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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GSMR (talk | contribs) at 15:28, 3 May 2019 (→‎Re: "Unsupported Attribution" for Aisha's age). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

criticism of muhammad illiterate

Jews used to criticized Muhammad for being illiterate and claim that this fact invalidates his claim of being a prophet. I believe that this Source: Allusion to Muhammad in Maimonides' Theory of Prophecy in His Guide of the Perplexed By Yehuda Shamir, University of Cincinnati

This fact should be mention.

Unnecessary edits

@Batreeq: You said you wanted to talk with me about your recent and persistent changes to lead. I reverted your disruptive edits for these reasons:

  1. Grammar: Aisha ... when she six. When she what? Do you even read what you just typed, or you simply revert other people's edits without even checking out your own errors?
  2. If you "feel the need" to have references for the phrase modern religious and secular criticism of Islam, check out the main page, there's plenty of it. That's why i said it was of no use to put them here.
  3. If you really think this page needs so desperately counter-criticism on Muhammad, please write a section by yourself, instead of spamming that warning continuously. However, i personally think there's no need for that, since Muhammad's full biography on WP is entirely devoted to show what a great, wonderful and wise man he was, so what's the point to reiterate the same thing all over again here?--GenoV84 (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also point out that the topic of this article is criticism of Muhammad. It isn't for presenting some sort of fictional debate between critics and Muslims. It doesn't need a point/counterpoint format. The topic is criticism worthy of note according to Wiki policies, therefore complaining that "this article may lend undue weight to criticism against Muhammad without sufficient Muslim responses" is meaningless. Responses to criticism aren't required, especially if such responses are grounded in primary sources (Quran and Hadith) that we cannot use, rather than scholarly reasoning. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:24, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Followup after Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive376#User:GenoV84_reported_by_User:Batreeq_(Result:_Blocked): Thank you for bringing this to the talk page. That way, we don't need to revert to discuss our edits via the edit summary.
  • Grammar: The passage in question reads: and his [[Child marriage|marriage]] to [[Aisha]] when she was six years old, although most estimates say that it was consummated when she was nine. I have a few concerns with the wording of this:
    • The link to the word "marriage" should not be to Child marriage, rather, it should be to a more relevant topic such as Nikah or Aisha#Age_at_marriage. The editor who linked this word to that article violated WP:OR as it suggests that this is child marriage which is not explicitly stated by the sources. On the contrary, there are experts that have stated that she entered puberty and in Islam, puberty = adulthood. You can find the specifics here: Aisha § Age at marriage.
    • The use of the word "although" (listed to avoid usage of in WP:EDITORIALIZING) implies that the marriage is estimated to have been consumnated at six, which is not true (refer to link in prevous point).
  • Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Per WP:WEASEL, examples of who is making the criticism should be provided.
  • Since the article is a criticism, I am not wanting a 50-50 balance considering WP:FALSEBALANCE. However, I believe that it could be more beneficial if it contained referenced responses of experts. For example, the "Ownership of slaves" section does not sufficiently explain that the Islamic principles of slavery (e.g. kindness and limitations of enslavement). Other sections include "Religious syncretism and compromise" which claims that Islam is a combination of different religions, however, it does not mention that Islam recognizes the divinity yet corruption of previous religions (e.g. Majoos and the belief that monotheism and Hajj was established by Abraham but later corrupted with polytheism). Another highly biased section is "Treatment of enemies". I don't believe adding a {{undue}} notice is "spamming".
– Batreeq (Talk) (Contribs) 04:18, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The link to Child marriage does not violate WP:OR, since the sections "Religion" and "Islam" on that page both refer explicitly to Islam too, in particular to Muhammad and Aisha, and is also stated by the sources, both in that page and this page.
  • Nikah would be off topic here, because it refers to Muslim marriage between adults, more precisely to the wedding contract, not to the pratice of child marriage within Islam. It looks like you're proposing to whitewash a marriage between an adult man and a child (Muhammad and Aisha) with a marriage between consenting adults, which is not the case.
  • By the word experts you mean Islamic scholars that rely on the Quran and the Hadith collections? As Anachronist said, they can't be used.
  • Examples of who is making the criticism are already provided; this page is full of reliable sources, there's plenty of examples and sourced statements.
  • The use of the word "although" does not imply that, as the quote doesn't state that; however, i've already reworded that sentence on your suggestion.
  • As i said above, it really looks like you're trying to whitewash many controversial aspects of Muhammad and Islam (child marriage, slavery, violence towards enemies, etc.), and to implement apologetical statements about Islam from a Muslim point of view concurrently (kindness and limitations of enslavement, corruption of previous religions, monotheism and Hajj established by Abraham, later corrupted with polytheism), which is forbidden on Wikipedia.
  • "Treatment of enemies" simply reports ancient records of his actions towards his enemies and the analysis of Academics, Historians, and Orientalists, like all other sections of this page. There's nothing biased about that, it's just the way sources are correctly used on Wikipedia.
  • I don't believe adding a {{undue}} notice is "spamming": read what Anachronist said to you. There's no need for that.--GenoV84 (talk) 11:01, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GenoV84: Please explain why:
You cited WP:NOR yet that means (quoted from the top of the policy page): "Wikipedia does not publish original thought. All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source." You seem to be stating that secondary sources cannot be based on original research, but this is not true (per WP:SECONDARY and quote "Outside of Wikipedia, original research is a key part of scholarly work. However, Wikipedia editors must not base their contributions on their own original research. Wikipedia editors must base their contributions on reliable, published sources." I attributed all of my edits to reliable sources:
I added a wikilink to Abu Bakr.
  • Why did you remove this?
In addition, you stated "no consensus on the talk page", however, that's no reason to revert according to WP:FIXED. Please explain as I am simply attempting WP:BRD. – Batreeq (Talk) (Contribs) 19:41, 30 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Batreeq: you have to understand that this page is not the appropriate place for those informations, whether they are reliable or not. This page, as the title itself states, concerns "Criticism of Muhammad", not "let's try to soften/whitewash criticism of Muhammad", so its purpose is quite clear, and the same thing applies to all other pages on Wikipedia devoted to criticism of something or someone. Please move them somewhere else, perhaps Muhammad’s biography could be the right place for them. The subject of this article is about criticism of Muhammad, not Muslim apologetics.--GenoV84 (talk) 22:30, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GenoV84: Thank you for your input. I understand that this is a criticism article. Therefore, as previously mentioned, I am not asking for a 50-50 balance between criticisms and responses as this violates WP:FALSEBALANCE. In fact, I only added three sentences around the entire article as well as a wikilink (here) and certainly did not violate the aforementioned policy. I am not attempting to "soften/whitewash" any criticisms, rather, improve overall understanding instead of giving readers a one-sided article. The following policies permit my edits:
  • WP:WEIGHT: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."
  • WP:BALANCE: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint."
– Batreeq (Talk) (Contribs) 23:13, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:51, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is a primary source and how to tell we are forwarding original research

