Talk:List of Arab scientists and scholars

message: As I explained in my edit summaries, many of the scientists included in the "List of Arab scientists and scholars" are are either not Arab ( Khwarizmi and Karaji) or may not have been Arab (Gaber and Alhazan ). These particular individuals' names should either be omitted or the list should be renamed to "List of Muslim scientists and scholars" to avoid controversy and conflict. --ManiF 05:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This list, lists only arab scientists, including Al-Khwarizmi and Al-Karkhi. However, their main articles are beeing continuesly vandalized. Jidan 05:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  See the discussion pages of those articles, and you see that satisfactory proof has been provided that they are either not Arab (Khwarizmi and Karaji) or may not have been Arab (Gaber and Alhazan). It's inappropriate to call other editor's edits "vandalism" and label scientists who weren't Arab, as Arab. --ManiF 06:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion pages prove that they are actually Arab. Have you read them? I Don't think so. Jidan 06:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  They certainly don't, I have read them, I don't think you have though. --ManiF 06:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There is no comparison here, simply two different situations. Al-Khwarizmi/Al-Karaji are definitely Persian and Geber was born in Iran and hence Iranian, even if he wasn't Persian. --ManiF 06:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Non Arab entries

message: Rename the article List of Muslim scientists and scholars and include everyone. Otherwise, those figures in question cannot, in good faith, be added to this article. Please vote Support or Oppose below along with a short comment if you are so inclined. SouthernComfort 09:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean renaming and joining both articles: List of Arab scientists and scholars and List of Iranian scientists and scholars to one article List of Muslim scientists and scholars ?Jidan 09:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, why not. However, that would necessitate a separate poll conducted on that article's talk. Furthermore, in the event that such a merge be conducted, those figures whose ethnic background is disputed must remain ambiguous. In other words, those who are clearly "Arab" or "Persian" or whatever other background may be listed as such, but those like Geber must remain simply "Muslim." If you agree, you may wish to conditionally vote "support" and leave a comment to that effect. SouthernComfort 11:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In addition, there must be agreement concerning the usage of "Arab" versus "Arabic-speaking." SouthernComfort 11:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think we should keep all three lists. Those scientists of which we are reasonably sure whether they're Iranian/Persian or Arab, we can include in the lists accordingly. The list of Muslim scientists would include most of the scientists from both groups (except for those few Iranian scientists which may not actually have been Muslim.) To those who are suggesting that all these people were Arabs because they used the Arabic language, I can only say, we are not Americans or Englishmen either, even though we use the English language here. Moreover, for most Iranian scientists of that era, Arabic was not the mother tongue. It was the language of work, of writing, the language of academia. Shervink 12:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: - wikipedia is not a democray. Jidan 23:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested compromise

message: # SouthernComfort 09:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: # Jidan 23:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: Done - Renamed --Kash 22:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: - wikipedia is not a democray. Jidan 23:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verdict

message: Rename the article List of Muslim scientists and scholars and include everyone. Otherwise, those figures in question cannot, in good faith, be added to this article. Please vote Support or Oppose below along with a short comment if you are so inclined. SouthernComfort 09:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean renaming and joining both articles: List of Arab scientists and scholars and List of Iranian scientists and scholars to one article List of Muslim scientists and scholars ?Jidan 09:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, why not. However, that would necessitate a separate poll conducted on that article's talk. Furthermore, in the event that such a merge be conducted, those figures whose ethnic background is disputed must remain ambiguous. In other words, those who are clearly "Arab" or "Persian" or whatever other background may be listed as such, but those like Geber must remain simply "Muslim." If you agree, you may wish to conditionally vote "support" and leave a comment to that effect. SouthernComfort 11:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In addition, there must be agreement concerning the usage of "Arab" versus "Arabic-speaking." SouthernComfort 11:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think we should keep all three lists. Those scientists of which we are reasonably sure whether they're Iranian/Persian or Arab, we can include in the lists accordingly. The list of Muslim scientists would include most of the scientists from both groups (except for those few Iranian scientists which may not actually have been Muslim.) To those who are suggesting that all these people were Arabs because they used the Arabic language, I can only say, we are not Americans or Englishmen either, even though we use the English language here. Moreover, for most Iranian scientists of that era, Arabic was not the mother tongue. It was the language of work, of writing, the language of academia. Shervink 12:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested compromise

