Talk:Muhammad

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"He is a prophet in Islam"

The purpose of this altered sentence is clear: it changed the (awkwardly phrased) assertion that Muhammad is considered a prophet in the religion known as Islam to the tendentious assertion that Muhammad is a prophet who has submitted to God. Neither the original sentence nor its tendentious alteration were necessary, as the following sentence characterizes the Islamic belief about Muhammad's role in greater detail. Hence, I have removed it.Proabivouac 08:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

BostonMA has restored the sentence, "He is a prophet in Islam." Ignoring the wink to the sentiments of believers, this is a strange sentence by the standards of English language prose. How can we justify its inclusion, considering that the very next line is, "Muslims do not regard him as the founder of a new religion, but rather believe him to be the last in a line of prophets of God?"Proabivouac 09:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I reverted because you are edit warring. --BostonMA ^talk 09:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Proabivouac, I was in the process of re-reverting your blanket undoing of edits when BostonMA beat me to it. I agree with the "restore the images" but leave the rest.. thinking that was expressed in the edit summary. (→Netscott) 09:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Netscott, it has become a well-known trick in these spaces that reverts of one thing are used as covers for reverts of others. Nowadays, even reverts of blatant vandalism must be scrutinized to see if something else has been included in the rollback. That was not my intention; rather, copying and pasting the old images to their previous locations proved more trying then reproducing the minor edits since, so I started with the version revert. I was not given a chance to restore the other edits, such as the well-deserved death of the tendentious and poorly sourced "pervert" section, your clarification of southern Spain (though I maintain that the Arabic translationi is unnecessary, and arguably tendentious, this we can discuss), the correction of "The" to "the", and the sprotect template.Proabivouac 09:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous. How do you suppose the images were removed to begin with, if not by edit warring (by anons no less)? You must take responsibility for your own edits, as I did when Truthspreader challenged me to restore minor edits. You have now added the sentence "He is a prophet in Islam," and are censoring images while meditation is underway. The images issue is a botomless pit, as you've played it, we are by now well aware of the real reasons, so I ask only: why did you add the tendentious and unnecessary sentence, "He is a prophet in Islam?"Proabivouac 09:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe to NPOV the wording we can say he is a prophet to followers of Islam? (→Netscott) 09:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That's what it said to begin with, "He is considered a prophet in Islam." Of course, your formulation is better, in that it refers to real-world entities (followers) instead of to an abstract space. Still better would be to rephrase this as an active sentence, with the followers as the subject and Muhammad as the object. And lo, exactly this is done in the very next sentence.Proabivouac 09:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The situation is ridiculously hilarious! Now we cannot even say that Muhammad is a prophet in Islam. :D I think netscotts opinion is also worth trying in satisfying some of our wikipedians, who even want to NPOV a statment like "Muhammad is a prophet in Islam" :D TruthSpreader^Talk 09:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I for one do not believe Muhammad to have been a "Prophet in Islam," in the way this sentence is clearly meant (otherwise, it is only redundant junk.) BostonMA, or Truthspreader, why should the article state, "He is a prophet in Islam?", when the very next sentence makes Islamic belief clear? This seems to me a decidely tendentious edit.Proabivouac 09:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Or For Muslims and Bahá'ís he is a prophet in their respective religions (→Netscott) 09:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

But I can't even understand that whats the problem with the first statement. Whether it is a POV or whatever, it is a fact! And I would like to see someone who would disagree with "Muhammad is a prophet in Islam". Anyone? TruthSpreader^Talk 10:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I don't really see a problem myself. (→Netscott) 10:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Truthspreader, you are well aware of the double entendre which is present and intended here, that Muhammad is a prophet who has submitted to the will of God ("in Islam".) The very next sentence reads, "Muslims do not regard him as the founder of a new religion, but rather believe him to be the last in a line of prophets of God." What information does the manifestly awkward sentence, "He is a prophet in Islam," add to this besides the insinuation of accordance with the will of God? If these insinuations exist only in my imagination (doubtful), then the sentence contains no information at all that is not present in the following sentence. In which case, why restore it?Proabivouac 10:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Tis true that the first sentence is a bit redundant. (→Netscott) 10:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It tells in clear way the basic article of Muslim belief. It is a useful piece of information as it tells in concise and clear way the stature of Muhammad in Islam (as he is not considered son of God or God, for example, but a prophet and a human). TruthSpreader^Talk 10:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this not made even more clear in the next sentence, "Muslims do not regard him as the founder of a new religion, but rather believe him to be the last in a line of prophets of God," which, were it not for the restoration of, "He is a prophet," would be the first in this paragraph?Proabivouac 10:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I've attempted a compromise that reads in an encylopedic way however I am not sure it will hold. (→Netscott) 11:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Your sentence is as awkward and unnecessary as what it replaced, but it is at least neutral.Proabivouac

Well I adjusted it since this last comment of yours was made and now I see that User:Itsmejudith has done a fine job of tying it all together. (→Netscott) 16:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Aisha criticism

I see no reason why there needs to be a "criticism" section at all. If there are controversial facts, they should be stated neutrally in the body of the article, not as points of partisan contention. One indispensable corrollary of this is that other editors not interested in criticism must allow this to be done. We have, "After Khadija's death, Muhammad married Aisha, the daughter of his friend Abu Bakr," then later in the hideously convoluted Marriages section, "Watt states that she 'cannot have been more than twelve years old when the marriage was consummated, while Spellberg writes that Aisha's youth might have been deliberately emphasized by scholars during the Abbasid caliphate to reject Shi'a political claims for the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib." Only in this context can the need for "criticism" be sustained. We should instead write, "After Khadija's death, Muhammad married Aisha, the six year old daughter of Abu Bakr." The opinions of today's critics is as irrelevant as that of today's apologists; let people discuss and debate the moral significance of the facts over dinner after having read a neutral and informative article. This approach would represent a significant change from common practices and attitudes on this article. If it is to ever be a good article, we must all start looking at this subject clinically, and leave our judgements and insecurities out of it.Proabivouac 08:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Spellberg is not a apologist. And secondly, the book is published by Columbia University. You should first read that book or atleast read its review in JSTOR. Spellberg has examined all the traditions of Aisha in classical Muslim record, and her work is one of a kind. TruthSpreader^Talk 12:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, if we remove all criticism, we will have to remove so much other imformation for the purpose of NPOV, that this article would no longer be informative. It is better in this case to just leave the criticism section and give all viewpoints.--Sefringle 21:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You completely miss the point of NPOV. Having criticism and praise does not produce NPOV. Criticism should not be a part of this because it is polemics. Knowing that Muhammad was criticized for having a 6 year old wife is not the point. The point is that Muslim sources differ about how old she was 6/7 etc. and when it was consummated. Western scholars look at the aging debates within Islam in different ways and as part of a Muslim narrative vis-a-vis their prophet. The criticism section is written as a juvenile and unencyclopedic back and forth: Muir said Muhammad was sincere in Mecca but not Medina. Spencer says he was a pedophile because he married Aisha but Mr. Muslim says he was a good man cementing ties with his ally. Criticism is mostly not encyclopedic. It can have its own articles specifically about the discourse of criticism but it does not fit in an overview. This doesn't mean that Muhammad is portrayed as a great man. No, he is portrayed as 1) the Muslim narratives view him and 2) as academic historians have reconstructed history. Obviously religion breeds narratives and not history as we conceive of it in modern times. When we present these things it gives people a chance to use their own judgment. gren グレン 21:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a great deal of extraneous praise in this article which is likewise unencyclopedic. However, I would guess that the same editors which will fight to remove criticism will fight to retain this (even where it duplicates material from another article, see the topic below).Proabivouac 23:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That's quite possible. Want to give some examples? I think it would be good if we could clean both of those things up. gren グレン 00:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

We'll have to distinguish between two kinds of criticism here. One associated with different analyses of events and action of the protagonist, and the other dissociated from it, more akin to polemics. The Jewish tribes issue I would classify within the former, the Aisha issue within the latter group. The former is indispensable for the article, the latter is not. However, it is more feasible to also include the latter in a short and concise criticism & controversy section. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 00:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yet in a move which has made this article even less neutral, the entire section about the events in Madina has been reduced more or less to "Muhammad did battle with some Jews."Proabivouac 05:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

What i find extremily offensive is that this article takes a false hadith (that muslims believe as false) as the truth. Aisha was between the ages of 14-20 years old when she got married to Muhammad. Muslims admit that their were a few false hadiths that were corrupted over time (such as this one). Please take off this nonsense.

Also might i add that other religious figures do not have any criticism section. Why Muhammad? This is not a neutral article. But an offensive one.

Muhammad the Reformer (MOVED)

Most or all of this material duplicates material found in the article Reforms under Islam. As the article is said to be too long, this would seem a natural place to start trimming it. We should aim to summarize this material in a paragraph or two.Proabivouac 08:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend not trimming the article unless the dispute by mediation committee is solved at above mentioned article and there is no haste to do so. TruthSpreader^Talk 12:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The mediation is happening because the article isnt neutral. Why can we think now its neutral here? Because the mediation about it not being neutral?Opiner 13:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think that section has serious problems. Namely the scope issue I mentioned on its talk page. While it says reforms of Muhammad it really just means reforms under Islam that are ascribed to his name. Some jurist in 850 AD makes a ruling and its the reform of Muhammad because "that's what he really meant". It's a silly section because it's inherently political since it's only Muhammad's reform in order for someone to use his name for legitimacy. It bugs me because this just isn't how an encyclopedia should be written. It is us, the writers of an encyclopedia, legitimizing the course of Islamic history by agreeing that it's what the prophet wanted. If we were writing this in 2100 and the "liberal Muslims" have won out worldwide promoting a more sodomy-friendly Islam are we going to say that "this is what Muhammad wanted" and then quote some Qur'an quote as if it had to be interpreted in such a way? My opinion about this section would be to incorporate some of the relevant things into Muhammad's life and explain that "X report in the sira or whatnot was taken by later jurists to mean Y". This way the agency is given to whom we know made the religious decree--not retrojected onto the prophet. Firstly we're assuming that some hadith or Qur'an verse is true. Then we're assuming that later interpretations of it were what Muhammad wanted! I suppose this annoys me more than it does others. gren グレン 00:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you please specify the exact reforms which you think later scholars did. Of course, in general, Muhammad didn't accomplish everything but he designed the conceptual structure. Watt writes: "there is Muhammad's wisdom as a statesman. The conceptual structure found in the Qur'an was merely a framework. The framework had to support a building of concrete policies and concrete institutions. In the course of this book much has been said about Muhammad's far-sighted political strategy and his social reforms. His wisdom in these matters is shown by the rapid expansion of his small state to a world-empire after his death, and by the adaptation of his social institutions to many different environments and their continuance for thirteen centuries."

So, as you can see, Watt says that what happened later also reflected Muhammad's far-sights and their flexibility. But anyways, Could you please specify the exact reforms which you think later scholars did. --Aminz 04:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The history from that time is blurry. The prophet is the origin and it's clear that something from early period 600-700 caused great changes that led to the Arab conquests--but we don't have Muslim comprehensive historical records until Ibn Ishaq as digested by Ibn Hisham--more or less.

Take for instance this from the article: "Muhammad's "insistence that each person was personally accountable not to tribal customary law but to an overriding divine law shook the very foundations of Arabian society". How, under Islam, do we know that people aren't accountable to tribal customary law? You have the interpretation of Qur'anic verses and hadith through jurisprudence or some other manner. Who wrote the Qur'an? More importantly what influence was had on hadith and sira by people who represent Muhammad's life? Few Western scholars take hadith to be true; too many supernatural things happen happen in many of the collections. There are layers of interpretation that inform our reality of the time.

When you say Muhammad made X reform it is not the same as saying Bill Clinton made X reform (also, you're ignoring the other factors of the time but that's less important). We have video tape of Clinton and can see the things he tried to initiate. For Muhammad we have late accounts. Because scholars don't fully know that much Muhammad becomes a proxy to represent agency during the rise of Islam. Scholars go about this in different degrees of explicitness and some, no doubt, believe that there was a man named Muhammad with exceptional agency who single handedly changed the system right then/right there and didn't just inspire the changes that we can clearly see existed in society by 800.