Anachronist, I invite you to read about primary sources used as citations without published scholarship explaining the primary source. By simply citing a primary source (in this case, Hadith) to support "it says...." as the support for a claim (Muhammad freed his slaves upon / prior to his death) is considered [original research]. Please restore the request for a second or third party citation about that particular Hadith, or provide the citation that talks about that particular Hadith (or the claim). -- HafizHanif (talk) 20:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Hadith says (in English at least): "When Allah's Apostle died, he did not leave ... a slave or a slave woman or anything else except his white mule, his arms and a piece of land which he had given in charity." The sentence is abundantly clear, interpretation requires no scholarly sources, and it is not original research to paraphrase it. Wikipedia is not saying that Muhammad had no slaves when he died. It may be more appropriate to include the actual quotation rather than a paraphrase, but the fact remains that we not using Wikipedia's narrative voice to say that Muhammad had no slaves when he died, we are just pointing out that the Hadith says this. Therefore I will not restore the tag. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, I appreciate that clarity. I'll keep this information in mind next time I find it important to quote Hadith in sharing specifics, thank you. -- HafizHanif (talk) 23:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about slavery vis-a-vis Muhammad, etc.

I'm just opening a discussion here because of recent edits and reverts regarding Muhammad and slavery, and would like to invite SharabSalam, Eperoton, Balolay and others to discuss here. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Laterthanyouthink. As I wrote in my edit summary, based on what I can see and recall of the cited sources, the proposed addition seems to be WP:SYN. If it's not, we would need a quotation or pointer to verify that it's not the case. Eperoton (talk) 01:28, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Eperoton. I will have to come back to the specifics later, but my first thoughts are, why is mention of slavery even in an article about criticism of Muhammad? Neither he nor the religion invented slavery - the Arabs had done it for years and many others for milennia before then. And given that there are no fewer than eight articles relating to Islam and slavery, and the fact that Muhammad preached good treatment of slaves, and he was a product of his time and part of that culture, why on earth would be a criticism specific to him as a person? Jesus didn't preach against slavery either, but I don't see any criticism directed against him. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:52, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We have a section on that in the article because criticism of Muhammad in the context of slavery exists, and we report what the sources say. That said, the section spends a lot of words on how Muhammad advocated treating slaves kindly, and not many words at all about actual criticism. It could be trimmed down, in my opinion.
The part that Balolay added was pure synthesis, conflating the atrocities of Islam with what Muhammad actually did and said. It's like blaming Jesus for the Spanish Inquisition. It doesn't belong in the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks Anachronist - I agree with you and Eperoton about the synthesis.
Looking at the whole section, what is worth keeping? I don't have access to the printed sources, but these seem to be the salient points: (a) Which sources actually criticise him for owning slaves or in any way affecting the practice of slavery and what do they say? (b) The fact its continuing existence in the Arab world at that time had nothing to do with Muhammad. (c) What did he do to affect the practice of slavery? Urge better treatment of slaves; change laws to allow men to marry their slaves; possibly fathered a daughter with a possible slave (is this even relevant?); had no slaves at the time of his death (? dead link to that hadith but found it here - is this relevant?); he may have freed some slaves. (d) Rodney Stark seems to be criticising later developments of Islamic views of slavery vs Christian views, although his reasoning seems pretty tortuous and the quote doesn't make his point crystal clear to me...
The last sentence is completely pointless and adds nothing to the actual topic. IMO the whole section could be significantly cut. I think that I am going to do a bit of rearrangement of the links to other articles (top of section) in the first instance - if you disagree, let me know. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Laterthanyouthink, You said "why is mention of slavery even in an article about criticism of Muhammad? Neither he nor the religion invented slavery", "Looking at the whole section, what is worth keeping? I don't have access to the printed sources, but these seem to be the salient points: (a) Which sources actually criticise him for owning slaves or in any way affecting the practice of slavery and what do they say? (b) The fact its continuing existence in the Arab world at that time had nothing to do with Muhammad."
The criticism of Muhammad regarding slavery exists because he was supposed to be the perfect example for his followers for all eternity according to the religion he invented. So even if slavery was entrenched in the Arabian culture before the arrival of Islam, the very fact that a "perfect" human preaching the "final" word of god which is supposed to be valid for all times, kept slaves, had sex with them & allowed his followers to keep war booty as sex slaves etc is a subject of criticism by ex-Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Therefore, a section about slavery is fully justified.
"Rodney Stark seems to be criticising later developments of Islamic views of slavery vs Christian views, although his reasoning seems pretty tortuous and the quote doesn't make his point crystal clear to me"
