Talk:Mohammedan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 WikiProject Religion
Religion Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. 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.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
This article falls within the scope of the Interfaith work group. If you are interested in Interfaith-related topics, please visit the project page to see how you can help. If you have any comments regarding the appropriateness or positioning of this template, please let us know at our talk page


Contents

[edit] Worship of Mohammed?

Might I point out that a Muslim source isn't necessarily a reliable source for the etymology of an English word? The OED, which is a reliable source on English, offers not a hint of this. I have besides never read anywhere that Europeans ever attributed the worship of Mohammed to Muslims. I think we really need a Eurpoean source representing this belief and relating it to the origin of the word -- which itself only dates to the 18th century according to the OED, far too late IMO for a European to make this kind of mistake. A Crusader might have, but not an Enlightenment-era Orientalist. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm cutting the claim that Westerners once believed that Muslims worshiped Mohammed. An Islamic source for this that flat-out misunderstands this term is clearly not reliable. I must insist on a Western source. If it was once a widespread belief, one should not be difficult to locate. But I don't think it was. TCC (talk) (contribs) 18:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You are right, it's easily sourced and has been placed there. The entire equating with the 'isms however is a newer development and more along the lines of OR. It needs to be sourced as well.--Tigeroo 14:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid the citations that have been placed do not support the claim at issue, that "Mohammedan" arose because Christians believed Muslims worshiped Mohammed as a god. Oddly, none of the statements that are supported by the cites are controversial.
Three sources are cited. The first (although citing a far wider range of pages than strictly necessary) indeed shows that some Christians thought that Islam is mainly a Christian heresy. (Some Christians still think this.) The second shows that, yes, some very confused Westerners (Crusader-era, per my statement above) thought that Muslims worshiped a god named Termagent or some such. The third supports a peripheral claim that's beside the point of my comment above.
Yes, the rest of it needs to be sourced, but really, the beginning of the article is as good as unsourced too. (Even the 16th-century term is too late for this kind of error to be expected.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It does not mean the term was exclusively used to depict a worship of Muhammad. Maybe it needs two parts, one which assoicates him and term with the intial concept of worship, and the other that ties him intrinsically with the more common form once greater knowledge of Islam was gained to one of that which represented him as a false prophet or as a term to followers of a deviant sect. I agree both concepts are true of the term. The fact is both concepts did indeed exist, and where the idea of "Termagent" came from would also be quite interesting.--Tigeroo 13:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that absolutely nothing has been shown to show that the false belief that Muslims worship Mohammed (which has not itself been demonstrated either) was the origin of this word. The claim that this is not true at least has the indirect support of the OED.
Even if the premise is true, "Termagent" is only tangentially related here and deserves its own article, IMO. TCC (talk) (contribs) 18:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, lets call it work in progress for now. There is no direct sourced claim for the concept of the worship of Muhammad being the source of the term, so I have removed it for now. Replaced it with some history of other terms that is has replaced and are connected to the concept. I agree by the time of the enlightenment the confusion would not have existed anymore, but there is direct evidence of the existence of the false belief of the worship of Muhammad did exist, to which Termagent is an ancillary. It does have it's own article where it is developed further. Let's see what else can be done to improve or define the article.--Tigeroo 20:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Din-e-Muhammadiyyeh

It was not uncommon for Islam to be referred to as the "Faith of Muhammad", and so it wasn't completly unheard of to refer to Islam by the name of its founder. Ahassan05 18:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)ahassan05

[edit] Worship of Mohammed

Medieval Christians believed that Muslims worshipped a trinity consisting of "Mahom", Tervagan and Apollin. Please see the Chanson de Roland or Karlamagnus, they both make this claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahassan05 (talk • contribs) 16:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation help

I am in contact with a professional voice actor who is trying to record a spoken version of George Washington and he wants to hear someone pronounce "Mohammedan". If anyone would be willing to call him up or even leave a voice mail with the proper pronunciation, please email me and I will send you his contact info. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 18:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)