this method at level of believe of 1 or 2. As you have only heard of it. Many 'non-scholarly' Muslims have seen its effect personally on regular basis.

Although Quran full text copies from even 9th century are present Muslims don't even feel to present it as a evidence as compare to argument of [[Hafiz]]. 9th century source is from BBC which can't be regarded as 'non-scholarly' muslim.

I have seen evidences about even older copies of qur'an from people opposing qur'an un-alteration. It was I believe on yahoo news. It was telling that those 'scholars' have discovered copies with out pronunciations. Meaning that dating before Third cliph and they were arguing that the pronunciations were added after it. But for my interest I was watching that even they didn't talk about 'change'. They were talking about 'additions' which was adding of pronunciation.

And most importantly Third cliph was himself an [[Hafiz]]! Along with other cliphs. They remembered Qur'an by heart form the days of the prophet. So although some time was passed but chain was same. The people who make it written observed and confirmed it with the prophet first hand so there was no 'middle man' only difference was that the 'need' of written was never felt. It can also tell about affectivity of [[Hafiz]] method from very start.

Once again i'll like to add that all these 'claims' have to be related with who is the 'source'. Is it muslim believe. If it is disagreed, which group disagrees with it? Which group agrees with it?

Putting a blind disputed statement without mentioning who says it is true and who believes it is not true, is not NPOV.

[[User:Zain engineer|Zain]] 11:30, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Self contradiction in the statement ==

Here is a contradiction within the statement.

#The Qur'an was first compiled in writing by the third Caliph

#and directed that all variant copies be destroyed

So it means that , it was in written form before he compiled! For muslim believe, it was due to 'short vowels'. 'short vowels' are not written in arabic text and this cause no confusion among arab readers, but this causes problem among non-arabic readers. In Third caliph time Islam was spread in various non-Arabic countries. So need of 'short vowels' was felt. It might be seen as muslim believe rather fact. But this too can be put outside the section of 'Muslim believe', so this article can be NPOV.

For reference please see [http://lexicorient.com/babel/arabic/06.htm]

[[User:Zain engineer|Zain]] 12:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---------------

That's not true. The main reason why Uthman standardized the Qur'an was due to different dialects (ahruf), not due to missing vowels and diactrical marks. Both of these (vowels and diactrical marks) were introduced after Uthman. See

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html

:''The Qur'an continued to be read according to the seven ahruf until midway through Caliph 'Uthman's rule when some confusion arose in the outlying provinces concerning the Qur'an's recitation. Some Arab tribes had began to boast about the superiority of their ahruf and a rivalry began to develop. At the same time, some new Muslims also began mixing the various forms of recitation out of ignorance. Caliph 'Uthman decided to make official copies of the Qur'an according to the dialect of the Quraysh and send them along with the Qur'anic reciters to the major centres of Islam. This decision was approved by Sahaabah and all unofficial copies of the Qur'an were destroyed. Following the distribution of the official copies, all the other ahruf were dropped and the Qur'an began to be read in only one harf. Thus, the Qur'an which is available through out the world today is written and recited only according to the harf of Quraysh.''

And the source cited on that page is ''Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, Tafseer Soorah Al-Hujuraat, 1990, Tawheed Publications, Riyadh, p. 28-29''. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 20:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

----

Sorry I mistook auraf for 'short vowels' without looking at sources again.

Now can we put it in the statement that first copy with 'aurauf' was made by Uthman? or some thing like this.

Plus there are a lot of other information about the history which are missing or incorrect (according to muslim believes).

*[http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_quran_history.htm http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_quran_history.htm]

*[http://www.sunnah.org/history/quran_compiled.htm http://www.sunnah.org/history/quran_compiled.htm]

*[http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/compilationbrief.html http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/compilationbrief.html]

*[http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/quran/scriptq.htm http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/quran/scriptq.htm]

Problem is that qur'an was 'first' compiled during several times due to several issues (content was not one of them). like 'ahrauf' , 'short vowels' etc. So we should clear that which 'new compilation' made which 'new change'. Is new change, change of content or new change is change of style, dots etc.

A very good discussion on this issue can be found here [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/hafs.html]. This article should at least give muslim concepts of the 'differences'.

The concept of ahrauf is discussed in detailed here [http://bismikaallahuma.org/Quran/Q_Studies/ahruf.htm http://bismikaallahuma.org/Quran/Q_Studies/ahruf.htm]

So what can be put from these in this article?