message: # SouthernComfort 09:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: #Jidan 23:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: Done - Renamed --Kash 22:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verdict

message: I think this move was unfair. It wasn't even agreed upon by the author of this article - I like the idea of having a "disputed people" section in both articles, but the Iranian editors don't seem to agree with me. However, even if we move the page back, the people of disputed Arab ancestry shouldn't be in the main list - it seems to provoke the Iranian editors. I'm going to request for this page to be moved back until we can actually come to a fair compromise. --Khoikhoi 23:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Khoikhoi, this page should not have been moved until there was a fair compromise. A better way to handle this would be to mark each of the disputed people with a reference note and put the information at the bottom as to how and why their ethnicity is disputed. Green Giant 00:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, but it seems like some figures' ethnicity is more controversial than others. For example, I think the footnotes would be a good idea for Geber and Alhazan, but I don't think Al-Khwarizmi and Al-Karaji should be on the list, perhaps we could have something at the very bottom that says "it is sometimes claimed that...". --Khoikhoi 00:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't mind Khoikhoi's last suggestion. But If we kept it as "List of Muslim scientists and scholars" then we wouldn't have any more conflicts and problems about each one of those scientists, plus we would all be able to help expand the list to include all the ethnic Arabs, Persians and Turks without any mention of their ethnicity. For this to happen, Jidan would have to stop with the comparative references to "the Iranian list" as that's a regional/national list, not an ethnic one. I don't think any of us would object to a "Syrian list" for example. --ManiF 01:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Let me explain again what the issue is. You shouldn't label individuals who aren't Arab as "Arab". The "List of Iranian scientists and scholars" is not an ethnic-based list and is irrelevant to this dissuasion. There is no "Persian scientists list" for you to make any comparative references to, if by "Arab", you don't mean an "strictly ethnically term",  then lets just stick with the original compromise and the neutral term "Muslim", to make life less complicated for all of us. Also, if "Iranian scientists list" insults or flatters you, then go ahead and make similar regional/nationality-based lists for "Syrian scientists", "Yemeni scientists" and so forth. --ManiF 03:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move

message: I agree that speaking arabic doesn't mean you are an Arab. But in a time where there was no defination of nationalities, speaking arabic and living in an arabic city makes you an Arab. People are not classified by their DNA's. Unless of course its mentioned specifically that he was persian. There are many great muslim scientists who were persians. For example Ibn Sina, who spoke and wrote arabic and even had memorized the arabic Koran by the age of 10. Other persian scholars were Al-Biruni, Omar Khayyám.Those mentioned scholars unlike Al-Khwarizmi, Geber, Alhazen , Al-Kharki, lived and prospured in iranian scientific cities which rivaled baghdad, worked for iranian rulers, and wrote in persian. 
For example, 
* Omar Khayyám(1048-1131) was born in Nishapur,Iran and is famous for being a mathematican and for writting persian poems. He livied  mostly in Nishapur and Isfahan, for Malik-Shah, ruler of Isfahan.
*Ibn Sina(980 - 1037) was born in Bukhara, Afghanistan, and worked for the persian Samanid ruler. He also wrote many books in persian. 
*Al-Biruni(973-1048) was born in Khwarazm,Uzbakistan. Lived mostly in persia. He wrote his books in Persian and Arabic.
Those can be defined as persian scholars. Arabic was not the only choice. And baghdad(iraq) was also not the only choice. Al-Khwarizmi, Geber, Alhazen , Al-Karkhi were arabs. For more info regarding those scholars, please ALWAYS read the discussion page and no way only the main article. Because of the large numbers of Iranian users, info regarding his background and ethnicity was instantly deleted by them, although backed by authoritaive neutral authors. Also in good faith, I have also explictily stated at the beginning of the article that: By "Arab", it should not be understood as a strictly ethnically term, but rather a cultural term.. 
Until now I have spent 20% of my time in trying to expand the article and 80% in trying to keep it. This is really very  frustrating ;-(
Jidan 18:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can make this argument for Geber and Alhazen. But Al-Khwarizmi, as indicated by historical sources, was not an Arab - he was a Persian by birth and origin. (A list of all the historical sources has been compiled here) Khwarizmi only wrote in Arabic - because it was the official language of the realm. Other Persian scientists such as  Avicenna, and Biruni mostly wrote in Arabic as well, but as you said it yourself, they were not Arabs. --ManiF 18:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who are the Arab scientists and scholars? - II 