Look at the Islam and slavery section under reform. It says, "Lewis, however, states that Islam brought". Islam brought / Muhammad brought. That is not ascribed to Muhammad so it shouldn't be there. I do believe that Islam and Muhammad are often interchanged to mean the early processes that brought about change. Historians have pretty much rejected the great man theory of history. It makes for good writing (people buy books called The Truth about Muhammad not The Truth about the Social Processes Leading to the Arab Revolts). You have to know the historian very well to know how exactly they mean "Muhammad reformed"--whether they are referring to him as a proxy or not. We also can't have any of that stated as fact because it is deeply contested information.

Aminz, I am not arguing that any one scholar did something special. I'm arguing that pinning all of this social change on one man is a complete misrepresentation about how modern academics do history. It would be just as bad if I argued that "Ibn Hisham is completely responsible for all of the changes that developed in early Islam". The reform section--without contestation--argues that Muhammad created all of these changes. It does not mention the possibility that these reforms really happened when the Arabs were exposed to cultures with far more developed: monetary systems, ways of governance, sciences, etc. Not that any of us have good enough knowledge to make this more neutral instead of positing the great man theory. gren グレン 07:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we leave this whole discussion to scholars (by this I mean peer-reviewed sources) as wikipedians are not asked to solve such philosophical problems. We are here to quote stuff from reliable and verifiable sources. And if you think that reformists don't use Ibn Hisham or hadith literature, that would be wrong as well. They use more hadith literature than traditionalists e.g. to show female roles in Muhammad's time. Sometimes, the problem is not in the literature, the problem is in the interpretation. Hence, I find this debate quite futile and the topic under discussion is beyond the scope of wikipedia. TruthSpreader^Talk 08:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not outside the scope at all. To imply that we can leave this to the scholars is foolhardy. We have a hand in representing this. This is not we place the scholars on the table and they battle for truth and NPOV is served. There are many more reliable sources than we will ever use in this article and just by citing 100 reliable sources does not mean that we have an accurate representation. The problem is in the (our) interpretation--which is what I'm complaining about.

Look, let's fix the simple stuff first. I haven't just summarily removed this in order not to be provocative--but it should be removed if we are claiming that we need to pin these reforms on the man, Muhammad. The slavery section needs to go. It doesn't give any reference to Muhammad's agency--it just say the Qur'an makes reference to and regulates slavery. What does that have to do with Muhammad? What does it matter if pre-Islamic Arabian law gave women no rights and Islamic law did--how is that a reform of Muhammad? It's a reform of early Islamic society, not necessarily Muhammad. This whole section makes my point perfectly. It says about Islamic law gave women rigths--not Muhammad. The Dale Eickelman doesn't talk about Muhammad's reforms--it talks about the reforms of early Islam. Frederick M. Denny talks about the concept of ummah, not Muhammad's reforms. Michael Bonner talks about what the Qur'an says about economics--not Muhammad. You do notice something is seriously wrong here if this is all about Muhammad as a reformer? In fact, there are very few quotes that are actually talking about Muhammad as the reformer. They are saying early Islam created many reforms. YES! I am not disagreeing with much of this stuff. Early Islam led to many reforms but this is talking about Muhammad's reforms. I expect if we are going to keep this that everything will be linked to Muhammad as the agent of reform and that it will state that he made the reform--not just that it was done in his name after he died. (Because over a thousand years of Islamic reforms have been done in Muhammad's name). This section doesn't talk about Muhammad's reforms--it talks about the reforms of early Islam. These are two different things. gren グレン 09:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The secular scholarship doesn't believe explicitly that Qur'an is a divine book and hence they believe that it is written by Muhammad. So when it is said that Qur'an brought the changes, it means Muhammad is involved in the process (that also includes the concept of umma). More over this, secular scholarship also considers Qur'an a better source of Muhammad's life than hadith literature. Secondly, even if you talk about early Islamic community, there is an aspect of exemplifying Muhammad in Muslim society. And if you look at the sections closely, there are examples from hadith literature as well e.g. Muhammad's free market ideology, how that fits into quranic understanding of money flow from top to bottom. Just to give you an idea that how much slavery was changed within life of Muhammad, kindly read this section, which is quoted from a secondary source, but it is all written as per hadith literature and quranic directives: Islam_and_slavery#Mukatabat. Most reforms were carried out in Muhammad's own life and then it deterioted and not the other way around, and I haven't read anything against this hypothesis as this is what all scholarly sources suggest. TruthSpreader^Talk 09:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No! secular scholars don't say that Muhammad wrote the Qur'an! It's by no means implied. There are different hypotheses on it. It was written by the community, it was written by him. It was fragments put together over time. It was oral history eventually written down. There are late and early datings for it. Secular scholars believe the Qur'an has an earlier date than hadith but it doesn't talk much about Muhammad directly... and it has always been contextualized by hadith. So the fact that they date it earlier doesn't mean it's a good biography. You are also equating "changed within the life of Muhammad" with "changed by Muhammad". They are not the same thing. You are positing a theory of the gold age of Muhammad and you are turning this into hagiography. I don't see how all scholarly sources suggest this--in fact, I don't even see how your sources suggest this. gren グレン 11:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Within just one paragraph you nullified all the sources about Muhammad! But I will say which I said earlier that this article is not written from reformist point of view rather it is written on the basis of reliable and verifiable sources. And who says that what article is not implying the picture depicted by Ibn Hisham or hadith literature? We, as wikipedians, just need to use these reliable resources to write about Muhammad, as Ibn Hishan, Qur'an, and hadith literature are all primary sources and hence beyond the scope of wikipedia! TruthSpreader^Talk 05:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

And I have stated earlier couple of times, that we need to benefit from research methodology that has been developed in the last one century to scrutinize historical events. What are the methodologies, that's not our concern, but these resources published by renowned world research centers must benefit all of us. Hence, if a traditionalist Muslim scholar writes something about Muhammad, he can be as much polemic as a non-muslim scholar from medievel ages. TruthSpreader^Talk 05:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Gren, I am sorry to get back to you late. I am swamped now (will reply to your comments in detail soon). It is of course true that there were other factors involving in these reforms. For example, Arabia was already in a transition state and very prone to change at the time of Muhammad. Monotheistic ideas were to some extent being spreaded in Arabia. In some cases, Islam just made the reforms to happen faster. But given all that, such a great reform wouldn't have happened without Muhammad. Also, as far as I know, we do have a good knowledge of Arabia after Muhammad. I think Crone, et all are really in minority. Unlike the Bible, there is not much debate in Academia over the authenticity of the Qur'an. The theories you are refering to (such as Qur'an written by a community not by Muhammad himself), I believe, are in significant minority in Academia. The Cambridge History of Islam and other sources(such as F.E. Peters) I've seen even don't mention them. One thing all scholars agree and that is we don't know much about pre-islamic Arabia. I feel you are giving undue weight to minority views. --Aminz 05:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Aminz, what to you mean: "Unlike the Bible, there is not much debate in Academia over the authenticity of the Qur'an." Authenticity?

Do mean authenticity as Revelation from On High? That's not really a scholarly question but one of faith.

Or authenticity as regards the veracity of the claims about the author?

True, there is debate about some books of the Bible being by other authors than the one given (2 Peter, for instance). There is some debate about the author of various books that either don't give an author or only an ambiguous note (e.g. who is John in the Revelation to John). However, the (or most) books of the Old Testament are undisputed between Jews and Christians, and the New Testament clearly stems from the first few decades after Jesus' ministry and death. And, in the end, these disputes are of no consequence, as Christianity is not the religion of a book but a religion of a man, whom Christians worship as the incarnation of the eternal word of God (if that sounds familiar, see Quran).

As for the Quran, the common view is that it was assembled under Uthman and pretty much gives an authentic view of what Muhammad uttered as Revelation (and I agree with that, with the caveat that we have a road of transportation from the mouth of Muhammad to the actual letters in that book, via oral tradition and the editing by Uthman). There are some scholars holding different views but you are right that most accept the origin with Muhammad. However, that still leads us with Muhammad as the author and sometimes IMHO his limited understanding shows in that book as any human beings's limitation would. Whether this is a problem since Islam and the Quran claim to be dictated directly and verbatim by God through the angel Gabriel (in contrast to the Jewish and Christian idea of inspiration) you have to answer for yourself. Certainly academia does not commonly accept that God dictated the Quran. So you are right: there is no debate about the Quran's authenticity because the claims put forth by it are not seriously entertained.

In any case, the difficulty remains in how far, certain reforms can be directly attributed to Muhammad. However, I would tend to say: if it is in the Quran and constitutes a change (for better or worse) implemented during his lifetime (or shortly thereafter) this belongs into the article.

Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 11:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I know I'm probably being frustrating (and somewhat frustrated) but I'm really not trying to be. I am not arguing for a Crone thesis. I am arguing that the one-man-theory thesis provided by this section 1) misrepresents academic study of Muhammad and 2) even misrepresents the sources that our being cited in the article! I am not arguing that Muhammad did not make some of these reforms. (That would be just as bad as arguing that he did unequivocally make them). I am arguing that there is not academic consensus on what exactly Muhammad did. If you look at the language of most of the authors we have cited they will often say things like the Qur'an changes, Islam brought X change to pre-Islamic society. Can we at least agree that those articles are not calling Muhammad a reformer? TruthSpreader is just wrong when he says that Western scholars believe Muhammad wrote the Qur'an because they don't believe it's divinely inspired. Some might but that's not a universal. We cannot make the assumption that when an academic is talking about early Islam that they are arguing that the historical person of Muhammad did something. Look at the section on Slavery, it doesn't even mention Muhammad. All I ask is that we try to give the picture that there is debate about this (which there is). I think TruthSpreader is being belligerent. I am not nullifying the sources. I am just presenting the view that academia does not uniformly accept hadith/sira/maghazi literature as true. It's really not too radical of an idea. He seems to think that we are using modern research methods--we're not. We are not presenting a view of history, but instead we are trying to represent the field of views. This article represent that Muhammad was a reformer with tons of agency without questioning it. That is a problem.

Here is one issue I would like to throw out that I don't know the answer to. History like all academic fields (should) exhibit progress. Therefore it's not safe to weight all academic theories equally. I think all of us here are suffering from a lack of knowledge about how academia is progressing. Just like CltFn wouldn't believe that the Hagarism thesis did not fully progress and doesn't really exist today as a big issue I think there are many other such things that we don't know. We can read a book written in 1961 but does academia still debate its thesis or is there a consensus about it? Also, people like Esposito are fine for writing about the legacy of the prophet but he is not a scholar who studies his early life.

Just to sum up, I'm really not trying to unduly emphasize the revisionists. I am trying to say that we cannot just say that "Muhammad did this" quoting a scholar and think that makes it uncontested truth. This is all contested and not just from fringe elements. Since this obviously isn't going to be cleaned up in the first time I ask that we start removing things that aren't talking about Muhammad (such as the slavery section) because Muhammad isn't the Qur'an or early Islam (he is a part of it). gren グレン 11:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Academics are very guarded in attributing ideas or practices to Muhammad, since our only evidence for such things comes hundreds of years later AND because Muslims have historically argued about religion by arguing about Muhammad. If it could be shown that Muhammad did X, then X was the right thing to do. If you were in favor of X, there was great temptation to "find" a hadith that supported you. WP can't regard such claims for Muhammad uncritically. We can say that some Muslims believe Muhammad did X, but we can't say Muhammad did X. Zora 17:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Gren, of course, I agree that there is a degree of uncertainty there. Sure, academics are viewing the hadith literature with caution. But I am really cofused. Let's discuss the points one by one. F.E. Peters, in the article The Quest for Historical Muhammad states:

Why, then, is there such apparent skepticism about retrieving the actual words of Jesus from the Gospels, while there is no similar debate about the Quran, which is generally thought to represent what issued from Muhammad’s mouth as “teachings” in the interval from A.D. 610 to 632? Indeed, the search for variants in the partial versions extant before the Caliph Uthman’s alleged recension in the 640s (what can be called the “sources” behind our text) has not yielded any differences of great significance. This is not to say, of course, that since those pre-Uthmanic clues are fragmentary, large “invented” portions might well have been added to our Quran or authentic material deleted. This latter charge has, in fact, been made by certain Shia Muslims who fail to find in the Quran any explicit reference to the designation of Ali as the Prophet’s successor and so have alleged tampering.’ However, the argument of the latter is so patently tendentious and the evidence adduced for the fact so exiguous that few have failed to be convinced that what is in our copy of the Quran is, in fact, what Muhammad taught, and is expressed in his own words.’

