Talk:List of expeditions of Muhammad/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Proposal

@Misconceptions2, CounterTime, Xtremedood, Sajithgayashan, Edward321, Alexis Ivanov, and Wiqi55: @Al-Andalusi: This dispute already involves a good number of editors, and per WP:RFC, I will make another attempt to reach consensus on this talk page before escalating WP:DR. The core of my proposal is to take Watt's Muhammad at Medina (online version) as a model for this article. It is still a preeminent academic reference on the subject. On page 339, the book contains a "List of Expeditions and Dates" with the following columns: Date (AH/AD), Destination/Name, Opponents, Leader, Number of participants, Result, and References (page numbers for Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi). This should address several concerns raised on this talk page before:

  1. Inclusion of expeditions that Muhammad didn't participate in is thereby sourced and clarified, without the need for establishing whether or not Muhammad gave the order for each one. The page should be renamed to something like "List of expeditions under Muhammad" or "List of early Muslim expeditions", and it provides a basis for excluding rows without reliably sourced relevance or historicity, some of which seem to have been inherited from lists of "killings".
  2. It provides a basis for removing the column "Muhammad's order and reason for expedition", with all its previously mentioned problems per WP:RS and WP:SYNTHESIS. There's a good reason why this information isn't included in Watt's table or generally in lists of battles: trying to cram historical analysis of why events occurred into a table cannot possibly do justice to the subject. This should be left to the individual articles.
  3. It likewise provides a basis for removing the column "Casualties description". Attempting to list precise casualty figures gives WP:UNDUE weight to (often primary) sources that report such numbers over source-critical RSs which treat their accuracy with skepticism.

I think these changes would go a long way toward making the article policy-compliant while avoiding removing content that can be made compliant with policies. Eperoton (talk) 11:44, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

This is basicallly gonna remove 50%-70% of the content and I do not agree with it. If your not happy with what is written, find a source that gives a different opinion. Everything written here is given usually as the opinion of an academic e.g "Watt says", "Muparakpuri says". If your not happy with what they said then you should input what your counter source says e.g "[But person X] says", because so far EVERYTHING written is sourced PROPEPRLY.--Misconceptions2 (talk) 12:46, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
@Misconceptions2: To start with, you have to justify why we should structure the list of expeditions in a way that's not consistent with the way this list -- or other similar lists, for that matter -- is presented in RSs. Expanding the table by 50%-70% is not an argument. Eperoton (talk) 13:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
If you remove sourced data it will cause arguements. If you add sourced data then it will not cause arguements. All sourced data on this page are from Muslim scholars or an academic source.--Misconceptions2 (talk) 13:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
You should really consult the cited policies, in particular WP:ONUS: "While information must be verifiable in order to be included in an article, this does not mean that all verifiable information must be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" (emphasis mine). Adding this column has already caused arguments, and objections have already been presented on this talk page. You have yet to address them. Eperoton (talk) 13:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
There was never any consensus to REMOVE ALL verified sourced text. There isnt even now.. Per BRD we should all back all the sourced text. What you did not say is after that I think we should discuss which parts should be removed and why. --Misconceptions2 (talk) 13:24, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Huh? How is that relevant to WP:ONUS? If you don't know what the word "onus" means, please look it up. And WP:BRD has nothing to do with sourcing. I'll take a pause from this discussion to give you chance to formulate a better response to the already presented arguments and give others a chance to state their opinions. Eperoton (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
You're trying to remove sourced statements from an article to make your prophet look better. You shouldn't be editing this.142.105.159.60 (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Good grief, a third proponent of the Muslim Conspiracy Theory. They don't seem to be socks, either. I'll go back to waiting for substantive counter-arguments... Eperoton (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Alright, how's this? The lede says, and I quote "This list of battles by Muhammad, also includes a list of battles by Muhammad's order", as in battles Muhammad ordered to be fought.
If you're so offended by this article, why not split it into two, one including battles he fought in personally, and one of battles he commanded his followers to fight for him?142.105.159.60 (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Or why not fight for both. Its a trivial excuse to delete data. By the way, do you have a user account 142.105.159.60?--Misconceptions2 (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Dear all, it looks like someone is off-site canvassing at Reddit here. Al-Andalusi (talk) 15:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. Now what?--Misconceptions2 (talk) 15:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Sigh. Good catch, Al-Andalusi. It's sad and tiresome to see this display of mob mentality instead of substantive discussion. I suggest we bring this to admin attention. Eperoton (talk) 16:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

