Talk:Muhammad's first revelation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Near-blanking by Proabivouac

Hi,

I agree that lot of the article was POV and OR before the massive removal of text (and BTW I've seen a lot of similarly low-quality Islam-related articles here), but some parts of it I think were not so bad. You removed a lot of what I assume are more or less facts (but then I don't know Islam well or eg. the differences between sunnah and shia), for example that the angel was Gabriel and that the message became the beginning of a chapter of Qur'an. Probably the tradition about what happened, too. I also fail to see how the title of this article could be POV.

If the article didn't contain outright misinformation in those issues, I don't think the way you stripped the article of its content is very helpful. Unless you dispute those claims, you probably should rather have marked them with {fact} or such. I'm not interested in the issue enough to pursue this issue further (I probably stumbled upon this article in a copyedit campaign to remove PBUH or such), but I would encourage you to consider this when making further similar edits. --SLi 20:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You'll note that large a number (though by no means all) of these articles were created by User:Striver, who uses very poor or no sources, and has a habit of setting views against one another, Muslim view vs. non-Muslim view, Shi'a view vs. Sunni view, etc., with him representing each one according to his own (for all we know) interpretations. Some time later, it seems, a Christian editor added his own unsourced nonsense. Besides POV, each of these passages (at least) is problematic and needs attribution and citation:

• Some theorists have suggested Muhammad's first revelation of the first two verses of Chapter 96 of the Qur'an is prophesied word by word in the Bible. Christians assure that that claimed revelation is not of divine origin which indeed is borne out by the fuller context of the verses referred to.
• While verses 11 and 12 may be descriptive of a claimed revelation such as Muhammad's, verse 13 clearly reveal the two prior verses as indicating a false prophet or prophets.
• The word "Iqra" does not have an exact English translation
• as in traditional cultures, reading silently to oneself was unheard of,
• Some Muslims regard this as a specific fulfillment of Isaiah 29:11-18
• Some non-Muslim are known to speculate regarding Muhammad's health as an explanation of the event.
• Muslims view this incident as no more extraordinary than the sea-splitting of Moses or the healings of Jesus. The narrative also supports the view that Muhammad never entertained any hope in being a prophet, as he feared for his life. Angels according to Islam are agents of God, and as such, they can but do his commands. Later success of his mission, notwithstanding the opposition of his own people and the great powers of the time, is also cited to prove the divine support to his mission. The word translated clot above has also been used in attempts to prove the divine inspiration of the Qur'an.

Speaking generally, this notion that unsourced material should be left until sometime later it is improved is well-intentioned but misguided. Some will never be well-sourced, because it is false, or originates from unusable sources. Much is copyright violation (you will find a lot of that in Islam-related articles.) Jimbo said, it is better to give no information that to give misleading or false information, and I agree with him. In the absence of certainty, we should err on the side of caution and delete. If we imagine it will one day be sourced, then the stub situation is likewise only temporary.

As for the title, it's religious POV that Muhammad received any revelations at all (though it it not the only article which suffers from this problem.)Proabivouac 20:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that :) I agree that all the stuff about Bible prophecies and the Christian response and such was pretty much unsuitable for Wikipedia. I agree there's a lot of copyvio in Islam articles, I've seen that before :(

I still don't think that the title implies that there was a revelation, any more than the article on the mathematical P=NP problem (sorry, couldn't figure out a better example :) implies that P=NP, or more than Death and resurrection of Jesus implies that Jesus actually was resurrected. In my opinion an article titled "Resurrection of Jesus" can very well discuss the occasion/legend/story (choose whichever) of, well, resurrection of Jesus. Pretty much same goes for Muhammad's first revelation, Sermon on the Mount and other such things where the actual occurrence is in question. --SLi 21:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Muhammad vs. Mohammad

I noticed that the article uses two different spellings for Mohammad's name. I am not sure which one is the correct one or, if both are, which is more preferred. Not being a Muslim I wouldn't want to make a change that could be disrespectful to Muslims. Any clarification would be appreciated. ---> Benseac 14:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Both are correct. However, mostly accepted spelling is Muhammad and many Muslim Govt. have offically adopted it. I suggest to change all Mohammad to Muhammad in the article. -- A. L. M. 14:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I'll make that change to standardize the name in the article. ---> Benseac 14:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

What about Mahomet? This appears to be the traditional form in most western languages. French and Polish wikis use it (see here and here), and Italians have a local variety, Maometto. Mohammad is closest to original Arabic, however, since a voiceless pharyngeal fricative triggers allophonic lowering of /u/ to /o/. Aminullah 19:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I would think that for an English Wiki, the more "English" version of his name should be used. ---> Benseac 19:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Which is this "more English" form, then?Aminullah 19:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no "English" version per se, but Muhammad is the most standard scholarly transcription.Proabivouac 19:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That I can't answer, which is why I asked the initial question. There were two forms of his name in the article and, for the sake of consistency, I asked which one was the more correct. I don't know what the preferred spelling is in English and I didn't want to use a spelling that is less correct or accepted than another. If the choice that was decided is incorrect then by all means change it. ---> Benseac 19:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

