Talk:Umayyad state of Córdoba

Proposing merger on Umayyad Cordoba articles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was that a merge should be followed through, with items and information moved from the Emirate of Córdoba to Caliphate of Córdoba page, with the latter page renamed. Consensus determined the best name for the new page would be Umayyad state of Córdoba. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 15:22, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

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I propose merging the articles on the Emirate of Cordoba and Caliphate of Cordoba into one article, titled Umayyad Cordoba, or something similar. While holding the title of Caliph is significant, it should be noted that the state was ruled by a contiguous dynasty up to its collapse. For a comparion, the Ottoman Empire is still one article despite the fact its rulers took the title of Caliph under the reign of Selim I after the Ottoman-Mamluk War (1516-1517). Alongside that, both the Emirate and Caliphate share significant cultural, societal, and political characteristics that should be explained at once in one article. It would also help boost the Emirate as a topic on Wikipedia. I noticed that the Emirate of Cordoba is edited rarely, with discussions on its talk page even rarer.

--Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: To avoid a split discussion, I've removed the copy of this proposal at Talk:Emirate of Córdoba and left a message there directing editors here instead, so we can have a single discussion where consensus can be determined. (WP:MERGE doesn't give clear instructions on which talk page to use when there isn't a clear merge destination. Since this article has more visitors and page watchers, it seems best to host the discussion here for maximum visibility. If there are any problems with this, let me know.) R Prazeres (talk) 07:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

A merger makes sense to me. The polities are identical, just with the technical distinction of proclaiming itself a caliphate. I'm not sure about "Umayyad Cordoba" though. If the title is going to go descriptive, I think just "Umayyad Spain" would be better. It's more recognisable, and better delineates the geography as country-level, unlike "Cordoba", which outside of the context of "emirate of" or "caliphate of" could be readily confused with the city name. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Support.

• As others said above, these two things are the same state/dynasty. The current split between the two has been mostly workable, but it's awkward for Wikipedia's encyclopedic structure and WP:SUMMARYSTYLE because we have no overall article for the entire period/state of the Umayyads in al-Andalus, which makes it annoying when trying to link to that full topic because you have to either link both or semi-arbitrarily pick one of two subdivisions. Neither article is very long, so it would be easy enough to consolidate them into one and hopefully encourage more integrated improvements to the whole topic.
• My recommendation for the new name would be something like Umayyads of Córdoba; mirroring a bit the current name formats but making it clearer that it's about the regime, not the city. "Umayyad al-Andalus" would be precise as well, but might feel less natural for unfamiliar readers? I would prefer to avoid a title with "Spain" as it would run into many of the same arguments as this move discussion.

R Prazeres (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Your bolded name suggestion makes the most sense because the new article should begin the polity at its founding by Abd al-Rahman I after the Abbasid Revolution, and not on Iberia as governed by the Umayyad Caliphate post-711. Though the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula should still go into the background. I might also suggest Umayyad Dynasty of Córdoba as another good title with similar connotations to the one you suggested. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 19:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I thought about the same thing (i.e. confusion with the post-711 years) after I wrote that, and I agree. "Umayyads of Córdoba" is slightly better in terms of conciseness than "Umayyad dynasty of Córdoba", but otherwise I have no preference between the two. R Prazeres (talk) 23:43, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The trouble with switching to a "dynasty" title is that it is less natural when describing the state, as opposed to the dynasty specifically. It is usually the title of a dynasty article spun off from the state to which they are attached. I actually think it might be better to sit at Emirate of Cordoba as the base name, with the technical renaming of itself as a caliphate being simply covered in the text, lead and infobox. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Although boy does Ngrams disagree with me. I guess I'm not reading the right history works. Ok, maybe Umayyad Cordoba works as a catch-all that can have both the other terms redirecting in. I think the advantages of having a common term probably outweigh the minor city confusion issue. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, there may not be a perfectly satisfying option. I think that the results in that last link ([1]) exemplify that "Umayyad Cordoba" might indeed be primarily understood as the city specifically. It's common on Wikipedia and even more so in scholarly sources to refer to medieval Islamic states/periods primarily by dynasty (e.g. Ayyubid dynasty, Almoravid dynasty, Hafsid dynasty, etc). Since we have an Umayyad dynasty article already that deals with the ruling family, I think we're good here with any reasonable title that could only refer to the relevant Andalusi period/polity. So, although it feels unimaginative, "Umayyads of Córdoba" ([2]) or "Umayyads of al-Andalus" ([3]) should be common enough to be recognizable. We can find more common word strings if we search, but the amount of publications treating the topic from many different angles/backgrounds means that a wide diversity of expressions exists, and I can't think of any right now that don't pose other problems for our purpose here. We could always revisit the merged article name later with a move discussion (WP:RM). R Prazeres (talk) 05:23, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. It means the city often. Try Umayyad state of Cordoba – slightly longer, but very precise for what the combined page would reflect, and extant in scholarship as a means of describing the full history. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. I also get the sense that Umayyad Cordoba would be fine on second reference when referring to the polity. What do you both think? Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 16:43, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't be a major issue. Any confusion with the city could be resolved readily with a hatnote. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Although a lot of sources for that are specifically talking about the city. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