142.105.159.60 if you posted that on reddit (am not saying you did so please do not get offended). Please can you remove it. It does not help my efforts to fix this article. --Misconceptions2 (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

@Eperoton: I think the current problem is that the current wiki article (after the bold revert by 142.105.159.60) is mostly a copy paste from here http://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad#cite_note-Wahid_327-333-80 (see also: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad#Main_Sources)
I think that, until our previous arguments are challenged, we will: (summarizing the previous arguments)
* "Delete the columns "Muhammad's order and reason for expedition" and "Casualties description", which have too many sourcing problems and just don't make sense here. If a reader wants to know more about the battle, they'll go to the corresponding article and read the historical analysis that should be given there." (Ep)
* "Delete rows like "Assassination of Abu Afak" which don't belong in a list of battles or even "expeditions"." (Ep)
* "This article is about "expeditions of Muhammad", so it should naturally only include ghazawat in which Muhammad participated in, however the current list contains "expeditions which he ordered but did not take part" so these entries should be deleted—we wont even mention all the problems with the authenticity of these numerous expeditions which he allegedly ordered" (CT)
16:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Misconceptions2: WP:MOS/Islam is strict on that one must give the authenticity of any prophetic reports. As such either the dozens of reports you cited should mention their authenticity, or else they must be removed altogether. 16:59, 15 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Eperoton: I also want to raise a question, is the column "Notable primary sources" necessary at all?
17:07, 15 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: I think we should consider this article on its own merits, regardless of its "inspiration", unless there is actual plagiarism involved. I don't see a problem with including expeditions in which Muhammad didn't participate in into an appropriately renamed article, especially in light of Watt's table. Listing primary sources, although not "necessary", also doesn't seem problematic if the citations are backed up by secondary sources. Eperoton (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Actually I invite you to compare the two articles, one can easily spot the plagiarism.
I don't think that the Sarayyah should be included because there is no general agreement on them, and the hence the dispute will only grow over time. That's why I always prefer to base things on common grounds. The given table by Watt relies heavily on al-Waqidi and Ibn Ishaq, the former is unreliable according to traditionalist arguments (see previous discussion) whereas Ibn Ishaq will depend on whether the given chain is authentic. This will require an extremely important amount of work. So why not delve into such controversies when we can simply list the ghazawat in the most unambiguous fashion?
"doesn't seem problematic if the citations are backed up by secondary sources" But can we consider for instance al-Waqidi's Maghazi to be primary and include it even do it is unreliable?
19:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Based on revision histories, it looks like the WikiIslam page was copied from this one rather than the other way around.
As elsewhere on WP, we should aim to reflect how RSs present the subject. Based on its stature in academia, Watt's book is the strongest RS on the subject per WP criteria. Muhammad's biography in EI2 also refers the reader to Watt's table. Using it as a model is a policy-compliant way to build the table. There are certainly differences of opinion about historicity and interpretation of primary sources, and these should be treated in the relevant articles.
I'm neutral about inclusion of the primary sources column. I don't think including it improves the article, because the reader interested in this level of detail will consult the article for the specific event. I also don't think it is problematic, as long as the citation reflect RSs. Unlike the removed columns, it does not involve compressing essay-form historical analyses into table cells. Eperoton (talk) 01:29, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Actually the Wikiislam.net version is older than this version, see here [1] (archived here [2]). I have been watching them for some years now, they converge pages, create new pages with the same or similar materials, delete history, and try hard to censor any edits that they don't agree with. Also you often can't trust the history on private Wiki's.