2004 Oxford English dictionary gives Mahomet, Mohammed and Muhammad as equally acceptable. But Muhammad is most often used by Muslims themselves. Aminullah 14:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You'll see different spellings as different writers attempt to reflect either the written form of the name or the sounds as the writer hears them. Put simply, written Arabic uses the vowels A, I, and U, so no transliteration that tries to reflect the written form will contain an E or O. However, just as in English, those vowels are pronounced in all sorts of ways, including ways that we normally represent with E and O, so those trying to write the name as they hear it may use those vowels. (And the French make liberal use of 'OU' as well.) In this case, Muhammad is preferable, as it best reflects the written and spoken form. With all due deference to the Oxford, Mahomet would be equally acceptable if you are writing for publication in an 18th century European journal. Hiernonymous (talk) 01:49, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Muhammad's age

In the section on the first revelation, one writer has very carefully laid out Muhammad's age at the revelation to the day. However, as nobody knows exactly when Muhammad was born, that calculation is a case of high precision and low accuracy. Not sure what it adds to the article, but I'm not going to jump into anything potentially controversial until I've watched the article a bit longer. Hiernonymous (talk) 01:49, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Bias

The main reason I added the POV tag to this article was that much of it seems to be stated as fact, for example: Then Allah's Apostle returned with the Inspiration and with his heart beating severely. or His wife Khadija used to provide him with simple food and water, and then he would head directly for the hills and ravines in the neighborhood of Mecca. (this is not the only example of the events being reported as fact). However, not all people believe this to be true, so perhaps many areas of the article should be rephrased, for example: It is claimed, or many Muslims believe. Cliff12345 (talk) 15:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• There is an excellent scholarly tradition in Islam which predates wikipedia's WP:CITE by millenia: to establish a "chain of reference": everything said must be attributed to an authority, called "isnad". It seems that this article violates both wikipedia rules and fundamentals of hadith scholarship. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Okay, so since we both seem to agree that we need to reference (and explain who said/believes what), I will do that at some point. Cliff12345 (talk) 17:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Also much of the article appears quite positively biased with peacock terms (eg. Tormented by the social unrest, injustice), these sorts of phrases appear quite a lot, with no opposing (negative) views. Most of these positive phrases also seem to lack any citations (I will try to fix the article if I get the time, however at the moment I have quite a few other things I'm doing). Cliff12345 (talk) 15:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• I would disagree "tormented" as being a particularly peacock term; this is a matter of cultural character of Middle-Eastern flowery narration; a native English speaker may easily find a more neutral equivalent without loss of the intention. However I don't see any harm in preseving some hints of the style of the traditional narration (with proper references, of course). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• I fail to see what kind of opposing view you want. The sentence in question refers to Muhammad's state of mind, and if hadith says he was disturbed by something, then wikipedia reports this (of course, with full isnad). If there are apocrypha which say (with reasonable proof, not just islamophobia) that Muhammand was, on the contrary, overjoyed with intertribe fighting and social injustice; well, we can cite this too. But you cannot tag the absence of the latter POV as bias, because you have to reasonably prove the existence of opposite views on a particular point (if there are none, you cannot say they are suppressed, can you?). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, what I mean is that many of these things are phrased as fact, (others may not think Muhammad was disturbed by a particular thing, as there is no evidence as far as I know which shows that what a particular hadith claims is actually true). As far as I can see Wikipedia normally references what different sources say and lets the reader come to a judgement over whether or not it's true, so I think many of these things should be phrased as According to "this hadith", Muhammad was tormented by social unrest. The type of phrasing in bold allows for the hadith to be correct, or wrong, it allows the reader to look at the evidence and then decide if they want to believe the hadith. I'm not claiming that Muhammad liked the injustice for example, but I don't feel there's any evidence to suggest he was tormented by injustice, so I think Wikipedia ought to mention that it's what a hadith says.Cliff12345 (talk) 17:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
    • My point exactly: in certain areas it is often impossible to tell fact from opinion or mythology. Therefore wikipedia must be careful with proper attribution of statements. That Muhammed spent some time in a cave may be taken for fact, but why he did so is a matter of opinion, and wikipedia must state who said that. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
  • An example in another article would be The Exodus, which is referred to as a story. It also has a section on viewpoints which believe the account to be false due to no evidence. Cliff12345 (talk) 17:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Such a section here would be a good point towards NPOV. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Ok, I've done most of the changes, so the only thing left to do is a criticism/alternative views section. Cliff12345 (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2012 (UTC)