Talk:Islam/Archive 6

message: Someone recently added a rambling and discursive para to the article that was not only marginally literate, it was wrong in many cases. The statement that put my teeth on edge was that Judaism and Chrisianity were the only religions of that time and place that weren't didn't worship idols. Um, Zoroastrianism doesn't worship idols, so far as I know, and Buddhism doesn't unless it's mixed with folk religion. Not to mention the fact that Eastern Orthodoxy was riven with conflict between those who venerated icons, and those who didn't (iconoclasts). 
I reverted the article to the pre-addition version. I don't want to discourage Scapula from editing Wikipedia, but I'd suggest that he/she start on less contentious articles that are closer to his/her areas of expertise. Zora 20:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scapula's edits 

message: For a list of requested article topics regarding Islam, Islamic culture, and the Muslim world, see Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts#Islam. -- Karada 13:10, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article requests 

message: It is my point of view that the entry for islam and the talk page associated is very far from npov it is apparant that it is muslim point of view. there is nothing that I have found, (although I don't have more than a couple of hours to read this one article) about how women are repressed and abused. You all have created a wonderful recruiting page for islam, good for you. Furthermore, you edit out what people put in that disagrees with what you think islam should be, not what it is in reality. I may have missed it, but all of the various sects are not delved into, only what would be pristine islam. God is the only God, and he said 'thou shalt not kill'. May His light open your eyes.
:I agree that Islamism is not as clearly separable from Islam as suggested in this article. There should be a section briefly outlining the history of radical interpretations of Islam, rather than simply the plain link under 'see also'. dab (ᛏ) 12:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But this is also true for some other religious articles on Wikipedia, especially Hinduism. I don't see Hindutva even mentioned (even in see also section) in Hinduism article  OneGuy 22:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: hm, in my opinion Hindutva should definitely be linked from Hinduism. I'm not saying we need a long paragraph about Islamism. One sentence is enough, just making it part of the article text rather than linking it without comment. Also, the Islamism article makes it sound like it's a 20th century phenomenon. Afaik, there were similar discussions in medieval Persia, contrasting fundamentalist/strict interpretations with more 'Persian'/mystic ideas  (origins of Sufism?). But I'm not knowledgeable about this. Do we have an article where these controversies are explained? dab (ᛏ) 16:24, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islam POV 

message: also, can people please stop messing with the translation of the "creed"? la ilaha illa-llahu means "[There is] no god but God". End of story. It does not mean "no god is rightfully worshipped" or anything similar. These are theological interpretations/implications, not translationss. dab (ᛏ) 14:48, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: arguably, a periphrase. except that brevity and the etymological connection are lost. How about "there is nothing godly but God"? After all "god" simply means "to be worshipped (gheu-to-)" too. dab (ᛏ) 12:06, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  "There is no God but God" is the usual English translation -- I don't think we need to come up with a new version. Or, if this is a matter of such importance, what about a breakout article? English translations of the Islamic confession of faith or some such thing. Do different mosques or Islamic confederations in English-speaking countries use different versions? Do Salafis and Sufis use different versions? This can be a big thing in some contexts. Consider the fuss over different versions of the Anglican services/prayerbook/whatever (I'm blanking on the correct term). Zora 12:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the difference may be impoortant. We don't need an "English translations" article, though, it can all be detailed on shahada. Just keep the most common translation here. dab (ᛏ) 14:50, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Creed "translations"

message: Another anon editor inserted four links to various websites and publications of Al-Mawrid Institute in Pakistan. That's a little much! I thought that I might narrow the links to one, and looked through them for academic content. But there wasn't any, really. Those sites are directed at devout Muslims who want to deepen their faith; there really is no academic content. I found one paper on a Christian gospel, which started out with a note to the effect that "I'm busy, I didn't have a chance to finish this term paper, but here it is." Unfinished undergraduate papers are not the stuff of a peer-reviewed academic journal. 
I would suggest that the anon editor make sure that all those links are included in the Open Directory listings. We link to the Open Directory, so an interested reader could follow the links to the Al-Mawrid site. Zora 11:05, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason I removed links in "academic sources" 

message: Since you asked, the hadith giving 124,000 is in Musnad Ibn Hanbal. It may not be significant enough to mention on the main page, though. - Mustafaa 22:15, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prophets 

message: I have added a section "Environmentalism and religion" to the Environmentalism article. Perhaps someone familiar with Islamic theology could add to it. --Erauch 19:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environmentalism and religion 

message: The sidebar on this and (presumably) every other major article relating to Islam lists articles on Maliki, Hanbali, etc. among "sects." This is not accurate, they are complementary schools of jurisprudence. Note that they are insistent on that point, inasmuch as Qur'an pronounces breaking the religion into sects as a sin. In any given Sunni masjid in US, one may encounter practitioners of all four of these schools of thought, or madhabs. They're better understood as distinct scholarly approaches to how best to perform the same obligations; they're not sects in the sense of competing subgroups. May I suggest we retitle heading as "Schools of Thought" wherever it appears? BrandonYusufToropov 14:02, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How about just using madhab and then defining it? Any attempt to coin an English phrase ends up being as long as a definition anyway. Zora 19:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Having taken another look at the sidebar, I'd say that it is misleading, and that the decision to present it that way may have been due to a perceived need to balance the list of Shi'a sects with a list of Sunni "sects" and make a visually balanced presentation. It would seem to be clearest to introduce another category, Madhab or Legal Tradition, and rework the sect list. It wouldn't look as pretty, having Sunni all by itself on one line, but it would be more rational. Zora 22:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I can try to add another category, but I'm afraid I don't know how to edit a template. Where exactly is the text I would change? BrandonYusufToropov 11:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  D'oh. I don't know where templates are stored. Zora 12:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I found it (with help from User:OneGuy. It was here: template:Islam, and I made the edit without totally messing up the graphics, which was a concern. What do people think? BrandonYusufToropov 18:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Looks good. Thanks Brandon. Zora 19:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Misleading. Why are Sunni madhabs in separate section while Shi'a ones are in sect section?  Ithna Asharia, Ismailiyah, Zaiddiyah, are all Shi'a OneGuy 19:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Sect" problem 

