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)

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)

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)

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.

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)