Talk:Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah

message: Something should be said about the theory that he suffered from madness near the end of his life. One could also mention the beliefs of the Druze people.
I have never heard of the theory that he suffered from madness. In fact, the article is biased and does not give the perspective of the Druze.
Without any malice to the authors, I think this entire article needs to be re-written and more organized along chronological lines. One comes away from it with the feeling that one has learned nothing about the subject. True, the Caliph was extremely controversial, but even the talk page is a mish-mash of criticisms without any contributions towards clarity. Just the fact that he is the center of the Druze religion is enough to warrant a ton of research into this person, and an article that explains the man in relation to his times, rather than comes across as a list of names he was called, is needed. A lack of valid original research may be the cause of all of this, so one may not be able to fault the authors of the article, but I believe that this person is too important to leave an article in wikipedia.org about him in the chaotic state in which it currently stands.Daniel Sparkman (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incomplete - What about the madness??? 

message: None of the information is cited, therefore there is no justification for its inclusion. There is no proof for any erratic or eccentric behavior in the academic literature. It needs to be removed or cited ASAP. Until it can be cited, I am removing it from the article.
:I agree completely. I removed the section. --DRC27 (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately no one has attempted to cite that section, but I imagine it would be relatively easy. He had a reputation as "the mad caliph" because contemporary people said so - we didn't make it up for Wikipedia. We will just have to find those sources that say it. And is there nothing written about this in academic literature? I highly doubt it. Even if it is not true, it would be worth discussing as an historical myth. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Encyclopedia of Islam, at least the second edition (which is the only one I can read online where al-Hakim's article is available), talks about his eccentric behaviour, along with everything else, positive and negative. It also has a lengthy list of primary and secondary sources. I don't see how the statement that there is no proof of this in academic literature can be supported. I suppose we will now hear that the EI, and everything else that mentions al-Hakim's eccentricities, is Sunni propaganda? Adam Bishop (talk) 19:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of whether or not al-Hakim behaved erratically, the section needs to be cited in order to not violate Wikipedia standards. I have reviewed the archives of the talk page for this article and it seems like there is bias on both sides; those who wish to paint a picture of al-Hakim as a violent eccentric and those who wish to describe him as a rational caliph. Chances are neither view is completely true. In citing any eccentric behavior, we should take care to describe it in such a manner so as to not incite hostility. For example, instead of saying something along the lines of "al-Hakim was eccentric" we should say "al-Hakim has been described as eccentric by..." Having done some work on the Fatimid caliphate, I am aware of the historical documents available to historians. Al-Hakim in particular had many enemies, Christian and Muslim, and many of the sources describing his reign come from such people. This is not to say the testimonia are false, but we should consider their origin and relay the information as objectively as possible. The academic study of history is more an analysis of historical facts than a compilation of historical records. We should keep this in mind. --DRC27 (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I apologize for my assumptions about your motives. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eccentric Behavior???? 

message: I have here a copy of 'Millennium' by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in which al-Hakim's disappearance is claimed to have occurred following his retirement to his observatory where he studied astronomy with the aid of an astrolabe rather than during a night-time journey into the al-Muqattam hills. Can somebody clarify which it is? --J  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.36.143 (talk) 16:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disappearance 

message: The opening sentence states he "was the third Fatimid caliph", with a reference to a MIT handout, but surely he was the sixth (and the third was Al-Mansur Billah). Jojairus (talk) 11:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  third or sixth caliphate 

message: I reverted the following material that was added and asserts things about the Druze and/or "aggressive historians" who are unnamed and apparently are deemed "aggressive" solely by the opinion of the editor who inserted the statements. The reference given appears to merely be a self published web site and as such would not raise to the level of reliable source by wiki standards.
Perhaps if the statements were reworked they could meet wiki-standards as a critique of the Druze position. I place them here, should anyone wish to under take this endeavor
--Wowaconia (talk) 19:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assertions about the Druze, not up to wiki standards 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130327053334/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/976/cu3.htm to http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/976/cu3.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:41, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've removed the current lead image as it is not a portrait of al-Hakim, it's just a fresco from the 11th-century at Cairo's Islamic Art Museum. The museum's own literature and other sources make this clear (e.g. p.50 of this book, p. 14 of this book, and so on). The file name, which is merely chosen by whoever uploaded it, is the only thing claiming otherwise and is not a reliable source in itself. Maybe the image could be relevant here as an example of art from this time, but it should not be used as lead image either way: per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY, an article about a person should not have a lead image that portrays a person other than the subject. Obviously, it would simply mislead readers of the page who expect the image to be of Al-Hakim. Articles for other Fatimid caliphs feature coins minted with the caliph's name as their lead image, so I've followed that example and replaced it with one such image from al-Hakim's time, but feel free to pick another. R Prazeres (talk) 06:57, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead image 

message: The citation style in this article is generally way too slapdash for WP today - so many citations are to 'Random, P45' or 'Bunkum, 1847' - I'd argue for a complete cleanup of what is a really quite Augean stable. In particular, I intend to remove the section claiming he established the 'House of Wisdom', which pretty much every source available will tell you was established by Harun Al Rashid something like three hundred years earlier. Any objections? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears he founded the House of Knowledge, a different creation altogether from the House of Wisdom of Harun Al Rashid. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  House of Wisdom 

message: Is Nasturis a misspelling, or the Arabic version of Nestorius? Arminden (talk) 09:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issa ibn Nestorius or Nasturis? 

message: Half of the entire lead shouldn't be taken by one historian's quote on al-Hakim. It really should be (traditionally) a summarization of the most important points of this article Danial Bass (talk) 21:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead should be amended