Talk:Major Occultation

New edits

The new edits are meant to address to following issues, among other shortcomings.

• As a general criticism, the article does not have an NPOV and pushes a certain viewpoint with selective quotes from its sources. Instead of a biased presentation, the article should focus on the historical aspects of the Major Occultation (e.g., Shia crisis of leadership in the absence of imam, doctrinal developments, etc.) rather than using Wikipedia to argue for or against Shia beliefs.
• An article about the Major Occultation is not the right place to insert the Sunni views about Mahdism, which are discussed at length in Mahdi and in Muhammad al-Mahdi#Connections with the Islamic figure of Mahdi
• Subsection "Secular democracy during Occultation" is far from neutral and solely promotes the view that the current Iranian system of governance is illegitimate. Without taking a side in this argument, it's clear that Wikipedia is not the place for such one-sided political arguments. This text is now summarized inside Major Occultation#Sociopolitical impact
• The first paragraph of the section "Criticism" questions the existence of the son of al-Askari and is hardly relevant to an article about his second occultation in Twelver belief. The unrelated second paragraph in this section doesn't appear to be a criticism of anything.
• Based on its content, "Divisions during the occultation" should be renamed "Divisions after the death of al-Askari." After doing so, it becomes clear that this material doesn't belong to an article about the Major Occultation, which took place some seventy years after the death of al-Askari. These divisions are discussed at length in Muhammad_al-Mahdi#Succession_to_al-Askari.
• It's hopefully clear that the short section "Predictions" is redundant.
• The sections "Reasons for Occultation" and "Mahdi's physical existence" and "Signs of Advent" are about doctrinal (as opposed to historical) matters. They are also discussed thoroughly in Muhammad_al-Mahdi#Twelver_doctrine_of_occultation. Instead, it's much better to provide a brief summary of the Twelver doctrine of occultation and refer the reader to Muhammad al-Mahdi for more information.
• The first paragraph in "Concept" is about the titles of al-Mahdi which is irrelevant here. This is discussed more thoroughly in Muhammad al-Mahdi#Titles.
• The second paragraph in "Concept" is about the other precedents of occultation in Shia Islam which is discussed at length in Muhammad al-Mahdi#Other views, where it's much more appropriate. Albertatiran (talk) 12:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)