message: Under the Umayyads, there WAS a strong distinction made between Arab and Ajam. However, the Abbasids -- whose power base was Greater Khorasan -- fully accepted the Ajam as part of universal ummah. There was intermarriage in Khorasan; there was intermarriage in Baghdad. After the fall of the Abbasids to the Mongols and later, the warfare between Safavids and the Ottomans, Persian and Arab were again distanced. Trying to read that distinction back into the Abbasid period is wrong-headed. How about just a list of Muslim scientists and scholars who wrote in Arabic under Abbasid rule? With a note appended to each one summarizing theories of origin? 
Or perhaps just a list of Muslim scholars and scientists from 750 to 1300, grouped by the courts that patronized them, with one list of the ones who wrote in Arabic, a list of the ones who wrote in Persian, and perhaps a short list of the people like Rumi who wrote in both languages? C'mon, think of ways around the problem. Zora 09:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is a silly dispute 

message: Kharazmi and Karaji are not Arab, they are probably as Arab as a Maya from Tabasco! - kami
:Why? do you know them personally? Its disputed. Read their discussion pages Al-Karkhi, Al-Khwarizmi. Jidan 17:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khwarizmi and Karaji 

message: Any new entries on the list should follow the following rules:
* Do not index entries by the articles:
**Al - the 
**ibn, bin, banu - son of
**abu - father of, the one with
* Enter both the Arabic and Latin name (if any), and make the Latin name point to the Arabic name.
* Always make sure that the person is not already listed.
* Give a short description of their important works. Preferably not more than four lines.
* The geographic places of birth or death should correspond to today's political map, e.g. Harran in Turkey not Syria, Cordoba in Spain not in al-Andalus, Khwarizm in Uzbekistan not Persia, etc.
* Don't give their full names, the title or name and title is enough e.g. just Ibn Khaldun, rather than Abū Zayd ʕAbdu l-Rahman ibn Muħammad ibn Khaldūn al-Haḍramī.
* The format of entry should be like this:
:Ibn xxxx (date, place of birth - date, place of death )
:Short description of his/her important works.
Please follow these simple rules so that the list stays overlookable and easy to navigate. Thank You
Jidan 16:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Entries Format for the [[List of Arab scientists and scholars]] 

message: This redlinked entry, inserted by  raises some questions, as follows:
#Are redlinked entries permitted in lists? (I saw a message saying they are removed by Bots)
#Does this specific list include modern living people, such as this entry, who is claimed to be an American professor? If so, does it conflict with the mission statement at the top of the list?
#I see from this user's contribs diffs that the same or similar entry was inserted in many list articles, including:
::*Arab Americans
::*Lebanese Americans
::*Muslim Scientists
 
Can someone be Muslim and Jewish at the same time? Is it just a joke/hoax? Thanks, Crum375 01:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Abdulrahim Nasr Chafi