[[User:Zain engineer|Zain]] 22:02, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:We have discussed this before. The article is already long. This information should go to the Qur'an article. Utman didn't introduce dots (diacritical marks. i.e. dots on letters like fa, ya, ba etc) or vowel signs (symbols above or below the basic printed letters). From the above article, it's clear that ahruf meant different dialects, even different words, and Utman wanted to standardize that to Qurashi usage [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 22:45, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

::The term version might be misleading. According to muslim believe there was no content change. So some other word might be used. 'Style of writing' will be too soft. But I don't know whether an explanatory word in english in this context exists.

[[User:Zain engineer|Zain]] 22:13, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many Islamic sites use the word "version". For example ...

:http://www.ymofmd.com/books/uaq/ch3s4.htm

:The Qur'anic text in printed form now used widely in the Muslim world and developing into a '''standard version''' ...

I know since Deedat's polemical video tapes where he claims the word "version" means something totally different, many Muslims don't like the word. Even though I don't think the word itself is misleading, as the quote above shows, even some Muslims use the word. In any case, regarding the Uthman compilation, there were obviously some serious disagreements . Uthman was murdered by people who disagreed with him on this issue. [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 22:59, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:this discussion is stale. and belongs on [[Talk:Qur'an]]. A "version" is a text with a difference, even if it is a difference of a single letter. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 12:06, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Statements without citing sources ==

Statements without citing sources

#The form of the Qur'an most used today is the Al-Azhar text of 1923, prepared by a committee at the prestigious Cairo university of Al-Azhar.

#*This statement never shows that who believe it.

Many others but I think we should go one statement at a time.

[[User:Zain engineer|Zain]] 12:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The first statement is true. See

:''THE QUR'AN IN PRINT''

:http://www.ymofmd.com/books/uaq/ch3s4.htm

:''The Qur'anic text in printed form now used widely in the Muslim world and developing into a 'standard version', is the so-called 'Egyptian' edition, also known as the King Fu'ad edition, since it was introduced in Egypt under King Fu'ad. This edition is based on the reading of Hafs, as reported by 'Asim, and was first printed in Cairo in 1925/1344H. Numerous copies have since been printed.''

[[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 20:13, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't you think that some mention must be made of the shahada as recited by Shi'as. The article ends the Kalima at mohammed ur rasul allah. The Shi'as add 'aliyun wali allah' to that.

--[[User:Notquiteauden|Notquiteauden]] 19:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Scapula's edits ==

Someone recently added a rambling and discursive para to the article that was not only marginally literate, it was wrong in many cases. The statement that put my teeth on edge was that Judaism and Chrisianity were the only religions of that time and place that weren't didn't worship idols. Um, Zoroastrianism doesn't worship idols, so far as I know, and Buddhism doesn't unless it's mixed with folk religion. Not to mention the fact that Eastern Orthodoxy was riven with conflict between those who venerated icons, and those who didn't (iconoclasts).

I reverted the article to the pre-addition version. I don't want to discourage Scapula from editing Wikipedia, but I'd suggest that he/she start on less contentious articles that are closer to his/her areas of expertise. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 20:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Problematic statement ==

The article states "Unlike Christianity, Islam has not undergone any period of reformation...". This phrase makes it seem like Islam is a monolithic unchanging entity, and smacks of outdated viewpoints (i wont use the O. word dont worry!). What do you think about removal?

: I've occasionally thought that this should be rewritten. The wording assumes that every religion needs a period of reformation, just like Christianity. Hmmm. I'm a Buddhist and I don't think Buddhism has ever had a period of reformation. It just keeps changing all the time.

: Now if I were a Muslim I'd probably be a reformist and believe that many Islamic religious professionals were medieval in their viewpoints, and that the gates of ijtihad should be opened again -- but that shouldn't be an assumption underlying the article. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:17, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

