Talk:Allah

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As the disambiguation note clearly states, this article is about the word Allah, not the Islamic conception of God. The latter has its own dedicated article, at God in Islam. Comparison of various conceptions of God goes to Conceptions of God please. The scope of this article is etymology, word usage and typography. --dab (𒁳) 09:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I added the comparison because of the "word usage" part :) --Be happy!! (talk) 09:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Dab, I can not understand this revert [1]? Could you please explain.

I couldn't find any reliable source for typography (I worked hard). I think the section is better to go. --Be happy!! (talk) 09:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

nonsense. this is the article on the word Allah. You removed anything related to the word (typography etc.) and started coatracking about God in Islam. This is not acceptable. If you want to make this about God in Islam, suggest a {{merge}} with that article properly. What so you mean you could not find any source on typography? About half of the section concerns Unicode, documentation of which is in the open, and specific fonts, which are directly linked. --dab (𒁳) 17:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Dab, the revision you are reverting to has grammatical problems. The new version is copyedited and flows well. I have nominate this for GA. Let's please discuss this on the talk page first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aminz (talk • contribs) 23:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't we explain what the word "Allah" means to Muslims, to Christians and to Jews and how its meaning to these people differs? The previous GA reviewer even wanted more about this. Please remember that the coverage on the concept of God in Islam or others is very minimal. I removed typography because there was no secondary sources that was talking about the typography of the name Allah. I can not simply add the section myself as it will be original research. --Be happy!! (talk) 22:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The references should list their publisher (such as in USC), I recommend adding it ASAP since GA reviewers will surely point that in a review, cheers. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Thank you! I'll do it as soon as possible. --Be happy!! (talk) 06:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I fixed many of the references but couldn't find anything referenced to USC except some external Qur'anic links to a USC website. --Be happy!! (talk) 06:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I reverted Aminz's version back to Dab's and then merged some material, with copy edits. Let's please try to keep the comparative religion aspect to an absolute minimum, thanks. rudra (talk) 02:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for going through your revert and restoring sections like [2]. Sometimes I really feel why I am wasting my time in wikipedia. Two reviewers tell me to add more of something and then after adding that and nominating the article for GA, another editors blindly and reverts the page to a very earlier version of the page without paying any close attention to the changes made. What a waste of time.

Now. Would you please explain why you added the section "English_and_other_European_languages" to other usage? We don't have Muslim, Christian and other usages and then the usage of Allah in English_and_other_European_languages. That section, IMO, should come first explaining why we have this article in the first place.

Would you please also explain why you restored the typography section. As I explained above after trying much and looking through all relevant books in books.google.com, I became convinced that no secondary sources exists explaining the typography of the term Allah. So, I removed the section. Could you please provide an explanation please. Thanks --Be happy!! (talk) 06:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

• "English and other European languages" is taken from your version.
• The word is used in Arabic and in other languages. Since we're all agreed -- I hope -- that it's an Arabic word, the natural order of material would have Arabic usage first, and other languages later. The ToC reflects this.
• What exactly are you looking for regarding the typography section? Do you doubt that Unicode point U+FDF2 is "ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM"? Or that the Unicode standard annotates it as "<isolated> 0627 0644 0644 0647"? You don't think Unicode.org is a reliable source? (Otherwise you could have found your way to this, p.17 of PDF = p. 492 of Standard.)
• Try this search. If that isn't what you want, then you'll just have to be a little clearer in what you do want. rudra (talk) 01:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

1. You placed "English and other European languages" at the end of the article in the "Others" section.

2. The Arabic word الله‎ is used in Arabic. The english transiliation of it is mostly related to the concept of God in Islam.

3. We need a secondary source that has analyzed the unicode of Allah. I can not do it myself as it will be original research. Someone who knows nothing about unicode should be able to verify it in a mechanical way. Similarly, that the Abjad numerals, the numeric value of الله is 66, could be personally verified if one knows what Abjad is. But for that I found a reliable source (something that you apparently carelessly removed)--Be happy!! (talk) 01:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

"Analyzed the unicode of Allah"?? What does that mean? The code point is simply a fact. Do you need a secondary source to "analyze" 2 + 2 = 4? You want discussion of Arabic typography? Perhaps this could help you? And, finally, you could at least try to read the ToC. rudra (talk) 01:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Please be careful rudrasharman about your language. I am not trolling. I have no idea what unicode is and I have no interest in learning it. If you expect the editors to learn stuff, then you don't need to source anything because they can read and check it for themselves. --Be happy!! (talk) 02:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

My BS-meter is quite finely tuned, thank you. I consider wikilawyering a form of trolling, because it wastes the time of everyone except the perpetrator. It took you this long to twist and turn through various non-arguments to finally come out and say that you have no clue what Unicode is and don't care anyway? Thank you so much! To address this incredibly serious concern: unfortunately, this is not the article to explain what Unicode is. A wikilink is provided for convenience, but if you like, we could add references to the Unicode standard. Will that be enough? rudra (talk) 02:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You are not the kindest editor I have seen in wikipedia. --Be happy!! (talk) 02:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