message: There is no clear definition of arab - except they live in arabia. This list clearly states it is for people who contributed to science in arabic in the middle ages. Read the first paragraph of the article!!! People wishing to folow quasi-racial (ethic) definitions can use the other list clearly provided for them RuthieK 15:32, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  True most of North Africa and Arab world are Arabized.  The clear definition of Arab is anyone whose parents speak Arabic as their first language.  Also the name of the article is Arab Scientists.  If you want to change it to "scientists who used Arabic", then I have no problem with the inclusion of Farabi.  --alidoostzadeh 20:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I am not thinking about race - because I am not defining Arab. I am showing you that your definition of arab is not the primary one in the English-speaking world. To most people Arab people live in Arabia. To most people, coming from an Arabic-speaking country doesn't make you arab any more than speaking Spanish makes you Spanish or French French. You are trying to impose on the article a view of concept and word Arab which is artificial and unnatural for most readers. So I am not thinking about race - I am suggesting (repeatedly) that the list is (exactly what it announces itself to be in the first paragraph) for people (of whatever race) who contributed to science in the arabic speaking cultural world (this is simply about authorship of texts, not a racial definition). Anyway, there is now a List of Ethnic-Arab scientists and scholars, which uses your definition, you are welcome to change it reflect your views entirely.  RuthieK 22:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're wrong RuthieK, we're not just talking about race here, there is a universal definition of who an Arab is culturally, linguistically, or otherwise, and it doesn't cover Turks or Persians. Please don't WP:DISRUPT to make a point. --Mardavich 23:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  RuthieK is wrong.  Spanish, Latino, Hispanic, French are all ethno-linguistic groups.  So is Arab.  Originally Arabs were from Arabia, but now the group has expanded because more people Arabic as their mothertongue.  I do not think he understands that the term Arab Scientists means Arab scientists!  Farabi was not an Arab since his mothertongue and fathertongue was not Arabic.  Writing in Arabic does not make a person Arab just like writing in scientific articles in English does not make a person English or American.  --alidoostzadeh 03:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: you are mislead by the difficulty of naming the list - what the list is is made clear in the first paragraph of the article. READ IT!!! Definitions of arab do not come into it. IT IS NOT A LIST OF ARABS (whatever that means). It is a list of CONTRIBUTERS to scientific culture in the "arabic cultural/language world" (of whatever race or background)(That is rather clumsy as the name of a list so an simpler one was chosen)! And for the record there is NOT a clear definition of arab in English. You seem incapable of reading English and understanding it.RuthieK 10:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  As Ali doostzadeh already stated, feel free to cerate a list for "scientists who used Arabic" to include non-Arabs who may have used Arabic. But this is a "List of Arab scientists " and the common definition of Arab is a member of Arabic-speaking ethno-linguistic people. --Mardavich 10:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: There is alist for your agenda on arabs already and this list has always been defined in line wiht what I have maintained all along - but you cannot bear to concede that. Read 1st para of article RuthieK 10:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnic Arab

message: There is a list for your views List of Ethnic-Arab scientists and scholars. It was created because there is a group of people determined not to follow the self-description of the list arab scientists and scholars which includes ALL scientists contributing to science in the arabic cultural world. Some people want a list of arab scientists, following their own definition of arab (not even the usual definition in english). That list is to cater to their wishes, in the hope they will stop blocking, reverting and vandalising entries on the this listRuthieK 10:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as the title of this article is "List of Arab scientists", people will naturally object to the addition of personalities who are academically accepted as Turks, Persians, Kurds, and etc. --Mardavich 10:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree.  Perhaps if there is another entry called "list of scientists and scholars who wrote in Arabic", then there would no dispute. --alidoostzadeh 19:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: BTW, Ramadan mubarak everyone :) Jidan 00:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Happy Ramadan!  I disagree though that Arab is not an ethno-linguistic group.  Of course my objection went further since I rightfully consider Baghdad to have been multi-cultural city back then.  --alidoostzadeh 04:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The term Arab is commonly defined as an ethno-linguistic classification. As it is, the title of this article is "List of Arab scientists", the list shouldn't be used as a POV fork to label historical figures as Arab, when their articles says otherwise. --Mardavich 11:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: A Persian, a Berber, A Turk can contribute to scientific culture in arabic/the arabic cultural world. If ethnicity is so precious to you (I am sick of all this stupid racial nonsense). Who cares. I, like most people in the English speaking world, am more interested in "middle eastern" culture than race. This list announces what it is about in the first paragraph. Mardavich and his ethnically minded friends ('Arab' or 'Persian' or whatever) should not try and bully others into playing their games.  RuthieK 21:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please stop making accusations and listen to what others are saying. This is a matter of accuracy. It's a universally accepted fact that Turks, Persians, Kurds etc ARE NOT ARABS and hence don't belong on "List of Arab scientists". If you're "more interested in middle eastern culture" then go ahead and create a "List of Middle Eastern scientists" and include Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds and other Middle Easterners. --Mardavich 22:03, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  His unreasonable comments are like saying all Europeans are the same! Or Chinese and Japanese people are the same!  And then he accuses others of spewing racial nonsense!  --alidoostzadeh 00:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The names you mentioned above would fit here. Arabness is like Americaness. Its a culture tied with a language (arabic) Jidan 01:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the key to ethnic identification is self-identification. None of the persons above could be demonstrated to have identified himself as Arab. Beit Or 08:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: sigh*...please read the discission above. This discussion was already done when this article was created. And we made a consensus with outer neutral observers to put this disclaimer. One of theses users was User:ManiF. If you like to discuess who is arab and who is not, you can do that here Who_is_an_Arab. Jidan 09:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List for Ethno-linguistic Arabs