: I agree completely that, like any tradition that spans the globe, Islamic traditions are not monolithic, encompass a wide range of cultures from N. America to the Philippines, and have undergone many changes, a number of which can intelligibly be referred to as reformist. For example, in the tenth century, the great scholar and lecturer on Islamic law, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, right in the middle of his regular lectures, interrupted his lecture could speak no more. While those near him thought he had suffered from some sort of physical attack, he had, according to his own autobiography, undergone a profound crisis of conscience. He found an emptiness beneath the impressive body of legal precepts, and left his secure position as teacher of law, and went on a seven-year physical and philosophical journey that led to a major reform of the tradition that could be compared to that of Martin Luther. Ghazzali focused on an inner dimension to the legal traditions, by focusing, for example, on the intention of the person behind the performance of ritual and the precepts of legal rules. Moreover, he contributed to integration of Sunni Islam and Sufism, which by his time become a movement of interior spirituality that criticised the superficiality of legalism and what they considered the moral decline that came with the enormous wealth and power in the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, Ghazzali was called "mujadded" that is, someone who brought something new, or fresh. His interpretation of the Verse of Light (Sura Noor) of the Qur'an, written after his journey, gives a whiff of that freshness. His autobiography, which covers his crisis, and illustrates his searching, sharp mind, his poignant honesty and is as lucid and self-revelatory as the writing of any a reformer.

What is the likely origin of the view that Islam never went through reform? It is probably the conception that Islam is essentially a pre-modern, medieval tradition. However, between the ninth and thirteenth centuries could arguably qualify as "Classical" rather than medieval, as is commonly understood. Why? This period was formative in several senses: individuals asked fundamental questions about the human condition, there was much diversity of opinion, there was significant dialog between reason and spiritual experience, individuality was respected, and there was a profound and general respect for the validity of one's experience, observation and powers of reason, and finally, a healthy suspicion of received knowledge or tradition.

Another example from that period is an encyclopedia call the "Treatise of the Brethren of Purity", written about 700 years before Diderot, by a group of individuals in many walks of life, in the city of Basra, in present-day Iraq. This massive work covered the knowledge of the day from music to mathematics, from physiology (which included knowledge of the human circulatory system) to natural history, as well as narratives that would today be called precursors of fiction. One of these narratives is called "Trial of the Animals Versus Humanity", in which a group of animals revolt against the domination of human beings, and question the assumption that human beings make that they are superior to animals. These animals do not trust human courts, so resort to the court of Genies (Jinn). This segment of the encycopedia covers probably one percent of the total work, and has recently been called the first example of deep ecology in human history.

My next submission will be a summary of several such texts, and believe that these texts should fall under a new heading in the sidebar "Islam": Literature and Science. I am new to this encyclopedia, and would like someone's assistance in this.

== Appreciation ==

Sorry to interrupt your work with this, but I have just been reading the article on Islam and your talk page, and I have to express to you all how impressive it is to see such consummate civility and mutual respect in your discussions. --[[User:Jmenon|Jmenon]]

== Article requests ==

For a list of requested article topics regarding Islam, Islamic culture, and the Muslim world, see [[Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts#Islam]]. -- [[User:Karada|Karada]] 13:10, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Islam POV ==

It is my point of view that the entry for islam and the talk page associated is very far from npov it is apparant that it is muslim point of view. there is nothing that I have found, (although I don't have more than a couple of hours to read this one article) about how women are repressed and abused. You all have created a wonderful recruiting page for islam, good for you. Furthermore, you edit out what people put in that disagrees with what you think islam should be, not what it is in reality. I may have missed it, but all of the various sects are not delved into, only what would be pristine islam. God is the only God, and he said 'thou shalt not kill'. May His light open your eyes.

:I agree that [[Islamism]] is not as clearly separable from Islam as suggested in this article. There should be a section briefly outlining the history of radical interpretations of Islam, rather than simply the plain link under 'see also'. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 12:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

::But this is also true for some other religious articles on Wikipedia, especially [[Hinduism]]. I don't see [[Hindutva]] even mentioned (even in see also section) in [[Hinduism]] article [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 22:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:::hm, in my opinion Hindutva should definitely be linked from Hinduism. I'm not saying we need a long paragraph about Islamism. One sentence is enough, just making it part of the article text rather than linking it without comment. Also, the [[Islamism]] article makes it sound like it's a 20th century phenomenon. Afaik, there were similar discussions in medieval Persia, contrasting fundamentalist/strict interpretations with more 'Persian'/mystic ideas (origins of Sufism?). But I'm not knowledgeable about this. Do we have an article where these controversies are explained? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 16:24, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

==Creed "translations"==

also, can people please stop messing with the translation of the "creed"? ''la ilaha illa-llahu'' means "[There is] no god but God". End of story. It does ''not'' mean "no god is rightfully worshipped" or anything similar. These are theological interpretations/implications, not [[translations]]s. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 14:48, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Reason I removed links in "academic sources" ==

Another #$%@#$ anon editor inserted four links to various websites and publications of Al-Mawrid Institute in Pakistan. That's a little much! I thought that I might narrow the links to one, and looked through them for academic content. But there wasn't any, really. Those sites are directed at devout Muslims who want to deepen their faith; there really is no academic content. I found one paper on a Christian gospel, which started out with a note to the effect that "I'm busy, I didn't have a chance to finish this term paper, but here it is." Unfinished undergraduate papers are not the stuff of a peer-reviewed academic journal.