... To sum up at this point: the Quran is convincingly the words of Muhammad, perhaps even dictated by him after their recitation, while the Gospels not only describe the life of Jesus but contain some arguably authentic sayings or teachings of Jesus.

My impression of "the Quran is convincingly the words of Muhammad", "a few have failed to be convinced that..." is that there must be a strong POV in academia that the Quran is what Muhammad spoke. I would be happy to see learn more on this if you can help me with sources. Thanks --Aminz 22:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Why Aminz do you need to deprecate the Gospels and Jesus using liberal so-called scholarship in order to alleviate your religion of Islam and the Quran? Can't your retain your faith without that. Can't you make your case without it? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 00:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Right, I thought I responded to this weeks ago. Firstly, Str1977, I don't think he was trying to be insulting. Aminz, I read half of the Peters article--. I need to finish it and read some of his other stuff. I will admit that I have not read enough to know what the feelings of the academics are about this issue. I do know that Crone, Wansbrough, Cook, Rippin, etc. are all on the skeptical side... I need to figure out who does a lot of work on the origins... rather than just take their view from another. I don't fully know if Peters is saying that most people believe that... he does mention Wansbrough as not mainstream. I don't know if he means that most people think it is Muhammad's words or if he is talking about most believe it was written earlier contra the claims of Wansbrough. Do you happen to have a list of people who have done 'primary' analysis? gren グレン 00:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Can we archive some of this?

This talk page is as long as the main article. Could most of this be archived so we can politely argue like reasonable church mice? Menkatopia 07:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Temple Mount

Irishpunktom is saying the Roman temple replaced the Temple Mount and says its only remaining as a wall![1]. Its the mountain a building cant be replacing it!Opiner 12:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A mount cannot be destroyed (unless you really mean to do it and take a lot of trouble, which no one has done). Furthermore, the Roman Temple was destroyed again by Constantine when he restored Jerusalem. The surrounding structures are not identical with the Temple either of the Lord or of Jupiter. Stop the denial of history. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 13:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's... complex? When you say built atop the Jewish Temple Mount it is trying to emphasize a certain imagery of a Muslim site on a legitimately Jewish landmark. Which isn't to say that's necessarily a bad thing. Early Muslims might very well have emphasized it roots as originally Temple of Daud or whatnot, I'm not sure. But, I think the mentioning that it's on the Temple Mount as opposed to some phrase like "Esplanade des mosquées" -- which is what the French use, only needs to be done when it's relevant. For this article it should just be simple: "The Dome of the Rock, marking the spot from which Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to paradise." It really doesn't matter in the least where the Dome was built... that's an issue for the Dome of the Rock article--not the Muhammad one. gren グレン 13:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

If it doesn't matter, maybe the Dome could be built somewhere else? BTW, who built the Temple? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Err, Constantine I was a Roman emperor, and calling it a roman building is more accurate than its current description. Actually, the most accurate would be to say that it was built atop the Sakhrah, because thats where it gets its name from and thats why it was built there. I added that before and it was removed.--Irishpunktom\^talk 15:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure Constantine was a Roman Emperor. How does that contradict what I wrote. Still the place was the Temple Mount and under Julian Apostata a last attempt of rebuilding failed. The place was left unused until the conquest by the Muslims, exactly because it was the spot of the Temple, whose destruction Jesus had prophesied. As Sakhrah - this rock is part of the Temple Mount, which - as I said before - is not a building but a landmark. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The Sakhrah is the reason the Dome of the rock is there and not where the Al Aqsa masjid is. The Sakhrah is more important in this relation than the mount. --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You might still not get it, but the rock is part of the mount. No mount, no rock. And the rock is important to Muslims because M. supposedly travelled to paradise from there. And why from there? Because it is the spot of the Jewish Temple, the spot whereto Muslims prayed before M. fell out with the Jews, the place where Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac. There are countless rocks in the world - why this rock. Because of the history of the Temple Mount. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems you don't get it! - If the rock was elsewhere the dome would be elsewhere. No Rock no Dome - The Rock is the most important feature here, not the mount. The rock is the important thing here.. The rock, not mount, nor the roman ruins, nor the western wailing wall, but the rock. --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

But the rock is in no way special if it were not for the real and supposed events on it. For Muslims the important event is Muhammad's supposed ascent. But why did he ascent there and not from the Kaaba. The answer is: because it was the site of the Temple. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 00:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but not because it was the Jewish temple... but because it was David's temple. Which, would be very different things. It's not something that can be explained in an image caption. gren グレン 23:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Str1977, I wasn't saying it doesn't matter where it was built. I am saying it doesn't matter for the image caption. We could write pages about it but we want a concise and accurate caption. Dome of the Rock should deal with issues of what it was built on. gren グレン 23:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia was originally a Catholic Cathedral, then after the Great Schism it became a Greek Orthodox church, then, following the Muslim victory in the battle of Constantinople it became a Mosque, and now it is a Museum. Why are we selectively omitting parts of history allowing a false indication of both its original status and current status? Why was my factually correct edit removed? --Irishpunktom\^talk 15:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Hagia Sophia was a cathedral of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Before the schism there is no distinction between Catholic and Orthodox. There was no change in denomination (with the short interlude of the Latin Empire) until 1453. And quite regardless of that, all your supposedly factually correct additions are of no importance anyway. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 15:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking about importance, you are going to have to explain why the Fall of Constantinople is important in a biography of the Prophet Muhammad? --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think successful conquest is anything to be embarassed about. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It was carried out by Muhammad II though, not the prophet Muhammad! Its as irrelevent to this as the great schism is. --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually Mehmed II. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Mehmed is a variant of Muhammad, he would have been known as Muhammad to his Arab speaking subjects.Irishpunktom\^talk 16:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Then say that it was the Osmanic Sultan M II - there is a sultan M I as well. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, we mention the building so there comes the relevance. I wouldn't mention the conquest but merely that it once was a church and then a mosque ... or nothing at all. It is you, IPT, that is including spacious (and misleading) details. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Err, when I added it I just said that there was his name in calligraphy in the Hagia Sophia. Others demand the inclusion of irrelevent wars. If you want its history include all or none. --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Further, right now its not a Mosque nor a Church --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, IPT, for admiting that you try to make a WP:POINT. I say either just say it is calligraphy in the Hagia Sophia (the link will explain all about it) or keep it short and concise (and accurate for that matter).

I never said it were a mosque now. I said it "once was a church and then (was) a mosque". Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• The Point I was adding, was to make the article WP:NPOV, and really shouldn't be considered a Point at all, unless you were trying to make one. Selective use of history is wrong, and the highlighting that the building was "christian", when it was built by catholics (not copts, or other eastern early Christians) and then became Greek Orthodox and then became a Sunni Muslim Mosque and then became a secular Museum, is a selective use of the history of the building, and I propose either highlight all its functions through time, or none at all. That is WP:NPOV --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Muslims won great victories. They beat the Jews and turned their holy site into a Mosque, and they beat the Byzantines and turned one of the greatest cathedrals of Christendom into a Mosque. My ancestors did the same to others. Muhammad was a successful general, as were his sucessors, for all that the victories were a thousand years ago, and crowds still chant about Khaybar and the return of Muhammad's army. It all seems pretty relevent to me. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

And don't forget: they beat the Meccans and turned their holy site into a Muslim shrine. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

"spacious comments" could be a good addition to discussion of the Haghia Sophia ;-) Seriously, though, too much detail is not necessary for this point. Itsmejudith 16:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ooo...k. This is about the Calligraphy of the name Muhammad on the Hagia Sophia, not the history of the Muslim people! The history of the Hagia Sophia is linked to that of the Muslim Ottoman empire, which is linked to Muhammad, but Muhammads biog cannot, and should not, be about what was to happen after his death. Its about Muhammads life and what he did in his life, not about the fall of constantinople eight hundred years after he died. --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we can, or should, entirely seperate the biography of Muhammad from the history of Islam. What he did in his life lead directly to what his followers did after his death. I think that was kind of the idea. Prophets aren't like other people. Reasonable people can disagree about the level of detail, and the relative importance of one detail over another. Coming in once a week and reverting to your preferred wording is probably not the most useful way to resolve things. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Tom, I am striving for Factual accuracy and neutrality, where in my edits has this objective not been met? --Irishpunktom\^talk 17:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we should have a spaceship in the article since Firouz Naderi is a Muslim and Muhammad was also a Muslim. Here, i propose this one: . Any objections? --Striver 17:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Anousheh Ansari would be a better choice. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Striver, spare us your ridiculous proposals.

IPT, just two examples: You repeatedly violated neutrality by removing references to the links between the Temple Mount and the Jews (so much for all the facts, all the history). You violated accuracy by introducing false information about the Hagia Sophia being converted from a Catholic (supposedly meaning Roman Catholic) into an Greek Orthododox Church - there was no such conversion, just a schism between the two local churches of Rome and New Rome and the respective communities siding with them. Finally, you either violated POINT or misstated your intentions here on talk. And finally you broke 3RR. That is enough to disqualify you as a serious contender and it is enough to report you. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 17:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I do believe the current description is adequate. It is only a caption and if someone were to want more information, he or she could click on the link to the article of the building. – Zntrip 05:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Family Life Section Clean-Up

Currently, this is how the section reads: "Some of Muhammad's companians were "shocked by the way he allowed his wives to stand up to him and answer him back. Muhammad regularly helped with household chores, mended his own cloths, preparing his food and took his wives’ advice seriously. On one occasion Umm salamah, helped him to prevent a mutiny." [34] [75]

Sometimes his wives were of worry, for example when Muhammad found them quarrelling about "the division of booty after a raid, he threatened to divorce them all unless they lived more strictly in accordance with Islamic values (33:28-29)" [34]

Among Muhammad's wives, the status of Maria al-Qibtiyya is disputed; she may have been a slave, a freed slave, or a wife.

Aisha was the only virgin wife of Muhammad. [71] Watt states that she 'cannot have been more than twelve years old when the marriage was consummated, while Spellberg writes that Aisha's youth might have been deliberately emphasized by scholars during the Abbasid caliphate to reject Shi'a political claims for the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib.[76]"

And this is the information, as I see it, that is actually necessary for the reader: "Some of Muhammad's companians were "shocked by the way he allowed his wives to stand up to him and answer him back. Muhammad regularly helped with household chores, mended his own cloths, preparing his food and took his wives’ advice seriously. On one occasion Umm salamah, helped him to prevent a mutiny." [34] [75] Sometimes his wives were of worry, for example when Muhammad found them quarrelling about "the division of booty after a raid, he threatened to divorce them all unless they lived more strictly in accordance with Islamic values (33:28-29)" [34]

Among Muhammad's wives, the status of Maria al-Qibtiyya is disputed; she may have been a slave, a freed slave, or a wife.