What Rodney stark is saying is that if Christians were to emulate only Jesus as an example, there wouldn't be any slavery. The same isn't the case with Islam. Which is valid criticism.
@Anachronist, Eperoton I too believe that my addition seems to be WP:SYN, therefore I stand by the decision made in the discussion. However, I still believe that the very fact Muhammad recognized slavery as institution later led to his followers inflicting massive suffering on millions of the people around the globe. Perhaps a simple reference to the 17 million figure is enough?! Balolay (talk) 07:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If there's prominent criticism arguing that Muhammad bears responsibility for later evils of slavery, then we should mention it, whether we think it's fair or not. Conversely, if no sources explicitly connect Muhammad's example to the historical statistics for slavery, it would be improper synthesis to mention it even we were all of the opinion that it's relevant. Ideally, any WP article should be based mainly on WP:SECONDARY coverage of the article's topic (i.e., sources that discuss and analyze criticism of Muhammad and not sources that criticize him, which are WP:PRIMARY for our purposes), and secondary coverage of the criticism is also a good indication that the criticism is prominent. In practice, many editors misinterpret "Criticism of X" articles as meaning "Bad things about X" and contribute content based on sources that highlight bad things about X. Since this misinterpretation creates a WP:POVFORK, clearly violating NPOV, other editors attempt to remedy the situation by using sources that cover X from a less critical perspective. Secondary sources analyzing criticism are harder to find than primary, critical sources, but pitting primary sources against each other is not ideal from the standpoint of our WP:NOR policy. Eperoton (talk) 14:08, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Balolay Just to firstly assure you that I did understand what Rodney Stark was getting at, but as the explanation and quote here currently stands, this is not made as clear as it should be from first reading. And I understand your justification for including a section, but, as Eperoton has pointed out above (thanks!), it needs to be stated from secondary sources, with citations. My point (a) still stands, and (b) needs to be disputed in the sources (and my other points addressed when deciding what is worth including here). The section as it stands does not describe criticism of Muhammad on slavery as per properly cited secondary sources. Most of it is not even criticism. (Writing in a rush - busy day - so hope this makes sense. Will have to return to this later.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:06, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Returning to your point above about primary and secondary sources, Eperoton, would you agree that according to this definition, Rodney Stark's criticism on that point is a primary source? I can't find anything online discussing or taking issue with this particular point. Mind you, skimming through the section immediately above, most of that is just a list of opinions by critics, with no secondary sources which analyse the criticism. So what do you think actually belongs in a section on slavery? As it stands, it doesn't really present anything very useful. Stark's is the only rationalised piece of criticism, so I'm happy to leave it in, but it needs to be properly framed and explained, at the least. And part of the framing is that slavery was an existing practice, and that the only explicit reference to slavery made by Muhammad was about improving their treatment and laws around slavery. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:17, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've now had a go at removing what I see as irrelevant clutter in this section. Still no more to say about Stark, but as his is the major criticism, started the section with this. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:56, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Laterthanyouthink: Actually, I wouldn't characterize any author cited in this section as criticizing Muhammad, even as a primary source. I'm not aware of any secondary or prominent primary sources that we can use for criticism of Muhammad, i.e., views holding his attitude toward slavery to be blameworthy as opposed to problematic for Muslim abolitionists. However, I'm pretty sure that such criticism does exist. In The Lives of Muhammad Kecia Ali alludes to it in passing as a minor theme of 19th century polemics, though not clearly enough for our purposes. I think what we have is better than nothing, and your changes seem like an improvement. Clarence-Smith has quite a bit on how later Muslim theologians "worked their way" around Muhammad's acceptance of slavery in Islam and the Abolition of Slavery, but drawing on that here is too much SYNTH for my tastes. Eperoton (talk) 04:36, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Eperoton:. Yes, I get your point. But I thought I'd better leave Stark there. The second para. might be too long still, and the rest of the article leaves a lot to be desired (although very interesting in parts), but I have such a lot else to get back to that I'm happy to leave this as is for now. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Balolay, re your latest change: I deliberately left that out of my revised version, because not a single source supports the fact that Muhammad made such a decree. The reference to Bruschvig (with an error in your citation, btw) refers to Islam, not Muhammad. This article is specifically about Muhammad, and I could find no citation anywhere suggesting that he introduced this or changed anything with regard to this practice. Please either produce a clear citation from an RS or revert your edit. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I was giving Balolay a chance to respond, but it looks like they lost interest in this topic, so I'll remove the improperly sourced passage. Eperoton (talk) 23:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Eperoton thanks for your patience and sorry for my late reply. To be honest I had lost track of the notifications bar.

Regarding the topic here is the quote from a reputable source: The main reference cited is Chapter 23:1-6 in the Quran. It reads:

And successful are the believers who guard their chastity … except from their wives or those that their right hands possess.

The reference is about sexual relations, which are forbidden with any woman unless she is a spouse or ‘those their right hands possess’. To be clear, this means a concubine, bondmaid or a slave, but intercourse has to be consensual. [1]

I think it validates the information I added to the article which was He also made it lawful for male masters to have sexual relations with female captives and slaves without marrying them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Balolay (talk • contribs) 09:27, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Balolay, there's more than one problem with this suggestion. The source is an OpEd by someone with no apparent scholarly credentials or public notability, and one can't get from what it says to the phrasing that you propose without WP:SYNTH (also, I doubt one can find any historian using the anachronistic notion of a slave's "consent" in a pre-modern context, but that's beside the point). It wouldn't surprise me if some notable author, particularly from an older generation used phrasing like yours, but we would need to find an actual instance to put that into the article. Eperoton (talk) 22:56, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https:www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-truth-about-muslims-and-sex-slavery-according-to-the-quran-rather-than-isis-or-islamophobes-a6875446.html%3famp

Re: "Unsupported Attribution" for Aisha's age

The source given for "An early 20th-century adherent of the Arya Samaj Hindu reform movement noted in Rangila Rasul that Aisha was about the same age as Muhammad's granddaughter.[who?][112]" (using the Archived PDF link because the original link is down), literally includes the words "मुहम्मद ने इस कम उमर की लड़की पर जो उमर में इसकी पोती के बराबर थी, अपनी निस्बत क्यों ठहराई?" (page 12 on the last paragraph of the right hand side page) which loosely translates to "Why did Muhammad betrothe a girl who was young enough to be his granddaughter?". I have reworded this part of the article to more accurately represent the wording in the source material (it does not specifically name any of Muhammad's grandchildren; just a general statement of "young enough to be his granddaughter"). GSMR (talk) 15:26, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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