Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ajuran Sultanate

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎ . Nomination went from "it didn't exist" to "even if it existed, info is unsourced". We have input indicating it did exist, which solves the core issue. Unsourced content can be dealt with through the usual channels. Star Mississippi 13:20, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Ajuran Sultanate

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Ajuran Sultanate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Doesn't meet WP:GNG. There is no academic or contemporary evidence that this "empire" ever existed. Ajuran is nothing more then a nomadic clan that was at the head of a tribal confederation which controlled much of the Shebelle region in southern Somalia.[1][2][3][4] Mogadishu was never ruled by this "Ajuran Empire" it was ruled by a dynasty of local Somalis who were also related to the Ajuran clan called the Muzaffarids. Sometime around the 16th century the city would fall under Ottoman suzerainty and later under Portuguese and then Omani control.[5]. The Somali cities of Merca, Mogadishu, Barawa were apart of the Swahili city states that were independent and distinct from one other similar to Pate, Mombasa and others.[6], [7], [8]. The Portuguese who sacked the cities of Mogadishu and Barawa never wrote about the existence of a Ajuran state and describe them as being separate entities محرر البوق (talk) 04:09, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Somalia. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  06:27, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethiopia-related deletion discussions. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  06:28, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
• Keep. This AfD nomination rather seems like a gush of POV. A search of Ajuran Sultanate gives us many books from well-known publishers. We need quite a bit of authoritative sources that present this as fake news to delete this article. Since there is a clan called Ajuran according to what you put here, a page move would be more appropriate; lack of WP:N is out of question. Aintabli (talk) 05:33, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Aintabli you stated that there needed to be more authoritative sources so i will give you sources from academics proving that this "empire" never existed.

  well lets start with J. Spencer Trimingham. you can see that Trimmingham describes ajuran as a clan that migrated to the shebelle region, he describes them as being a tribal clan and points that they did not inhabit the bendair costal regions p. 113/148 [9]

  according to Ioan Lewis the ajuran were a sub clan of the hawiye that occupied the land west to mogadishu and ruled the fertile lands of the shebelle region. [10]

  Enrico Cerulli talks about them as well, stating that the Ajuran ruled a tiny state in the webi shabelle area that was allied to the muslim city states along the coast. [[11]]

  I can provide even more sources [12][13][14] but the point is that there was never an entity called "the Ajuran Sultanate" from an academic pov. From the sources, it seems like Ajuran was a small tribal confederation of pastoralist nomads that was ruled by the Garen dynasty in the Shebelle area. I still stand by my statement that there is no academic or contemporary evidence that this polity ever existed. If you look at the article it states some wild exaggeration with very limited sources. (eg; Ajuran colonized Mozambique) محرر البوق (talk) 06:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  I suggest you check whether the current sources in this article are RS and verify the content. Then, you may edit accordingly. For example, if a source talks about a clan instead of a sultanate, you may change it to clan in that specific sentence. You can also crop clear non-RS or put some up for discussion. When you're done, look back and if it seems that the article actually discusses a clan instead of a sultanate then, you can request a merge with Ajuran (clan) (which I didn't notice it exists in my first comment). By "authoritative sources", I meant a great amount of sources that can disqualify all the content in this article and justify a deletion, which is difficult. Aintabli (talk) 14:24, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  @محرر البوق, I didn't recommend you to remove 35 thousand bytes in one edit. What I meant was to scrutinize the article, check each source, and remove them, if they are non-RS, in separate edits, explaining why it should be removed, preferably in detail. Such huge edits without much explanation will easily become controversial no matter what and may be considered disruptive. Aintabli (talk) 21:26, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Aintabli@Curbon7 I did check the sources for [15] and here is what I found.

  the sources [16][17][18][19] and many more do not mention the Ajuran Sultanate. The rest are not full citations and have no links or pages example (on the Ajuran-Portuguese battles).