message: Hello. I'm trying to find some information on why the Abbasid Dynasty in Baghdad weakened and lost to the Mongols. I'm trying to find some good books/cites/articles on the reasons why the caliphate weakened and not just what happened. Does anyone have any good suggestions?
Thanks!
: Given that the Mongols trounced everyone for thousands of miles (Central Asians, Chinese, Russians, AND the Abbasids), I'm not sure that it's necessary to conclude that the Abbasids were WEAK. Would the outcome have been any different if the Mongols had arrived earlier, when the Caliphate was still "strong"?  Could the Mongols have beaten the Arab warriors of Uthman? 
: I'm reminded of sf fans and discussions such as "Could the Starship Enterprise beat the Death Star?" Zora 08:06, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. However, during the Umayyad dynasty, the empire was very large. After the Abbasids overthrew them and moved the capital, the empire gradually became smaller until it was just the area around Baghdad. I'm looked for the reasons why the empire became smaller. Green789 15:26, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does anyone have any good sources? 

message: OneGuy, you reverted the addition of a link to arabic-islamic.org -- or something like that. I had already taken one look at the link and decided that it might actually add to the article. Could you share your thought processes in deciding that it was part of a link spam? Zora 18:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the site is in Spanish. Put in Spanish Wikipedia if you like the site OneGuy 19:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was the link that bad? 

message: Fansher, I removed the forum sites you added. Those are proselytizing sites, and if we allow them, out of the hundreds or even thousands of proselytizing sites on the web, we'd have to allow them all. Just make sure that those sites are in the open directory (to which we link) and then people can find them if they look. Zora 09:24, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed forum sites 

message: Hello all,
I just want to say that I found this article to be an excellent article to Islam. It is clear, seems NPOV (I can't say - I'm a Christian) and well written. It uses summary sections well (though I'm not so crash hot on a section that has no summary form and refers to another article on Wikipedia) and the infobox is pretty cool. If only the Christianity article was so good! 
Anyway, I'd like to know what we need to do to get this to FA status. What do people think? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:27, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree -- it would be a nice feature article. No idea how to nominate, though.BrandonYusufToropov 11:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, it's quite an acheivement considering the amount of vandalism and well-meaning spamming. I think the sections containing nothing but a "main article" link should just be moved to "see also". The "English version of the creed" needs some work (can we get the original Arabic?) what is the difference between Angels (which means, Messengers), and "Messengers"? What is the term translated by "Angel"? Maybe include some stuff from Angels#Islamic_views? dab (ᛏ) 12:11, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  malak means "messenger" in Hebrew; in Arabic, it has no meaning but "angel", as far as I know. - Mustafaa 23:22, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: With an eye toward nomination, I have cut-and-pasted a key paragraph from the "Islam and other religions" article to fill in that blank spot, and copyedited what seemed to me a few unclear spots in "Islam in the Modern World" -- thoughts?  BrandonYusufToropov 11:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA status 

message: Hi, I'm no expert on Islam, so I'm not exactly sure what the proper way to refer to Shi'as is.  What should wikipedia use?  I've seen the following on various pages:
*Shiites
*Shi'ites
*Shiite Muslims
*Shi'ite Muslims
*Shia
*Shias
*Shia Muslims
*Shi'a
*Shi'as
*Shi'a Muslims
*Shi'i
Also I am confused whether to use:
*Shiism
*Shi'ism
*Shia Islam
*Shi'a Islam
*Shiaism
This problem is illustrated by What links to Shi'a Islam. Needless to say, all of this variety is a bit confusing.  I think it would be useful for Wikipedia to adopt one standard, and stick to it on all articles.  The problem is that it takes quite a while to change existing articles to match that standard.  I am willing to do a hundred of the articles linking to Shi'a Islam via redirects, but no more than that (There are just too many).  If anyone else would like to help out, just click the above link, find a page, and change the references to Shi'a to be in whatever form is thought best.  Let me know what you think at my talk page, or we can have a discussion here.  --Jacobolus 07:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: some are more common than other spellings, but it's a matter of convention I suppose, and uniformityu will be difficult to impose on WP. Myself I would opt for Shi'ites, Shi'a, only if because the apostrophe makes it looks less similar to shite :o) dab (ᛏ) 13:32, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper name of Shi'a 

message: During a recent reversion, the final third of the article simply evaporated, and attempts to resave from the same version resulted in the same missing text.
I cut and pasted from the article page to restore the missing text, but I know there are some ugly spots and missing internal links. At least the text is now current, and Godwilling I will fix the links later on. BrandonYusufToropov 14:47, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  System problem 

message: ... and the vandalism of this page continues. Help, please. BrandonYusufToropov 19:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got it. For future reference, though, 3RR doesn't apply to simple and obvious vandalism, so feel free to revert that as much as you like. —Charles P. (Mirv) 19:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okay, I've used up my three reverts for the day ... 

message: could somebody check out Atheism#In_Islam, please? I was under the impression that shirk and kafir were not overlapping concepts, and that kafir was more or less equivalent to atheist. The article now claims "the concept does not exist", I am not sure who inserted that. dab (ᛏ) 11:57, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: atheism

message: I am new to this encyclopedia, and would like someone's assistance in this.
I would like to suggest an additional heading under the category "Islam" which so far, understandably focuses mainly on doctrine and religious communities, schools and orientations, but also has architecture. I would like to suggest a heading that contains architecture, as well as a wide range of other phenomena. Islamic Civilizations is in the plural because as a world tradition, the faith has interacted with a wide range of cultures: pre-Islamic Arabian, African, Iranian, Turkic, Indian, South-East Asian, Chinese, etc. This category of knowledge goes beyond theology and practice to encompass culture, scientific knowledge, medicine, technology, the meaningful relationship different Muslims have with their natural environment, with different cultural traditions, as well as the understandings and practices that are hybrid and creative integration of different traditions and cultural practices. 
Islamic Civilizations covers various works from around the world such as poetic literature, stories, philosophical and scientific treatises, travel accounts, maps, and encyclopedias. This section would thus embody the pluralism and breadth of concern that is to be found in any tradition that encompasses about one billion people spanning the globe, over a period of one thousand four hundred years. 
I shall start in a small way by describing texts that demonstrate a small piece of knowledge that would fall in such a category.
Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries was a period of scientific and cultural development among Muslims and others who shared a cultural space that could arguably qualify as "Classical" rather than medieval, as is commonly understood. Why? Despite some degree of political turbulence, this period was formative in several senses: individuals often asked fundamental questions about the human condition, there was much diversity of opinion, there was significant dialog between reason and spiritual experience, individuality was generally respected, and there was a profound and general respect for the validity of one's experience, one's own powers of observation and reason, and finally, a healthy suspicion of received knowledge or tradition. 
During this period, many texts developed, mainly in Arabic, some of which are in English translation. 
For example, in the tenth century, the great scholar and lecturer on Islamic law, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, who lived in in Baghdad, which was then in the middle of a period of creative ferment. Right in the middle of his regular lectures, al-Ghazzali stopped his lecture and could speak no more. While those near him thought he had suffered from some sort of physical ailment, he had, according to his own autobiography, undergone a profound crisis of conscience. He found an emptiness beneath the impressive body of legal precepts, and soon left his secure position as teacher of law, and went on a seven-year physical and philosophical journey that led to a major reform of the tradition that could in some respects be compared to that of Martin Luther. Ghazzali focused on an inner dimension to the legal traditions, by focusing, for example, on the intention of the person behind the performance of ritual and the precepts of legal rules. Moreover, he contributed to integration of Sunni Islam and Sufism, which by his time become a movement of interior spirituality that, for the most part from the "outside" criticised the superficiality of legalism and what they considered the moral decline that came with the enormous wealth and power in North Africa, Western, Central and South Asia. In fact, Ghazzali was called "mujadded" that is, someone who brought something new, or fresh. He could be critiqued for being conservative, and hermetically sealing his innovative synthesis. Nevertheless, his interpretation of the Verse of Light (Sura Noor) of the Qur'an, written after his journey, gives a whiff of his respect for the inner life and his freshness of mind. His autobiography, which covers his crisis, and illustrates his searching, sharp mind, his poignant honesty and is as lucid and self-revelatory as the writing of any a reformer. Both his interpretation of that famous verse and his autobiography have been translated into English.
Another example from that period is an encyclopedia call the "Treatise of the Brethren of Purity", written about 700 years before Diderot, by a group of individuals in many walks of life, in the city of Basra, in present-day Iraq. This massive work covered the knowledge of the day from music to mathematics, from physiology (which included knowledge of the human circulatory system) to natural history, as well as narratives that would today be called precursors of fiction. One of these narratives is called "Trial of the Animals Versus Humanity", in which a group of animals revolt against the domination of human beings, and question the assumption that human beings make that they are superior to animals. These animals do not trust human courts, so resort to the court of Genies (Jinn). This segment of the encycopedia covers probably one percent of the total work, and although it is not ecology in the modern sense, and represents a rudimentary but genuine observation of animals and insects, has recently been called the first example of deep ecology in human history. 
I will obtain the references to the above texts and post them ASAP.
My next submission will be a summary of several such texts, which should, hopefully, encourage others who know other such texts to summarize and reference them.
~saffroncoconut
----
You don't need anyone's permission to start an article. It needn't be linked to Islam at first. If you want to start writing articles about Islamic scholars, jurisprudence, literature, just go ahead. Just do a search first to make sure that it's not covered already. 
Note: search on various terms to make sure you've looked everywhere the subject might be filed. As a newbie, I set up several pages that I later discovered already existed, under slightly different names.
Once you start accumulating the little bits, it will be clear how things should be organized into categories (note that they can belong to more than one category). Also, there IS Islamic material in Wikipedia that's NOT linked to the Islam article. Frex, there's hijab and Islam and clothing, which need to be combined, really, and Sufism, Islamic music, Arab music, etc. If you want to set up some categories that don't already exist and start cross-linking things, that's fine too. I don't think it should ALL go to the Islam article -- we'd end up with ten zillion links. But we could link the Islam article to a few link-collection pages. 
Starting with the major categories and working down may not be the best approach. I'd also be somewhat concerned about the idea of an "Islamic" civilization. While Islam may have provided the framework, a lot was contributed by the Christian and Jewish dhimmis. Whenever you start with a huge, vague conception, you end up with vapid generalities and lots of arguments. When you start with the bits and work up, I think you're going to have an easier time getting consensus on how existing bits should be classified and organized. 
Welcome! Write lots! Explain what you're doing on talk pages! Zora 01:59, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Islamic Civilizations

message: Several editors went to work on the article without any explanation of what they were doing, or why. I reverted, and I invite those editors to come here and talk to the rest of us about changes. This article is a result of a long period of consultation and negotiation. It is better to work collaboratively in such cases. 
Skywalker added a link to a Russian website that doesn't appear useful to people searching for general knowledge about Islam. Xbla (or some such name) was busy simplifying and deleting -- edits that in some cases I thought made sense, as stripping away an aura of Muslim religiosity that has gradually accreted -- but such edits are bound to be controversial, and I think should be done gradually and carefully. Zora 18:21, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A round of edits by non-communicating editors 

message: I am afraid, Grenavitar, that your statement reflects your personal opinion which you have allowed to color your actions when trying to suppress the restoration of the NPOV.
Essentially , your version of the article presents a sanitized face that is meant to be favorable to Islam and demeaning to other faiths.
You, yourself could not help blurting out your true opinion of other faiths which you evidently regard as inferior and not as a fellow faith. This being one of my points above.
I hope you can take a moment to regain your NPOV on this topic. Try to consider carefully the points I made above and see if you cannot recover an NPOV on this.
Your attempt to label my changes as vandalism is ridiculous and a pretty uncalled for tactic.
: X, not everyone working on this article is Muslim. The article as it stands (now that I've reverted it) is the result of many months of work by editors of various faiths. The non-Muslim editors (such as myself) have tried hard to include everything that the Muslims think is noteworthy about their religion, but state it so carefully that Muslim belief is described as belief and not stated as fact.
: If your experience on Wikipedia has been of working on derelict or abandoned articles, then it hasn't prepared you for dealing with an article watched by a large community of editors. You can't just come in swinging. You can either approach your edits one by one, gradually, and argue for accepting them on the talk page, or you can write an alternate version, put it up on your user talk page or a subsidiary page attached thereto, and then call for comments. 
: Wikipedia is rather bad at teaching editors HOW to work with the community, such as it is. You have to learn by banging your head against the wall, as I've done too many time <g>. Please accept this advice from a veteran wallbanger. Zora 18:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: your edit was also bad in other respects than npov. Don't expect people to clean up after you. You broke the formatting of boldface Islam. You removed information for no good reason. Your tearing into the first section of the article makes it clear you have not read the entire article: You just seem to have read the introduction and decided to make it less "Islamophile" as a kneejerk reaction. It is true that some points of the present article could still be npoved. For example, the assertive "as it is, after all, the direct word of God to mankind." of the introduction is redundant, and you could politely argue for its removal. It is conceivable that the less attractive sides of Islam should be mentioned here, rather than stashed away in Islamism. To that effect, you could suggest a balanced "Islamism" section (this would be the Islam in the modern world: What is "fundamental'? section which, unlike the intro, is pretty recent, and could still be substantially improved. Have you even got so far as to notice that section?). Just tearing through a half-read article like that, however, will simply get you nowhere. dab (ᛏ) 18:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your removal of that redundant line.  It made it seem like you were repeating it to convince the reader and now it is less preachy. gren 20:05, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Xl... an article of a religious nature will always have a sense of bias that a scientific one can more easily remove.  It is a Muslim belief that their revelations have been kept perfect whereas Christian and Jewish ones have not been and they therefore surpass Christianity and Judaism in terms of truth.  This is their belief and we are obliged to report this even if we do not agree.  When you write an article about religion you must first report what the general mass of adherents to the religion assert as the basis for your article and this will inherently sound biased towards their beliefs.  However, any educated reader should realize that we are reporting the beliefs of a group biased in their own favor and they should look further to see critiques of the religion.  As for my bias, I am not Muslim either but I do have a great sympathy for the religion as I do for Christianity as well and POV is added through means of trying to remove the reporting of beliefs of any religion and I see it I will try to stop it. gren 19:38, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I still stand by the points I made=

message: "In the U.S., more people convert to Islam than any other faith, especially amongst African Americans." This is unsubstantiated , where are the statistics on this? What about people who convert out of Islam ?
"There are approximately 5 million Muslims in North America." This is also unsubstantiated , considering that there is not statistical count of muslims in North America. Where do these numbers come from ? Xlaba22
---
The Pluralism Project (a Harvard associated project run by Diana Eck) estimates between 2.56M and 6M Muslims in America.
A perhaps less reliable source:
"At present, the number of Muslims in the United States is estimated to be on the order of between 5 to 8 million. It is the fastest growing faith in this country." --Colorado State University Muslim Students Association.  No citations in article (They due mention several books, the last of which published in 1993, in the article...one can infer from this that the article, and the statistic, is from 1993 or later.)
Muslim population of North America (Canada and the US) is put at 323.1 by IslamicPopulation.com.  If you define North America geographically (as opposed to the general European conception) and include Mexico, the population stands at 428M (according to the same source, with Mexico having 104.9M Muslims).
I accidentally thought growth stats were needed, and I dug up the following up before I realized it was unneccessary, but here it is anyway:
As for growth, ReligiousTolerance.org has an article with multiple sources with most pointing to Islam being the fastest growing world religion.
The Islam scholar John L. Esposito also says "that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States..." source
: Dws 11:33, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islam growth today 

message: Is this comment regarding 'reformation' in the introduction necessary? I've changed it from "Unlike Christianity ..." to "Unlike other Abrahamic traditions ..." but that seems just as prejudicial and biased. This line makes the Eurocentric assumption that Islam *needs* to be reformed - in other words, there is something inherently wrong and dangerous about Islam (see my comments made above in response to RK), and that it needs to be made "liberal," whatever that is meant to imply.Just to make things clear to everyone, Islam is not Catholicism, nor is it Reform Judaism, both of which are Westernized Abrahamic religions. Whether Islam can be Westernized is open to debate, but I do not believe that it should be implied that such a Westernization would be proper and required. Does Tibetan Buddhism need to be reformed (i.e. Westernized) as well? What about Hinduism? Honestly, I simply do not understand this Western obsession with destroying other peoples' traditions and forcing them to reconcile their belief systems with the Western world. Not even the Japanese have forced their Shinto faith to become Westernized or liberalized or whatever.At any rate, 'liberal (or reform) movements in Islam' is all very good and well, but I do not believe it should be linked to the Christian Reformation or whatever. Ghostintheshell 23:55, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'd agree with you, at least in part. There's no reason for Islam to repeat the same process that Christianity underwent. I would say that any venerable tradition has the challenge of facing and absorbing what's NEW, whether it's textual criticism or evolution, especially when what's new contradicts things that people previously took for granted. The pace of change has accelerated enormously in the last few centuries, but it's the same problem every believer faces at every moment: how do I interpret the teachings NOW? The difficulty of doing this is radically increased when the guardians of the tradition refuse to admit that there's any difficulty at all. IMHO, they've fossilized -- and hence are no longer alive. Zora 00:40, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The earlier statement drew attention to aspects of Islam  which is widely viewed as in need of change, particularly in the area of Freedom of other religions to practice freely and in the open, including both monotheistic and non,The emancipacipation of women,Tolerance of  apostates and freedom to leave Islam,Freedom of speech and freedom of thought.,Freedom to disbelieve without stigma or punishment.The comparison to Christian reformation is a much softer way of of making the point than listing the above points directly.  --4r2emi 14:20, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your obvious prejudice against Islam aside, the issues you are referring to are all political, and have nothing to do with Islam itself. There are many Muslim countries in this world, and most of them are not like Saudia Arabia or the Taliban. Perhaps you would like to think that, just many other anti-Muslim bigots, but that's your problem. Plus, the Christian reformation is just a bad example, plain and simple. It didn't really "reform" anything, and it's primary result was a schism between the Protestants and Rome. But the Protestants were just as conservative and "hardline" as the Catholics, if not more so, as evidenced by the extreme austerities of groups like the Puritans and the zealousness of modern Evangelicals. Ghostintheshell 04:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am not the originator of the original section regarding reformation, but I do think it made a good point. Reformation is discussed extensively in a wide array of books dealing with Islam and modernity, some of which you may want to read directly. Mentioning it in the article seems quite appropriate as it is reflective of current public discourse on the topic of Islam. On the subject of the listed issues, I am afraid that a great deal of Muslims do not share your POV ,indeed we would like to see you stand on any street in the Muslim world with a sign promoting those freedoms.--4r2emi 05:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I've stated before, there have been a number of reform movements in Islam - Wahabism, for example, which originated out of Saudia Arabia and which heavily influenced the Taliban. But that obviously is not the same type of reform we are talking about, since the Wahabi's are eerily similar to those Puritanical Christians who first settled New England. And you will recall that the Puritans were Christian reformers, which is why they left England for the New World.Now, as to your statement that the "majority of Muslims" do not share my POV - you really cannot expect to be taken seriously with a statement like that, do you? Do you know how many Muslims there are in this world, and how diverse a community it is we are talking about here?  Do you honestly think that the vast majority of Muslims, or even any large percentage of Muslims agree with the sott of religious tyranny to be found in Saudia Arabia?It might surprise to find out that most Muslims are very much against the Saudi regime, most especially Saudi Muslims (particularly those who are not part of the Wahabist cult, i.e. the majority) themselves. Did you know that most Muslim-majority nations are secular? Do you know anything about (or better yet, ever been to) Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Bosnia, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco - to name a few prominent examples? Did you know that in those Muslim-majority countries like Iran where self-styled Islamist regimes are in power, that such regimes are extremely unpopular and despised by those nation's population? Do you know anything about how the majority of Afghans (majority of them very religious) felt about the Taliban?Your statements are so illogical and ignorant, that I should even bother to reply, but unfortunately attitudes such as yours are common in the West, as evidenced by the popularity of commentators such as Daniel Pipes and the  like, anti-Islam this, anti-Islam that, ad nauseum. You can be a bigot if you like, just don't hide behind all this innuendo of "reform" and "modernity." There is plenty of modernity in the Muslim world, and there is plenty of political reform underway. Of course, does the West really want secularism (which is the most popular form of government in the world, including the Muslim world) in Muslim countries? From recent political events (you will recall the Saddamite regime was staunchly secular and the pre-Taliban government in Afghanistan during the 80's was secular as well), it would seem that the Western powers want Islamism to spread. Not everything in this world is black & white, and Muslims are human beings, not stereotypes you can condemn at will. Last I remember, most Russians were against Communism, but that didn't stop those like you to condemn and stereotype them all as tyrannical collectivists. Ghostintheshell 11:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: That's not a bad idea, but one could also create a section (or separate article rather) dealing with reform movments in Islam - from religious extremist reform movements like Taliban to secular and liberal type reform movements, and so forth. Because reform can mean many things, and it can be good or bad. As it is, there is already a link to liberal movements in Islam, which of course deals with a very specific type of reform. But I think there is also a great deal of misunderstanding in that non-Muslims assume that Islamic law (Sharia) is in effect all over the Muslim world, which is simply not true. You have these people such as the individual above who think that every Muslim country is like Saudia Arabia, which is not only a very stupid and uneducated thing to prmote, but grossly erroneous. It's the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell type of mentality. Quite frankly, I've debated these types of issues in the past with ignorant types concerning Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Hinduism, and it was all very much in this same vein - having to argue against stereotypes and disinformation. It's ridiculous and one has to have plenty of patience, and unfortunately, I can't say I have much tolerance left for this sort of stupidity and prejudice. Ghostintheshell 11:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reformation

message: OK wikipedians, its time to get honest about the growth of Islam numbers. As you may have noticed I corrected the wild marketing exagerations and produced some clear and sensible statements on the matter. We have all known for a long time now that this section has been exagerated by any means possible , however honesty must prevail here. Try to understand this , honesty will get everyone a lot further than lies.  --Wibidabi 04:21, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am just curious as to why the Christianity page uses 1.24 as the growth rate for Christianity and 1.76 as the rate for Islam.  Are these facts backed up? and if not will someone change it? gren 05:57, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Wild marketing exaggerations?  All I see is that Wibidabi removed a sourced claim with no explanation, and changed an unsourced (and now sourced) claim to another unsourced claim.  Whether the figures supplied are wrong or right, he'll have to argue his case a bit better than that. - Mustafaa 11:02, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with the points Wibidabi made, I myself had said this before and it is amazing how we all have been tolerating the obvious marketing puffery in this section. --4r2emi 15:30, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You agree, but you present no argument whatsoever.  The question of whether these estimates are correct is a factual one, not a question of opinion, and your opinion is of little relevance without supporting factual arguments. - Mustafaa 23:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Get honest people on the growth of Islam

message: A Muslim editor named Alimustafakhan made many changes to the Islam article, none of which he discussed here and most of which moved the article towards a more overt Muslim piety. I have reverted to the last pre-Ali version. I will be putting a message on his talk page asking him to be more circumspect in making changes to an article that has been the subject of so much work, controversy, and hard-fought compromise. Zora 16:39, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversed edits by Alimustafakhan 

message: Is it worth the time and effort to rv  vandalism? Just disable the Edit feature! how do I raise this issue in the community portal?
--The Brain 17:04, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)
:we do want people to edit the article. It's not 'finished', so it should be possible to improve it. dab (ᛏ) 17:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: ===Exclusivistic thought in Islam===
One part—often seen as the largest or at least currently the most vocal—focuses on the differences takes an exclusivistic and aggressive approach to the differences between Islam and the Judeo-Christian community. Like in other faiths, this can lead to parts of the Muslim community holding beliefs like the necessity of bringing them back to the "Straight Path" by persuasion, or even force, and then acting them out.''
Can anybody explain what this means in plain english?--65.141.40.88 02:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha... nope gren 02:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anybody taken a look at Exclusivistic thought in Islam lately?

message: One part—often seen as the largest or at least currently the most vocal—focuses on the differences takes an exclusivistic and aggressive approach to the differences between Islam and the Judeo-Christian community. Like in other faiths, this can lead to parts of the Muslim community holding beliefs like the necessity of bringing them back to the "Straight Path" by persuasion, or even force, and then acting them out.''
Can anybody explain what this means in plain english?--65.141.40.88 02:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha... nope gren 02:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Exclusivistic thought in Islam

message: The old version had "Belief in the books sent by God" -- some anon editor has changed that to "Belief in the book (Al-Qur'an) sent by God. I would revert that, but I'm not completely sure of myself. As I understand it, Muslims recognize the Jewish and Christian scriptures, they just believe that the Qur'an superseded them. Muslim editors please comment. Zora 01:32, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not Muslim but...  they believe in all books... but they only have the Qur'an unadulterated.  So, practically speaking that edit is right but in truth they should accept any if they had it in its "original form".  Also there is some talk about one eternal book... because they common Sunni belief is that hte book has always existed.  The Mu'tazila believe that that constitutes shirk... so, it's belief in the eternal book. gren 01:57, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: strictly speaking, the qur'an is not a "book" (kitab) but a "lecture", i.e. the book was not sent by God with UPS, but he sent Gabriel as his mouthpiece. Muslims certainly do not believe any other books were "sent by God" -- they do believe that Moses and Jesus and whoever were genuine prophets, but the texts about them were written by humans and are hopelessly corrupt. So imho, if we are talking about any book-sending at all, it should be in the singular :) dab (ᛏ) 08:36, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wah? No, it is believed that Moses was a prophet just like Muhammad and the Torah was sent to him and he kept it in its divine form (because prophets don't suck) and the people of his time corrupted it so it only exists on earth in a humanly bastardized form.  But, it was a book from God in its original form.  It should be equal to the Qu'ran but the caveat is that modern day humans cannot know what the original Torah said. gren 13:56, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Have to disagree here -- seems to me that Qur'an cleary specifies that (unadulterated versions of) Injeel, Taurat, Zaboor -- Gospel, Torah, Psalms -- are in fact divinely inspired. Belief is not that they were written by humans, but that they were messed up down the line and (by implication) that traces of original teachings may remain, though identifying what's authentic is a difficult task. Generalized respect for practices and scriptures of People of the Book is, I am pretty sure, an obligation on Muslims laid down in hadith, though I couldn't tell you which one. BrandonYusufToropov 12:54, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: so would you say it is commonly accepted that the qur'an is a kitab? Or does that sound awkward, would you say the qur'an is in a kitab? (I don't know, I'm asking genuinely) dab (ᛏ) 19:03, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edit re articles of belief 

message: I deleted the references to rationlizing that Islam is growing faster than Christianity, due to those countries having a higher birth rate.  I do so because one 1) It is bigoted 2) There is no factual evidence to support it. 3) There is not enough evidence to determine what the conversion rate is and 4) In many of those countrys where Islam is supposed to have a higher birth rate, the acutal death rates are equal or even higher than the birth rates.
--mpa
:ok, but why "bigoted"? Any sources for (4)? dab (ᛏ) 18:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted References to Birth Rate 

message: it's much too short now. I suggest moving the first paragraph of "beliefs" back into the intro. dab (ᛏ) 18:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: the intro

message: Someone added a pro-Muslim link to the opposing viewpoints section; someone else had added a rather strident anti-Muslim site there. Since it seemed that we were headed down the slippery slope to a link free-for-all, I pruned the opposing views section down to a link to the dmoz directory. We pruned all the links to pro-islam sites down to directories, so that everyone would be linked, but at one remove. It seems like the best thing to do to apply that policy to the opposing viewpoints. Zora 09:28, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The trouble is that there are opposing viewpoints and favoring viewpoints that might not be represented by the directories, and that folks might want to add. How do we fix this problem?  — Rickyrab | Talk 18:04, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Tell people to go to the directory project. Dmoz is another community project and I have never heard of any links being refused. But that's a good point -- perhaps we should put up a short explanation of why we're using the links pages (to make sure we aren't favoring one group over another and yet to keep the length of the page down) and how to get on the links page. Zora 18:45, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

text: So you're saying that the open directory site doesn't include the saner of the questioning Islam sites? I just went to look at it, and it does seem a bit short, and excludes some sites I know (like Ibn Warraq's site or answering-islam) that are at least reasonable -- even if one doesn't agree with them. Is there another directory that we could use? It seems like a mistake to pick and choose sites ourselves, given that Islam is so controversial these days, and if we're inclusive, the list could include hundreds of sites. Or ... I hate to suggest this, but we could either start our own Wikipedia list, or try to open up the dmoz one. Zora 22:24, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I took another look at the directory and it seems OK. We've now removed the direct listing to faithfreedom.org. So everything is copacetic? <g> Zora 05:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pruning links 

message: I would like to request that anyone here who knows anything about Muslim polygamy (and supposed Muslim polygamy in Western countries) to please see the article on Polygamy and it's talk page. Whatever I do know about the topic I contributed to the article and corrected what I saw as very POV and inflammatory material contributed by an editor called 'Researcher99'. I unfortunately engaged this user in an edit war which was a huge mistake on my part since I am by no means an expert (on Muslim polygamy and polygamy in general), and I have little interest in polygamy. But I know false information when I see it and I feel ultimately that I was in the right and my criticisms correct and valid. But I'm not a Muslim and I'm not an expert, so I would appreciate others who are better informed than I to take this issue on to keep the balance going. Ghostintheshell 19:15, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  To give you my two cents , Poligamy is allowed in Islam , with the clause that the husband must nevertheless be able to support his wives. As far as I see it , it a cultural preference issue, each culture can chose the parameters that it wishes to set for marriage and I personally find no objection to that. An interesting question arises though , how about allowing a woman to have multiple husbands, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.--Wibidabi 23:35, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Muslims and [[Polygamy]]