message: Guys, I think the disclaimer was usefull (especially since it was taken from the List of Russians. There should be some overlap between this list and the other lists. People like Al-Khwarizmi lived all their life in Arabic countries but might be Persian or Turks by blood, others like Ibn Sina might considered to be Arabs but they lived in Uzbekistan and Persia. There were inter-ethnic marraiges, The modern boundaries are different from the old boundaries, etc., etc. We (you) will die arguing instead of editing. Lets have all the lists be maximally inclusive it does not matter that Ibn Sina will be in the lists of Persian, Arabs, Uzbeks, Afghans - you name it. People who like to brag by long lists will brag. Everybody will be happy. It worked that way for quite a while, lets keep it. Alex Bakharev 10:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lists must be defined in a meaningful way. We could say that List of Russians includes everyone who ever set a foot on the Russian soil or uttered a word in Russian, but such a list would serve no meaningful purpose. The definition in the List of Russians is meaningful because Russia is a country, and a person who comes from Russia, became notable in Russia, or have lived most of his life in Russia may be legitimately called "Russian", whatever his ethnicity. There is, however, no such country as "Arabia" and never was (there is the Arabian peninsula, but that's different). Abbasid caliphate, where al-Khwarezmi lived, was ruled by an Arab dynasty, but this fact doesn't make everyone who lived in that state "Arab": China was ruled by a Mongol dynasty, but you cannot call the Chinese from that period "Mongols". Thus, we cannot apply here the same approach as in the List of Russians. Beit Or 10:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Beit Or, this is a totally different situation. Arab is an ethnolinguistic grouping by common definition, these people simply aren't Arabs. --ManiF 11:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, this "somehow linked" is what I love most: it doesn't really matter how, any "link" will do to claim they are Arab scholars. We cannot call a country the way we like, and in any event, the rulers do not determine the ethnicities of all other dwellers of the coutry. In addition, al-Khwarezmi, a Persian and possibly a Zoroastrian, was not Arab. Beit Or 19:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 1)This disclaimer was not invented by me, 2)its used in many lists, and 3)it makes sense, namely to avoid edit wars as Alex said. And funny how you say that al-khwarizmi is persian, while you spell his name wiht the arab-naming AL-.... Anyway, we can discuess this further in his article. You can go ahead and make a list of scholars with Arab DNA and link it here. But this disclaimer was here since the beginning of the article creation, and it should stay there. If you still disagree, then we can bring outside neutral mediators,i.e. no iranians,arabs, or jews. And I will accept whatever comes out. Until this happens, pleeeeease, don't erase this list. Thank you Jidan 22:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually Iraq was a multi-ethnic country back then and even Baghdad is a Persian name as is Fallujah as is Anbar.  There used to be many Iranians in iraq until pan-Arabists did their usual ethnic cleansing in the 20th century.  Also the concept of an "arab world" is a totally recent invetion of the last century and such an idea did not exist in the multi-ethnic Abbasid empire.  The most capable Vazirs of Abbassids were Persians.  Also the Abbasids were lame ducks once the Persian Buyids and then the Seljuqs took over Iraq and they were just there as symbols (like the queen of England today).  At least till the mongol era, one can safely say a good portion of Iraq was Iranian.  Going back to the Sassanid era, Arabs were definitely a minority.  There is still 25% Iranians in Iraq, mainly Kurds.  Abu Ali Sina has Persian works and my friend's Alex' Bukharev's analogy does not hold.  Khwarizmi used the Persian Zoroastrian calendar which no Arab has ever used and some books have clearly denoted him al-Majusi (Zoroastrian).  Writing in Arabic (although using the Persian calendar and dates and names) does not make one an Arab just like writing Latin does not make an English person like newton a Roman.  Many of these discussions has taken place in the al-khwarizmi archives.  The fact is major Professors of mathematics history who 10-20 years ago wrote al-Khwarizmi as Arab have changed to Persian in their recent work.  This process is slow, but 20 years from now, no one will make this mistake and this mistake has to do with prejudice of equating Muslim and Arab historically.  --alidoostzadeh 04:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All empires were multi-ethnic. Look for example at the roman empire, it even had an arab casear, Marcus Philippus. And so was the Achaemenid Empire, who used babylonians and the assyrians to administer their empire, or later the Sassanid Empire. Again, you can go ahead and create a list of scholars with Arab DNA and link to here. But this disclaimer was here since the beginning of the article creation, and it should stay there. Jidan 14:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the somehow wording, this should do it.Jidan 16:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The disclaimer only makes the whole list meaningless. Basically, it justifies including into the list anyone with an Arabic name and anyone who has lived for some time in an Arabic-speaking country. Beit Or 18:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse me if I'm being dense, but if someone has an Arabic name and lives in an Arabic country, it doesn't seem unreasonable to include them in such a list as an Arab. We can't perform genetics tests on 1,000 year old scholars, but we can cite sources who identify them as Arabic, which should be sufficient if the sources are both verifiable and reliable. Doc  Tropics 18:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are many Jews or Berbers who had Arabic names and spoke Arabic, but that doesn't mean they were (or are) Arabs. Including people into this list based on reliable sources is a good idea, but then we don't need this disclaimer, only a statement to the effect that the list includes people referred to as "Arabs" by reliable sources. Beit Or 19:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Being an Arab is a cultrual and a lingustic term (For more see Who is an Arab). Anybody who lived in one of the arabic countries, or came from it, will be listed in this article. Its that simple, no need to start a philosophical boring discussion; at least not at this article. Cheers Jidan 20:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Cultural" and "linguistic" is the recent definition adopted by the Arab League, and it would be wrong to project it backwards into the past. The one you have cited is just one out of many conflicting definitions of Arabness. Beit Or 20:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well what Beit Or said makes really no sense at all ... while he refuses what all Arabs agree that being Arab is to speak Arabic language regardless of the stupid theories of Origin .. saying that is the new Pan-arabism theory he forget that in the past in the days of Islamic Empire there was diffrentiation according to ethnicity and most of those whom he claims that they are Iranians like Al-Khawarizmi and Al-Biruni , has written nothing in iranian languages but Arabic --Chaos 19:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disclaimer