  Infact out of all citations, only [20] [21] [22] mention the Ajuran sultanate will full citations. Then there's other sources that mention the trading city states of the coast which Ajuran did not control. If you thoroughly look through the citations in the reflist. You will quickly come to the realization that the vast majority of this article is unsourced. محرر البوق (talk) 21:48, 15 April 2023 (UTC) محرر البوق (talk) 21:48, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

References

• Keep: With no comment on the veracity of the article itself, as Horn of Africa articles can tend to be ripe with misinformation, this polity did certainly exist and has received significant coverage. Here are three literary sources I was able to locate with a quick perfunctory search.[23][24][25]. The citations of the latter source also list several additional works about this polity. Curbon7 (talk) 17:32, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. This is clearly a botched attempt at drive-by vandalism through ‘official’ means, the mass deletion of content compiled by various editors over the years is a good example of bad-faith editing by the nominator of this AfD[26], because none of those editors would have been given the chance to defend that content if it wasn’t reversed. A simple google search returns multiple reliable sources about this polity from various respected scholars and institutions, some of which Curbon7 already highlighted above.

• None of User:محرر البوق sources actually claim that the Ajuran Empire never existed, this is you superimposing your Original Research and POV on the works of scholars and academics that make no such claims, please refrain from doing that, it is frowned upon and goes against Wikipedia policies on Neutral POV. The Portuguese never controlled the Somali coast, so their lack of knowledge on the politics of the region is not a surprise, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and as it stands, there are multiple scholars who do assert that the coast was under Ajuran suzerainty, so the exploits and fortunes of those coastal Somali cities in the period of Ajuran dominance will most definitely be discussed and highlighted in the article.

• There are also enough scholars who refer to the state as an empire or a sultanate, so merging it with the article on the clan is out of the question, just as the Roman Empire and the city of Rome aren’t merged into one. I advise you to discuss each change on the talk page of the article and add the designated Wikipedia tags for citations and additional sources if you feel a claim should be elaborated. Vast undiscussed changes with vague summaries that hide multiple smaller edits will be scrutinised and overturned. I also see no justification for the AfD to continue based on the comments already made by myself, Aintabli and Curbon7. — GoldenDragonHorn (talk) 18:04, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

  @GoldenDragonHorn Even if this polity existed, large segments of the article remain unsourced and without full citations. The claim that the Ajuuran founded colonies in the Maldives and Mozambique is completely false, and there isn't even one reference cited that mentions Ajuran. Ajuran also wasn't involved in the Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts, there is no evidence of this and again there is also no evidence of a Muslim migration from Arabia, Persia, India and Spain into Ajuran territories as well, the source cited doesn't mention Ajuran.

  You make some big claims such as the claim that there's respected scholars who refer to it as an "empire". Can you provide the names of these scholars? One shouldn't just look up content via google books and assume everything that comes up is reliable. I've already posted links and the names of academic scholars talking about this so called "empire". while I concede that cerulli does give it the name of a sultanate, NONE of the sources give it the name of an empire. You also claim that the Portuguese never controlled the Somali coast which is false[27][28]

  The Somali coast might of been under Ajuran suzerainty but they never formed a single entity. The Somali city states and the Ajuran were always distinct and independent from one another despite being closely interlinked.[29] For example, the Ifat Sultanate for a large portion of it's history was under Ethiopian suzerainty, does it mean that the exploits and fortunes of ifat should be highlighted in the Ethiopian Empire article? There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the Somali coastal cities were independent and not under Ajuran rule, so there shouldn't be any reason why one should all this info into that article, this information should most likely be put under the Mogadishu or the Muzaffarids (Somalia) or even any other article dedicated to those city states. Remember that this article should be exclusively about the Ajuran state, not about whatever polities it interacted with. The only information about these cities that should be included is it's relationship with the Ajuran and what effect it had on the Ajuran.

