Talk:Fakir

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Religion Portal This article is supported by WikiProject Religion. This project provides a central approach to Religion-related subjects on wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start	This article has been rated as Start on the Project's quality scale. See comments

	This article is part of the WikiProject Islam, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Islam on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page so as to become familiar with the guidelines.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh) Need citations and works cited. Badbilltucker 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hinduism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Hinduism. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page. Guidelines: Manual of Style - Naming conventions How you can help: Notice board - Discussion board
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Lard Saahib, why drop Iran from the mix? Or Pakistan, for that matter? The tradition that produced faqeers has strong links/roots in Persia, the country/region, and in Farsi, the language.

I am also considering adding a note that the word is also used, very non-sarcasticly, by speakers of Urdu as their common word for "beggar".--iFaqeer 09:51, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Priyuh Faqeer, 1) Pakistan is a 50 year-old nationalist creation and the history of the fakir, solidified over many centuries well before Partition, is associated with a greater India. Saying the fakir originated in Pakistan would be ludicrously anachronostic. 2) On the other hand, the Persian/Iranian roots are clear and important, especially since the word is non-Indian, and those traditions may be duly explicated if you know anything about them. --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:12, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

oh, also, the use of the word fakir as a term for pan-handler is on the page; how could you miss that? It's not language-specific to Urdu because people speaking Hindi, Gujarati, Sindhi and Punjabi also use it and the word's as much a part of those languages as Urdu (being Arabic in origin it's a loanword for any Indian language, including Urdu/Hindvi/Hindustani) --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:14, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Too India-centric?

Isn't starting this entry:

Fakir is etymologically an Arabic term first used widely in India in reference to holy men...

a little too India-centric? This is a universal encyclopedia; not and Indian one. I am okay with this being the first sentence of a subsequent para--it is useful information. I am not making the change right now. Don't want to things in a hurry.--iFaqeer 20:25, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Just looked at older versions. Would folks be against adding back the original sentence at the top? It rain:

"Fakir is a term used in Pakistan, India and Persia to describe a person who is poor but "spiritually elevated". It is also used to refer to the common street beggar, but one who chants holy names, scriptures or verses"

--iFaqeer 20:27, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Fakir is a term used in many countries now. It's stupid to isolate countries of usage and simply serves a nationalist chauvinism. Origins of the word and its usage, however, are not merely superfluous: the meaning of the word 'fakir' in Persia and the subsequent ideas associated with it in India later on are very different. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:46, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. But doesn't that make the first sentence even more inappropriate as a start?--iFaqeer 20:53, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, please take an objective look at what I have now.

BTW, from feedback given me on other entries by adminitrators, this should be in the Wiktionary, rather than here. Especially in the shape it is in right now, it's a dicdef.--iFaqeer 21:03, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. I'll expand it. It's got a great history and would make for an interesting and varicolored article. (Churchill called Gandhi a fakir once.)--LordSuryaofShropshire 21:16, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)