Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)/Point of view

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Contents 1 Neutrality 2 Strategy 2.1 NPOV policy 3 Translating arabic terms into english 4 Islamic view of <prophet>

[edit] Neutrality

WP is NOT secular, its NEUTRAL, dont forget that!

--Striver 03:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but Wikipedia goes with scholarly consensus, which is generally of a secular perspective. Babajobu 03:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

"Wikipedia goes with scholarly consensus"? Says who? "is generally of a secular perspective"? Say who again? --Striver 03:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

If NPOV is not defined by scholarly consensus in matters of an academic nature, then how would we define it? Regardless, I'm just making an observation about how I've seen Wikipedia operate. Babajobu 03:52, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

You can have NO pov, and still report. To claim that you need a pov to be able to report is non-sense, and even more non-sense to claim that it needs to be the "scholarly consensus" pov. --Striver 13:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, whether you can report with no POV is an epistemological question we will not settle here. But I think it's true, and lets say it is. What happens, then, when people report differently on the same event? One person thinks HIV was engineered by reptilian humanoids to weaken humanity and prepare it for enslavement, another thinks it is a retrovirus that passed from simians to humans early in the 20th century. How do we decide which view to give greater space in the article on HIV? If one person thinks the earth is flat and another thinks it's round, which view do we emphasize in articles on geography? And why? My feeling is that on both of these issues and many others we emphasize that view which a consensus of academic scholars has accepted as correct. Is that nonsense? Babajobu 16:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

When you are talking about the roundness of the earth or the origins of HIV, you are talking about things that are somewhat provable to the satisfaction of the majority of the inhabitants of earth. However, it was your atempt to claim that most sholars are secular, or that ther is some kind of consensus regarding that issue, and it is that statement that i claim is non-sense.

Anyhow, you could argue that it is the number of people beliving on statement to be true that gets the majority of attention, not the scholarly consensus. For example, if WP was in the middle ages, and they just concluded that the earth is round, but the majority of people havent been reached by the news, a article about that would probably start by stating:

Traditionaly, the earth is thought to be flat, but most of the existing sholars are changing their view to belive the earth is round, based on viewing existing evidence in a new light. However, most people still belive it to be flat. --Striver 17:09, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I did not say that "most scholars are secular". I have no idea about, or interest in, the religious beliefs of most academics. I said that scholary consensus itself is usually secular. For example, there is a solid consensus that the Earth is round and that HIV passed from simians to humans. There cannot be a scholarly consensus, though, say, that it is a crime against God to bow down before an idol, or that Jesus was the son of God, or that Muhammad was his final prophet, because academia itself is of an essentially secular nature. We can catalogue religious opinions, decipher the internal logic of religious belief systems, but we cannot speak to their truth claims. And this is true even though any given academic may be a believer him/herself. Babajobu 18:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Strategy

The definition of Islam must, first and foremost, come from the faith itself. List of Islamic terms in Arabic must be expanded to include every such term that is presently used in any article. Then, edits to the other articles can use the most specific and correct term with less translation problems.

Then, the various factions and groups, starting with Sunni, Shia, Khawarij and Sufi branches, and all the Islamic parties and militant Islamic groups and historical tarika need to be catalogued. Interpretations of jihad and khalifa and the role of ijtihad might need to be clarified for each specific group. Such categorical terms as Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism need to be set only *after* groups are defined.

Islam as a political movement, related History of Islam, biographical material of major figures, Islamic philosophy, etc., can then be updated to refer to the more exact concepts.

The Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Culture_and_fine_arts#Islam list also can usefully be used as a source of topics for new articles related to Islam. Note that some of the Arabic terms requested may simply be different transliterations of an existing article; in which case, please create a redirect.

[edit] NPOV policy

In line with Wikipedia NPOV policy each religious denomination should have its POV (point of view) represented as they see it, without the article speaking ex cathedra.

Wikipedia articles attempt to treat issues in light of their historical development. We do not merely describe the way that Judaism's beliefs and practices exist now. We certainly do describe these, but we also describe their historical origins as known from the best evidence.

Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from a religion's sacred texts, in this case including the Quran and the Hadith literature. But Wikipedia articles on history and religion also draw from modern archaeological, historical and scientific sources

Wikipedia articles describe changing social, religious and political conditions, and how Islam's beliefs and practices may have developed over time.

Many traditional Muslims will strenuously object to a critical historical treatments, claiming that this discriminates against their religious beliefs. They would prefer that the articles describe their faith as they see it, which is from an ahistorical perspective (e.g. the way things are is the way things have always been; any differences are from heretical sects that don't represent the real religion.) This point of view can also be mentioned; there is no necessary contradiction. NPOV policy means that we say that Group A says one thing for somesuch reasons, while group B says another thing for other reasons.

[edit] Translating arabic terms into english

An editor has recently taken it upon himself to begin a campaign to remove references to many arabic-titled articles (mostly connected with islamic subjects) from en.wikipedia, claiming they are "POV forks". In the course of this effort, he has recently added a "Translation" section to these guidelines instructing editors to that effect. It would seem that the result of adopting his additional guidelines will be that articles such as Allah and Isa will tend to be bypassed by wikipedia readers and editors alike, providing justification for their eventual deletion or merging (as subsidiary material, based on his contention that the abrahamic religions should be referred to in chronological order of their "founding", regardless of any claims that Islam predates Muhammad for example), as per Jibril (merged into Gabriel after a two-day "merge discussion period" during which no discussion took place; see Talk:Jibril) into articles with principally jewish or christian content. Other editors might like to comment on this development. — JEREMY 10:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

They will not have "principally jewish or christian content" for long if Muslim editors are directed to the shared pages. That is one of the points here. See my recent edit to Gabriel - isn't it rather astonishing that no mention had been made in the introduction that Gabriel is said to have transmitted the Qur'an to Muhammad? This is easily the most important role he's ever been said to play - foretelling Jesus' birth running a distant second - and yet it wasn't mentioned, because Muslim editors were corralled into a special Muslims-only article with obscure (to English speakers) Arabic terms.

As for chronological order, this is a matter of historical fact, not POV. Islam considers itself as the culmination of tradition, Judaism as the founders of tradition, and I'm going to guess that most Christians simply don't care. I certainly don't - it's an encyclopedia, not scripture. We should, however, take care that shared introductions take all major traditions into account. Islam must not be segregated, either at the bottom of articles, or in a series of seperate, Arabic-titled pages.

I invite you and all others who read this message to become active in the Gabriel article, and similar articles related to our shared Abrahamic religion, and curb Judaic and Christian POV that's been allowed to stand due to a dearth of Muslim editors.Timothy Usher 10:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

What's you seem to be inviting is a Clash of Civilisations on wikipedia. There's no way christian fundamentalists are ever going to put up with masses of qu'ranic quotes and hadith in Moses, for example, and you well know it. (The article's already long; imagine the references/notes hell your idea would introduce.) Are you trying to Immanentize the Eschaton or something? — JEREMY 11:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

"What's you seem to be inviting is a Clash of Civilisations on wikipedia." - from a certain perspective, that's right. Clashes of this nature ought occur on a daily basis. It is ever the purpose of POV forks to avoid this by corralling like-minded editors into seperate articles, to avoid having to deal with differences. Makes sense, *but* that's not wikipedia. Here we deal with and strive to learn from and overcome these debates.

If you are afraid of them, think how afraid they are of you. And if portions of Islam-related articles can't survive general scrutiny, they should not survive, and similarly with Jewish, Christian and any other articles. The solution is to integrate, not segregate. If it means a sudden flood of debate, it's only because it's been artificially avoided for so long through such segregation. Which now reinforces itself - as you openly confess, you fear the mere *appearance* of non-Muslim editors (okay, you said Christian fundamentalists) on Islam-related pages...I might fear them, too, but redirecting traffic to different articles according to POV is not the WP solution.Timothy Usher 11:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Islamic view of <prophet>

Please see this, and specificaly this [1]. I would like to see this been put here. Any comments, or can i do that? --Striver 10:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

No objections? --Striver 16:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)