  Also it doesn't matter how much editors worked on this article. If the content they added is unsourced or inaccurate then it can be removed per -WP:RVREASONS

  محرر البوق (talk) 21:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

You nominated the article for deletion, that was an extremely negative and disruptive move and does not show good will on your part nor does it show that you were originally interested in improving the article or the encyclopaedia as a whole, your intent was to get rid of it as quickly as possible with original POV research while weaponising a powerful tool like the AfD, without actually doing the necessary due diligence.

When that didn’t fly, you attempted to mass delete the article by disingenuously misrepresenting a comment made by Aintabli, which again was thwarted by another member. This is a clear pattern of bad-faith behaviour on your part.

No bueno.

You’re currently moving the goal posts and have switched from boldly claiming that it ‘didn’t exist’ and therefore not satisfying the benchmarks of WP:GNG (yet with no sources to back that up) to ‘maybe it existed’, but with the added red herring opinion that its not justified to discuss the economic arteries of an historic state like the Ajuran in the form of its port cities or their exploits in that specific time period.

In any case this AfD nomination is not the place to defend every single claim made in the article (which was not even my original intention). The purpose of an AfD is to determine whether an article is academically and historically notable through verifiable sources to justify its existence and inclusion on this encyclopaedia, and the Ajuran Sultanate qualifies in both cases.

You can start multiple individual sections in the article’s talk page about your issues with some of the claims highlighted above and you will have a better chance at a constructive consensus. I will certainly participate there considering the ethnocentric context of your POV, which is quite obvious from your recorded history of systematically cleansing any sourced content containing the word ‘Somali’ from multiple articles: [30], [31], [32].

All this combined with your bad faith AfD nomination, and unilateral attempts at mass deletion of the article’s content, and I am now tempted to escalate this to the arbitration enforcement committee, since the Horn of Africa still falls under their contentious topics umbrella. GoldenDragonHorn (talk) 01:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@GoldenDragonHorn First of all WP:AAGF, you’re making all of these wild accusation and assumptions about my intentions. I nominated the article for deletion because I believed that there wasn’t any adequate sources supporting its existence as I explained above, this is not disruptive editing. The article presents Ajuran as a naval empire while in reality that is certainty not the case, as my sources show it was an inland confederation that existed along the shores of the Shabelle and Jubba rivers. Also stop saying that the Ajuran had “coastal cities” I already argued that it did not (at least the major ones that were mentioned in the article) and you did not refute that.

I’m apparently moving the goalposts? Have you ever heard of a concession? Something that is wildly encouraged on Wikipedia? That’s how you find consensus. I’m getting signals that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

WP:AFD The AfD nomination is absolutely a place to discuss about the content of an article. If there is a consensus to keep the article then Wikipedians should discuss about other ways one can improve the article, as other editors here have agreed this article is full of unverifiable information and unsourced content. That “mass deletion” was nothing more then an attempt at being WP:BOLD when it was reverted I did not revert it back and discussed with the user who reverted it on my talk page.

What is wrong with those edits? Do you have a problem with them? The Walashma were from Ifat which is west of Harar so they were most likely not of Somali origin, the Al Kawnyen theory is only stated by one academic which I included. Futuh Al Habesh first mentions Ahmad Gragn as being a young knight fighting for Hubat, there is absolutely no evidence that he was from Zayla, the ethnicity tab was a violation of WP:YESPOV as “most historians” do not state that he was an ethnic Somali. It has been proposed alongside other ethnicities and I’ve added sources and the opinions of various scholars, I did not remove the ones claiming that he was a Somali. And the claim that his army was “overwhelmingly Somali” is false as the ethnic composition of his army is described in Futuh Al Habesh as being 1/3 Somali 1/3 Harla and 1/3 Malassay. As far as I’m concerned, those edits were 100% justified and I wouldn’t have added them if I didn’t think so.