Aisha was the only virgin wife of Muhammad. [71] Watt states that she 'cannot have been more than twelve years old when the marriage was consummated, while Spellberg writes that Aisha's youth might have been deliberately emphasized by scholars during the Abbasid caliphate to reject Shi'a political claims for the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib.[76]"

Am I misreading something? This section is a mess, but when I try to clean it up, it just gets reverted almost immediately. I would love to hear a reason for keeping any of this material. Menkatopia 03:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, Encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim world by Macmillan Reference USA doesn't even mention age of Aisha, and interestingly, it cites both Watts writing and Spellberg's writing in Bibliography of that article. The reason very well might be the neutralization of argument of both sources i.e. information regarding Aisha's age is so much dubious that it doesn't deserve a space in encyclopedia. Cheers! TruthSpreader^Talk 04:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Muhammad marries a six year old girl its not interesting?Opiner 09:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Truthspreader, if these encyclopedias did that it's their editorial decision which cannot prejudice our decision here on Wikipedia. I am certainly not convinced by that neutralization argument, unless the piece of information is so unimportant that covering two sides would be overdoing it. And I think that is that these two books did, decide that it's unimportant. TS, your motive however is clearly different: you want to keep it out of the article because of the criticism attached to it. However that is no proper reason. Personally, in case you asked, I think it ridiculous to call someone living 1400 years ago a "pervert" for his marriages if it wasn't controversial in his day - what would someone from the 7th century call many currently living people's behaviour? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Might wonder who wouldnt include an especially cute nine-year old with his sex partners IF also having however many adult women he wants and everyone saying its okay. including even her dad who offer her to him! History is showing that men do almost anything sexual people are saying is okay.Opiner 10:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to start a discussion on this and I certainly am not the defender of M., but to discuss this on the basis of our conventions. Of course, it makes good polemics, if you like that. The thing is that we don't really know how old Aisha was and how "evolved" she was (which is actually more important) when the marriage was consummated. I think it much more clearly a problem with M. that he allowed himself to have as many wives as he wanted while restricting them for all others to four. And it Aisha that said: "Your Lord takes care to fulfill your wishes" (quoting from memory) Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 11:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure I understand. Its only in cultural anthropology we have to discuss these things because thats what happening. If the society says its okay men will do it. there are no conscience objectors or brave lone Str1977s to stand against immorality of it all. Also Muhammad forcing the Jewish captive to be his wife BUT all the women divided among the Muslim SO everyone is saying its okay. No one is saying Muhammad dont do it and even God is for it.Opiner 11:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Opiner, I do not know what you intend with these recent postings. You needn't convince me that a lot of the things M. did was wrong. You need convince me that he is not a prophet (or at least didn't remain one). However, all these other items are not relevant in regard to what I mentioned (and if there are relevant in regard to someone else's comment, please indicate this by addressing that person, so that I don't have to bother). Also, I never said that the Aisha marriage was okay by me, men or God. Only that I don't think this a serious criticism when not based on a proper basis of morality - and modern-day sensibilities are not a proper basis. I have heard this criticism from Ayaan Hirsi Ali and don't think that a person that has no qualm about letting unborn children be killed can then get on a high horse and talk about the "perverted" nature of this marriage. Case closed? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 15:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Just opining. Didnt think were disagreeing.Opiner 03:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay--I went ahead and changed it and tried to trim some fat, but I wanted to say I don't think including all this "Watt said, but Spellberg blah blah blah...." No one comes here for Watt and Spellberg, they come to get an overview of the subject, or issue. As I see it, the purpose of this project is to state the nature of the debate, not argue it for others. I would like to see almost all the "Watt" junk leave. That belongs at a conference, not on this page. It is still NPOV to state that there is a debate without trying to resolve that debate for the reader. After all, aren't we telling people what to think if we start just quoting hundreds of "experts?" That's the job of academia. No, the purpose is to summarize the information rationally. Not this he-said-she-said tea party of theories. I am positive that this will get reverted, but I really think this was a good edit, if I do say so. :-) Menkatopia 05:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that either an entire section or atleast a subsection should be added to this article about Muhammed's wife Khadija. She was a strong inlfuence on Muhammed and it is important to give her the credit. Shinybubbles 01:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

That brave woman indeed deserves a passage but not a section or subsection. We can leave that to the article on her. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Child article for 'Muhammad and the Jewish tribe of Medina'

We can start a child article for this. How is Muhammad and People of the Book can have a sub-section on this. --Aminz 07:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• First of all, it is a POV title.
• Secondly, if the sub article is on Jews of Medina (and that is quite enough) it should be named accordingly.
• Thirdly, this will not result in a complete disappearance of the issue from this article.

Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 08:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

ٌThe child article can also discuss relation of Muhammad and Christians, not only Jews. I mean we can have an article on relations of both Jews and Christians with Muhammad. Right now, the section is too long. Any suggestion for the title? Relations of Muhammad with Christians and Jews?--Aminz 08:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I like Muhammad's Impact on Other Faiths, or possibly, Muhammad and Other Faiths/Religions. I would rather error on the side of overly broad, than too narrow. But I agree, this info could be greatly condensed from where it is now.Menkatopia 13:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that we should match the two together, Aminz. Separate articles certainly spare us any temptation to use a POV title like the above.

"Muhammad's Impact on Other Faiths" is a completely different topic, as it treats (rather would treat) not M. dealings with Jews and Christians but how his ministry affected the other religions. This also a delicate subject. I wonder what Aminz would say when the appearence of ideas like the Crusades are linked back to M. and his idea of jihad? But it certainly would be on topic in such an article.

14:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Muhammad as a husband

None of this is important. I would like to get some consensus before I just remove it, but can anyone explain why this information should be in here? Since some on here are fond of quotes, I am reminded of William Faulkner's line "sometimes you have to kill your darlings." Not literally, but can we chop some of this blatant gooeyness? Menkatopia 09:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Muhammad is viewed as a model for Muslims. His personal life is interesting, at least to some people including me. Personally, it is very important to me though it might not seem important to you. --Aminz 17:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to imply that his personal life is not interesting, only that the way it is described is done very poorly in the section and I think it ought to be removed. The section has such a storybook quality to it. That shouldn't be seen as an indictment of Muhammad's life, I only care about the writing. My sole concern in this article is making the information easier and more enjoyable to read. I think the information can stay if it is written as a factual account, but as it stands, this info seems to be partisan narrative. Menkatopia 20:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you question the factuality of the sources? --Aminz 21:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I question the tone. Look at a sentence like "Muhammad used to share all his every hope and fear with Khadija who was very dear to him." This sounds like the way Santa Claus is described, not a prophet of god. I'm saying it would be possible to find sources that say M. was anything we might want him to be. The section, as written, sounds like naive, amateur writing. Instead of stating the exact quotes, couldn't this information be summarized so that it says the same thing? I would be perfectly happy with a phrase like: "Muhammad's 25-year marriage to Khadijah was happy, according to scholars, who generally accept that the couple shared a deep love." That's clumsy, but describing his avarice as "sharing every hope and fear," doesn't sound very authoritative. Does the tone bother you in the preceeding paragraph? I tried to remove that kind of language. Menkatopia 23:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think sharing every hope and fear is accurate. For example, when Muhammad had his first religous vision, he was terrified. He ran back to his wife and told everything for her. What do you call this? Do you have any better way to express it? The source says sharing his every fear and hope. Please let me know your suggestions. Thanks --Aminz 23:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What about, "Most scholars agree that Muhammad was closest to his wife, Khadija." I just object to the characterization as "every hope and fear." This section also is almost entirely quotes. Why should we be satisfied with quoting a particular scholar to create a section? Would you be opposed to summarizing the information? Menkatopia 13:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems in style are not reason enough to remove a section. It can be improved stylistically. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems with style absolutely can be grounds for removal. Why not write this whole article from Muhammad's POV? Thay would be the wrong style, no? "His every hope and fear," (which sounds more like a Anne Rice novel than an encyclopedia) ought to be removed, but I am advocating either reworking the section so it doesn't sound so silly, or removing this section altogether. Comments on this point? Menkatopia 16:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

If the style is wrong, we can improve it. POV problems can be solved by the various methods. I don't see how deletion is one of them. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 01:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Picture of Muhammad

Did folks decide to remove the image of M. that was on here? Shouldn't there be an image of M. just like on other Bio pages? Menkatopia 10:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There is presently an image of Muhammad. For people we don't have pictures of like J. and B. and Z, A, C, and M to boot, you must be careful to represent them in a way consistent with their traditions. That is, Muhammad's depiction on South Park would not be a proper depiction for this article. Talk:Muhammad/Mediation is where the discussion has been going on. gren グレン 15:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What about a more historically accepted picture, like this one or this one or this one?--Sefringle 06:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The second of those was in fact in the "Overview" section until very recently; I hardly need to tell you why it was removed. There was a mediation on this issue underway, although it is recently in limbo as someone has forced the mediator off Wikipedia with real-life threats. I estimate this to be a good general and historical depiction which deserves to accompany the introduction.Proabivouac 06:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

First of all in Islam, we are told not to be curious of what he looks like, and not to visualize the pictures on the website that shows him. The prophet said himself in the Quran that he did not want people to see pictures of him, nor having pictures of him on the wall. Why? Becuase he did not want people to worship the "picture" of the Prophet himself. I dont know where in the Quran it states that but I will look it up soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.205.229.145 (talk • contribs)

We are not here to discuss whether Islam allows pictures of Mohammad. What we are here to discuss is whether or not it is appropiate to include an image, and personally, I think it is.--Sefringle 22:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

You spoke truly, anon, when you wrote, "...in Islam..." We are not now in Islam, but on Wikipedia. Last time I checked, the article discusses Muslim attitudes towards depictions of Muhammad, so I believe your point is already made; there is no need to demonstrate these prejudices through action.Proabivouac 23:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What does historically accepted mean. There are no pictures of Muhammad. 87.194.191.177 23:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Previous comment by anon wholeheartedly endorsed. No-one alive today knows what he looked like so what encyclopedic purpose could including an image possibly serve?Itsmejudith 00:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, no body, not even Hadith's, or Imam's know what the Prophet Muhammad looks like. Their are no pictures of him at all. All the pictures you see on Google, or other websites, are just artist impression's on what he looks like. Wikipedia should not put a picture of the Prophet. If anybody uploads a picture, many people will be mad, and start a controversey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.205.229.145 (talk • contribs)

Yes it is an artists impression. But then again, almost all pictures of people before the invention of the camera are artists impressions. Many historic figures from the early classical era were painted during the Renaissance. That doesn't mean they are a completely accurate interpritation of the artist, but they are still encyclopediac. The pictures of Jesus are generally similar, however they are probably didn't look at all like the photographs of him. But they are still encyclopediac.--Sefringle 21:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

We have been over this again, and again, and again, and again. [2]. It is completely irrelevant that the pictures are not 100% accurate; we all concede they are not photographs. They are appropriate for this article and removing them is tantamount to vandalism. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 21:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but somebody keeps removing them, claiming they are unencyclopediac.--Sefringle 21:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Welll I for one don't believe that the case has been made that any images of Muhammad serve an encyclopedic purpose. That's after looking at the archived discussion that Brian Gotts pointed us to. Brian says that it is "completely irrelevant" that pictures are not "100% accurate". Let's be clear, we are not talking about pictures that might be say 80% accurate. We are talking about pictures that are pretty certain to be 0% accurate. If you are arguing that they nevertheless illustrate something, then please spell out what they illustrate. Would a picture add information? Exactly what relevant information could it add?Itsmejudith 01:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Well the pictures of Jesus are just as accurate as the pictures of Mohammad. Yet they are still encyclopediac. Pictures give people an idea of what someone or something looks like. For many, it is hard to picture something or someone if they don't have a visable picture. And the pictures are not 0% accurate. They were painted by muslim artists who probably have some idea, either from oral traditions, or from some hadith, as to what they think Mohammad looked like. But it is an artists interpritation, as the majority of historic paintings are.--Sefringle 06:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is where you go wrong. The pictures of Jesus as we present them are not to represent Jesus. They are to represent Christianity's tradition of depicting Jesus. The best representation would be that of an historical anthropologist trying to depict the typical Jewish boy from that era and area. Yet, our main images are European ones. It's clear that we are trying to show Jesus' depiction throughout history--not some realistic view of Jesus. If we apply the same to Muhammad we will come up with calligraphy of his name and probably a covered-face image. We don't use images to represent the people. We use them to represent the traditions. This is why I believe we should at most have a traditional Persian painting since it represents a standard depiction of Muhammad. If our aim was to represent the people themselves we would scrap all of Christendom's images of Jesus. There is just about no chance he looked like that. But we keep them because they are traditional representations of Jesus. gren グレン 23:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

We are all aware of what's thought wrong with these images, and it's nothing whatsover to do with concerns about encyclopedicity or informativeness.Proabivouac 07:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to start another mediation. This dispute cannot be end without a good mediation. --- ALM 15:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Every religion has sacrosancts. And I think wikipedia should show respect them, and remove the images. 85.100.174.237 23:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)hakand

I see that the pictures are removed. I want to thank you for your understanding!`85.104.201.184 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)hakand

I'm suprised noone has been paying attention to the masked vandalism of the Muhammad page. Religious hardliners keep demanding "reasons" for putting up a photo of the prophet. What reasons are there not to put up a picture? And don't try to say "because the pictures are inaccurate", because any sane person will inevitably hear "because it violates my faith". That is the real issue here; faith. Encyclopedias are not about faith, they are about facts. If you don't want to see a picture of Muhammad, then don't go to the Muhammad page. Stop removing the pictures out of religious beliefs. See also: cartoons controversy.