  • 07:55, 27 January 2015 Axius (Talk | contribs) changed visibility of a revision on page List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad: content hidden, edit summary hidden and username hidden
  • 13:46, 13 January 2015 Sahab (Talk | contribs) deleted page List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad
  • 12:57, 22 December 2014 WikiSysop (Talk | contribs) (Page edit blocked for "List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad" by user *180.151.0.146 - Vandalism detected (Edit Monitor code #13))
  • 10:53, 16 August 2014 Sahab (Talk | contribs) changed visibility of 4 revisions on page List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad: content hidden, edit summary hidden and username hidden (Inappropriate comment or personal information)
  • 09:09, 26 December 2011 Sahab (Talk | contribs) automatically marked revision 68182 of page List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad patrolled

.Xtremedood (talk) 08:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)


I think the solution is far more simple than what is being proposed. If we look at other similar articles, such as List of World War II battles, or List of World War I battles, it simply contains the names of the battles/expeditions, as a list article should be doing. The same should be applied here. There should simply be the names of the expeditions and the year in which it is believed to have taken place. This solves a lot of our issues and adheres to WP's policies. Xtremedood (talk) 08:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Excellent detective work Xtremedood, very good, let's cut the grasses and see the snakes crawling Alexis Ivanov (talk) 09:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
@Misconceptions2:, please address this concern. Did you copy and paste text from WikiIslam into this or other related articles? Copying it without attribution would be a violation of their license.
@Xtremedood and Alexis Ivanov: Unlike RSs, other WP articles are controversial as a justification for editing decisions. Above I made a different, though related argument: that other lists of military events in RSs do not normally attempt to include an analysis of reasons for the events. Eperoton (talk) 11:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Yeah, but you miss my point which was that there are great divergences of opinion on the Sarayah, where some deem reports on one to be authentic whereas others consider it to be weak. Why not only include things which are easily agreed upon, such as the 28 maghazi? (If you are not convinced that there are large differences of opinion on the sarayah please refer to Note [1])
Another point is that the sarayah refer "to expeditions allegedly sent by the Prophet for several objectives, such as to preach Islam, get news of what the Quraysh were planning, return stolen property, fight against those who were preparing to attack Medina, kill an individual for the same reason, fight those who killed one of the Prophet’s messengers and, in five instances, to destroy Quraysh idols after the taking of Mecca." (Ahmed al-Dawoody, The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations, pp. 29–30)
These however rarely connote a military meaning, so why should they be added in a table on military expeditions?
12:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
Note [1]:

In most instances, biographers give their account in the form of a narration of the incidents, without explaining the background and objectives of these expeditions, and they give different totals for these incidents, such as 35, 38, 47, and 56. These differences indicate that each biographer arrived at his own conception of what constituted a sariyah. For example, Ibn Sa‛d at the beginning of his book, following his teacher al-Wāqidī, states that the number of sarāyā sent by the Prophet was forty-seven, while the present study finds that he ends up referring to fifty-six sarāyā.Some biographers used the word ghazwah to refer to incidents others called sariyah, while some used the word ba‛th (delegation) in the same context. In many incidents, no encounter at all occurred with the clans. A number of incidents involved fighting and in some cases the number of victims is not given. According to the numbers that are given, eighty Muslims were killed, including sixty-nine preachers who were assassinated in one incident, while sixty-five non-Muslims were also killed. These accounts of sarāyā are a much less credible source than those of the ghazawāt, not only because of the lack of clarity and details about the reasons for and objectives of such minor incidents, but also because the narrations are not scrutinized and in some cases are unconvincing as stories.