message: I just found the discussions here but there are too many to wade through. I did notice there was a suggestion to change this to one of Muslim scholars rather than Arab. Can't tell what came of that, but I think it's more appropriate. I am removing Egyptians from this page because it claims to be "a list of scientists and scholars of Arab origin." That's just not accurate. Please see discussion I had with Jidan on my talk page. — [zɪʔɾɪdəʰ] · ☥ 05:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We had this discussion already million times. There is a List of Iranian scientists and most of the scientists listed there are Uzbeks, Afghans, Arabs, kurds, and Turks. They have been listed there just becuase they talk an indo-aryan language. This list is more preciser. And there is a disclaimer which has been continuesly been removed by same users, who we had a consensus with last spring. Jidan 11:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That one is the list of Iranian rather than Persian scientists. Beit Or 11:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And Afghani's, Uzbeki's, Kazakhstani's, Turkestani's, Khowarimzis(in uzbakistan), etc, are not Iranians, but its still listed, and I have no porblem with it becasue there is the disclaimer. This article is based upon the disclaimer(which you removed) which was agreed upon since its creation last spring. You remove the disclaimer, you remove the article. Thats your way of paying me back for this , isn't it? Jidan 11:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

text: this is rediculous, Egypt at that time was not arabized yet, like the rest of Northern Africa, infact tyhe majority of the population by thetime Saladin was in control was Coptic, making the Muslims in Egypt as Arabs, the Egyptian Muslim arab scholars MUST be included, this is inaccurate, and must be undone..
41.237.99.185 (talk) 10:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Egyptians 

message: What exactly (which names) made this list's accuracy disputed or made it based on original research ? --Lanov 14:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A more precise question is, which name doesn't confirm with the disclaimer? Jidan 23:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: I've protected the page because of the edit war. The issue appears to be inclusion of Ibn Farnas, Abu Kamil, Al Fazari, and Ibn Yunus, although from the summary notes the dispute appears to be about Fazari. Please discuss. >Radiant< 17:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I filed a RFC here . Lets see if the system really works ;) Jidan 20:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text: ..and here . Jidan 21:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: It would seem the issue is wether or not you are trying to define "Arab" as a ethnic or culural group. If you wish to define it as a cultural group then, by definition, any person from an Arabic speaking nation or area is an Arab. If you wish to define it along ethnic terms then only members of the Semitic people in and around Arabia would be included. IMO only the ethnic group should be included, otherwise you are going to have to not only clump several African and notably "un-Arab" peoples into the list you are also going to have to determine when these Arabic speaking regions first became "Arab". This is only going to spark more debate and would make this List even more conflict prone than it already is. Just my two cents. NeoFreak 01:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: RfC Response