(<-)Is there anything I can do to help? I had noticed the article when it came to GAR and started to make some minor copyedits. I'm happy to assist -- although I'm inclined to wait two or three days until the temperature here cools down. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 02:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, if I sound annoyed, it's only because it would be even more unkind to laugh. The scope of the article is clearly explained at the top of this section, a scope arrived at from earlier discussions (See /Archive 2, threads such as this or this, where as it so happens a distinguished contributor posted this.) In particular, discussions of theological issues belong elsewhere, something that apparently was not clear to a recent GA reviewer. The article could use some copy-editing; and it seems the Unicode section will not make sense to anyone who really doesn't want to know about Unicode anyway, and therefore needs to be wikilawyered away into shape. rudra (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I myself added the sentence you are referring to at the top of the article; all of the article (except the typography section) was written by me so I am fully aware of what's going on here; and yet I find all changes I made reasonable in my mind. As suggested above, it is best to wait two or three days. Meanwhile Rudrasharman, please take a look at the Britannica article on Allah. --Be happy!! (talk) 04:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what your objections to the Unicode section might be. Stop blanking the typography section. Tag whatever you think isn't sourced satisfactorily. Your combined insistence to add idle discussion on comparative theology, in spite of the disambiguation note that this is about the word exclusively (viz., the Arabic version of God (word), not of God), and your insistence to remove actual on-topic discussion of typographical and encoding issues really makes you look pathetic here. If you are unhappy with the article's scope, make some sort of coherent suggestion, such as {{split}}ting it into Allah (word) and God in Islam. Once you have made some suggestion along such lines, we could then discuss its merits. As long as you just edit erratically, you are just annoying people. But then I take it that compiling coherent proposals is not your forte. Your statement "I have no idea what unicode is and I have no interest in learning it" is a joke. Then don't learn it, man. Nobody forces you to learn stuff, but if you cannot be bothered to do research, you also have no business editing Wikipedia. Aminz, I get the impression that editing Wikipedia is some sort of religious exercise for you (your personal way to "strive". That's your own business, but it will affect the quality of your interaction with other editors, and expose you to the dangers of WP:COI. dab (𒁳) 11:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The two sentences referenced here [3] are good because they can be now mechanically checked (thanks to rudra for adding them). The rest of the section however needs similar referencing in a similar way. Dab, I don't find your comment with its aggressive tone correct nor do I feel the need to comment on it. I am striving for neutrality. Be it say removing glorifications about Muhammad [4], [5] or demonizing it. Getting back to the article, I highly doubt that the typography section could be sourced further; one thing I am kind of sure is that the academic source specifically talking about typography of Allah are rare if they exist. It does not seem to be something of importance to those writing about Allah. The text has been there for more than a year and it needs to go because there is no reason to believe the information is correct. The English term is most notable for the religous conception associated to it and it is my belief that the article was not giving undue weight to the religous conception just as the Encyclopedia Britannica article does not: Britannica starts with the statement that Allah is the standard Arabic word for God etc but covers the Islamic conception of it in more details. If you think the sections were long, we can carefully summarize them while making sure that the main points are covered; details can be moved to other article and a link could be provided from here. --Be happy!! (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

GAR closed

I've closed the GAR with no action taken. The GA fail has neither been endorsed nor overturned. I suggest that once editors are confident that the article meets the good article criteria, it can be renominated.

I also sorted out the talk archives. Please don't archive open discussions (as the GAR was). Geometry guy 18:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Typography

I found two apparently reliable websites [6], [7] that say the following about typography of Allah. If someone please figure out what they say and add them to the article:

[8] says:

The Allah ligature
Under Classic, the fonts al-Bayan (Arabic) and Kamran (Persian) had special ligatures for [A]llah (without the alif), salla Allah 'alayhi wa-sallam and floral parentheses. These were not standardized, so only those two fonts had them.
- To print a document with these characters in Classic, e.g. in NisusWriter 6, you must have the postscript laser file ("AlbayanPla") in the Classic Fonts folder for the characters to print correctly.
- If you convert a Classic file to OS X, these ligatures will disappear, because they were not standardized - instead of the "llah" you will probably get $. However, the font still has the ligature, only in a different place in the font. You can get the ligature back by finding $ and replacing them with the OS X "llah" character. It is a bit tricky to find that, though, as there is no key for it on the standard Arabic keyboard. You can install a special keyboard layout, like my "Arabic(2)" which lets you type the Allah ligature as Option-g. Or you can use Character Palette to point and click (you find them in "Show: Code Tables: Unicode: Arabic Presentation Forms A" down the long list). Or you can activate the Unicode Hex Input keyboard layout, where you must type Option-fdf2.
- In OS X, TextEdit and a few other applications will actually insert these ligatures automatically when you type lam-lam-ha (llah). But only in al-Bayan, this does not work in the other fonts that contain the same Allah ligature, and not for the other "signets"; there you must use one of the methods above.
In versions up to 4.0 of Bayan, you can turn the automated ligature feature off in the "Typography" cogwheel of the Font Panel, in versions 4.1 and higher (OS 10.3 and up) the option of turning it off is not available. In these versions, (Bayan 4.1 and higher) you must also type alif-lam-lam-ha to get the ligature - but the ligature still says only llah, without the alif! On the other hand, these newer versions of Bayan, 4.1 and up, correct another old error, where the hamza under alif carried a superfluous kasra vowel - at least in the isolate form.
While we are on the subject of vowels, notice what is probably a bug, but is found in all fonts except the SIL ones (under 10.4): If you type a shadda followed by a fathatan (a nunated "a" for accusative, thus e.g. for hayyan, "alive"), the consonant breaks free to display incorrectly in the isolate shape. But if you type the harakat in the opposite order, the double a first and shadda afterwards, this does not occur, so do that! This occurs only with fathatan (double a), not kasratan or dammatan (i or u)."