"Religious hardliners keep demanding "reasons" for putting up a photo of the prophet" - a) what you mean is you consider someone questioning the inclusion of a "photo" a hardliner. There are very good reasons *not* to put a picture in the article - these being 1) there are no pictures and 2) there's a strong tradition of not representing Muhammad in a picture (meaning that not representing Muhammad pictorially will be more in keeping with an article describing the life, character and legacy of Muhammad than going out of one's way to find someone who has decided to draw a picture against the wishes of a large proportion of this planet's population and including it as some sort of depiction of Muhammad - something kind of touched upon by Gren above); b) "If you don't want to see a picture of Muhammad, then don't go to the Muhammad page." This is just silly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.194.191.177 (talk) 00:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

This is a problem of "respect". When he was alive, he wanted people not to draw, or publish his pictures. I repeat again, this is a religious sacrosanct. That's the problem... I won't remove the image, because I want you to understand why muslim people remove them. Please show respect to Mohammed (pbuh), and islamic blief. 85.100.171.139 10:32, 2 January 2007 (UTC)hakand

dating

See the MOS --Striver 01:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The MOS? You probably mean your postings on a talk page you yourself created? As for what the MOS really says, read Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Eras as per this version (I am including this link, as Striver is already acting in bad faith by claiming to be acting in accordance with the MOS - we have discussed this same problem at Talk:Hadith_of_the_prediction_in_Sura_al-Rum#Section_break, so he is well aware that the MOS doesn't exactly agree with his view, to put it mildly). Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 01:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF. I meant dating MOS for Islam related articles, yes, that is what i linked to. --Striver 03:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

For those who do not bother to follow the talk in the Islamic MOS, here is a bit from the general date MOS:

You can give dates in any appropriate calendar, as long as you also give the date in either the Julian or Gregorian calendar, as described below. For example, an article on the early history of Islam may give dates in both the Islamic calendar and the Julian calendar.

It does not say that any date is preferred above any other, but it does say "any appropriate calendar". Now, since a typical AH year spans two CE years, the AH year is more accurate, hence the more "appropriate calendar".

--Striver 03:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it does say "as long as you also give the date in either the Julian or Gregorian calendar" - which clearly assumes that the Julian/Gregorian calendar is the standard one in the English language WP. MOS also says "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but should be consistent within an article." - it says nothing about AH, again implying that the AD/CE dating is the standard one. Stop your pushing of your Islamic superiority POV. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Jewish years also span two CE years, but they are not routinely given in Jewish-history articles. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

suggestion

maybe something could be added to the section on The Beginnings of the Qur'an about how Muhammads followers were so eager to preserve the teachings of Muhammad that they wrote on anything they could find like, animal hides, bones, and leaves. --Johnnybravo01 00:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Medina

This section is way too long. Worse, it almost word-for-word duplicates the contents of the Muhammad_and_the_Jews article. Any objections summarizing this to about 1/5th its length? The link to the full MatJ article is right there at the beginning of the section for readers to follow. - Merzbow 03:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did this, trying to preserve the balance of the original text. The "2nd Hijra" and the "Overview" sections should be shortened also. - Merzbow 08:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I had a quick look at it. Will read it more carefully but it looked good to me. Thanks. I have one request at the moment. Can we add in a sentence Qur'an's response to the claim that A non-Jew can not be a prophet, that the Qur'an developed the concept of religion of Abraham? --Aminz 08:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not object to the removal of my addition to the "Jews" section. In fact, I only added them because another editor selectively added his favourite theory without adding also a scholarly treatment of it. It is better to leave both out of this article. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 09:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking like we cant make the article shorter because its owned by Aminz. Every sentence hes adding he wants to keep no matter what. Look its not matering to reality what Watt think Jews maybe 'WOULD have' done! Why is it mattering to Aminz? WIts always this way. If Muhammad urinates on the Alamo he will add a whole paragraph at least about how the Alamo provoke Muhammad how urinating on things is common to all the cultures how ancient Jews maybe also urinate on the Alamo and how Watt is saying Alamo lucky to get away with only that! If these apology addings are removed its the edit war.Opiner 09:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

First, Merzbow made the summary and second you don't own the article either. You should not remove well-sourced material. --Aminz 10:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems like that. One more point: Aminz, why include false information:

"After the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad appointed a leader from a neutral Arab tribe to decide on an appropriate punishment, and only acted against the Qurayza after a sentence of execution had been handed down."

Sad was hardly neutral - he was a Muslim who had fought against the Qurayza during the siege until he had been wounded. A "neutral Arab tribe"? Are you referring to the Ansar or to the Aws? Also, this completely glosses over the fact that M. agreed to another judge because of the intercession of some of the Aws, not because he himself wanted it so much. Again, this is chosing the comfortable sides of the event, twisting them around, and hiding what could be seen as not positive. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we should modify this. Sa'ad was among the leaders of the tribe which was previously allied to Qurayza and some of its members were asking Muhammad to forgive Qurayza. Muhammad was thereby avoiding any likelihood of blood-feud and Jews also agreed to that. But Watt says that there is no need to assume Muhammad put any pressure on him. I would welcome any suggestions you might have. --Aminz 10:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You have absolutely no basis for saying that the Jews agreed to this as well. They had already surrendered unconditionally and were expecting nothing less than death. The intercession by some Aws could have saved them but M's proposed judge thwarted this. I never said that M put pressure on Sad - he knew him well enough to chose "the right man" (and the fact that Sad was dying was a factor as well - no one could go after him anymore).

On a grander scale, why are we including a large treatment of this at all, when we don't do this for the Qunayqa and the Nadir? The former were never accused of treason but just refused to yield M's request (totally in breach with the assumed Constitution) that they convert to Islam (stupidly they combined their refusal with a military challenge). The Nadir did probably try to kill M. but why are we glossing over the fact that M. had one of their chiefs assassinated before?

All these things are true but why are some editors only allowing only apologetical material? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Str1977, I am echoing what the sources say. You can have your view but we should remain faithful to what the sources say. If they say different things, we can mention both of them. Esposito says Muhammad *accused*. So Qunayqa were never accused of treachery is your claim and is not supported by the source. --Aminz 10:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The Aminz edit war is continued[3]. Always the neutral fact has to be followed by the not neutral apology so every part thats making him uncomfortable which is a lot of parts has to be at least twice as long what it would normally be. Everyone telling him this thing but its just not stopping no matter what.Opiner 10:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Opiner, I suggest that instead of making such comments, you start reasoning (as Str1977 is doing)--Aminz 10:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that reasoning is better than complaining, especially complaining here. However, I must say that his observation about the twice-as-big-commentary additions are correct in my book. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 18:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

So what does my brother Esposito-Apologist-for every-kind-of-monstrosity -if-only-committed-by-Muslim-hands actually say? Does he say specifically that Muhammad accused the Qunayqa of treachery? When did he accuse them? I am sticking true to the sources I have. You know well that the Qunayqa affair started with that silly joke played on a Muslim woman, a killing in reprisal and another killing in reprisal for that. And the Muhammad, supposedly acting as mediator, invited the Qunayqa to embrace Islam and all would be forgotten (personally, I think this is the most heneious thing that the son of Abdallah ever did in his life). The Qunayqa refused and boasted that they would outlast his attacks in their fortress. Tragically, there were mistaken in that - a mistake that resulted in them being driven from their city.

Another thing, why constantly include the variant you like best, preferable from Watt. Everyone but Watt calls Uhud a defeat for M (though he lost only a battle and not the war) but you included without reference or discussion the minority view that Uhud was a stalemate. Ts ts. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Str, see WP:Civil --Aminz 10:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Aminz SEE WP:NPOV notice theres not the part saying to glorify or apology for prophet Muhammad so PLEASE and I mean that please stop it.Opiner 10:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Aminz, I know about CIVIL and also about NPOV and NOR etc. I don't see where I was being uncivil to any fellow wikipedian. I cannot find the "convert to Islam" event right now in the spot where I though I had read it. I will get back on this later. But I am sure I did and uphold my comments on it. Finally, are you unaware that Muhammad endorsed Sad's judgment by calling it "the judgement of God"? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I still haven't found the book I read this in but I have found confirmation of this in Muir's Life of Muhammad, who however places the request by M before the affair with the girl in the market. In this he follows Katib al Wackidi. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

On the Qaynuqa affair: may I enquire why Aminz, who usually loves to quote from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, fails to mention that the EoI's article on the Banu Qaynuqa says: "When Muhammad felt his position strengthened by the battle of Badr, he must soon have determined on expelling his enemies. The Kaynukah, as they lived in the city itself, were the first he wished to be rid of. Regarded in this light, his attack on the Kaynukah (in all probability as early as Shawwal 2/April 624) is sufficiently explained. Special reasons for the attack given by Muslim writers have no more than anecdotal value."? Beit Or 22:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read that article (will read it). But unlike you that remove quotes from EoI, I am interested in having all POVs presented. That "When Muhammad felt his position strengthened by the battle of Badr, he must soon have determined on expelling his enemies." can be included in the article together with all other POVs. --Aminz 23:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Whether you've read the article or not is irrelevant. This is a WP:NPOV violation regardless of its cause. Beit Or 08:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I've some doubts about the following sentences:

The Qur'an's response regarding the possibility of a non-Jew being a prophet was that Abraham was not a Jew. Is this true? It could very well be, but then was it also stated in the form of a direct response to the Jewish criticism? Not so sure about that. The Qur'an also claimed that it was "restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians". I doubt the Quran literally states this, so why the quotation marks? And I'm not so sure about the ref too. I haven't finished my Quran yet so I don't think I can fix these issues myself but any insights are appreciated. Feer 22:59, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Uhud

Str, I remember User:Zora was saying that Watt states that Uhud wasn't a Muslim defeat. That the Meccans had lost too many men to pursue the Muslims into Medina. Can you please cite it. --Aminz 10:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No of course Muslim cant be defeating because of mighty Allah. Come on they lose more men then run from the battle how its not the defeat?Opiner 10:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I am aware that Watt says this because the Uhud article refers to him and his view as the dissenting voice. However, the overwhelming view is that Uhud was indeed a Muslim defeat - not a crushing defeat, but a defeat nonetheless. It was not crushing because Abu Sufyan did not follow up and occupy Jathrib. His reasons are unclear to us and that he had lost to many man is a possibility (but not an established fact) - another reason, actually given by Amr in the Uhud article but also supported by my sources, is that the city was guarded by Abdullah ibn Ubay. I think it a bit ironic that the man vilified as a hypocrite (just because we was not a butcher like Hamza or Umar) saved Islam that day. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 11:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

How can we date the events in Mohammad's life?

Would it be helpful to include why we know certain dates about Mohammad's life? (from 622- his flight to Medina= the beginning of the calendar)

(Crone, Patricia. "What Do We Actually Know About Mohammad?" 31 August 2006. <http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/3866.pdf>. Spunkiel 22:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

About Muhammad's sources

should something be added about the Hadiths and date they were written and what can be learned about Muhammad from them?

Main sources

i believe that the Hadith would be important to add, as long as the Koran and the biography by Ibn Ishaq. I also think that it would be valuable to include something about how his wife was the major support in his religion. When Mohammed doubted, his wife kept him encouraged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by XCluvr16 (talk • contribs) 00:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC).

Long and Locked

I'm just wondering if this article is still considered lengthy, or too long. As I read over the page, it seemed to me that this level of detail was useful and informative. There seem to be adequate links to longer articles on most topics and, generally, these stubs are well-summarized enough for a typical reader.

