# Talk:Battle of the Trench

Just read the Britannica article for how to be neutral and try not to present stories in the worst light possible. Present history openly, be honest about sources, differences in sources, when it's your opinion etc. That kind of thing. 129.12.158.116 (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria due to an overreliance of block quotes and some uncited statements. Is anyone willing to address these concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

What in particular do you find problematic in the article? Not that I am denying your claim - I also think it has its fair share of issues. Daminb (talk) 15:07, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
@Daminb: Would you like me to tag the article with "citation needed" templates to indicate uncited prose? I think in the "Islamic primary sources" section, the large block quotes without analysis from secondary sources is problematic. I also do not think the Quran should be relied upon as a source of information, but rather this battle's mention in the Quran should be written about, with analysis from more recent secondary sources giving context to the quotes. Z1720 (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I mean go ahead with your suggestions for citations, I guess. Although for "Islamic primary sources" I think it does not make sense to include secondary sources; the rest of the article uses them. I get your concern about the giant block quotes, though. In my opinion, it would be best to just summarise the positions of the primary sources with our own, more concise wording.
Also, I would like to ask you, do you see any issues in the neutrality of the tone of the opening section. I have been going over a certain problematic user's edits all day, so I can no longer tell what is neutral and what is not. I rely on your judgement. Daminb (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
@Z1720 Also, I get your concern about the Qur'an in the other sections. Again, we could either summarise, remove (since it is not the primary sources section), move to primary sources and summarise, or just add secondary source's comments of the verses in the main section. I think all are equally good options (although remove would be a bit of a bummer, to my mind). Daminb (talk) 18:35, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
@Daminb: Regarding the Islamic primary sources section: I think it should be removed wholesale. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of information, and these quotes from primary source should not be listed without context, as secondary sources will be able to verify what is historically accurate from the texts, what historians cannot verify, and why differences in the facts of each primary source might be different. The battle's mention in primary sources can be talked about in a "Legacy" section or something similar, describing why writers wrote about the event and when it was described, with context and analysis of the primary sources cited to secondary sources. Z1720 (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Regarding the "tone of the opening section" are you referring to the lead, aka the first paragraphs of the article? I do not think the whole text from the Qur'an is necessary, as I do not know why is it included in the article when more recent sources will be able to verify the historical accuracy of statements more easily. Z1720 (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
@Z1720 I think that simply summarising the information in primary sources is enough to pass the "indiscriminate list of information" criteria because we are not making the whole article a summary, but I could be wrong, so do correct me if needed. In addition there is no need to be concerned with the historical accuracy of the primary sources since they are literally put into Primary sources section; any reasonable person would treat the information with a grain of salt. Of course, secondary commentary is more than welcome.
About the outright deletion section - it is something to be thought about more extensively. It is a tradition in the Islam-related pages at this point, just take a look at the search! I do not have a strong opinion on its inclusion or removal.
By "opening section" I mean the part which is categorised as "(Top)" on the contents on the left. Daminb (talk) 19:17, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I think most of those articles should remove their "Primary sources" sections. Articles "should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." (WP:PSTS). Furthermore, "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." The historical accuracy of the Qua'ran or any primary sources from that time cannot be verified by educated persons today, as the events happened too long ago for today's scholars to definitively verify. Information from those primary sources should not be presented as information in the article without analysis from secondary sources. If readers want to read those accounts of this event, we can link them in "Further reading". Z1720 (talk) 20:11, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I guess you have a point, Wikipedia is not the best place for these sources. The "Legacy" section idea sounds good. I think that including primary sources in a section "Analysis" would also be acceptable to a certain extent. Daminb (talk) 20:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


### Lead section
Per the above, I read through the lead. I made some copyedits as I went along: feel free to revert anything that you think is not an improvement. After removing some opinionated adverbs, I think the lead is fine. Citations are not necessary in the lead per WP:LEADCITE, as the information should be in the body of the article and cited there. I do not think the last sentence of the lead is necessary, as it is about the result of a different battle. Z1720 (talk) 19:49, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720 I believe you did fantastic with the rewording. I decided to edit in the "only" before merchants again and remove the last sentence, but I am open to reverting the change. Daminb (talk) 20:08, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