I would suggest that the anon editor make sure that all those links are included in the Open Directory listings. We link to the Open Directory, so an interested reader could follow the links to the Al-Mawrid site. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 11:05, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Prophets ==

Since you asked, the hadith giving 124,000 is in Musnad Ibn Hanbal. It may not be significant enough to mention on the main page, though. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 22:15, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Environmentalism and religion ==

I have added a section "Environmentalism and religion" to the [[Environmentalism]] article. Perhaps someone familiar with Islamic theology could add to it. --[[User:Erauch|Erauch]] 19:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== "Sect" problem ==

The sidebar on this and (presumably) every other major article relating to Islam lists articles on Maliki, Hanbali, etc. among "sects." This is not accurate, they are complementary schools of jurisprudence. Note that they are insistent on that point, inasmuch as Qur'an pronounces breaking the religion into sects as a sin. In any given Sunni masjid in US, one may encounter practitioners of all four of these schools of thought, or madhabs. They're better understood as distinct scholarly approaches to how best to perform the same obligations; they're not sects in the sense of competing subgroups. May I suggest we retitle heading as "Schools of Thought" wherever it appears? [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 14:02, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

: How about just using ''madhab'' and then defining it? Any attempt to coin an English phrase ends up being as long as a definition anyway. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. You will notice that it is not the madhhabs that are defined as sects; but Sunni and Shia, with the schools of thought within them listed after those two with a colon. And though not exactly the same as, say, Christian sects, Sunni, Shia, Mutaza'ila, etc. are close to what a sect is. What say?[[User:IFaqeer|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)]] 19:33, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

: Having taken another look at the sidebar, I'd say that it is misleading, and that the decision to present it that way may have been due to a perceived need to balance the list of Shi'a sects with a list of Sunni "sects" and make a visually balanced presentation. It would seem to be clearest to introduce another category, Madhab or Legal Tradition, and rework the sect list. It wouldn't look as pretty, having Sunni all by itself on one line, but it would be more rational. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 22:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

: I can try to add another category, but I'm afraid I don't know how to edit a template. Where exactly is the text I would change? [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 11:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:: D'oh. I don't know where templates are stored. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 12:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

::Okay, I found it (with help from [[User:OneGuy]]. It was here: [[template:Islam]], and I made the edit without totally messing up the graphics, which was a concern. What do people think? [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 18:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

::: Looks good. Thanks Brandon. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 19:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

: Misleading. Why are Sunni madhabs in separate section while Shi'a ones are in sect section? Ithna Asharia, Ismailiyah, Zaiddiyah, are all Shi'a [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 19:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to fix that and other issues - tell me what you think. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 19:47, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Does anyone have any good sources? ==

Hello. I'm trying to find some information on why the Abbasid Dynasty in Baghdad weakened and lost to the Mongols. I'm trying to find some good books/cites/articles on the reasons why the caliphate weakened and not just what happened. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Thanks!

: Given that the Mongols trounced everyone for thousands of miles (Central Asians, Chinese, Russians, AND the Abbasids), I'm not sure that it's necessary to conclude that the Abbasids were WEAK. Would the outcome have been any different if the Mongols had arrived earlier, when the Caliphate was still "strong"? Could the Mongols have beaten the Arab warriors of Uthman?

