Talk:Nasr Al-Madhkur

Ahmad Mustafa Abu Hakim

This guy not a reliable source by any stretch of the imagination, his credentials are unknown, he's never been published by a major publishing house, and his name brings up a few results on Google. His claims and theories appear to be revisionist and contrary to mainstream scholarship.--07fan (talk) 08:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried searching for "Mustafa Abu Hakima" (with an 'a' at the end)? -- Slacker (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, my spelling mistake. Thanks for correcting it. Hakima's account based on Carsten Niebuhr's contemporary account of his visit to the region. A primary source. I can easily resolve the tag.Dilmun (talk) 10:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolved the tag as replaced the contested source with Carsten Niebuhr. Dilmun (talk) 11:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Carsten Niebuhr was just a traveler, not a historian. According to all mainstream historical accounts, Nasr Al-Madhkur was a local Khan or governor of Karim Khan, some obscure travel diary's claim that he ran "independent states" is of no value, and considered undo weight and fringe theory per Wikipedia policy. --07fan (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Disputed

User:Dilmun is using selective outdated sources to give undo weight to a fringe theory that Nasr Al-Madhkur was a sovereign "monarch" of an imaginary state in Busher and Bahrain that never existed, when all the mainstream modern sources refer to him as a khan or local governor of Karim Khan. This is historical revisionism, there are no records of an "independent state" in this area at time, the area was under the sovereignty of Zand dynasty. --07fan (talk) 14:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahmad Abu Hakima is a well-known, commonly-cited, and published author in this field. [1]. Nearly every statement on this page is accompanied by a citation to a "mainstream" source. If there is other relevant information that you think should be included, then you are welcome to add it, but you can't simply tag articles because you don't like what's in them. If you have an issue with the quality of the sources, then you can take it to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. -- Slacker (talk) 21:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I did add my own source, and that's the mainstream soure. Read Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Untill the fringe theory that Nasr Al-Madhkur was a "king" is on the page, the tag will reamin in place. According to mainstream sources, no such state existed at that time, Abu Hakima is a revisionist pan-Arab from Kuwait, not a neutral and relaible source. --07fan (talk) 05:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

His nationality is irrelevant, and it is only your personal opinion that his works are "revisionst" or "fringe." It's not Abu Hakima that says Al Madhkur was independent; Abu Hakima was simply quoting Carsten Niebuhr, and the article makes it very clear that these are Neibuhr's assessments, not Abu Hakima's. Again, the fact that you don't like the information and think it's "pan-Arabist" has absolutely no weight here. I still hold out hope that you'll end your disruptive behavior and stop impugning people's motives with no good reason. -- Slacker (talk) 05:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Slacker, I really don't appreciate your accusatory tone. Wikipedia is no place for pan-Arabist revisionism, it's our job to evaluate the sources. If someone makes a huge claim that Nasr Al-Madhkur ruled an "independent state"? He or she needs to prove it with modern non-Arab scholarly works. What was the name of this imaginary state? No modern historian has ever spoken of such state, all mainstream account from that perod point to the fact that the area was under the full sovereign control of Zand dynasty, this is the MAINSTREAM SCHOLARLY VIEW. One can not re-write history on Wkipedia cherry-picking obscure accounts by some random Arab writer and some traveler who wasn't a historian.--07fan (talk) 06:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Accusatory tone? You routinely accuse people of "re-writing" history, "tendentious editing," and "cherry picking," usually before any discussion has been done, so it's quite funny that you complain about other people's "accusatory tone," but no matter. If you want to believe you're fighting against imaginary "pan-Arabist" forces on Wikipedia that's your business. The issue that concerns me is that you don't seem to actually read the articles you're editing. The article does not say that he ruled "an independent state"; it only says that Niebuhr said so. You can't dispute that Neihbur made that statement, and therefore there is no factual dispute here, and the tag is improper. The article already says he was loyal to Persia (twice!), and it already uses the words "local governor" that you inserted. So, again there is no factual dispute here.

The real dispute here is whether or not to include a reference to Neibuhr's account. So far you have not given any good reason not to do so. Just complaining that the author Abu Hakima (who was simply quoting Nehibur!) is a "pan-Arabist" and that he's "Kuwaiti" (FYI he's Palestinian) is not good enough. Also, Niebuhr is not cited as a historian (another point you seem to be confused about); he is cited by a historian as an eye-witness -- big difference. You have no right to remove that information for no apparant reason other than that you don't like it, and you have no right to claim that it's "factually false" that Neihbur said those words when he so clearly did say them. Whether you agree with his assessment or not is not relevant to this question.

I'm going to ask for a third opinion. -- Slacker (talk) 21:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You ARE cherry-picking sources, giving undo weight to some quote attributed to Niebuhr by Abu Hakima. FYI, Abu Hakima is an unknown writer who was Kuwaiti citizen of Palestinian origin, and whose works were never published by a major publishing house, and whose credentials are questionable to say the least. This is not a matter of Al-Madhkur's "royalty to Persia", Nasr Al-Madhkur was merely a governor of Persia who was appointed to the job, and took his orders from Karim Khan in Shiraz, this is the modern scholarly view. You can't just put a random quote from a traveler in the lead, and pretend that he ruled "an independent state" which never existed, this would be historical revisionism ( a common Pan-Arabist practice) and a clear violation of fringe theory and undo weight policies of Wikipedia.--07fan (talk) 16:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

The use of Carsten Niebuhr in this article is most certainly problematic. The immediately obvious problem is that he is used very prominently in the introduction to assert the existence of an independent state and monarchy. At the very least, this is a serious problem with undue weight. While historical sources are suitable for illustrating information drawn from modern reliable sources, they are not at all suitable for asserting central claims, let alone introductory claims. If no modern reliable source affirms such claims, then we can be assured it is an extreme minority view unsuitable for inclusion. If only a few sources support the claims, then it should be treated as minority view, with relative little of the focus and space of the article devoted to such claims. There are further problems with improper synthesis in this article. The opening sentence is a perfect example of such a problem. If the latter two sources make no mention of an independent state, it is highly inappropriate to string all three sources together to form the claim presented in the article. As a final note, the referencing is somewhat insufficient in the article. The notes are missing information such as publisher, year, etc that are essential for solid citation and ease of verifiability. Vassyana (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)