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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ConstitutionalRepublic (talk | contribs) at 01:34, 18 August 2015 (Requested move 17 August 2015). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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On Khwarizmi's Iranian(Persian) background from an involved reader of the concensus

Tabari

Which "Tabari" "gave his name..."? The disambiguation page doesn't help.

clarification

Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was not Zoroastrian, but he was a Muslim. So, please correct the information on religion belief from the unsure information that currently exists to "Muslim" Thanks.

Not Etnicity, but place

Best is: Cental Asian scholar!

Aztone

Persian or Khwarazmian?

There seems to be an edit war going on about this. I'd like to point out that none of the specialist sources I've checked mention anyting about his ethnicity. His article in the Encyclopedia of Islam starts with "mathematician, astronomer and geographer, who utilised the Arabic language. [...] We know that in his youth, during the caliphate of al-Ma'mun, he worked in the Bayt al-Hikma [q.v.] of Baghdad, but we know very few other biographical details." (2nd edition, vol. 4, p. 1070) Also in Britannica he is described as a "Muslim mathematician"[1]. There is no mention of his ethnicity anywhere. This is also the case for the other encyclopedias linked in Further reading; none of them use "Persian". Unless we know something about his biography that the other encyclopedias didn't know (seems unlikely), I suggest that we remove "Persian" from the lede. Wiqi(55) 18:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]



I agree with Wiqi we should change the name , it seems that some people here have political motivated agendas to add and edit wikipedia for their one benefit and not for all readers and everyone,

Khwarazmi was a khwaramian which is a indo-european people, does this make all the rest of the indo-european in the world, germanics, slavics, kelts, and half of the world, persian, as they claim here some of the defenders of the persian theory, also their are claims of khwarazm being persian controlled but that was several centries ago befoer khwarazmian was born, that user seem to be very little informed, persian power ended in the arab conquest of central asia, and that was 200 years after khwarazmis death, before that turks and arabs controlled which according to his theory he should been an arab or turk, however, the majority of the natives in khwarazm was indo-european and not persian, its not the same thing, others claim that biruni said that khwarazmian and perians were the same , but thats doubtful , according to heredotus, there was one million soldiers of the persian army invading greece, which cant be taken seriously because the land cant feed one million soldiers, there arent one milliion perisian men avaiable , so history afterwards have to take in consideration what is likey or not likely even if the priamery source wrote this or that,


Also I have noticed aggresive opionions and allegations and accusations to other users for example by arya pars, who claims that their is only arabs nationalistics trying to make room for themselvs, its not appropriate but wikipedias guidelines to behave this way, the user should be warned or banned,

please give your opinions,--Siktirgitir (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)siktirgitir[reply]

Idealy, the editors who reverted you are now expected to explain their action. And yes, some people do push a nationalist agenda here on Wikipedia. This is usually done by citing poor-quality sources or ignoring ones that deal extensively with the subject and happen to be more faithful to the primary source (which I assume doesn't say anything about al-K's ethnicity). BTW, a similar problem also exists in the lede of Biruni. Wiqi(55) 23:04, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]


thank you mr Wiqi, I really appricaite your opionions, you are a hero to mankind by spreading objective and true information, I wanted point out that,

as you say quote "This is usually done by citing poor-quality sources or ignoring ones that deal extensively with the subject and happen to be more faithful to the primary source" I totally agree, also in the biruni topic, thank you for enlighting this problem,----Siktirgitir (talk) 13:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)siktirgitir[reply]

One of the cited sources for his ethnicity obviously say that he was Persian:

Al-Khwarizmi himself was of Persian stock, his ancestors coming from Khwarezm, in distant Transoxania. The Banu Musa, al-Mahani, and a host of others in the intellectual circle of ninth century Baghdad, were also Persians.

So you can't remove his ethnicity just by starting a section on the talk page and a removal just based on your personal claims. The article is clear and the reverts have no problem. I've reviewed this edit warring that started by Siktirgitir and if he/she continues, admins will decide about him/her. If you think "Khwarizmian" is something different than "Persian", use your reliable sources, but DO NOT delete current cited sources. Also remember Persian and Persian-speaking are Iranic, and Iranic is Indo-European. Khwarizmian is Iranic too. So your nonsense "Indo-European" claim is not helpful for this article. Can you define "Indo-Europeans"? Zyma (talk) 07:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Zyma, could you explain why the other encyclopedias (especially the ones with long and authoritative articles) do not use "Persian" anywhere in their articles? Also, the term Persian has multiple meanings. It can refer to Persian people, but it can also more loosely refer to anyone in Iran and parts of Central Asia who speaks an Indo-European language. To avoid confusion, some historians explain which sense of Persian they mean (e.g., [2], see n.21). Thus we can't just assume that any source which uses Persian automatically implies Persian people. That would be original research. Wiqi(55) 15:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any policy-based objections to removing "Persian" from the lead? The best reliable sources I've seen make no claims about his ethnicity. Wiqi(55) 23:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the biography by Toomer in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography explicitly calls him "a man of Iranian origin". —Ruud 23:47, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 4 August 2015: fix link to Wiktionary in article

The quotation after the second paragraph in the section "Life" contains the bracketed text:

… between whom the letter wa [Arabic 'و' for the article 'and'] has been omitted …

The link and points to a nonexistent entry in the Arabic Wiktionary. Moreover, 'and' is a conjunction, not an article. I suggest replacing the bracketed text with:

[Arabic 'و' for the conjunction 'and']

which is the appropriate entry for the Arabic word in the English Wiktionary. Thanks. 189.30.253.246 (talk) 21:23, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done Stickee (talk) 00:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ruud Koot: the text changed in the brackets does not appear in the source quote; it's an editorial clarification per WP:BRACKETS. You may see the source on page 108 of this (end of first paragraph of note 1). Thanks, Stickee (talk) 22:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Stickee: I didn't notice that. Thanks for the clarification. —Ruud 23:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 17 August 2015

Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-KhwārizmīAl-Khwarizmi – Per WP:CONCISE, WP:DIACRITICS, and WP:COMMONNAME. The current title is redundantly too long to even type, and not as common as the proposed title. The shorter, "Al-Khwarizmi" is the COMMONNAME as per RS and even the article itself, and already redirects to the article. As for the diacritics, Google Books search shows "Al-Khwarizmi" and "Al-Khwārizmī" are both common in English language books, though "Al-Khwarizmi" (without diacritics) tends to be more common in the titles of books written about him. Furthermore, as per the policy on WP:MOSAR, standard transliteration is preferred over strict transliteration. "If there is no primary transcription, a standard transliteration is used". As per the table on WP:MOSAR#Long vowels, a standard transliteration should not use diacritics; only a strict transliteration may use diacritics. (Titles of other articles using standard transliterations also do not use diacritics, including Al-Biruni, Masjid al-Haram, etc.) Hence our title of the article using standard transliteration should not use diacritics either. Khestwol (talk) 15:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the current name is not in a first name last name format. The current title includes a given name, a father name, and then a geographical name. Hence your comparison seems invalid. Khestwol (talk) 16:21, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And the "da" in Leonardo da Vinci is neither a first, nor a last name, but a preposition. The same reasoning still applies. —Ruud 16:37, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Still no reason whatsoever has been provided why we should continue to use the diacritics in the title when the standard transliteration of WP:MOSAR doesn't use them. Khestwol (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The rejection of diacritics in what is the scholarly standard is confusing to me as they impart rather crucial information and they are widely-used for many other languages. This is a scholarly romanization that goes back a very, very long time. It's not like some newfangled fad and it's part of their name. Here's an example: "Huế (listen) is the capital city of Thừa Thiên–Huế Province, Vietnam. Between 1802 and 1945, it was the imperial capital of the Nguyễn dynasty." Ogress smash! 21:05, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's not "scholarly." And no one off Wikipedia writes like that. Compare: "Hue (hwā) [key], city (1989 pop. 260,489), former capital of the historic region of Annam, Vietnam, in a rich farming area on the Hue River near the South China Sea."[3] ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 23:08, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, it demonstrates the use of diacritics, and Vietnamese speakers write like that. We use diacritics for European languages. Somehow it's fine to use French diacriticals all over the place but add tone markers and "nobody writes like that"? Scholarly romanisation for Arabic is, in fact, most commonly the Hans Wehr transliteration used in the current title. Ogress smash! 23:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As a English-language reference work, Wikipedia should generally follow a style similar to that of published English-language reference works. I don't know what to make of this post. The publishing industry is wrong to leave out tone marks and "Vietnamese speakers" are the ones who do it the "scholarly" way? Uh, run that one by me one more time. ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 01:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Book titles most certainly do not commonly use the single name. See the long list of titles given at #Requested move (2011). —Ruud 16:42, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A counter evidence can be found at the Google books link in the nomination post. Khestwol (talk) 16:44, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Google searches are unreliable, and WP:COMMONNAME states we should use reliable sources. The same argument could be used to argue that Ludwig van Beethoven should be moved to Beethoven, which we shouldn't. —Ruud 16:49, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Google Books search is our most reliable tool to determine WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources in English. Khestwol (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Other subject-specific encyclopedia's list him under the following names:
  • Toomer, Gerald (1990). "Al-Khwārizmī, Abu Ja'far Muḥammad ibn Mūsā". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 7. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-16962-2. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Brentjes, Sonja (2007). "Khwārizmī: Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al‐Khwārizmī" in Thomas Hockey et al.(eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 631–633. (PDF version)
  • Dunlop, Douglas Morton (1943). "Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Khwārizmī". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (2). Cambridge University: 248–250. JSTOR 25221920. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
The ngrams result is useless (does not take alternate transliterations into account; same argument could be used to argue that the article Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart should be moved to Mozart, which it shouldn't). —Ruud 23:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I count three styles for this name just in the sources given above. If you count with diacritics and without as two different styles, it's four styles in four sources. One is a journal article from the 1940s and another is a website. Here are some book titles: Al-Khwarizmi: The Inventor of Algebra (2006), A History of Algebra: from al-Khwārizmī to Emmy Noether (1985), Al-Khwārizmī: The Beginnings of Algebra (2009). Check out this index listing. You won't see Obama listed under "Obama" in an index. ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 01:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]