: I'm reminded of sf fans and discussions such as "Could the Starship Enterprise beat the Death Star?" [[User:Zora|Zora]] 08:06, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

: Good point. However, during the Umayyad dynasty, the empire was very large. After the Abbasids overthrew them and moved the capital, the empire gradually became smaller until it was just the area around Baghdad. I'm looked for the reasons why the empire became smaller. [[User:Green789|Green789]] 15:26, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Was the link that bad? ==

OneGuy, you reverted the addition of a link to arabic-islamic.org -- or something like that. I had already taken one look at the link and decided that it might actually add to the article. Could you share your thought processes in deciding that it was part of a link spam? [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:Most of the site is in Spanish. Put in Spanish Wikipedia if you like the site [[User:OneGuy|OneGuy]] 19:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Removed forum sites ==

Fansher, I removed the forum sites you added. Those are proselytizing sites, and if we allow them, out of the hundreds or even thousands of proselytizing sites on the web, we'd have to allow them all. Just make sure that those sites are in the open directory (to which we link) and then people can find them if they look. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 09:24, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== FA status ==

Hello all,

I just want to say that I found this article to be an excellent article to Islam. It is clear, ''seems'' NPOV (I can't say - I'm a Christian) and well written. It uses summary sections well (though I'm not so crash hot on a section that has no summary form and refers to another article on Wikipedia) and the infobox is pretty cool. If only the Christianity article was so good!

Anyway, I'd like to know what we need to do to get this to FA status. What do people think? - [[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 05:27, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Simply go here and follow the instructions. [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]] --[[User:Christofurio|Christofurio]] 00:31, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

::I agree -- it would be a nice feature article. No idea how to nominate, though.[[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 11:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

::I agree, it's quite an acheivement considering the amount of vandalism and well-meaning spamming. I think the sections containing nothing but a "main article" link should just be moved to "see also". The "English version of the creed" needs some work (can we get the original Arabic?) what is the difference between Angels (which means, Messengers), and "Messengers"? What is the term translated by "Angel"? Maybe include some stuff from [[Angels#Islamic_views]]? [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 12:11, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

::: ''malak'' means "messenger" in Hebrew; in Arabic, it has no meaning but "angel", as far as I know. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 23:22, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:::With an eye toward nomination, I have cut-and-pasted a key paragraph from the "Islam and other religions" article to fill in that blank spot, and copyedited what seemed to me a few unclear spots in "Islam in the Modern World" -- thoughts? [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 11:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Proper name of Shi'a ==

Hi, I'm no expert on Islam, so I'm not exactly sure what the proper way to refer to Shi'as is. What should wikipedia use? I've seen the following on various pages:

*Shiites

*Shi'ites

*Shiite Muslims

*Shi'ite Muslims

*Shia

*Shias

*Shia Muslims

*Shi'a

*Shi'as

*Shi'a Muslims

*Shi'i

Also I am confused whether to use:

*Shiism

*Shi'ism

*Shia Islam

*Shi'a Islam

*Shiaism

This problem is illustrated by [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Shi%27a_Islam What links to Shi'a Islam]. Needless to say, all of this variety is a bit confusing. I think it would be useful for Wikipedia to adopt one standard, and stick to it on all articles. The problem is that it takes quite a while to change existing articles to match that standard. I am willing to do a hundred of the articles linking to Shi'a Islam via redirects, but no more than that (There are just too many). If anyone else would like to help out, just click the above link, find a page, and change the references to Shi'a to be in whatever form is thought best. Let me know what you think at my talk page, or we can have a discussion here. --[[User:Jacobolus|Jacobolus]] 07:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:some are more common than other spellings, but it's a matter of convention I suppose, and uniformityu will be difficult to impose on WP. Myself I would opt for ''Shi'ites'', ''Shi'a'', only if because the apostrophe makes it looks less similar to ''shite'' :o) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 13:32, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== System problem ==

During a recent reversion, the final third of the article simply evaporated, and attempts to resave from the same version resulted in the same missing text.

I cut and pasted from the article page to restore the missing text, but I know there are some ugly spots and missing internal links. At least the text is now current, and Godwilling I will fix the links later on. [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 14:47, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

== Okay, I've used up my three reverts for the day ... ==

... and the vandalism of this page continues. Help, please. [[User:BrandonYusufToropov|BrandonYusufToropov]] 19:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:I've got it. For future reference, though, 3RR doesn't apply to simple and obvious vandalism, so feel free to revert that as much as you like. &#8212;[[User:Mirv|Charles]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;P.]][[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|&nbsp;^{<small>(Mirv)</small>}]] 19:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

== Some NASTY hacking going on!!! ==

Hi, I'm new to this whole Wiki thing and love it. Was reading this entry with much interest and shocked to find:

"Main article: People of the Book

The Qur'an uses the term People of the Book to include all monotheists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. According to Islam, all nations were given a Messenger and guidance from Allah. However, the baby fucking prophet of islam, Muhammed called Christians and jews "the sons of monkeys and pigs" and beheaded thousands of them in his islamic invations after peaceful manners of spreading the raligion faield."