I'm also wondering if we should keep this article locked a little longer, or should open it back up. I would love to hear comments on this. Thanks! Menkatopia 23:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

There has certainly been some improvement on these counts since the issue was first raised. To me, the question is not only one of length, but of content value.Proabivouac 01:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article is improving quite a lot recently. Aside from shrinking a couple more sections, I think the references should be cleaned up. (I'll make another talk page section about this). - Merzbow 02:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference cleanup

Any objections to cleaning up the referencing by putting all of the full book names in the "References" section, and then in the footnotes, just citing the author's surname, year of publication, and page numbers? This is already done for some footnotes but there are tons that needlessly repeat information, frequently in different formats. (This is just a formatting, not a content, change I'm proposing; no information will be added or removed overall). - Merzbow 02:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely no objection and thank you for volunteering.Itsmejudith 08:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Common era vs. anno Domini

It has come to my attention that this article uses both the "CE" and "AD" notations in regards to years of the current era. Although the page uses mostly "CE", I thought I would bring the issue to the talk page before changing all of the instances of "AD" to "CE". Per the WP:MOS, we must only have one of these systems used per article, or have both of them used at every occasion (i.e.–220 AD/CE, see Jesus). I just wanted to make consensus at the talk page on era notations before any alterations to the dating systems were made. Thank you. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>` (merry C–mas)} 23:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be very helpful to have this made consistent in the article, so thanks for your attention to this detail. In my opinion CE would be a much more appropriate style than AD in this article, since although Muslims revere Jesus immensely they do not generally address him as "lord", which is implied in the "anno domini" formula. And since we are not using AH dates, Muslim readers already have to make a compromise. The CE formula can provide a bridge between readers of all faiths and none. Itsmejudith 00:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. To make it easier, I will create a voting process below, please sign it there. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>` (merry C–mas)} 00:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Survey for AD vs. CE

Use "CE" only

1. I think AD is unnecessarily Christian-centric. --BostonMA ^talk 00:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Per my own argument above and BostonMA's more succinct summary. And I do think the poll is a good idea, nice to encounter editors who take care of details and want to establish consensus.Itsmejudith 00:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Merzbow 00:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Use "AD" only

1. Far mor common name Sefringle 20:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Use both "AD" and "CE" in every instance

1. My vote goes here. I think the presence of both is what many editors really want, since they're both used in the article already. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>` (merry C–mas)} 00:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
2. YES I don't much care about the christian-centric blah blah blah. I just think using both will stop this from being an issue forever. Menkatopia 06:05, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
3. support this one, for reasons already mentioned above. Feer 23:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
4. I think that if Jesus uses both, so should this article— OLP1999 01:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Use neither

1. Unless we also ad AH dates. gren グレン 23:44, 31 December 2006 (UTC) -- Context and linking the year makes it obvious that it's AD/CE and removes excess characters and controversy.
2. ITAQALLAH 16:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC) -- i agree that this is the more appropriate suggestion.
3. Like Gren, unless we use AH. But (on reflection) AH dating is less necessary on this article than on others, as it applies to not all dates here involved and those it does apply to are more or less easily deduced from the AD date, unlike the case in later periods. Palmiro | Talk 23:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Further discussion

• Well, BostonMA, I started the poll because Muhammad currently uses both AD and CE randomly, which is unacceptable per the MOS. Instead of changing all instances to one particular notation, I saw it more appropriate to discuss among editors. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>` (merry C–mas)} 00:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• I'd like to vote "neither". "Muhammad died in 632." is sufficient. You click on the link you get a page for the year 632 AD/CE. Why do we need a suffix? It can be presumed to be common era and that is backed up by the link. Context also makes this obvious. Why not avoid the whole dispute? gren グレン 23:42, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Gren's suggestion makes sense to me, although AD is in common use in the Islamic world and in scholarly work and I don't think it is generally held to be objectionable. Meanwhile, giving AH dates is common practice in scholarly work and is standard in Islamic writings. I would suggest giving AD/CE and also where appropriate AH. Palmiro | Talk 13:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Why doesn't it make sense. Look at Charlemagne. It doesn't use AD or CE, why must Muhammad? Same basic era--context and linking the date makes it perfectly clear that it's an AD/CE date. gren グレン 02:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC) I can't read gren グレン 03:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Gospel of Barnabas

Sigh. May I ask that people please stop removing the Gospel of Barnabas material now that I've sourced the claim properly and put it in the correct section? People are making incorrect claims in edit summaries about what this paragraph says:

1. It is not presenting the Gospel of Barnabas as canonical material - the term apocryphal specifically means otherwise. (Don't believe me, follow the link).
2. It is not presenting the Muslims' claims that Muhammad's coming was foretold in this 'gospel' as fact. The text says 'According to some Muslims' and 'they argue'.
3. The source I use is a book from a university professor, who says exactly what is written in this section - that some Muslims, including Deedat, make this claim.

- Merzbow 20:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I am well-aware of what apocryphal means. The problem is that the Gospel of Barnabas is widely considered a pious fraud. Frotz661 20:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Merzbow, you are exactly right in saying "some Muslims make this claim". Ipso facto this is not a matter of "other faith traditions. The so-called Gospel of Barnabas is a pseudoepigraphical and essentially pro-Islamic work from the Renaissance. And that is why it is removed from "other faith traditions". Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 21:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Merzbow, your material is sourced and perfectly well-written. However, I don’t see that it belongs here. No doubt, we can find other equally contentious opinions about Muhammad and the Bible which might be similarly sourced. Ahmed Deedat's notability is like that of Billy Graham - certainly famous and influential, but not the types of opinions we should wish to fill this article. If it is to be included, we are obliged to mention that this gospel is generally considered to be a forgery. The section title "Muhammad in early Christian writings" is misleading (or at least POV) in this regard, as the Gospel of Barnabas is not an early Christian writing. Aside from these problems, the inclusion of this material in any form would reward the very negative approach User:Grandia01 has taken to editing this article.Proabivouac 21:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The authenticity or lack thereof of the GoB isn't really relevant here; what is relevant is how notable the view is in Islamic circles that the GoB foretold Muhammad. Perhaps you're right that even among Muslim scholars this is a rank minority view. I don't care enough about this particular topic to do the research to see if any other Muslims as notable as Deedat agrees with him on this. If someone else can corroborate the notability of this view, however, I will continue to press for mentioning this in the article. - Merzbow 23:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the authenticity of the GoB is not directly relevant. It is indirectly, because the wording proposed here insinuates that the GoB is a biblical text. However, what is relevant is the fact that this is a Muslim view include among non-Muslim views. Go and find a better place for this because it is not "another faith tradition" when Muslim scholars and non-scholars interpret a Islam-infuenced forgery. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 23:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I did find a better place for it - the Islamic views section: [4]. - Merzbow 03:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

So, if its status as a forgery is irrelevant, please tell us what IS relevant? If you don't care enough about this subject to do your homework, then why do you persist in bothering those who DID check their facts? It's not enough to toss a vacuous assertion on the table and demand it be respected. Frotz661 23:50, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Merzbow, your sources are perfectly okay but to be honest with you it is making a negative picture of Muslims. That some Muslims still use the (most probably) forged Gospel as a text proof, while true, but just shows their ignorance. If I want to go for proving the case, I probably try to find an scholar who uses the fact that until 3rd century Holy Spirit wasn't considered to be a person among Christians. That the reference to Holy Spirit is feminine. And then somehow shows that the verses from John's Gospel might not refer to Holy Spirit. I dunno. Some sophisiticated theory! --Aminz 00:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of Farah

The full quote from the source:

Angered by the betrayal of the Banu Qurayzah in the violation fo their oath, Muhammad submitted them to trial by the chief of the Aws whom they had requested to pass judgement upon them. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, the chief, decreed all fighting men of the Banu Qurayza be put to death. This was in keeping with the Jewish law (Deuteronomy 20:12), which decreees the killing of every male in such situations, He was convinced that they would have meted out similar judgement on the Muslims had they and their allies triumphed instead. None but four would forsake Judaism for Islam as a price of survival.

The proposed addition to the this article:

"Caesar Farah writes that the judgement of Sa'd ibn Mua'dh was conducted according to laws of Torah."

First of all, Caesar Farah is demonstrably wrong - Deuteronomy 20:12 does prescribe the killing of every man, but in a totally different situation. If this is included, then others will rightly insist upon rebutting it, as they did on Banu Qurayza before I removed the section, which is even less relevant here. As with the gospel of Barnabas, it’s not productive to introduce marginal and ignorant opinions along with their rebuttals; the end result is to turn large portions of the article into a series of debates about these opinions which aren’t necessary in the first place.

More crucially, this is only a snide, Chomskyesque remark on Farah's part, not a assertion of historical fact. Read carefully - there is a world of difference between Farah today observing (correctly or not) that Sa'd and Muhammad did only what the ancient Jews would have done and Farah asserting that Sa'd actually said, "Let us try them according to their own laws," and proceeded from there, which Farah doesn’t allege. To say that his judgement was "conducted according to the laws of the Torah" is blatantly misrepresentative of Farah’s (already misinformed) claim.Proabivouac 21:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

simply alter it to "Caesar Farah asserts that the judgement of Sa'd ibn Mua'dh was applied in consistency with Jewish law.", no need to remove it. the belief, correct or otherwise, that Muhammad is mentioned in some way within Biblical texts, extant or extinct, is notable and perhaps even prevelant amongst Muslims and mentioned by a good source. there is no legitimate reason to purge it from the article. ITAQALLAH 22:15, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Farah did not say that it was applied in consistency with Jewish law, which once more falsely suggests that Sa'd considered Jewish scripture (I'm not clear that this is "law") in his judgement. Rather, in Farah's opinion, the decision, in retrospect, happens to be consistent with Farah's (mis-)reading of Deuteronomy. To phrase it thusly and accurately shows precisely why it doesn't belong here. It is difficult to see what purpose it could serve except to the extent that it's misrepresented - an ambiguity you've carefully maintained in your proposed rewrite.

"...Muhammad is mentioned in some way within Biblical texts..."

That's precisely it: the "Gospel of Barnabas" is not a biblical text, but a medieval forgery. It would constitute an abuse of our discretion to mention it without pointing out its status as an infamous fraud. Once again, to characterize it fairly shows exactly why it doesn't belong in the article. That Muhammad's prophecy was "foretold" in a medieval forgery is quite irrelevant, and if anything only serves to make proponents of this notion look like cranks. That's not our purpose here.Proabivouac 22:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

the text of Barnabas is being cited as an example, not as the solitary basis for the claim. if you are familiar with the general claim you may already know that other - accepted- texts are also cited by Deedat et al. (e.g. the meaning of Paraclete). the proposal is ambiguous, mainly because there is a degree ambiguity in Farah's words and in what precisely he means/intends by the statement: when Farah describes Sa'd's "decree" as "in keeping with Jewish law", it completely avoids the question as to whether Sa'd was conscious of that connection or not. the proposal does not imply that Sa'd took the scripture into consideration anymore than Farah's phrasing does: it simply states that the application of Sa'd's judgement (meaning, his decree), according to Farah, was consistent with Jewish law/scripture. ITAQALLAH 00:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It is ambiguous, then, between an original finding of momentous import, resurrecting a starling detail of a crucial event in Muhammad's career which had been otherwise been lost to the millenia, presented without any attempt to support it, and a snarky aside about Jews getting a taste of their own medicine which is completely irrelevant to this article. Were Farah claiming to have discovered this detail, no doubt he'd have made it clear. We cannot be hunting for possibly misconstuable sentences to include in the hope that they will be misconstrued once more by our readers, for it is impossible to see any other purpose to this addition.Proabivouac 01:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

In any case, Itaqallah, these are all Islamic views and interpretations. When Muslims use the Bible as prooftexts the restult is still something Muslim and not Christian. Even more so when they are using a Renaissance forgery. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 18:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, pardon me, renaissance forgery, one that appears to have accomplished its intent, as we are still dealing with it centuries later here on Wikipedia, where several editors have either been duped by its deception, or find it convenient that others might be. I wonder which of these categories contains those who would blithely include it?Proabivouac 23:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I can not see any misrepresentation. Farah says: "This[judgment] was in keeping with the Jewish law (Deuteronomy 20:12), which decreees the killing of every male in such situations[prisoners after an attack], He was convinced that they would have meted out similar judgement on the Muslims had they and their allies triumphed instead." Would you please explain? --Aminz 13:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proabivouac has explained it nicely above. Anyway, too much attention is being paid to outlandish claims of a very minor scholar. Beit Or 13:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I can see the nice argument: "First of all, Caesar Farah is demonstrably wrong - Deuteronomy 20:12 does prescribe the killing of every man, but in a totally different situation." Maybe the situation in which the enemy is not attacked yet or that when they have not submitted themselves without resistence? I can not see his nice point. --Aminz 13:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

What about reading the paragraph, starting with "More crucially..."? Beit Or 13:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The Garbage Sources

Khan, Dr. Majid Ali (1998). Muhammad The Final Messenger. Islamic Book Service, New Delhi, 110002 (India)

I search for this book on Google in a bunch of different ways. All the first links to Wikipedia where users put it here! Other links to Islamic religion-pushing websites. From the Islamic Book Service.

Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (1993). The Life of Muhammad (Translated from the 8th Edition By Ism'il Ragi A. Al Faruqi). Islami Book Trust, Kula Lumpur, 353.

Muhammad Husayn Haykal is lawyer not historian. His book published by Islami Book Trust not the academic source.Opiner 06:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried searching amazon and other books sites too "Muhammad The Final Messenger" [5] is available on multiple places. Yes they are Islamic sources however, being Islamic sources does not make them unreliable by defaults. --- ALM 15:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

See The Sealed Nectar for another purportedly reliable source which Itaqallah has been inserting into various articles. ALM scientist, if a source declares itself "Islamic," it cannot reasonably be considered neutral towards Muhammad, and may only be considered reliable as a source for its own beliefs (not even necessarily "Muslim beliefs") From WP:RS: "The conclusions of the source can be reached using the information available and there is no indication of gaps in the thinking or process of derivation. Essentially, this criterion asks if there are any leaps of faith in the source."Proabivouac 19:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You can say same for non-Islamic sources because they do not believe in Islam hence they are non-neutral about Islam. This is just your assumption, you are assuming bad faith towards editors, without any evidence. Prove that by using other soruces, the editors while writing books did not present facts then I can considered it un-relable. Simply getting published by a publisher which publish only Islamic books do not make them non-reliable. I cannot give any input about "The Sealed Nectar" because I have never used it. --- ALM 19:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"You can say same for non-Islamic sources because they do not believe in Islam hence they are non-neutral about Islam."

Absurd.Proabivouac 19:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Similarly your oponion is even more absurd that an (Islamic-publisher+Islamic-writer = non-reliable source). Only Non-Muslim writers are accepted? --- ALM 19:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Whether the writer is Muslim or not is beside the point. A Christian writer writing from a blatantly "Christian" point of view, with a book, "Muhammad, the False Prophet" published by the Christian Book Service would be equally biased, non-academic and unacceptable.Proabivouac 20:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes it will be however vice versa does not hold. They are two totally different things. A Christian writer book named "Jesus the son of God" published by some Christian Book Service, available in university libraries like MIT and purchasable from Amazon [6], other different places around world and used in section Jesus according to Christian tradition is acceptable.

I did not select this sources espacially but that was available in mine University library LUMS, among other two books I had used. Whenever I have used two references than those references are saying identical things. I used mostly THREE books to write each single paragraph and spend many days to just write those three sections. --- ALM 20:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Proabivouac, i invite you to resume our discussions about this book on your talk page which remain unfinished. "leaps of faith", without the pun, refers to unjustified opinions, reaching conclusions with little explanation or reason, and the like. the book however uses frequent citations to ibn hisham, ibn sa'd and other historians; whilst you persist in deceptively linking to a resource which excludes the footnotes employed, despite me having informed you of this quite a while ago. ITAQALLAH 20:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The pun is on point: "Islamic" sources assume Muhammad to have been God's final prophet and a model of emulation for all humankind, while the Qur'an is assumed to be the literal and inerrant word of God. These are the premises of their "investigations" to which all subsequent findings must be made to conform, and are leaps of faith to be sure.Proabivouac 20:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

you are assuming that a source must be neutral in order for it to be used. the conclusion you derive from your ascription to "Islamic" sources is irrelevant and inaccurate. the narrative and sequencing of the sira is based upon analysis of the historical sources, and in this respect Western narratives for the most part are in concordance with ones like Mubarakpuri's (naturally: they base themselves on the same sources). the most significant difference is that of the analysis and justification, which is where ascription of views becomes especially necessary. you seem to be asserting that the POV or presumptions of an author is the basis of deciding whether the work is appropriate. such an assertion is unfounded. ITAQALLAH 20:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

There was NO non-Muslims sources in the start and ALL earlier books were written by devoted Muslims. All your non-Muslim/secular sources copy and quote Muslims sources. Hence according to your above assumption we should delete all the Islamic articles and relax ??? --- ALM 20:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Islamic POV on Muhammad is significant enough to be presented. However, it must be presented neutrally, without endorsement, and this is what this article has so far failed to do. Beit Or 20:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Islamic POV should be summarised and presented alongside all other relevant POV. Islamic scholarship on the other hand is as valid as any other tradition of scholarship and can be drawn on as necessary without reserve.Itsmejudith 21:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Not according to WP:RS, which advises us that it must be "treated with caution."Proabivouac 21:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this source is not that it has a POV, but that it's not particularly reliable (author is a lawyer and publisher is not a university). I don't support evicting it entirely from the article now, but it should be replaced with a more reliable cite at the first opportunity. - Merzbow 23:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I must disagree with Proabivouac's view that an Islamic author is per se unreliable and not quotable. Neither does NPOV require this, nor is it actually possible that an author can be neutral on anything. Merzbow I think is more on the mark. However, I have no knowledge about the individual book in question here. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Proabivouac is, I think referring to the statement in WP:RS "The websites, print media, and other publications of political parties and religious groups should be treated with caution, although neither political affiliation nor religious belief is in itself a reason not to use a source." I don't see this as applying to the Muslim tradition in scholarship, still less to the book discussed here. There is an important distinction to be made between the work of a scholar who may follow a religion but who writes in his or her own name, and a publication, probably anonymous, issued by a religious group. I agree with Merzbow that this reference should be replaced by another one as soon as possible, although I have a rather different reason. I'd suggest that the overriding point in this case is that the source is an old one. Too old for us to assess it by the author's area of qualification and publisher in the same way that we would for a more recent text. Also, likely to have been superseded by more recent scholarship, which could be either "Western" or "Eastern" - this is an international encyclopedia.Itsmejudith 17:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:Maome.jpg

This image does not add informative content to the article. I believe that its removal is correct per Wikipedia guidelines regarding uniformative images that may be offensive. --BostonMA ^talk 18:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do you believe it is uniformative? Which Wikipedia guideline suggests "uniformative images that may be offensive" should be removed? Thanks, Gwernol 18:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Gwernol, when I attempt to determine whether an image is informative, I apply a simple test. I ask whether I can write a short summary of what the image informs me. The guideline that suggests that uninformative images that may be offensive should be removed is WP:Profanity. To be clear, this image is informative about Persian art and about depictions of Muhammad and is correctly found elsewhere in the encyclopedia. Sincerely, --BostonMA ^talk 19:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

BostonMA, as you're aware, I've addressed your argument at Talk:Muhammad/Mediation, demonstrating that this guideline enjoys no consensus, was explicitly rejected as policy, and that an attempt to add depictions of Muhammad to the guideline was explicitly rejected. Having not bothered to answer those points in mediation, you now reappear here to repeat a line of argument which, presuming that you'd followed the mediation you initiated, you can only be aware is seriously flawed.

Gwernol, although our prior mediator has left Wikipedia, supposedly due to personal threats, I imagine it will continue at some point. I invite you to review the discussion and, if you like, to join it.

In the meantime, we have a single-issue sockpuppet, User:Funnypop12, removing the images with ALM scientist's encouragement.Proabivouac 19:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

BostonMA, thanks for the reference to WP:Profanity. I think this comes down to whether the image is informative. I can see several reasons to believe it is: 1) It is the only image of Muhammad in the article; just as we have portrayals of Jesus in the Jesus article for example, it makes sense to have a portrayal of Muhammad here 2) It shows that there are indeed depictions of Muhammad 3) Most importantly it shows us how Muhammad is depicted by a religious artist. The Islamic prohibition on images of the prophet aside, he has been depicted and presumably none of these depictions are direct illustrations of the person of Muhammad. Therefore they are artistic interpretations that show how the artist interprets the prophet and the context in which he appears. The fact that in this picture Muhammad is shown above and to the right of his followers, the gesture of his hand and the expression on his face all hold significance. They tell us how Muhammad is perceived in the 16th. century. I don't see how this is not informative. Gwernol 19:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You said: They tell us how Muhammad is perceived in the 16th That means after nearly a century of Muhammad death. Do you think a historical article that tell about life of Muhammad should have something that has nothing to do with real Muhammad. You can go and improve article named Depiction of Muhammad and keep that picture there. (BTW I never had any sockpuppet since I am here in wikipedia.) --- ALM 19:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, stop compare Jesus and Muhammad they are very different persons and should be treated differently. Historically Jesus has be depicted in pictures and Muhammad not usually except in very very few instances. --- ALM 19:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[Responding to Proabivouac] In general, guidelines do not share the same level of consensus as policies. It is for that reason, in part, that they are guidelines. However, this does not mean that we should ignore the guideline and do the opposite. A fair number, if not the majority of participants in the mediation expressed the opinion that images should have informative or encyclopedic value.

[Responding to Gwernol]. I agree that the way Muhammad may have been perceived in the 16th century by a very distinct minority of his followers, is something that has encyclopedic value and deserves a place in Wikipedia. However, the article is about Muhammad and not about what individuals many centuries later may have imagined regarding Muhammad. Regarding your point 3, I think it is important to employ NPOV. The image does indeed show us how Muhammad is depicted by a religious artist. However, the overwhelming majority of depictions of Muhammad are in the form of calligraphy. Presenting the atypical as if it were typical may be very misleading to readers. Could you clarify what significance you find in the gesture of his hand or the expression on his face or that he is shown above and to the right of his followers? Do we know that Muhammad used this gesture, or that he had that expression, or that he made this purported address standing on a platform? --BostonMA ^talk 19:44, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually I have no idea what the specific significance of those gestures are, but I'm certain they had specific meaning to the artist, and I would assume they form an iconography of the relationship of Muhammad to his followers and the particular moment being illustrated. The point is that the illustration is embued with meaning and this meaning is highly informative. As for your point about calligraphy, this image isn't being presented in the article as being the typical or common form of depiction of Muhammad, so I don't think you can claim it violates WP:NPOV at least on those grounds. I don't believe it misleads readers, especially as the article already has a section on depictions that describes this issue. Gwernol 20:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

ALM, a lot of what we know about Muhammad comes from later sources. I think your line of argumentation is all wrong. Most of the images of Jesus are also over a millennium after his death but they are notable. The issue here is how to properly represent a tradition. It is clear that the images are not of this historical man, Muhammad. In terms of realism the pictures are often cartoony--Muslims did not develop the same painting traditions as Renaissance Christians to depict people as lifelike humans. What images represent the tradition of representing Muhammad? I would argue that first we need a calligraphy. We have that. Then we should probably have more calligraphy of a different style. Then we should have a face covered picture. I would have no problem with a face covered picture lower in the article. In fact, I really don't mind this image too much. Just, let us not pretend we are using it to represent Muhammad. We are using it to represent the tradition of representing Muhammad. I'd say we need one traditional image and then calligraphy. That is my prescription for this page. But, we need someone to do research to look into how prevalent paintings were of Muhammad and to find what kind of painting represents him best or, if you find that historically there is no case for using an image because it is such a minuscule tradition then make that case. I know there has been a long tradition of not depicting Muhammad... but I cannot make out if this argument against any image is privileging modern strains of iconoclasm or really representing how he was depicted throughout history. But, what I want people to gain from this post is that "informative" does not apply to representing the historical man. It applies to accurately representing the tradition of depiction. So, let us try to accurately represent the tradition without giving in to either modern Muslim iconoclasm or the Western sense that a picture is a more accurate representation. gren グレン 23:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The image is unnecessarily inflammatory to have so early in this article, and perhaps in the article at all. The subject of "traditions of depictions of Muhammad" is important enough to have an article about it with pictures, and it does, but not important enough to creep into this main article. - Merzbow 03:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

