Talk:Ahmad ibn Hanbal

message: This is not a good article. It is much too long, too detailed and too admiring. I haven't got time to edit it just now.  But I will be back!
:I agree that the article is somewhat lengthy. I think that the material is all relevant though; I think all that needs to be done is to rewrite it (whilst keeping the information already here) in a more concise form. I do think there are too many red links. Not too long ago, I blued many of them, but an awful lot still remain. Perhaps the section on Hanbali scholars could be made into a separate article if there is enough to write about them. I could be wrong, but I'm not fully convinced that substantial biographical articles on the individual Hanbali scholars could be produced (which is why I'd rather see a separate article lumping them all together). MP   (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Criticism 

message: I have a copy of the book whose reference I added to the article. It contains many details about the life of Hanbal and has numerous quotes (well-sourced). I'd like to have a go at a major revamping of this article. We can include a lot more details on Hanbal's opposition to Mutazilaism, interaction with Shafei and other important incidents in his life. Of course, being a book written by a Muslim scholar, we'd have to be careful to pick out the factual items from the POV ones. MP   (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More details 

message: How is this possible if Al-Mansur died about four years before ibn Hanbal was born? (I think it was al-Ma'mun who had him flogged)  DigiBullet 23:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flogged by Al Mansur 

message: How frustrating it is to find that the first reference is in Arabic - this is the English WP ! MP   (talk) 19:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I removed the majority of the contents of this article as it was copied from http://www.islamicawakening.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=1193& in violation of Wikipedia policy. Whether this website is acceptable as a reference is highly debatable in the first place. Supertouch (talk) 13:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright violation 

message: "This proved to be historically significant, since the Hanbali doctrine remained the only school representing the views of the founders of the other three juristic schools..."
Found in the discussed article, the above sentence implies that scholars after Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal did not follow the sentiment of their respective schools of jurisprudential thought. This in effect asserts that the likes of Imam Nawawi and Imam Bayhaqi, prominent followers of Imam Shafi, did not follow Imam Shafi. It is a dubious claim and should be deleted. If there is no further discussion I will be doing so at the end of day.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thezien (talk • contribs) 16:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious and Unverified  

message: At times, the subject of the article is referred to as "Ahmad," "Imam Ahmad," and "Ibn Hanbal."  Imam Ahmad definitely needs to be out as it is an honorific and not his name, so it's a toss up between the last two.  I'll agree to either of them as long as it's consistent throughout the article. MezzoMezzo (talk) 13:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Appropriate name in the body

message: I expected to find Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Hanbalism, London 2002, under "Further Reading" because this book is cited sometimes. Is there a special reason for not mentioning the book? --R. la Rue (talk) 22:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This is because I sincerely believed that these two sections are indirect refutations against the Salafis who are against such actions due to:
1. There are contradicting reports about the permissibility of touching and kissing the Prophet's grave. If one were to show only the reports that support this action, they also need to show the reports that the close associates and students of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal had never done such things on the prophet's grave. This is a very sophisticated jurisprudence issue that requires a new wikipedia page for further discussion. I believe that putting this section on Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s page will greatly affect wikipedia’s NPOV policy and skewed this articles to purport the image as though Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal supports the beliefs and actions of the Sufis on the graveyards.
2.  The Salafis certainly doesn’t oppose to the act of seeking blessings through the prophet’s relics. However, what the Salafis today dispute are the authenticities of the relics that we have nowadays. This is added to the fact that some scholars which are of the Prophet’s descendants, such as Sheikh Mahir Yasin Al-Fahl, a famous hadith scholar from Iraq, had stated that there had been no authentic relics from the Prophet that had survived to this day 
With regard to these reason, I removed the two sections above to keep out the flame wars between the Salafis and the Sufis from imposing their view of jurisprudence to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s page and thus affected the NPOV policy of Wikipedia.
175.143.63.236 (talk) 07:12, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This content appears to be properly sourced. If there are alternative scholarly or prominent religious views on this subject, they should be reflected proportionally, as required by NPOV. Eperoton (talk) 22:48, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons

message: GF Haddad and his works should never be cited. That guy was an anti Salafi through and through who had the habit of portraying ancient Islamic scholars through his own view. I understand that one of the users removed articles references from islamicawakening.com due to fear of copyright violation. However, replacing that content with a Sufi oriented content from GF Haddad really affects the NPOV of this page, seeing that this entire page looks like a direct copy from GF Haddad’s website livingislam.org where it portrays Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal as though he’s a Sufi advocate, ignoring the complex relationship that Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal held with the Sufis of his time, mainly Al-Harith Al-Muhasibi, where in the end, one fatwa from Imam Ahmad caused the famous Sufi figure to be buried with no more than 4 people attending his funeral.
175.143.63.236 (talk) 07:33, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Haddad is a prominent religious scholar, so there's nothing wrong with using his book. If some of his views appear to be strongly marked by a particular religious or ideological perspective, they should be attributed per WP:BIASED. The text you removed included citations from multiple sources, and the removal itself was a NPOV violation. Eperoton (talk) 22:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: 175.143.63.236 well you are partly right, if those are really copied then needs to be removed.--79.75.61.198 (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  GF Haddad? Seriously? 

message: @Shadowwarrior8: Regarding this diff, I don't see the "self-published, polemical and primary" issues with Gibril Haddad, an established subject-matter expert. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:44, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Haddad presents the Sunni orthodox viewpoint, here on the subject of a founder of one of the four Sunni orthodox theological schools, so I am not sure how his perspective constitutes undue weight on the subject. All of mainstream Islam is 'anti-Salafi', if you will, as Salafism is outside of mainstream Sunni Islam. In any case, rather than removing this material, wouldn't a better option be to either support it with other sources, contrast it with alternative viewpoints or simply add maintenance tags noting the need for better balance? Haddad is still a reliable source. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

text: @Shadowwarrior8:Okay, a couple of points here. For one, please don't assume to know my perspective or that I am pushing a POV (WP:AGF). Secondly, the words "prominent orthodox Sunni" are just verbatim sitting there on the Gibril Haddad page - that is why I linked to it, so you could go and form an opinion based on the evidence, which leads me onto the following question: what makes you think Haddad is not an academic source? He has been a tenured professor of Islamic studies, has 150 ijazas, etc. - just read the lead summary of his profile. He is about as academically grounded as a modern Islamic scholar can be. Moreover, the work in question appears analytical in tone - it contains references to primary works and sources, and then overlays this with analysis, interpretation and commentary. And even if you personally view Haddad as irredeemably WP:BIASED, it still doesn't make him unreliable, especially not in conversation about the founder of a Sunni orthodox school. On the contrary, he is exceptionally well placed to comment. In terms of the juxtaposition you appear to be imagining between mainstream Sunnism and Salafism, I would note that on the 'Salafi' side, if you will, it is very hard to estimate how many Sunnis worldwide have Salafist leanings. Outside of the Gulf I have seen estimates like 5-6% in Egypt, 10% in Sudan, but small percentages. One way or another, it isn't due to overemphasize Salafi perspectives on most Islamic subjects, and it is not neutral to treat mainstream Sunni voices as only valid in the context of contrasting Salafi voices. That is simply presenting a false dichotomy. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:19, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

text: @Shadowwarrior8: Well I apologise if I overinterpreted, but you mentioned my 'personal views' twice and introduced the word 'heretic' in my voice, so I just wanted to clarify that I was speaking purely from the perspective of descriptions that have been reliably attributed to Haddad here on Wikipedia. On the subject of bias, he is clearly identified as having argued polemically against Salafis, yes, but this page is not remotely about Salafis; it is about Ibn Hanbal, and there is no particular reason to assume that his said anti-Salafi bias pervades his each and every opinion. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of Gibril Haddad work

message: You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#Islamic honorifics and user-generated calligraphic images. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:00, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed guideline regarding Islamic honorifics and user-generated calligraphic images