The section in question does not look editable, though I'm sure it is. I would strongly advise all those who know what they are doing to monitor this and all religious entries closely to prevent this sort of extremely offensive language getting through.

Good luck, and get on it.

:This article gets a lot of bigoted [[Wikipedia:vandalism|vandalism]]. That particular piece was removed hours ago, so I'm not sure why you would have seen it; if you see it happen again you can just [[Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version|revert]] it. &#8212;[[User:Mirv|Charles]][[User talk:Mirv|&nbsp;P.]][[Special:Emailuser/Mirv|&nbsp;^{<small>(Mirv)</small>}]] 18:28, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

==atheism==

could somebody check out [[Atheism#In_Islam]], please? I was under the impression that shirk and kafir were not overlapping concepts, and that kafir was more or less equivalent to atheist. The article now claims "the concept does not exist", I am not sure who inserted that. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 11:57, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

== Pronunciation ==

I added a pronunciation of "islam" in Arabic. I'm not a native speaker, though, so please remove if it's too crappy. - [[User:Karmosin|karmosin]] 08:23, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

:wtf? and then you replaces ''islam'' with ''muhammad'' with the edit summary

::"And then he crapped up the name of the Lord, and the Lord was wrathful..."

: -- is this some sort of surreal vandalism? And why is the file called "ar-islam"? I suppose the audio file should include the article, ''al-islam'', and if it is to be at all useful, be spoken by a native arab (Saudi? Bedouin?) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 09:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::Sheesh... Sorry! I can't read Arabic, so I must've accidently gone to [[Muhammad]] and copied the text there. I was looking at both pages at once. And I was trying to make a joke with the description because I thought I had messed up the Arabic text while editing and thought i set it right.

::And the file name is "ar-islam.ogg" because that's the standard for naming soundfiles on Commons. "Ar-" is the 2-letter [[ISO 639]] code for Arabic and those instructions are clearly stated at Commons if you just look around. Also, try not to assume the worst because of one mistake. I don't enjoy having "wtf"s thrown at me for no good reason.

::Now I know I'm not a native. But since no one has uploaded any samples of Arabic, is the pronunciation bad enough to merit no pronunciation at all? - [[User:Karmosin|karmosin]] 09:53, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

:::sorry for the "wtf", no offence intended -- I just couldn't figure out what was going on :o) I understand the "ar-" now, I was confused because the file should properly say "al-islam" (and be named "ar-al-islam", I suppose, then). I am obviously no native either, but your file seemed to get the accent wrong, it said &iacute;slam, while it should be isl&aacute;m (with a long ''a''), the ''i-'' being just a prothetic vowel (to the root ''slm'', "peace etc.". regards, [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 10:27, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::::Ok, then. Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to love to learn some Arabic, but I have my hands (or rather my mouth) tied with Chinese, German and Spanish. Is the word "islam" usually refered to in everyday speech as "the islam"? For example: if someone answered the question "What religion are you studying ?", would the proper answer be "al islam", and not just "islam"? Let me try one more recording and if I still don't get it right I'll leave it to the Arabs.

::::Btw, does the prothetic vowel become a sort of schwa or does it simply not occur on its own at the start of a clause? - [[User:Karmosin|karmosin]] 14:35, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

:::::I ''think'' it's almost invariably used with the article, i.e. "''the'' submission" as opposed to some submission of someone to somebody, just as the koran always has the article, "''the'' lecture", as opposed to some unspecified lecture. The prothetic vowel is necessary before any cluster of two consonants, see [[arabic grammar]]. it is an ''i''-sound (but I suppose dialects will vary). I strongly believe that if we're going to have sound files to illustrate pronunciation, they should be recordings of native speakers (Arabic has how many? a quarter of a billion? shouldn't be too difficult to find one :) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 15:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apparantly not enough of them know that there's even an option of uploading sound files since there are no sound files in Arabic at Commons nor here (to my knowledge). Now unless this second attempt really is horribly substandard, how about we try to be [[Wikipedia:Be_bold|bold]]? I mean, what's the worst scenario, really? An upset Arab replacing it with a native pronunciation? :-) This, if anything, is a good way of letting people know there's the possibility of creating sound files on wikipedia.