If you truly believe that I am a problematic editor go ahead and let the administrators know WP:AN. But you’ll probably have a hard time convincing them about the nonsense you’re spewing. You’re just ranting trying to change the topic, you’re not addressing ANY of the issues addressed in the article. You can continue to believe that the Ajuran was some great naval superpower with dominion over the Maldives and Mozambique, but including that in the article without any sources and reverting my edits accusing it as “mass deletion” is, in my opinion, a complete joke. محرر البوق (talk) 17:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

When there is a clear pattern of bad faith and ethnocentric POV pushing, an editor is not obligated to abide by WP:AAGF, much the same way an editor doesn’t have to assume good faith when dealing with an obvious sock puppeteer or a repeat 3RR offender. Its a privilege not a right. More importantly, two different unrelated users already pointed out to you that your unilateral actions could be perceived by other editors as disruptive and gaming the system. Well, I perceive them exactly as such. You’re also contradicting yourself by stating that the original cause for this nomination was because you confidently believed that the state didn’t exist, nor that there were any academic sources to prove its notability but at the same time push the narrative that it was an inland federation, so I guess it was an inland federation that didn’t exist?

What is clear is that you have made a lot of personal opinions and unsupported assertions in this AfD nomination about the Ajuran Sultanate, but provided no scholarly sources or references to back them word for word. Its irrelevant whether you personally don’t consider the Ajuran polity; a sultanate, a kingdom or an empire. What matters is that there are plenty of reliable sources that do:

“The Ajuuraan sultanate, a Muslim empire, is established in Somalia and soon controls large portions of East Africa.” - Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia Page 34

And another:

”There have been empires throughout recorded human history, such as the Roman, Mongol, and Ottoman Empires in Eurasia, the Ajuran Sultanate in Africa, and the Inca Empire in South America. They are often formed through military conquest or economic coercion.” - Law and Justice around the World: A Comparative Approach page 40 by Mikaila Mariel, Lemonik Arthur

And another:

”The Ajuran Empire, in the Horn of Africa, began to decline in the 17th century, succeeded by the Geledi Sultanate.” - History of Civilizations by Mason Kirby page 25.

Its irrelevant that you personally feel that the fortunes and exploits of the coastal cities in the period of Ajuran suzerainty shouldn’t be mentioned in the article just because the Wikipedia articles of other historic polities aren’t set up that way. What matters is that these coastal cities are discussed by scholars for their trade, politics and regional dynamics in a Ajuran context:

”An Ajuran family, Mudaffar, established a dynasty in the city, thus linking the two entities together; for the next 350 years.” - Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia Page 253 by Michael Dumper, Bruce E. Stanley

And another:

”The Ajuran are said to have been allied with the Mudaffar dynasty which governed Mogadishu , thus creating a link between coastal and interior politics . The Ajuran leadership relied on this link to buttress its prestige and power.” - The Banaadir Past: Essays in Southern Somali History page 27.

Its also irrelevant that you personally don’t consider the Ajuran polity a naval power or even question its involvement in the wars against the Portuguese, because we have sources that do:

”Ajuraan's era of greatness corresponds very well with the short but intense Portuguese activities in the Indian Ocean” - Islamic Art and Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa page 122 by Karin Ådahl, Berit Sahlström

And another:

”The Portuguese empire expanded into the Persian Gulf, contesting control of the spice trade with the Ajuran Empire and the Ottoman Empire.”

Ibid:

“The Portuguese were soundly defeated in their attempt to capture wealthy Somali harbor cities on the Somali coast such as Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, Kismayo and Hobyo by the powerful Somalis of the Ajuran Empire during the Battle of Barawa and Battle of Benadir.” - Portuguese empire during the period 1415-1663 and its relations with China and Japan–a case of early globalization by Pavel Stoynov - Journal of International Economy and Business 6 (71), 60-66, 2018

Sources are also unequivocal about Ajuran’s political domination over the South and Central regions of medieval Somalia, including the Indian Ocean coast for a period of over 300 years:

”AJURAN. An imamate or dynasty that emerged in Somalia to control the Shabelle valley from Qallafo, on the upper Shabelle, to the shores of the Indian Ocean, and from Mareeg on the central Somali coast to the Kenyan frontiers in the southwest, thus controlling most of the south-central regions of contemporary Somalia, from the mid-13th to the late 17th centuries.” - Historical Dictionary of Somalia page 35.

