Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Islamic civilization

The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The resulting WikiProject was not created

Description

The term "Islam" is used too casually to refer to both the religion, and the societies historically associated with the religion.(Hodgson, Venture of Islam, V1 p57) Lewis identifies Islamic civilization as the third meaning of the term Islam. Islamic civilization necessarily includes non-Muslim and even non-religious aspects.(Lewis, The Jews of Islam, p 5-6).

Hodgson and Lewis address this issue early-on in their works, by way of exposition, as it is a distinction needed in order to discuss the remaining material. Wikipedia makes no such attempt. Islamic civilization has no project page, or article, on Wikipedia. Instead, it disambiguates to Islamic Golden Age, Muslim world, and Caliphate.

Whatever ambiguity may exist in this term "civilization", there can surely be no dispute as to whether an Islamic civilization has existed, and exists today. It certainly includes the Islamic Golden Age, the Muslim world, and the Caliphate. It must also certainly include the science, art, politics, history and other cultural aspects of a vast number of people.

Civilization is a somewhat arbitrary term, often narrowly defined by a common language. This obviously has its limits. On the other hand, the more broadly you define a civilization, the more subgroupings it must include. Eventually, we come to see civilizations as groupings useful for the purpose at hand. And ultimately, civilizations, like religions, are self-defined.

Hodgson considers the lands of Islam to constitute a world civilization. He calls Islam a world civilization in the title of his book The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization.

For another perspective, I can turn to H. Patrick Glenn, in Legal Traditions of the World, speaking on tradition and identity. Not all is arbitrary in the definition of a tradition, or civilization.

Glenn quotes Fernand Braudel, who speaks of an "underlying structure" of civilization; "those elements of a civilization which could not be changed without a fundamental change, or more probably disappearance, of the tradition itself." Applying this criteria to Islamic civilization, one immediately understands that structure to be the religion of Islam.

Aquib (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Please specify whether or not you would join the project.

I would join it, as the Islam has no border, and borders are quickly changing. I would be clearer if we had all this in a project. Do it

Discussion

Commment: I have some hesitations with this idea, in that WP:ISLAM is pretty slow-moving already, and the various national projects of Islamic nations, such as WP:PAKISTAN, WP:INDONESIA, etc. are likewise not so fast-moving that they need to spill over. I would submit that most articles falling into the proposed Project could probably just go into the national project of whatever country/countries the topic appears in; and if the topic touches heavily on religion, WP:ISLAM as well. I just think that it this point this is over-dividing from Projects which already don't have enough editors. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point. From a structural perspective then, in terms of the encyclopedia's organization, it is not an efficient use of resources.

Under the current scheme, which projects would you assign Islamic garden and Science in medieval Islam to? They both span national borders, and they both involve significant contributions from non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Aquib (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Draft of project structure

Islam (main project and page)

Islamic civilization (subproject/page, note Western civilization redirects to Western culture) (see this discussion page 2006)
- Islamic history (also includes the histories of non-Muslims in the Islamicate)
- Islamic science (of non-Muslims as well as Muslims, see article)
- Islamic art (of non-Muslims as well as Muslims, see article)
- Islamic garden (my own pet project, same applies)
Revised Aquib (talk) 12:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.