message: As discussed in earlier threads, apostasy is a real life issue in Islam. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4516539.stm
--Wibidabi 23:12, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sudan is not Islam , its Sudan . If  you think its a real life issue , clearify its realities hereApostasy in Islam. And put whatever facts U like . Farhansher 05:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: so we have room on this long article for verbatim quotes of the hadith, but not for a reference to apostasy. I included the apostasy stuff in the sharia section. Do you argue there shouldn't even be sharia and hadith sections, since this is Islam, and not sharia or hadith? Please correct factual errors, I did not verify this information. It is, however, at least as relevant as what the prophet told some merchant about what he could or couldn't sell, come on. dab (ᛏ) 07:02, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text: The linked article above is one example of the apostasy POV in the Islamic world. It looks like Farhansher is trying to simply erase all mention of this subject,  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of knowledge not CAIR's marketing page . Dab, apostasy belongs in its own section not buried in another section where it can be watered down to meaningless double-talk and eventually quietly deleted.--Wibidabi 10:47, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: no it doesn't. you argue that apostasy is notable enough to be mentioned, and I supported you on this. Now you claim it needs its own h2 section. What next? We're not allowed to change your choice of words? Your decisions on the ToC? I strongly recommend you return to my compromise suggestion, that did include your apostasy stuff. dab (ᛏ) 11:07, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I argue that apostasy belongs in its own section and apostasy was its own section until Farhansher deleted it . I just reverted it.Futhermore that section used to be many times bigger , then various editors argued to create the Apostasy in Islam page and reduce the apostasy section in the main Islam page to a concise few paragraphs. This was negotiated and agreed . Well, now we are down to; "lets get rid of the section all together , and just have a one paragraph mention incorporated in the article". You ask what is next , well  I guess what is next is that we will just erase any mention of it all together. In the mean time the Apostasy in Islam page is going through the same process, delete this embarasing fact ,lets water down this other unsavory part , lets sanitize it all for public consumption and soon there will be no mention of this unsavory topic.If that is the outcome that you want then I guess the process is well under way. (By the way , if you want to see the result of this sort of process take a look at what is left of the Islam#Exclusivistic thought in Islam section)--Wibidabi 11:58, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: well, I guess we have to keep separate concerns of article length, and concerns of "whitewashing". It's not obvious at all that it should have its own section. it's certainly not obvious that it should be a h2 section, on par with "the qur'an" and "the 5 pillars". Frankly, while I'm familiar with the terms mushrik and kafir, I've never even heard of irtidad  before this discussion (I'm not a specialist of course). You seem to be very interested in giving so-called embarassing facts as much prominence as you can get away here. I'm motivated by no such desire, I just think it looks out of place in the ToC as it is. And btw I'm not sure we can agree the facts are embarassing, obviously a number of governments does think apostasy is a capital crime, and I remind you that the same was the case in Christian lands up to the "enlightened" 18th century, and certain popular western leaders seem to think so still. But I guess since we have you to count on, you'll make sure apostasy is not watered down, even when stashed away in the sharia section :) dab (ᛏ) 12:18, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  The same standard applies to all articles , Christianity and western leaders included. --Wibidabi 12:58, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Apostasy section has been restored

message: See new titling. Seems like the best option yet. BrandonYusufToropov 17:25, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK then, that was certainly a rough one , wasn't it, I am surprised the calvalry ( zora, gren,  etc..) did not jump into the fray this time to back you up:) . Lets see how long the section will last as it is before someone comes along and "sanitizes" the content for public consumption, .--Wibidabi 17:33, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Awesome, I'm calvalry.  gren 20:30, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  the link was a quick reality check, lest we get lost in never never land that some editors of this article would like to create. Heck there are so many such items in the news these days I would suggest that you go to just about any major new web site to catch the events unfolding under our watch.--Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  phobia ? ever heard of the real world ? try doing any of those things listed in the apostasy article publicly in any muslim majority area and find out for yourself if it is just a phobia.--Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do not have exact stats at hand , I do know that it the late 90s the Saudi Government admitted to executing around 100 people a year for a range of offenses including apostasy--Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  this is the "..." POV is the convention used in WP. --Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Exactly. But there is apparently extraordinary pressure to accommodate them on this page if they're really, really insistent. BrandonYusufToropov 20:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  come on Farhandler Jihad has broader connotations than only a personal struggle. Why is the word being constantly used in the middle east right now calling on muslims to fight the bad bad westerners?--Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Note to everybody other than F:
He makes some excellent points, above. But we (meaning me and everyone else) have now successfully fast-forwarded over each and every one of those points, because people with a political agenda are good at brinksmanship, subterfuge, and doubletalk. Of course, F is not as used to compromising on WP as I am. Personally, I think that's probably a good thing. BrandonYusufToropov 20:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hey Brandon , interesting POV you got there, no offense but didn't someone once say that the person pointing his finger at others has 3 his other fingers pointing back at him   --Wibidabi 22:48, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Even better solution 

message: Zora, if that's your call, I will go along with it. BrandonYusufToropov 19:41, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, I don't know what's going on... and I don't particularly care what the heading is... if you're so worried about using the word apostasy in a heading then *shrugs*.  and what the hell is a "boo word".  I do ask that you keep statements like Islam says... because that's not exactly a proper statement to make.  The Qur'an says, Muhammad is reporting as having said, the hadith XXX says, Hanafi says... but Islam does not say.  gren 20:37, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  OK 