However, be that as it may, your systematic removal of any reliable sources that mention the Somali people in various articles is definitely problematic and casts a shadow on your recent actions here, because in the other article you removed a sourced statement that categorically stated in relation to a historical figure that ‘most scholars consider him Somali’ and another sourced statement that directly stated that ‘the army was overwhelmingly Somali’ and replaced it with synth, because a medieval Adalite chronicle (a primary source), discussing the army of Adal, also mentioned other important groups related to the Somali people during that time-period and therefore in your opinion it has precedent over secondary sources (despite the latter being the bread and butter of Wikipedia).

What is even more disturbing is the fact that your mathematical calculation of the army being 1/3 Somali, 1/3 Harla and 1/3 Malassay is not even mentioned by the primary source in question nor do any of the secondary sources available make that specific calculation. So this is the very definition of Original Research, but that edit and other problematic ones like it will be rectified in due time. Now we are discussing the Ajuran Sultanate.

The place to look for consensus was the article’s talk page, you opted instead (without doing your due diligence pertaining to section C of the WP:AFD guidelines) to push for a deletion process that in most cases would mainly involve senior editors with a periphery knowledge of the region or the subject in question and who could only judge the case based on the merit of its notability, which they did.

The correct way to have gone about it was to 1) add citation tags where necessary, 2) create new sections on the talk page about the boldest claims, 3) trace back those specific edits in the history page and contact the editors that added them in the article with a friendly request if they could corroborate or clarify their statements. If you were to still be ignored then look for sources yourself, and if you failed to find any, then apply WP:BOLD.

This would have accorded you good faith in my eyes and those of others, but your entire modus operandi was the opposite of this. Nominating an article for deletion is not being bold or looking for consensus, its disruptive especially when there was clear easy access to a mountain of reliable sources proving its notability. I repeat again none of your sources in any shape or form claim that the Ajuran Sultanate never existed, which was the foundation of your case for deletion. I also reiterate once more that several dozen reliable sources have now been provided by me and by others that confidently determine that this article meets all the bench marks of notability, so I suggest you withdraw the nomination if improving the encyclopaedia and the article was your true intention. — GoldenDragonHorn (talk) 04:27, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• Keep. The first restule I get at GScholar is an entry under the same title in Wiley's Encyclopedia of Empire. That's enough. Srnec (talk) 01:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@GoldenDragonHorn "When there is a clear pattern of bad faith and ethnocentric POV pushing, an editor is not obligated to abide by WP:AAGF.... Its a privilege not a right." It's apart of Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines, please read WP:BF. I really don't care about how you interpret my edits, if you think that I'm being disruptive then that's your problem. Go ahead and report my problematic behavior to the the administrators because I'm not sure what your end goal is. Yes, I still believe that there is very little academic sources about the existence of this polity (actual reliable sources from respected scholars and publishers not whatever crap you just cited), but I was forced to make concessions because there seems to be a consensus that the article should be kept. You obviously have no idea how Wikipedia discussions work. I have provided multiple sources in this discussion you're just dismissing them. I don't need to provide a source word for word that is completely ridiculous, you're just finding every excuse just to dismiss and ignore them. I gave you the PDFs of works from highly respected academics like Enrico Cerulli and Ioan Lewis, feel free to take a look and enjoy.