"Umayyad state of Córdoba" is fine too, though it seems less common and recognizable. I'd prefer "Umayyads of Córdoba" for that reason, but don't take this as a strong objection; "Umayyad state of Córdoba" would be my second choice among our suggestions so far. (Though be sure to use lowercase for "state".) Both are clearer than "Umayyad Cordoba" I think, and either would suit our immediate purposes for merging. There's still time to wait before this discussion should close, so maybe we'll see what others think. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

At the moment, it's just me, you, and Iskandar323 who all agree that a merge is necessary. How long should we wait for others to respond before doing anything? Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 20:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:MERGECLOSE recommends a week or more before closing the discussion (so let's say no sooner than July 16 to be safe, or longer if we need more time to discuss). If no one else comments, then yes we can simply wrap up by confirming the final details between the three of us and then proceeding. I'm also happy to help perform the merge itself when the time comes. R Prazeres (talk) 20:38, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I posted a quick technical question at Wikipedia talk:Merging (see here) about the best way to merge two articles into a new title, as we're proposing here. Maybe one of you already knows, but I figured it was worth getting some community recommendations in advance. R Prazeres (talk) 19:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I would copy content from Emirate of Córdoba into Caliphate of Córdoba, since the latter has significantly more edit history (292 edits dating back to 2006 vs 973 edits dating back to 2004). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

That was my instinct as well. Thank you for your quick and clear response! R Prazeres (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that copying into the more edited and more viewed page makes sense. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm good with that! Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 19:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@R Prazeres & @Iskandar323, I'm good with you both taking charge on the merge whenever since you're both much more experienced with that and implementing Islamic history on Wikipedia then I am. I'll still work with you both on it though. I guess I do have a couple questions/add-on statements though about the merges to begin our disscussion of how to do it.

1) Should we create a separate discussion on this talk page to discuss how to merge? If so, feel free to answer my below questions there.

2) I imagine this article will need to be reevaluated on its content assessment scale, especially because it's Level 4. Does one of us need to notify a more experienced editor to re-review the page?

3) After an article is moved/renamed, do links to the previous two articles on other pages automatically change, are they done by bots, or do they need to be changed manually? Same question about redirects?

4) After the merge is complete, I'm also going to add an Archive for the talk page, and set up some automated archiving. I'm doing it because even though the talks are pretty small at the moment, they take up space in the content section. I'd appreciate if you'd let me do that so I can get some experience with it. I only say that in case either of you had the same idea.

--Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 12:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Since the proposal is to merge to this page, the vital article status shouldn't really be affected. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm more referring to the letter rating for how good the article looks. Here, it's a B, but Emirate is a Start-Class. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 13:44, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry too much about the rating shown on the talk page; unless it's a Good article or Featured article, the other ratings are informal indications for editors, as I understand it. Archiving is still a good idea though.

I'm happy to perform the merge if you want, either tomorrow night or on the weekend. Essentially, we more or less bluntly copy all the content from Emirate of Córdoba to this page, then blank and redirect Emirate of Córdoba here, then move this article to the desired new name, and then do some basic clean up of the content (i.e. integrate the two texts, update the lead, etc). Any links to Emirate of Córdoba will be redirected here, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I guess the last thing to do before the merge now is to finalize the choice of name for the merged article before we perform the move. R Prazeres (talk) 18:07, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm good with Umayyad state of Córdoba. That name is specific and unconfusing, and the name can always change if there's a better one found if the scholarly consensus gives a better option. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 20:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

And, after you're done with the merge just tell us so we can look over it and I can set up the archive pages. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 20:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 & @Ahecht I talked with @R Prazeres and I'm going to start the work with the merging of the articles today. I'll be doing it the way we agreed to (moving the items from Emirate to Caliphate), but I'll just take it a bit slowly. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 15:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Any snags I find with merging/move for later