In what way(s) is it "inflammatory?" Because we've a handful of editors deleting it? This seems to me entirely circular.Proabivouac 08:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It is "inflammatory" because very large majority of Muslims feel it inflammatory. --- ALM 15:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Yup. I have no problems with including information in articles that piss off large numbers of people if it is highly encyclopedic, and in the correct place (i.e., the Criticism of Islam articles). But as has been pointed out a number of times here, this image is of minimal historical importance, so why throw gasoline on the fire by putting it at the beginning of this extremely high-profile article, which should be kept as short as possible and thus should only include the absolutely most reliable and relevant data? - Merzbow 21:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

ALM, that's not a good reason. You need to argue your case based on Wikipedia rules. If your only reason is because it offends Muslims then you have no case. Try to bring some evidence about whether or not it's relevant. I have just e-mailed a professor about their opinions. I may or may not get a response but hopefully that will be interesting. gren グレン 02:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules bound our actions, they do not write articles. It is within the rules to include the pictures, and it is within the rules to exclude them. It is a judgment call on the part of editors whether or not to do so. - Merzbow 08:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this is inflammatory. Note, inflammatory is not a subjective feeling but an reaction that can be clearly shown. But, the guideline doesn't talk about "inflammatory" but about "offensive". In what regard is it actually offensive (as opposed to a mere dislike)?

The certainly is informative, as it tells us about how Muhammad possibly looked like. Clearly it is no passport photo and hence not very accurate but neither are the pictures we have at Jesus (leaving aside my view on a certain shroud). The answer to this is to include more than one picture of Muhammad, just as it is done over at the Jesus article. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 21:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

"How Muhammad possibly looked like". "Not very accurate". Are you actually trying to convince us with these statements? He was male and came from Arabia. Beyond that your guess is as good as mine. Islamic art is one of the world's most important artistic traditions - can we try to let its light shine through in this encyclopedia? Thanks. Itsmejudith 23:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you have misunderstood me. I am in favour of including one, two or more pictures (artistic depictions) of Muhammad in his article, just as we would do in any other article. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 08:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It is ludicrous that we are back at this again. The picture is now sourced. Why this one picture in particular has drawn the ire of some is beyond me, unless it is a prelude to the deletion of all such images. It is no more or less informative or relevant than the dozens of posthumous images of Jesus, Buddha, Moses, or, for that matter, Genghis Khan.

ALM's insistence that this is a different case because it deals with Muhammad fails to convince me, as do the constant appeals to irrelevant "profanity" guidelines. ALM's insistence that "Historically Jesus has be depicted in pictures and Muhammad not usually except in very very few instances [sic]" is entirely his own original research and a statement that is not borne out by the evidence. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 18:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay than I challenge you. You named THREE mosques and FIVE books with picture of Muhammad. Books should be published by reliable sources and should not have cartoon images but should have historical pictures If you succeed than I will drop my objection.

In Germany and Sweden all the churches I have visited had picture of Jesus. Even the train-station on Christmas had pictures of Jesus. I have visited much more mosques as compared to Churches in my life being a Muslim. I never ever found a single picture of Muhammad. Hence accepting that they both are different kind of people and should be deal differently is logical.

Similary you could find a picture of Jesus of 6 century an that time Muhammad was alive. Did you ever find any picture of Muhammad so old. Best all of those people pushing pictures are able to find a picture of 13th century and other from 16th century (compare it with 6th Century picture of Jesus). They were different kind of person and each individual should be deal differently according to history. --- ALM 20:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

What one finds on wikipedia may not conform to what one might find in a mosque. Your argument would be relevant only were our topic Muhammad in Contemporary Mosques.Proabivouac 20:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Will it be conformed to other encyclopedia and books? Because many other encyclopedia has no picture of Muhammad too. Or it should only be conformed to just tease other people on the name of no-censorship? --- ALM 20:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It should neither tease people in the name of no-censorship nor censor in the name of no-teasing-in-the-name-of-no-censorship.Proabivouac 20:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:Miraj2.jpg

A number of editors such as ALM Scientist keeps removing this image from the article. Could these editors please explain why? It is a high quality painting that seems to be both relevant and appropriate to the specific section of the article, and it also provide the readers with relevant additional information. -- Karl Meier 11:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Do not create a new sections with same heading read above a section already exist. --- ALM 14:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I haven't created "a new sections with same heading". Try to read it again, and do not edit my comments on this talk page. -- Karl Meier 15:46, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I think because there's still debate on whether or not there should be an image of Muhammad. The debate was about the first image--now you're adding another. It is pretty obvious why this is happening. Can't we just get the question of the images settled and then maybe we'll come up with: "there should be 1 Muhammad painting" or 2 or none. I don't know, but this edit warring is stupid and I am going to have to get the page protected if it doesn't stop. gren グレン 02:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

If the image is relevant, adds additional information, is of high quality and is also appropriate in the section where it has been added, then I don't see what there is to discuss. Wikipedia exist to inform it's readers about various issues, and is supposed to use illustrations where it is appropriate and where these illustrations adds something to the readers understanding of the articles or sections topic. Islamic right wing opinions and ideas about what is allowed and what be published are irrelevant, as they are not a part of Wikipedia's policies. Another thing is that I don't see why we should discuss if we should have one or two images or a hundred images? Frankly, I believe it is a pretty strange approach to this issue. It seems more reasonable to discuss individual illustrations and whether or not including them is according to policy. -- Karl Meier 09:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Karl. I have voiced similiar opinions on Muhammad's mediation page here. This matter must be decided once and for all, not only for this article but for others as well like the Kaaba where I'm facing similiar issues where some editors keep removing pictures. The job of an Encyclopedia is to INCLUDE information, not exclude it. If inclusion of good interesting information offends some editors, well sorry - that doesnt mean the 8,000 people visiting Wikipedia every hour will never get to see that information.--Matt57 22:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

If we needlessly alienate a large section of our potential audience by inclusion of pictures in a location far more prominent that their marginal encyclopedic value would appear to justify, then a greater disservice is done. - Merzbow 00:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

If the editors we are alienating have opinions of an extremist minority nature, maybe we are better off without their contributions. You can be sure that someone else with better moderate more tolerant views will take their place. If you stop being afraid of people's views and give priority to "information", which is what this Encyclopedia is for, everything else will take care of itself.--Matt57 06:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Matt57 has a point. Editors who've deleted depictions of Muhammad have not, in general, contributed neutrally to this space, while readers who expect image-free articles are probably not looking for neutrality in text, either. Wikipedia is, by design, probably not their ideal resource or home.Proabivouac 09:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It is hardly only extremist Muslims who are offended by depictions of Muhammad; from what I understand, the majority of them are, extremist or liberal. Would you also advocate including a picture of the infamous Piss Christ in the first page of the Jesus article? There are a million ways to compromise on this; why not include one of the depictions with Muhammad's face blanked out at least, and put the picture much further in the article? - Merzbow 09:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

As opposed to Piss Christ, the images of Muhammad are not intentionally inflammatory and provocative. They were made by Muslims in a good-faith effort to depict Muhammad. Beit Or 09:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

"From what I understand, the majority of them are, extremist or liberal."

Merzbow, I am in all candor not convinced that this is the case. Silence in the face of social pressure does not necessarily equal support of censorship. Were I growing up in a country where such depictions were prohibited, and I heard that Wikipeda was uncensored, I would certainly hope to find them here, and would be disheartened to discover that the same elements which regulate thought and dialogue in my homeland had expanded their racket all the way to Florida. I'm not certain to how many readers this might apply, but I don't believe you are, either.Proabivouac 09:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

There's no censorship going on here. The images are in Depictions of Muhammad, one click away. Thowing these pictures in the face of Muslims who, for whatever reason, are offended by them, by placing them on the first page of the second-most important Islam-related article here, is working directly against the goal of getting information to Muslims. Many will come to this article, new to Wikipedia, see the picture, and immediately log off, instead of being drawn into the article, seeing that Wikipedia is a high-quality resource, and in time perhaps becoming willing to push their own boundaries and click through to more controversial articles like the Depictions or the Criticism articles. - Merzbow 18:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

No one is "throwing these pictures in [anyone's] face" anymore than pictures are thrown in one's face on any other article. Such langage is prejudicial and unduly dramatic: the images are merely displayed in the margins, no more obtrusive than the Islam or Muhammad template. Were a giant close-up in the center of the lead, then your characterization would be on point, and I should hope that we can all agree to stop such trolling.

“Many will come to this article, new to Wikipedia, see the picture, and immediately log off...”

We have no evidence to this effect. Perhaps, who knows? What I’m seeing is the implicit promotion of editors to this page to representatives of the Muslim world - and they are not logging off and quitting Wikipedia, but are as active as ever. The relentless anon and sockpuppet attacks are perhaps more meaningful, but what do they mean? Are they current or former editors? Are they responding to BBS posts? Or are they average people, reading Wikipedia peacably, who come across the images and feel compelled to act? I find that last scenario unlikely, but again, maybe. We don’t know.

I believe this discussion is important enough to be migrated to the mediation page. Do you agree?Proabivouac 18:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

There are tons of depictions of Muhammad. Many of them are historically relevant and information. One such example is Muhammad with a bomb turban from Jyllands-Posten. It has an interesting story that belongs on Wikipedia. It does not belong in this article. My point is that adding information is not the only criteria. You have to weight what best represents the tradition. The reason I listed a certain number of pictures is because we will have X images on the page. A will be calligraphy, B will be places important to Muhammad (such as the mosque in Medina) and C will be paintings of him. They should be proportional to their importance to the article. Some things are informational but are just not important enough to warrant inclusion in the article. We should be trying to figure out if the paintings are important enough. I think this is completely reasonable. It's obvious information--the question is, "is it important enough to belong in this article compared to other representations". There are tons of images we can use--why are we using the ones we do? That is what both sides need to justify. Articles can only support a limited number of images so we need to use what best represents the subject. This is why no one is questioning pictures on Depictions of Muhammad (I hope) but they are for this article. gren グレン 07:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Gren, see my comment below. Can we keep this discussion in one place?Proabivouac 07:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Grenavitar, I have responded to your statements regarding images of calligraphy on the Muhammad mediation page[7], where this debate should be taking place. Many editors may not be aware that the points they are raising here have already been raised there. Conversely, if they have new points to make, it is important that they appear there.Proabivouac 06:48, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Persian Kings

Funnypop12, could you please substantiate you claims that the picture that we have in the article is a painting of Persian kings, or could you please stop reverting? Another things is, that for the record and anyone counting reverts, I am the anon that made the first revert restoring the painting in this article. I actually logged in, but FireFox somehow and for some reason logged me out again.. -- Karl Meier 18:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Muhammad and Jewish Tribes

Hi This section could be improved as a new article, as this is not a very significant part of his life I suggest we create a new article for this. This will help keep the current article short and make it adhere to wikipedia article size guidelines. ŇëŧΜǒńğëŗ 12:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed there is already an article called Muhammad and Judaism why not move this section there. ŇëŧΜǒńğëŗ 12:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've some doubts about the following sentences:

The Qur'an's response regarding the possibility of a non-Jew being a prophet was that Abraham was not a Jew. Is this true? It could very well be, but then was it also stated in the form of a direct response to the Jewish criticism? Not so sure about that. The Qur'an also claimed that it was "restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians". I doubt the Quran literally states this, so why the quotation marks? And I'm not so sure about the ref too. I haven't finished my Quran yet so I don't think I can fix these issues myself but any insights are appreciated. Feer 15:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)