Those are not "reliable sources", you're obviously going on google books and looking up "ajuran empire" and whatever comes up you're trying to pass them off as "scholarly sources". The first 4 and the last sources are tertiary sources. Its irrelevant that you personally feel that the fortunes and exploits of the coastal cities in the period of Ajuran suzerainty shouldn’t be mentioned in the article just because the Wikipedia articles of other historic polities aren’t set up that way. What matters is that these coastal cities are discussed by scholars for their trade, politics and regional dynamics in a Ajuran context: Scholars? Who the hell even are these people? They don't mention these cities in an "Ajuran context" that is straight up your own interpterion, it seems like they briefly mention Ajuran and mention the links these cities had to the interior polity, that's it. Anything else is your own interpterion. “The Portuguese were soundly defeated in their attempt to capture wealthy Somali harbor cities on the Somali coast such as Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, Kismayo and Hobyo by the powerful Somalis of the Ajuran Empire during the Battle of Barawa and Battle of Benadir.” The Portuguese were not defeated in those battles, most notably in Barawa where contemporary sources describe them destroying the city which was followed by a terrible massacre. Here is one provided by Barnaby Rogerson[33] So the source you cited is obviously incorrect but you still parade it around as a "reliable source". No offense at all, but it seems like you are lacking competence as you do not have the ability to assess the reliability of the sources you are citing.

Most scholars do not consider Imam Ahmad to be a Somali, some do some don't. The Somali theory is out there but so is the Harla, Arab, Afar, etc. I merely removed that and stated the opinion of various academics, including those who consider him to be a Somali. Reminder, we have to be completely neutral and state everyone's opinion WP:YESPOV. As for the ethnic composition of his army, I replaced it with another secondary source from the University of Cambridge that includes Somalis. is not even mentioned by the primary source in question nor do any of the secondary sources available make that specific calculation. Please read page 53/284 on Futuh al Habesh.[34] The army of Imam Ahmad was spilt into 3 divisions, 1 was Somali, 1 was Harla and the other was Malassay. Not sure what you're whining about because I didn't add this information into any article. If you attempt to revert those edits believe me, I will be there to dispute it.

Like I said I believe that there wasn't any academic sources proving the existence of this article so I nominated it for deletion, other editors disagreed with me so I talked about other ways one can improve this article. That's it, don't feel like repeating myself. create new sections on the talk page about the boldest claims, 3) trace back those specific edits in the history page and contact the editors that added them in the article with a friendly request if they could corroborate or clarify their statements. You don't need to discuss or reach out to other users before making edits when being WP:BOLD... that's kind of the whole point of "being bold"....

Now please learn how to identify reliable sources and how to properly cite them instead of wasting my time. محرر البوق (talk) 08:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

As expected, after multiple sources (proving clear due weight and notability) were provided by us you are now nitpicking and shifting to wikilawyering on whether you personally consider them ‘reliable’ or not. Despite four different unrelated editors pointing out to you that this polity does meet the benchmarks of notability you still refuse to acknowledge this reality, even terming some of the sources provided as ‘crap’ in your personal hierarchy. This is not helpful.

But let’s use a scholar that you yourself recommended above (I.M Lewis) and see what he has to say about the Ajuran polity and the most important coastal city:

”Under a hereditary dynasty, the Ajuran consolidated their positions as masters of the fertile reaches of the lower Shabelle basin and established a commercial connection with the port of Mogadishu where some of their clansmen settled.

The fortunes of this Ajuran Sultanate thus appear to have been closely linked with those of Mogadishu, and the Ajuran reached the summit of their power in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century when Mogadishu was ruled by the Muzaffar Dynasty, an aristocracy related to if not actually of Ajuran stock.” - [35]

Its important to highlight that you have provided several sources but none of which that support any of the bold claims you made in your original nomination post outside of synth. None that question the existence of the Ajuran polity, or deny its notability, which was simply pointed out to you, and which made this AfD bankrupt at conception. That’s not me dismissing your sources, that’s you not substantiating your bold opinions and assertions, which is a big difference.

Whether one scholar considers the violent Portuguese sack of Barawa as a victory, and whether another scholar considers it a defeat is not the subject matter in this discussion (and is still protected by WP:THISORTHAT), what does matter is that I have demonstrated adequately that the Ajuran polity is most definitely discussed by academics in relation to the Portuguese and their medieval activities in the Indian Ocean, which is something you denied.

I will ignore the side discussion not related to the Ajuran Sultanate for now and your amusing comment on my cognitive skills aside, I do not think that your incompetent, which makes this nomination all the more sinister, because how could four different unrelated editors come to the same conclusion, but you didn’t?

I would never accuse another editor of pushing an nationalist POV unless there was a clear history in the form of diffs, see here another example. [36] There is no need to defend your rationale behind the edit in this AfD like you did with the previous diffs. I only use them to demonstrate that you do have an angle, much the same way a Russian nationalist editor mass deleting content or nominating articles for deletion about Ukrainian culture or Ukrainian history would have an angle and would be seen as problematic. Its not a personal attack to point this out with evidence, but I can see that you’re getting frustrated, so from henceforth I will refrain my pointing this out any further.

However, I will remind you of the fact that the Horn of Africa and all the articles about the region fall under the contentious topics umbrella overseen by the Arbitration Committee for a good reason. Unilateral actions such as mass deletions, sudden page moves that change the common name of an article or creating an AfD nomination without clear talk page consensus or discussion beforehand can be perceived as actively undermining the encyclopaedia, and are therefore potentially subject to sanctions, because editing a Horn of Africa related article is not the same as editing the Mickey Mouse or the Eiffel Tower articles.

I made my case for this article’s notability, and will defer judgement to the other editors. — GoldenDragonHorn (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@GoldenDragonHorn That's not wikilayering, I'm verifying these sources to see if they're accurate or not. As for I.M Lewis statements, he imo is referring to Ajuran as a clan based petty kingdom. Enrico Cerulli also stated something similar. This in contrast to the article which describes Ajuran as being a trading naval empire. totally inaccurate.

But you misinterpreted my point about you not assessing the reliability of sources. I did not say anything about your cognitive ability, but that you didn't really know how to cite and verify sources. Which is an important competency to edit wikipedia. When citing references you have to analyze the author, publisher and content to see if they are considered accurate, use the proper template, list the title, page number, url, isbn, quote,etc. I used to lack skills in this too and it took me a while to learn this as well, but this is extremely important when editing wikipedia. Also there is no serious scholar that disputes the outcome of the battle of barawa. the source you cited was written by a bulgarian economics professor from the university of sofia. and he list wikipedia in his references[37], not an accurate source at all.

I did interpret your accusations as a personal attack. And likewise under a contentious topics accusing users of certain behavior (vandalism, disruptive editing, etc) can be considered a personal attack and get you blocked from editing. While I don't believe that you crossed a line or anything, your first reply was clearly written very combatively and was less about the content of the article and more of my motives and previous edits.

As for your opinion on the Ajuran Sultanate I respect it and don't wish to discuss further about this as this nomination should be closed soon. Only wished to clear some things up before it does. محرر البوق (talk) 21:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia has policies for tertiary sources which allows for its inclusion into articles when necessary, dismissing them solely for their status as tertiary is not productive. There is also no need to patronise me, I have not added any of the secondary and tertiary sources listed above into the article, so your demand for ISBN numbers and other benchmarks as proof of competency, or a lack thereof, as a Wikipedia editor is kind of strange, since this is a talk page, where sources are regularly put forward, dismissed or accepted during a discussion. I.M Lewis also quite clearly refers to the polity as the ‘Ajuran Sultanate’ not the clan, or a tribe.

Though I understand you might feel that me pointing out that you have POV is a personal attack (we all have one), that was not the intention. More importantly, in doing so I have not broken any rules, either set by Wikipedia or the ArbCom, as I used clear diffs to demonstrate it. However, since I have no interest in making this platform a toxic place for another editor, I will retract my previous statements, and we can start from a clean slate. — GoldenDragonHorn (talk) 18:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.