The other website [9] says:

A small feature of this works, among my fonts, only in al-Bayan: Type "Allah" straight without harakat (alif-lam-lam-ha) and the system will replace it with the "llah" ligature, with shadda and dagger alif. Works in all tested programs except the OpenType ones: TextEdit, Nisus, Swift, NeoOffice and Papyrus. But only in Bayan, not in the other fonts that have the samme "[A]llah" ligature such as Kamran. Notice you must type the alif, "Allah", although only "llah" appears. One issue puts the two major DTP programs at opposite extremes: the sequence lam-fatha-alif, which should become a lam-alif ligature with the vowel over the lam. Nashir cannot handle this sequence, and does not create the lam-alif ligature at all. InDesign does, and it alone places the fatha correctly over the lam. All others place it over the alif.

Thanks --Be happy!! (talk) 07:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It may take me some time to figure this out. It may not be necessary for this article to provide more than a brief mention on typographical issues. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Good point. BTW, I think this article is saying things which might be helpful here http://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allahu --Be happy!! (talk) 22:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that the important point is that Arabic type fonts often have special ligatures for [A]llah and ommit the initial alif. It can be summed up in one to three sentences. Majoreditor (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that we need to make it short. --Be happy!! (talk) 05:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Another picture

I wanted to add this picture [10] to the article. But it didn't work: I added the following:

File:Allah-eser.jpg

Allah, Muslims sometimes add the phrase "May His glory shine" (jalla jalalahu) after mentioning the name of God

Is "May His glory shine" a good translation for jalla jalalahu?

Also, I can not understand the info provided for the image: [11]. What language is it? --Be happy!! (talk)

That is a much nicer image, excellent find. Peter Deer (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I can not translate the caption though. Do you know what language it is? Thanks --Be happy!! (talk) 17:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

'sq' should mean Albanian. rudra (talk) 18:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to find someone who know Albanian. --Be happy!! (talk) 01:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Image

I wanted to discuss why my addition of another image was reverted here [12]. Thanks --Be happy!! (talk) 01:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that this page is improved by adding more examples of Allah written in Arabic calligraphy. And IMHO the current image is much better. The image you added doesn't even represent hand drawn calligraphy, but rather a piece of computer art based on calligraphy. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 08:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the computer art on is based on a hand drawn calligraphy; I suspect the same one. The only difference is that it has something more to it which should be a good point rather than a bad one. And IMHO it looks much nicer. --Be happy!! (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The computer art is exactly that: computer art, while the image currently in the article is an accurate depiction of arabic calligraphy. And that something more to it is only colors and shading, either of which isn't present in regular examples of Arabic calligraphy that I have seen. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 12:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

So, the new image has taken a hand made calligraphy and has added colors and shades to it. What's wrong with it? --Be happy!! (talk) 03:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If it comes down to a debate about it then the simplest image will probably win. That being said, I think that the previous point being made that 1 is a very nice image and perhaps should be taken into consideration. Peter Deer (talk) 03:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The other image can be taken as well. But why the simplest image will probably win? --Be happy!! (talk) 03:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

In answer to that in particular, because almost all calligraphic versions are variations on the simpler form of the word, with additional signatures, bits of scripture, or diacritical marks for aesthetic value, and an image of simply the common calligraphic form of the word 'Allah' would have the highest encyclopedic value in that regard. That being said, I'm not particularly concerned, and frankly I think the latvian one is lovely. If it came down to it I could even provide an image (I'm an amateur calligrapher myself) but I don't think that is at all necessary. Peter Deer (talk) 14:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Now the new image is up. --Be happy!! (talk) 05:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyways, if we can use 1, then there will be no need to use any of those two calligraphies. --Be happy!! (talk) 03:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The computer graphic is a very nice image, but it is not exactly calligraphy, rather a computer art based on calligraphy. I agree that the image in Latvian wiki would be better than either of the graphics under debate, but first it should be moved to commons, and for that copyright disclaimers would be required. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 08:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The new image seems to be acceptable to everybody :) --Be happy!! (talk) 05:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Horray for everyone winning! Peter Deer (talk) 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)