message: Link did not include an apostrophe before the i, leading it nowhere.  Fixed this.--Aeranis 04:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Al Asma'i

message: before i start the history lesson i wanna say as one of the friends said earlier, An Arab its like An American, a people who bron in the arabian land and his language is arabic, even if they wasn't arab by race if u wanna consider arab as a race.
you have to know that there is an arab race of one arabic country that called Yemen, the arabs originally started on that country not like everybody think (i mean its not saudi arabia), in thousand of years before islam, christianity, and jewdism the Yemeni people are travling to many countries in the world for trade, espcially a group of people in Yemen called 'Hadrami, this people consider one of the best business people in the world, they are the people who sent Islam to Indonesia and malaysia plus another Asian and African countries, also in some parts of Europe. Imegration was very big from this country in the begning for the countries that has semetice groups such as arabs, of course those languages has a lot of arabic vocabulary, then after they mixed with them new generations looks alike because they all are semetice race, these group of people add more arabic words to their language because they had lack of vocabulary, also they accepted the arabic words coz they found the language itself looks tipcally like arabic, then those group of people sparades in a lot of other places and so on, also in Yemen there was a great disaster of Yemen that called Marib Dam, so more Yemeni imigretions started, even today in Iran itself, they use the Arabic alphabet in their language, plus that more of 40% of persian language has arabic vocabulary, after that another era of arab-persian problem during the eimpre of Persia, when arab had a big war with the Persian empire that called Battle of Thi Qar, the arab at that time wasn't muslims yet.
also i want to say that all (not even most) the poeple that their names started with AL are arabs.
also all of the Ahl al-Bayt, are arabs, and iranian are saying that they are persian untill today!! well i will accept that they are Iranian people today coz they born and lived in Iran, but ethnically are not Persian.  —Abdullah Alkendy (talk • contribs) 00:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: these scholars are Arabs

message: 26-Oct-2008: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2006" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. Afterward, I inserted missing topic headers & trimmed the bot-signed notes. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Retrofit topic year headers

message: 26-Oct-2008: The format guidelines for adding entries to the list are described under the topic (above) titled: Entries Format for the List of Arab scientists and scholars. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Format

message: The article Brethren of Purity does not say they were Arab. So why they are listed here? Please explain.--Xashaiar (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Ikhwan Al-safa (The Brethren of Purity) 

message: The word "Arab" is used ambigiously and clearly refers to different groups at different times. Unfortunately, English has not developed a wording analogue to Greek (Hellenic) / Hellenistic for the Arabs. 
The definition of the Arab League mentioned here earlier is quite frankly horrible, notwithstanding that the Arab League in 1946, when it defined the word "Arab", included few if any democratic leaders.
  "An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the
   aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples."
I kindly ask: who defines whether a person's aspirations are "in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arab speaking peoples"? Does this mean that a person speaking Arabic, living in an Arabic speaking country, but who for some reason has happened to be in conflict with the majority of Arab speaking peoples (for instance by converting to another religion, something that is punishable in many such countries) is not an Arab anymore? For crying out loud. 
Muslim scientist is not a good term either, though it is featured on Wikipedia as well. Yet again - and this is also inconsequent - people like Hunayn ibn Ishaq, a well-renowned 9th century translator, would not be included there because he was a Christian. There was a certain pressure in Muslim societies to embrace the faith of Islam, if you wanted to reach the pinnacles of society - the term "Muslim scientist" goes into highly speculative details of whatever denomination a person held publicly and what he thought privately. 
The same pressure was present in Christian societies, but the idea that Galileo Galilei or Charles Darwin would be labelled "Christian scientists" (they were certainly both members of churches throughout their lives) would be ludicrous. The same actually goes for medieval scholars in Christian countries - for instance Paul of Aegina who was a Greek Christian in the 7th century AD. The latter category Christian Scientists does not even exist - it is redirected to an obscure 19th century church. If Wikipedia finds it relevant to list all the scientists who (at least formally) believed in the Quran, why are not the scientists who paid at least lip-service to the Bible mentioned as well? 
Now to the point: most of the scientists referred to here and on the Muslim scholar page should be transferred to a page called something like "(Arab) Caliphate civilisation scientists and scholars". Because that's what it's about. Most of these scholars were Arabs, but a sizeable minority belong to "arabized" people: Persians, Jews, Kurds, Greeks etc, who wrote in Arabic. Most of them were Muslims, but a sizeable minority were only formally so, or belonged to other religious groups. The likely ethnically Arab scholars who predate the Caliphate should be moved to another site, perhaps called "Pre-Islamic Arab scholars". Sponsianus (talk) 19:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: This list should be altered to "Caliphate civilisation scientists and scholars"