### 2025 update
@Daminb: There is still a lot of direct quoting and uncited statements. Are you or anyone else interested in addressing these concerns? Z1720 (talk) 05:43, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Z1720! I apologise, I completely forgot this page existed. I've made some edits, removing primary sources. Unfortunately, I am away from home right now and generally busy these days, but I will probably try to either verify or remove unsourced information.  Daminb 12:26, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
@Daminb: Thanks for responding. I'm not going to nominate for GAR if someone is working on it. Let me know if you want me to take a second look or have any questions. Z1720 (talk) 22:11, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
Hello again, @Z1720! I want to let you know, I've made some edits to the article. To me, it looks in OK shape now, but, nonetheless, I want to hear your opinion as well.  Daminb 10:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)
@Daminb: The article looks a lot better. There are still some uncited paragraphs, so I added citation needed templates where needed. The article also has lots of short, one-or-two sentence paragraphs. These should be merged together to create a better flow. Z1720 (talk) 13:32, 11 May 2025 (UTC)
@Daminb: and other talk page watchers, just following up with this: there are still some uncited statements in the article. Would you like to resolve these? No worries if not. Z1720 (talk) 15:33, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Hi, @Z1720! Things have got a bit more busy for me in general, but I may get back to trying to resolve the issues, although I won't promise anything. Daminb 07:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

To the edit-warring IP user ([1]): if Abu Bakr and Umar were present at the battle, then please add this information in the article citing proper reliable sources that explicitly say so (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources). If this is a well-established fact, it shouldn't be hard to do this. In this case, that would mean a published secondary source, of which many are already cited in the article. A pdf from a random website is not a reliable source, regardless of whether you insist the content is right or not. Repeating your edit over and over without resolving the issue pointed out to you is prohibited behaviour on Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Edit warring), and it will neither improve the article nor help you make that edit more acceptable. If you need further help, you can ask here. R Prazeres (talk) 21:08, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

This article presents incorrect information saying that the war was caused due to the raids done by the Holy Prophet. This is incorrect. This is what was written "The Quraysh instigated the battle in response to the Islamic prophet Muhammad's continued raids on their trade caravans, and thus decided to occupy his city base of Medina." The reason for the battle of trench is that Soon after winning the Battle of Uhud, the Quraysh leaders realised that they had fought indecisively and that their victory had not borne any fruit for them. On the flip side, Islam had successfully re-established its authority within a short span of time. Bothered by the growth of Islam and concerned that it would cause them political and economic damage as no one would buy their idols they wanted to put an end to it. As for the raids, they were launched because After the migration (Hijra) to Medina in 622 CE, the Muslims were not just settling into a new city—they were now in direct opposition to the Quraysh, who were the ruling tribe in Mecca and had persecuted the early Muslims. The Quraysh viewed the Muslim community as a threat to their authority, both religiously and economically, because the Muslims had rejected the pagan beliefs of the Quraysh and were spreading their new faith.
The Muslims were not initially seeking to wage war but were forced into defence. The Quraysh had blocked trade routes and launched attacks on the Muslims, and the Muslims responded in kind to protect themselves, their resources, and their faith. The Muslims began targeting Quraysh caravans as a means of disrupting their economic power as they were three against one in the battle of Trench against the Muslims Hence, the battle DID NOT happen due to the raids rather the raids happened due to preparation of battle aainst the Muslims. Iqra Ahmar (talk) 07:19, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Ma’rakah al-Khandaq=Battle of the Trench.
Ghazwat al-Khandaq=Raid of the Trench.

הראש (talk) 08:09, 7 October 2025 (UTC) 🎗🧡 harosh

The Muslims successfully defended the city while the Pagans and their siege failed to capture it, how is that a stalemate?! Plus, after reading the cited sources, I found out that the only one who called it a stalemate from the two sources is Brockopp alone who is known for his new and weird claims in early Islam such as his claim that the early Quranic surahs in Mecca tolerated polytheism for example. A quick search into other Academic sources such as Watt, Kennedy, Britannica etc will clearly and unanimously have it as a Muslim victory. So it should be at very least noted in the article itself that it’s his own expectational opinion only after recognising the difference in the Academic sources about the Siege’s results.
~2025-32886-80 (talk) 10:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)