Here's the second attempt: {{Audio|Ar-al_islam.ogg|listen}} - [[User:Karmosin|karmosin]] 21:15, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

:well, it sounds like "al &iacute;sslam" to me, but I am open to other opinions. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 10:18, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:If you can be bothered, you could extract the word from a qur'anic recitation. It occurs e.g. 3:19 or 61:7, you could rip it from a recitation on [http://www.aswatalislam.net/CategorySelectionMadeP.aspx?CatID=1001] (the faq says the files are freely redistributable). In [http://server1.aswatalislam.net/Audios/Quran%5CQuran%20-%20Abdul%20Aziz%20AlAhmed%20-%20mp3%5C/Quran%20-%20Abdul%20Aziz%20AlAhmed%20-%20Surah061%20-%20As%20-%20Saff(TheRow)(www.aswatalislam.net).mp3 this mp3 file], the word occurs at ca. 1:42&ndash;1:45 (but it is chanted, not spoken in a natural voice). [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 10:41, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::To be honest, I can't hear any difference at all between the chanter's and my own "i". I'm also definetly not stressing it; that much I know about phonetics. The chanter's "a" is more closed, though. Almost on the brink of becoming a Swedish [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Sv-ek.ogg e:]. Is that due to dialect or the chant?

::In any case, I modeled my pronunciation on sound files from [[Nationalencyklopedin]], which are cleary pronounced by a native speaker who clearly pronounces the "i". Incidentally, he also doesn't use an article, but I'l trust your syntactic judgement on that one.

::Eventhough I really like that chant, the extremly low quality and clearity make it pretty useless as a guide to pronunciation. I suggest we use what we've got and hope some native speaker will come along and be urged to do a proper recording. I mean, it's not like I'm pronouncing it {{Audio|Crappy Swedish and American islam.ogg|listen}}... - [[User:Karmosin|karmosin]] 12:09, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

:::(*lol*) fair enough, let's see what the natives say :o) [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;'''</small>)]] 12:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::::Now that's [[Wikipedia:Be bold|bold]]! :-D

==Islamic Civilizations==

I am new to this encyclopedia, and would like someone's assistance in this.

I would like to suggest an additional heading under the category "Islam" which so far, understandably focuses mainly on doctrine and religious communities, schools and orientations, but also has architecture. I would like to suggest a heading that contains architecture, as well as a wide range of other phenomena. Islamic Civilizations is in the plural because as a world tradition, the faith has interacted with a wide range of cultures: pre-Islamic Arabian, African, Iranian, Turkic, Indian, South-East Asian, Chinese, etc. This category of knowledge goes beyond theology and practice to encompass culture, scientific knowledge, medicine, technology, the meaningful relationship different Muslims have with their natural environment, with different cultural traditions, as well as the understandings and practices that are hybrid and creative integration of different traditions and cultural practices.

Islamic Civilizations covers various works from around the world such as poetic literature, stories, philosophical and scientific treatises, travel accounts, maps, and encyclopedias. This section would thus embody the pluralism and breadth of concern that is to be found in any tradition that encompasses about one billion people spanning the globe, over a period of one thousand four hundred years.

I shall start in a small way by describing texts that demonstrate a small piece of knowledge that would fall in such a category.

Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries was a period of scientific and cultural development among Muslims and others who shared a cultural space that could arguably qualify as "Classical" rather than medieval, as is commonly understood. Why? Despite some degree of political turbulence, this period was formative in several senses: individuals often asked fundamental questions about the human condition, there was much diversity of opinion, there was significant dialog between reason and spiritual experience, individuality was generally respected, and there was a profound and general respect for the validity of one's experience, one's own powers of observation and reason, and finally, a healthy suspicion of received knowledge or tradition.

During this period, many texts developed, mainly in Arabic, some of which are in English translation.