message: You guys are double spacing the list of entries in your list of Arab scholars so that it looks like theres more names. Do you guys have to constantly live in the shadow of Persians? I mean I constantly see Arab critics to academically sourced Persian scholars in Iranian wiki pages, and it's really sad I mean the other day I found out from a friend who lived in Jordon that they taught students in his school that Ibn Sina was an Arab...Whatever you guys have to prove to yourselves only makes a mockery of intelligent, reasonable minded Arabs who know a good source from a fabricated one.
Ditc (talk)DITC
The wikiarticle about Persian scientists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_scientists
Includes many non Persian scientists(such as Kurd,Georgian,Arab,Armenian,Turk,Uzbek,Jew,Afghan,Soghd,Khawarezmian,Pahlavi,Tabari,Old irani,Middle irani,Gilaki,Balush,Lari...)
But the scientists included here 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_scientists_and_scholars
ARE ALL ARAB since their mother tongue,name,surname and origin was ARAB(or SEMITE for someones)living under ARAB states
Humanbyrace (talk) 09:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Funny

message: The wikiarticle about Persian scientists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_scientists
Includes many non Persian scientists(such as Kurd,Georgian,Arab,Armenian,Turk,Uzbek,Jew,Afghan,Soghd,Khawarezmian,Pahlavi,Tabari,Old irani,Middle irani,Gilaki,Balush,Lari...)
Kurd,Georgian,Arab,Armenian,Azari,Afghan,Soghd,Khawarezmian,Pahlavi,Tabari,Old irani,Middle irani,Gilaki,Balush,Lari...) are all considered Iranic !!!
But the scientists included here 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_scientists_and_scholars
ARE ALL ARAB since their mother tongue,name,surname and origin was ARAB(or SEMITE for someones)living under ARAB states
Humanbyrace (talk) 09:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are all scholar listed here ARAB? 

message: from 5 known members , 3 of them mentioned below were not obviously arab. 
ابوسلیمان محمد بن معشر بُستی ,ابوالحسن علی بن هارون زنجانی،
 ابواحمد مهرجانی)نهرجوری)،
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irakischer_Maler_von_1287_001.jpg  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.197.66 (talk) 23:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brethren of Purity were NOT all arab  

message: Should we delete the "this section is empty tags", along with the section headers?  That would seem to make sense to me, as it would lead to a cleaner, more reader-friendly list, and the tags seem to yield little benefit and much cost in terms of distraction -- what sayeth consensus?--Epeefleche (talk) 21:25, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree William M. Connolley (talk) 17:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags 

message: The intro sez ... lived from antiquity up until the beginning of the modern age. It isn't quite clear when that is; Modern history says Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages.... So 20th century people are definitely too modern. 19th C too, I'd say; and even 18th C is dubious William M. Connolley (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Replacing the non-specific phrase with a specific date cutoff could be helpful in addressing the point.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd say that the cut off point should be when it stopped making any sense to talk about "Arab" science - ie, when science became effectively global; or when the globalisation of science reached this region, loosely defined. I'm not sure when that might be, though. End of the middle ages? As a strawman, how about arbitrarily saying 1600? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That works for me.  As would most any other date.  More important, I think, is establishing a specific date that is in the broad realm of what is reasonable, and specifying what it relates to (e.g., people born before that date, or alternatively died by that date ... etc.).--Epeefleche (talk) 18:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too modern 

message: "scientists and scholars" is quite vague. To take a specific case, what about philosophers such as Ahmad Bilal Yousaf? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The term, scholar, is quite broad and would include philosophers. Scientist', however, is not quite as broad and would not include philosophers. We could call the article a "List of Arab scholars", interpreting scholar to include scientists, but I don't think everyone will agree with that interpretation. So I think it would be more useful to keep both scientists and scholars in the title. Folklore1 (talk) 20:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholars?