Talk:Saqifa: Difference between revisions

I am not sure it's accurate to call him the founder of Islam. That is like calling Jesus the founder of Christianity or Abraham the founder of Judaism. He is a focal point but he was not the first Muslim (his wife was) so, I don't think that is a correct way to put it. gren

Complete revision

One down, and Succession to Muhammad to go. This is a complete rewrite. I've tried to make it as NPOV as possible. We'll see what happens.

Besides all the stubs to be done, we also need references to Sunni and Shi'a accounts of the meeting. I took three hours to write this with just Ibn Ishaq and Madelung, and didn't take the time to google. It would be good to have a selection of Sunni and Shi'a websites with their versions of the matter. Zora 00:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I added some to the Shia section. Now we only need to wait for the VFD and the regular accusations of Shia biased propaganda :) --Striver 22:43, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, dang it, Striver, the Shi'a section is now a DISGRACE. You know your command of English is poor. You know that I'll rewrite if you bring up a good point in Talk. Why do you INSIST on presenting the Shi'a as illiterate tub-thumpers? Zora 00:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Well said. --AladdinSE 03:37, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Cutting the Shi'a section down to size

Striver, I went through your version and found the claims relating specifically to Saqifah that I had not included, and I wrote them into the Shi'a section. I deleted the rest of your version, and here's why:

You dragged in everything but the kitchen sink in trying to prove the complete Shi'a case against Abu Bakr and Umar. This article is only about Saqifah, it is not intended to cover the whole succession dispute. I am working on rewriting the Succession article right now -- I've spent hours and hours on it -- and many of the matters you included will be covered there. By the way, please DON'T start writing articles like "The Event of the Pen and Paper". That's completely opaque and useless.

It is not fair or right for the Shi'a section to be five times longer than the Sunni section.

A great many of your references are annexed from the tradition of Sunni-Shi'a debate, which I'm starting to think requires its own article. The game seems to be proving YOUR case with references to works that the opponent is believed to accept, which is why you cite Bukhari and Muslim so much. Most readers of this article will not be Sunnis and they are not going to accept Bukhari as an unimpeachable source. The Sunni hadith are completely irrelevant. Most readers are going to be more impressed with academic references. It's as if I were to try to convince you of something and kept bringing up quotations from Dogen Zenji to prove my points. "Dogen Zenji says X, so there!" That would leave you completely cold, because you don't recognize Dogen Zenji as an authority. Well, the hadith-hurling style of argument is just as irrelevant to Wikipedia.

I am rewriting the Succession to Muhammad article to remove all the hadith-hurling, which I think should be put in the Sunni-Shi'a debate article. It is a long-running debate, centuries old, with its own history and intricacies. It's worthy of attention -- it just shouldn't hijack all the Islamic history articles. Zora 00:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Zora, i hade no hadith dumping. I quoted where it was in place, quoted or not, the information needs to be there. As far as the preeceding events, why not have a succesion box following a timeline? As for the other events like the "pen and paper" event, it is a relevant and often refered to event and i realy do not see why it does not deserve its own aritcle, but this one does. --Striver 09:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Zora, you are in violation of WP rules, do not delet information. Is it a new rule that the minority also need to have less space than the others? As long as there is relevant informatino to write, it will be writen. And the reason i quote Sunni sources is simply that i am more accustomed with them. If you find a Shia source for it, you are more than welcome to add it as well. --Striver 22:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Striver, it is not exactly a rule... it's common sense to have some sense of proportionality. We are not going to represent Qur'an aloner views on hadith equally with Sunni. Zora didn't violate any rules... to put it maybe crudely yet very correctly your edits sucked... it's good they were reverted... your edits are incredibly paranoid. gren グレン 04:53, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Zora is not in violation of WP rules. There is such a thing as the art of narrative of which you possess absolutely nil. You cannot dump large tracts of religious text like that with no analytical condensation. Don't you notice how the rest of the articles in an encyclopedia are written? Do you not notice a huge difference in general style with your own? That should tell you something. --AladdinSE 03:47, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I know that i dont write good, i have admited it and its common knowledge. Wikipedia does not demand that i write good, however it does demand that information is not to be deleted due to pov or bad grama. Stop deleting, fix what is wrong. I am reporting the Shia view, in the Shia view section.

If the information is to big and is dominatning the article, we can have a summary and have the complete version in a "shia view of Saqifah". --Striver 17:35, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

No, we don't have to include all your "information" -- some "information" is not encyclopedic. I'm trying to give the gist of your arguments, and cutting the hadith dumps. When I get round to writing Sunni-Shia debate, the hadith dumps could find a home there, if not in their current form. The best thing you could do, Striver, is to provide links to Shi'a sites -- the ones that you're using as sources of argument and hadith -- where real Shi'a scholars, who can spell and write grammatical English, can make a better case than you can. Do you want to convince people? Let them do it. Zora 18:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I dont need to hear you calling legit information on the topic for "information". The topic is Saqifah. The section is the Shia view. I represent the shia view of Saqifah there. I did extensive sourcing. You do not have the right to remove the information. Dont like the spelling? Fix it. Dont like the grama? Fix it. To much verbatim quoting? Refrase it. But do not delet the information. As in your version, the Shia view of the timeline is not represented.--Striver 03:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)