I'm adding various items that'll need to be addressed later after the merge is done, that I may have trouble with. Firstly, here are the older Arabic/native names listed in the template and lede respectivally. Someone proficent with Arabic and other langauges will likely need to add a new version of this. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

(Arabic: خلافة قرطبة, romanized: Khilāfat Qurṭuba)

خلافة قرطبة (Arabic)
Khilāfat Qurṭubah Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, these and many of other "Arabic" names you see in similar articles appear to just be direct translations of the modern names and/or English titles used on Wikipedia, rather than the contemporary Arabic names of the states in question. (We also discussed a similar issue at Talk:Emirate of Granada recently.) In my view, these are not worth retaining unless the article discusses the names actually used in historical Arabic sources; though this can be discussed another time too, if needed. R Prazeres (talk) 19:17, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm good with that. Imo I have nothing really to contribute to a future discusssion since I only know English unfortunately. I'll trust your take on it. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 19:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The Emirate of Córdoba

Another issue of importance. I did not move this Wikimedia Commons file seen to the right onto this page. The obvious issue is that there's a black sploch obscuring the top of the Emirate, ruining the map. This seems to be some recent issue as I swear I don't remember seeing it there a few weeks ago. However, looking at it also made me notice an underlying issue. There's no clue as to what it's date is supposed to be. On the Emirate's Wikipedia page, it said the map depicts 929. However, that can't be right, because in the upper right the Carolingian Empire is labeled, which was gone by that year. The Commons' file doesn't list a date either. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 22:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I'm noticing that now too. You're right, it looked fine until recently. Hmm. Maybe the data in the image is dependent on some other data linked to it elsewhere, but I'm not familiar with what that would be. In the meantime, keep the Caliphate-era map for the infobox, and I was going to suggest inserting the Emirate-era map (once fixed) in the relevant history section. R Prazeres (talk) 22:27, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

PS: It's happening to the other versions of this file too, e.g. the Portuguese one, which is why I think they're linked all to some data elsewhere that is causing the error... R Prazeres (talk) 22:29, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Should all of the categories for the two previous titles be merged under the new title? For example, both former articles have architecture categories associated with their distinct periods – should this be merged into a single architecture category for the "state"? Iskandar323 (talk) 17:36, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Ideally I think yes, unless there's a logical reason for specific cases to be kept separate. R Prazeres (talk) 17:39, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Ongoing edits

By the way Solitaire Wanderer, if you can, drop me a quick line here to let me know when you're done or taking a break from your current edits. I'm drafting some additions and further changes to the "Society" section, but I'll wait til you're done in order to make sure our edits don't conflict. Take your time though, no hurry. Thanks. (PS: I agree that the "Reforms of Almanzor" section should be merged somehow with the political history section. Even if we end up with an uneven history section in terms of some topics being covered more heavily, this can be fixed by expanding other topics later.) R Prazeres (talk) 20:46, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm working on the Reforms of Almanzor section. I moved it up to the "Politcal history" section. Right now I'm focused on trimming the Almanzor section down, because there's a lot of run-on's, unnessesary wordage, and repeated info. I'm not focused on fact-checking or source-checking the statments, just b/c a lot of the writing makes it hard exactly what is even being said. As well I'm moving stuff from that section to other portions on Politcal history. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 21:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I'm done for now with formatting edits and making the writing less sloppy. The Reforms section should make an easier read. I did find one sentence however, that made so little sense to me that I didn't know how to rewrite it without guessing on some facts. If you want to look at it, it's marked with the tag, but you don't have to. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 22:29, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! Yes, I imagine there are many details here and there that will need another look at some point. I'm focusing on the Society/Culture sections for now. Maybe in the future I'll try to improve the history section. R Prazeres (talk) 22:32, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Update: Mostly finished on my end as well, aside from any further copy-editing. As a non-urgent task, I'd also like to convert more of the citations to sfn format (at least for sources where we cite multiple different pages at different points), so we can keep a little more consistency in this regard. R Prazeres (talk) 00:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to do a bit more with the Almonzor section, mainly just more copyediting and more making the general writing less sloppy. I noticed inconsistencies with how numbers are displayed. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 01:02, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

In my editing, there was a section I cut out which mentioned "Black slaves" being amoung the portions of the Cordoban army. I cut out that section because it was largely a rephrasing of a later and better written section. I attached the only citation on that section to that other one. This was the only mention of that, so I'm not sure how true it is, but it might be worth looking into to see how true it is. I'm writing this as a note for me as well, in case I forget. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

They were indeed purchased and used in the army. This was a detail I was going to add in the Society section as well (where other slaves are mentioned), but I needed another source, which I've now found. R Prazeres (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I did another round of fusing info together and bits of copyediting in the politcal history section. I made sure not to remove any claims or citations mentioned in the various paragraphs. I did add a few tags though. A few minor grammatical issues might've slipped my notice as I was trying to cut all the run-on sentences, but other than that, it should read better now than it did before. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 17:28, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

New title

I dont't like it. It is going to cause the proliferation of the exact phrase "Umayyad state of Córdoba" everywhere. Moreover, it creates an ugly lead paragraph. In my opinion, there was no need to move the page regardless of the merger. Srnec (talk) 02:37, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

That thought (about proliferation) has occurred to me as well, but the title is more or less provisional. I don't think we can stick with the former "Caliphate of Córdoba" in this fuller scope, but I'm sure there are better titles we can choose. R Prazeres (talk) 02:59, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I like the merger to be honest, because the division always felt artificial, especially since it fell in the reign of the same person. On the name, perhaps 'Umayyad al-Andalus' or 'Al-Andalus under the Umayyads' would be better? Constantine ✍ 10:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

The one issue to keep in mind with those titles is we are not talking about Al-Andalus under the Umayyad Caliphate, and those titles may give that idea. Solitaire Wanderer (talk) 15:49, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that was our concern for "Umayyad al-Andalus". On the other hand, if there is indeed more support for that, we can still pick that and simply ensure that the scope of the article is made clear in the lead (e.g. opening sentence already states "756 to 1031"). One can reasonably argue that the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for a title like "Umayyad al-Andalus" would still be the Umayyads of Cordoba rather than the brief period right after 711. R Prazeres (talk) 00:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think we should move this to the Caliphate of Cordoba as it is the indisputable common name used in sources. I've noticed a concern regarding its usage as it was the official name for the later period, however I would consider the title to be much better than the rarely used awkward construct of "Ummayud state of Cordoba", which gives only 199 hits on Google books compared to "Caliphate of Cordoba", which gives over 5,000 hits. There are other articles which cover a subject that has undergone a name change at some point in its time, but they usually opt to use the later name as the article title, such as Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and Socialist Republic of Romania among others. PadFoot (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

In this case, I think that's a very non-ideal scenario. The literature really only uses caliphate/caliph/caliphal to refer to the 10th century, and using this name for the entire topic would lead to confusion, especially among unfamiliar readers/editors who are likely to start using the term "caliphate" indiscriminately. It gets more hits on Google for the simple reason that this was the apogee of al-Andalus and thus gets more attention.

Whatever name we settle on, I think it must inevitably pivot around the dynasty's name, since what defines this political period is the Umayyad dynasty. So "Umayyad al-Andalus", "Umayyads of Córdoba", etc all seem like better options to me. (PS: keep in mind there are no "official" names available here, to my knowledge, all of the options are merely historiographical designations.) R Prazeres (talk) 17:14, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

"Ummayads of Cordoba" would change the scope of this article to revolve around the dynasty rather than the kingdom itself, while article is currently centred on the kingdom. I would suggest "Ummayad Còrdoba" here, which is a construct similar to other articles like Safavid Iran or Pahlavi Iran. PadFoot (talk) 14:26, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

As we discussed in the merge talk above, when we looked at the sources, "Umayyad Cordoba" is more likely to refer to the city itself and its own historical period. "Umayyad al-Andalus" would work better again in this regard.

About "Umayyads of Cordoba", I'll repeat a general point one last time, but it's fine if no one else is convinced: in this context, the idea that the "dynasty" and the "state" are different topics is a Wikipedia contrivance. This is a dynastic state and reliable sources (including scholarly encyclopedias like the Encyclopaedia of Islam) typically refer to periods in Islamic history by their dynasties (not unlike Chinese history), which is why we have many articles like Ayyubid dynasty, Aghlabid dynasty, Ghurid dynasty, etc which all provide general coverage of the corresponding periods in those regions (not just the ruling families). In this case, Wikipedia also has a separate Umayyad dynasty, so there should be no ambiguity in the scope of this article either way. R Prazeres (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Not entirely a contrivance given the Hammudid dynasty, no? It seems every title has a problem ("Umayyad al-Andalus", "Umayyad Córdoba", "Emirate/Caliphate of Córdoba") if we are looking to describe the more-or-less unified single state that ruled al-Andalus in defiance of the Abbasids from the mid-8th century until its 11th-century collapse. Srnec (talk) 20:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Have you considered Umayyad Córdoba (state)?--Asqueladd (talk) 14:57, 19 September 2024 (UTC)