message: I've been trying to put together a table showing contemporary population  and percentage of Muslim, Sunni, Shi'a, and Ibadi per country (it could be useful in various Islam articles). I've been using the CIA fact book online, adherents.com, and googling like mad. I've got a real problem, however, in giving Sunni/Shi'a/Ibadi percentages for many countries. In many cases I can assume that the country is overwhelmingly Sunni, in some cases percentages are given, but there are a few countries where I don't feel that it's right to assume that all Muslims are Sunni but there are no breakdowns of the Muslim population given. That's especially true of the Muslim diaspora in the West. I know that there are Shi'a in the US and the UK, if only from the Persian diaspora, but I can't find any figures anywhere. If I assume that all the Muslims in Western countries are Sunni, I'm going to be undercounting Shi'a. 
* Does anyone know where such figures might be found? Have I been reinventing the wheel?
* If there are no figures, would it be reasonable to assume that Shi'a make up 10% of the diaspora and adjust the counts that way? So far I've come up with a figures of approximately 90/10% for Sunni/Shi'a balance overall -- of course, fudging the Western diaspora figures would change this slightly. 
** Well that's a delicate tasks for the estimates on the percentage of Shias in Pakistan range from 5 to 25, and this is just one example. It is very problematic to assume an overall average for Shias in the diaspora. Whereas 10% might be an underestimation with regard to Canada, it would be an overestimation for many European countires where the majority of Mulims is of North African origin.Marriex 08:31, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that it's a delicate task. It's driving me nuts <g>. The estimates I'm using for Pakistan is 20% of total population -- that's from the CIA factbook and hey, they must have an intense interest in the religious makeup of Pakistan right now. Good point re different sources for the diaspora in different countries. If the continental European immigrants are from North Africa or Turkey, they would usually be Sunni, yes ... but I think we can assume a higher percentage for the UK, the US, and Canada. Especially for the US, because I think it got a lot of the Persian immigration. Enough to support a Persian pop music scene in LA. Assume 10% for UK and Canada, and 15% for US? Please please help me! I'm tired of dealing with POV warriors who are sure, on the one hand, that 95% of Muslims are Sunni and the Shi'a are just a few malcontents who don't count, OR, that 30% of Muslims are Shi'a, and they're being undercounted because they're oppressed. Surely it must be possible to come up with something better than guesses. Zora 09:01, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Now for something completely different 

message: See my suggestion for a more systematic ToC. I have not changed the article content except for importing the summary of History of Islam, since otherwise the history section would only have treated contemporary Islam. I have included "5 pillars" and "Qur'an" under "beliefs" to parallel "God" and "prophets". The "denominations" part I  moved in front of "other religions" since it seems logical to discuss Islam first, and its relation to other religions later. dab (&;;;;;;;;;;#5839;) 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good moves, Dbachmann. Article flows much better. Zora 15:41, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ToC

message: What with all the changes recently, I didn't even NOTICE when an anon editor snuck in a new links section, "popular sites on Islam". Whether they're popular or not, they all seem to be Sunni and possibly Salafi-leaning. Letting them stay would lead to the old link-wars in which each Islamic group put its links on the list, which grew like a cancer. The directory sites link to everyone. Let's leave it at that.  Zora 15:52, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed links added by anon 

message: The problem we human beings seem to have is we let what we are told about the world override what we see with our own eyes.
* Do you your eyes see idolatry yes or no? worshipping the kaaba --Grandger 19:26, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Linking to a bible.ca picture is fine... not exactly sure what his point is... when you prostrate/pray no matter what/when/wear you're facing something earthly... but it's not supposed to be implied that you're praying to it... ~_~ I don't understand the point of this. gren 23:26, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can the mind reconcile what the eyes see? 

message: This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view.  In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  announcing policy proposal 

message: Greetings All, Full respect for the high standard of all of the Articles on Islam.
There are several articles relating to general religion / theology, where I think that a section on the corresponding Islamic belief would be welcome.
*Divine simplicity
*Free will
*Negative theology
*Oral law
Fintor 05:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for article sections

message: the distribution map in "contemporary islam" seems to have issues -- it gives major parts of  England and France, and bits of Germany as islamic. I know there are sizeable Islamic minorities in Western Europe, but on the map, the territory is just green. Without explanation, you'd assume these areas are predominately Muslim, which I would be surprised to learn (Northern England is essentially islamic?? I think I must read the newspaper more...:) dab (ᛏ) 08:15, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I noticed that Muslim marketing is eager to paint the world Islamic. It appears that true statistics are either not available or seldom consulted as exageration makes for better proselytization. That is why most reports from Muslims greatly over estimate the actual numbers of Muslims throughout the world. The methodology used by Muslim marketers to estimate population distribution would make you wonder whatever happened to intellectual honesty. The map should probably be replaced with a more accurate one.--Waffer 13:07, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: now, now. I noticed no such thing. What I did notice is that our map doesn't fulfill encyclopedic standards and should be replaced. I am confident that there are reliable numbers for the number of Muslims in Western Europe. dab (ᛏ) 13:26, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

text: UT Library Online - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - Middle East Maps. "Muslim Distribution (World 1996)" #735021 (R01698) 6-95 by the CIA.
here , with Western Europe conspicuously un-islamic :) guess it's time to replace it. dab (ᛏ) 13:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: the map

message: an anon edit  seriously jumbled the articles of belief section. Are there six or seven? Since anon's hyper-literal version cannot stand, I am reverting to the earlier version for now. dab (ᛏ) 13:26, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: articles of belief

message: JuanMuslim added two edits to the article, re Dawah. I didn't think that either edit was informative, or even demonstrably correct. (Are conversions a result of missionary activity? No way of knowing.) This editor recently wrote the Dawah article; the edits to the Islam page seem like advertising to me.
I don't see any particular advantage to using the term "dawah" in place of English terms like "mission" or "missionary". Zora 03:22, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dawah is not nearly the same as missionary work in the way we normally think about it...  It's often, from what I've seen, an openess to discussion of the issues and I don't think it normally has the negative or coercive connotation of missionary.  I'm not sure what edits he made but the article doesn't look too bad... I'm sure it is something that cold be greatly expanded.  Not sure what you mean exactly. gren 06:38, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dawah 

message: Dear anon editor, please take a username! I removed some of your edits and here's why: I don't think it's right to say that dhimmis had the same rights as Muslims. If they couldn't build or repair churches without permission, or proselytize, then they didn't have the same rights as Muslims. Also, it's POV to say that the Qur'an preaches jihad only under certain conditions. That's a humane and commendable interpretation, but not all Muslims share it. Lots of jihadis would disagree. We aren't supposed to be making judgements about what IS properly Islamic and what ISN'T, we're just supposed to be reporting that "some Muslims believe X" and "some Muslims believe Y". Please don't be discouraged. It takes a while to learn the ropes here. In fact, I myself may not have puzzled out all those long hemp things criss-crossing here and there. Zora 03:49, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anon making edits seemingly from an ijtihadist viewpoint