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{{WikiProject Islam}}

== Neutrality ==
== Neutrality ==



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Neutrality

I'm not sure an article that presents a critical review is neutral or encyclopedic. ialsoagree (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just because something is critical, that does not make it "not neutral" or "unencyclopedic". there are plenty of critical articles on Wikipedia, espepcially on other religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism. They even go further and criticise sects such as Catholicism, Protetantism, Mormonism etc. Why should this article be treated any different. Especially when it is providing arguments from credible, respectable sources. We must not allow the fanatics to scare us into complacency or inaction.Atheistic Irani (talk) 00:10, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect Ialsoagree, i believe you should remove the neutrality tag, since this surely cannot stand up to higher criticism, a part of which i have already provided.Atheistic Irani (talk) 00:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's questionable, no matter who does it, I just happened to notice this article. That being said, if consensus favors your opinion, then I'll admit to my own mistake and not object to the tag's removal. ialsoagree (talk) 00:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also believe i am offering the chance for neutrality, by allowing those who are being criticised the chance to respond to the arguments against them. Hence, the reader can be swayed either way- for or against Twelvers. So where is the bias in that? The layout of the article is most appropriate for the oppurtunity for neutrality. I have seen other critical articles that lack this clear outlet for defense. Therefore, this article allows all stakeholders to voice their opinions. Let the reader decide which opinion appeals to his/her common sense of right and wrong.Atheistic Irani (talk) 00:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good plan. Give it 24 hours, if no one else has an opinion, feel free to remove the tag. ialsoagree (talk) 00:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds very agreeable. Thankyou, really appreciated.Atheistic Irani (talk) 00:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of waiting 24 hours before removing the tag, i decided to wait 1 week. I thought this would allow a more comprehensive study of peoples opinions.Atheistic Irani (talk) 23:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Work in progress

This is most definitely a work in progress and hopefully i will be able to update it when i am not busy studying or partying. So please bear with me. Hopefully, the wider Wikipedia community will also get on board and support the growth and perfection of this article. I understand that this article is sensitive and provocative for some, and will definitely come under vandalism attacks from religious fanatics and the weak spirited. However, it is my firm belief that the knowledgeable and consensual Wikipedia community will counter these fanatics' attacks and enable the knowledge provided by this article to continue to reach the wider community.Atheistic Irani (talk) 00:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A note on article layout

If i could just say; i believe the best format for the article is to have the heading of the twelver belief being criticised, followed by the actual twelver belief being criticised, followed by the reasons it is being criticised, finally followed by a concluding paragraph that also links the belief to the broader twelver history. This should then have a "Response to criticism" subsection. I believe this format is the easiest to follow, reduces bewildering clutter, and is the fairest for all stakeholders involved.Atheistic Irani (talk) 23:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Twelver Shia are led by child Imams: Response to criticism: John the Baptist

After some intensive research I have discovered that the statement in the article that “John the baptist (Yahya) was given authority (hokm) while he was a child according to the Koran (19:12 )” is in fact incorrect. This is due to a number of undisputable reasons:

  • Firstly, the Arabic word used in this koranic quote was not hokm (authority). Rather, the Arabic word used is hokmah (wisdom). This is clear for anyone with even an ounce of Arabic comprehension and pronunciation. I would like to think this was an innocent rushed mistake, instead of deceptive trickery that was used due to the similarities in the words hokm and hokmah.
  • Secondly, every single online English Koran translation I found (whether it be from an Englishmen, to an Arab, to a south Asian) translated the word in question (i.e. hokmah) to wisdom, rather than authority. Quite humorously, the person who incorrectly edited the section (at 19.33, 26th May 2010) as hokm (authority) also translated the koranic quote in question as wisdom. This further leads me to believe this editor has made perhaps an innocent mistake.

Therefore, based upon these discoveries I have changed the wording from hokm to hokmah i.e. “John the baptist (Yahya) was given wisdom (hokmah) while he was a child according to the Koran (19:12 )”. Whether this new correct rephrasing of the words is any longer a relevant rebuttal, I leave for the original editor or other interested parties to decide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atheistic Irani (talkcontribs) 23:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you think Wisdom is the criteria why one shuold have authority. So if John the Baptist was the most wise person of his land, he should have been the ruler whether child or grown up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.32.212.11 (talk) 05:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My answer: with all due respect, may I advice you upon not rushing into an argument when you clearly have not assessed the evidences and arguments in any depth whatsoever. This kind of hasty response can be very misleading. Let me answer all your points as simply as I can.

  1. Your statement “Don't you think Wisdom is the criteria why one shuold have authority” is really misguided. Wisdom is definitely one criterion, but definitely not the only criteria in order to have authority. Besides there are many people who are wise or have wisdom (perhaps you may know a few such people), but that does not mean they should all of a sudden have number 1 authority.
  2. Your statement “So if John the Baptist was the most wise person of his land, he should have been the ruler whether child or grown up” is simply untrue. The Quranic quote nowhere mentions “the most wise person of his land”. The Quranic quote only says John was given wisdom while he was a child. While he was a child there may have been people who had more wisdom than him (e.g. If his father Zachariah was still alive, or Mary mother of Jesus- if she was yet born and much older, or other older people) - so perhaps you believe all these people should have shared the leadership of the Israelites? How would they have shared it- on a monthly rotational basis?
  3. Besides, for John to have had dominant authority while he was a child, he would have had to of been a divinely designated Prophet while he was a child (just as the Twelver Shia’s child Imams were divinely designated the Imamate). However, nowhere does the Quranic quote mention that John was a Prophet at this child phase of his life- it only mentions he was given wisdom- and I am sure if he was a child Prophet then the Quranic quote would have said he was given Prophethood (rather than wisdom) while he was a child, since Prophethood includes wisdom plus much more including: divine revelation, miracles, highest moral and spiritual standards etc.

Anyway, in my opinion, using the John example to justify the Imamate of the 3 children should be rejected and deleted from the article. Whoever added this argument did so based upon a Quranic quote that is too vague and in no way addresses the issue of the 3 children being the highest unparalleled authority for the Twelver Shia communities of their times. Plus, there are no references (of scholars, intellectuals, debaters etc.) that were produced for this John rebuttal, which leads me to believe that this was added based upon the poorly thought through reasoning of its initial editor. However, since this is a sensitive topic I do not intend to fan the flames and so will be patient until there is loud consensus for its deletion.Atheistic Irani (talk) 04:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The ages of the child Imams

The User:Humaliwalay indirectly brought my attention to a very important issue, which I had lazily ignored. The issue being: to revise the ages of the child Imams (when they assumed the Imamate), in order to make them more accurate. I had previously recorded the 9th, 10th and 12th Imams as being 8, 5-8 and 5 years old respectively when they became the Imams. However, more accurate conversions, calculations and rounding-off (to the nearest 0.5 years) revealed their ages to be 7.5yrs, 6.5-8.5yrs, and 4.5 years old respectively. For those really interested, the values before rounding-off were 7yrs7months7days, 6yrs4months29days-8yrs4months27days and 4yrs6months24days respectively. These new values were also determined while being lenient and using the given values that actually gave these child Imams their highest ages possible (in order to placate any fussy or combative Twelver Shia readers and editors). My working out is too long and tedious to been shown on this discussion page. However, if anyone would like to work out their ages for themselves, then this can be done quite simply by following the Wikipedia link for each Imam then recording the birth and death of each of the last 5 Imams using their equivalent Islamic or Gregorian calendar dates throughout. This is then followed by subtracting the death of the preceding Imam by the birth of the succeeding Imam. This gives the age at which the Imam succeeded his predecessor. However, I would advise anyone who does not want to waste their time to not bother, because these values are as good as they are going to get. Regardless of the revised or pre-revised ages, these 3 Imams were still assigned the Imamate while they were children and while they were less than 10 years old.

I have also removed the citation tags since the details are by no means “dubious”. In fact I was only using the details that were given by the Wikipedia article link of each Imam (which I would imagine were added by Twelver Shia editors rather than any polemicists) to determine their ages upon assuming the Imamate.Atheistic Irani (talk) 04:29, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Atheistic Irani (talk) 04:29, 3 September 2010 (UTC) - Just Neutral and reliable citation needed, once the issue is addressed, you are free to remove the tags. Thanks - Humaliwalay (talk) 08:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Afd discussion

Copy vio template

Hi, this template seems to have been added without explaining where the problem is and where the content is a copy vio from, is there some discussion somewhere about it? No worries, found it . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2010_November_30 - Off2riorob (talk) 14:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]