For example, in the tenth century, the great scholar and lecturer on Islamic law, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, who lived in in Baghdad, which was then in the middle of a period of creative ferment. Right in the middle of his regular lectures, al-Ghazzali stopped his lecture and could speak no more. While those near him thought he had suffered from some sort of physical ailment, he had, according to his own autobiography, undergone a profound crisis of conscience. He found an emptiness beneath the impressive body of legal precepts, and soon left his secure position as teacher of law, and went on a seven-year physical and philosophical journey that led to a major reform of the tradition that could in some respects be compared to that of Martin Luther. Ghazzali focused on an inner dimension to the legal traditions, by focusing, for example, on the intention of the person behind the performance of ritual and the precepts of legal rules. Moreover, he contributed to integration of Sunni Islam and Sufism, which by his time become a movement of interior spirituality that, for the most part from the "outside" criticised the superficiality of legalism and what they considered the moral decline that came with the enormous wealth and power in North Africa, Western, Central and South Asia. In fact, Ghazzali was called "mujadded" that is, someone who brought something new, or fresh. He could be critiqued for being conservative, and hermetically sealing his innovative synthesis. Nevertheless, his interpretation of the Verse of Light (Sura Noor) of the Qur'an, written after his journey, gives a whiff of his respect for the inner life and his freshness of mind. His autobiography, which covers his crisis, and illustrates his searching, sharp mind, his poignant honesty and is as lucid and self-revelatory as the writing of any a reformer. Both his interpretation of that famous verse and his autobiography have been translated into English.

Another example from that period is an encyclopedia call the "Treatise of the Brethren of Purity", written about 700 years before Diderot, by a group of individuals in many walks of life, in the city of Basra, in present-day Iraq. This massive work covered the knowledge of the day from music to mathematics, from physiology (which included knowledge of the human circulatory system) to natural history, as well as narratives that would today be called precursors of fiction. One of these narratives is called "Trial of the Animals Versus Humanity", in which a group of animals revolt against the domination of human beings, and question the assumption that human beings make that they are superior to animals. These animals do not trust human courts, so resort to the court of Genies (Jinn). This segment of the encycopedia covers probably one percent of the total work, and although it is not ecology in the modern sense, and represents a rudimentary but genuine observation of animals and insects, has recently been called the first example of deep ecology in human history.

I will obtain the references to the above texts and post them ASAP.

My next submission will be a summary of several such texts, which should, hopefully, encourage others who know other such texts to summarize and reference them.

~saffroncoconut

----

You don't need anyone's permission to start an article. It needn't be linked to Islam at first. If you want to start writing articles about Islamic scholars, jurisprudence, literature, just go ahead. Just do a ''search'' first to make sure that it's not covered already.

Note: search on various terms to make sure you've looked everywhere the subject might be filed. As a newbie, I set up several pages that I later discovered already existed, under slightly different names.

Once you start accumulating the little bits, it will be clear how things should be organized into categories (note that they can belong to more than one category). Also, there IS Islamic material in Wikipedia that's NOT linked to the Islam article. Frex, there's [[hijab]] and [[Islam and clothing]], which need to be combined, really, and [[Sufism]], [[Islamic music]], [[Arab music]], etc. If you want to set up some categories that don't already exist and start cross-linking things, that's fine too. I don't think it should ALL go to the Islam article -- we'd end up with ten zillion links. But we could link the Islam article to a few link-collection pages.

Starting with the major categories and working down may not be the best approach. I'd also be somewhat concerned about the idea of an "Islamic" civilization. While Islam may have provided the framework, a lot was contributed by the Christian and Jewish dhimmis. Whenever you start with a huge, vague conception, you end up with vapid generalities and lots of arguments. When you start with the bits and work up, I think you're going to have an easier time getting consensus on how existing bits should be classified and organized.

Welcome! Write lots! Explain what you're doing on talk pages! [[User:Zora|Zora]] 01:59, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

== A round of edits by non-communicating editors ==

Several editors went to work on the article without any explanation of what they were doing, or why. I reverted, and I invite those editors to come here and talk to the rest of us about changes. This article is a result of a long period of consultation and negotiation. It is better to work collaboratively in such cases.

Skywalker added a link to a Russian website that doesn't appear useful to people searching for general knowledge about Islam. Xbla (or some such name) was busy simplifying and deleting -- edits that in some cases I thought made sense, as stripping away an aura of Muslim religiosity that has gradually accreted -- but such edits are bound to be controversial, and I think should be done gradually and carefully. [[User:Zora|Zora]] 18:21, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, article "[http://www.religiousbook.net/Lectures/Islamic_ethics.html Fundamentals of the Islamic Ethics]" is one of independence view, but it may be very interesting becouse author have a good spiritual practice.

Excuse me for my bed english.

Best regards, Skywalker.