— Ahmed al-Dawoody, The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations, pp. 29–30
12:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: If we took divergences of opinion as a criterion for inclusion, we would need to delete everything related to Muhammad from WP. Al-Dawoody's book is a RS, but it doesn't have greater academic stature on the subject than Watt or EI2. Excluding material based on his objections would be UNDUE. More generally, the purpose of the list is to provide an easy reference to detailed discussions. Eperoton (talk) 13:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: The passage I quoted from al-Dawoody was merely mentioning the divergence of opinion with regards to the saraya, and giving its definition, it didn't outline any objections (although if you read further after that passage you would see some of his objections to the work of Watt with regards to the Saraya). What I said was, why should we even give weight to Watt's table when there is such a great divergence concerning the saraya, one listing it to be thirty-five, another thirty-eight, whereas others number it up to forty-seven and fifty-six? Also, what about the first objection? As you admitted, "I think we could potentially have a timeline article about Muhammad's military campaigns along the lines of List of Napoleonic battles and List of World War I battles," However the saraya do not fit under such type of articles, since saraya were mainly non-military in nature, as al-Dawoody framed, saraya were "to preach Islam, get news of what the Quraysh were planning, return stolen property, fight against those who were preparing to attack Medina, kill an individual for the same reason, fight those who killed one of the Prophet’s messengers and, in five instances, to destroy Quraysh idols after the taking of Mecca."
15:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Per WP:WEIGHT, Watt's book should be given significant weight because it's still the most influential academic biography of Muhammad, and it's a rare source that corresponds exactly to the subject of the article (list of expeditions), which is also cited approvingly by another highly influential academic source, EI2. There should be a significant body of contrary judgments in reliable sources for a given event to make the opposing opinion more prominent. But in fact there's another reason why I think we should decide in favor of inclusion where RSs disagree: including an item in the table lets us quantify their support in RSs by citations and it lets the reader consult the discussion in the article, thereby reflecting different viewpoints, while excluding it does not. A third line of argumentation is that existence of a list of expeditions on WP is supported by RSs, and putting it here is better than splitting it out in a separate article from ghazawat. Beyond that, we should just reflect what the RSs call these events, in this case "expedition". I think it would be good to include an explanation of what is meant by saraya, such the one you quoted, in the lead. Eperoton (talk) 01:36, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that Watt's take is the best one for this topic. There are a multitude of academic sources that deal with this topic. Watt has also received heavy criticism from academics like Zafar Ali Qureshi, who in his book "Prophet Mohammad and His Western Critics: A Critique of W. Montgomery Watt and Others" ﷺ debunks various stereotypes present in Orientalist literature's, which was endorsed by Ibrahim Kalin [3], a reputed professor of Islamic studies in Turkey and who serves as chief advisor to the PM of Turkey. Like I said, the solution is a lot simpler. We should simply maintain a list of verified expeditions in a list format, similar to other lists (mentioned above) without delving into the complexities involved in each expedition. There should, however, be articles pertaining to each expedition which should give more comprehensive insight into the matter. These individual articles, should contain a multitude of academic (non-primary) sources which delve into the matter. Xtremedood (talk) 08:16, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I will, however, pass conditional support to the idea of utilizing one, two, or a few academic sources for inclusions of what expeditions should be included in the list (only names and dates). However, I would like to specify that this conditional support is only if the list article does not delve into the complex materials involved in each expedition (basically it should only include the name of the expedition and the date like the WW1 list article mentioned above). I think that the complex materials, involving the rationale, conditions and description of the expeditions should be left for the individual articles themselves, which should include a multitude of legitimate sources. A list article is simply not enough to provide a proper description of the events and we should not neglect the fact that there are a multitude of diverse views on the matter. Xtremedood (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Xtremedood: As far as I can tell, your proposal is essentially identical to mine. I deliberately avoid the use of words like "best" to characterize sources, because it's not the kind of judgment we're allowed to make. The terms used in WP:NPOV are "significant" and "prominent", which are a measure of academic influence. This case is particularly tricky because we have to apply WP:WEIGHT to a list. If we had multiple tables of this kind in RSs, we could have a YES/NO column for each to mark their historicity assessments for each expedition. Absent that, I think the best option would be to quantify RS support by citations in the year column. Events whose historicity is accepted by all RSs (except the hardcore skeptical school, of course) will have more refs in that column than controversial events. We can mention that in the lead, too. Eperoton (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: I disagree on your assessment of Watt and EI2, but, to move forward, what about my second point? : As you admitted, "I think we could potentially have a timeline article about Muhammad's military campaigns along the lines of List of Napoleonic battles and List of World War I battles," However the saraya do not fit under such type of articles, since saraya were mainly non-military in nature, as al-Dawoody framed, saraya were "to preach Islam, get news of what the Quraysh were planning, return stolen property, fight against those who were preparing to attack Medina, kill an individual for the same reason, fight those who killed one of the Prophet’s messengers and, in five instances, to destroy Quraysh idols after the taking of Mecca."
And per WP:MOS/Hadith we should reflect the authenticity of Prophetic reports (and the genre of Maghazi/Saraya fits there), so how are you going about that? Watt himself doesn't make any comments on the authenticity of the reports he included in that table.
11:46, 17 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: In response to your second point I wrote "we should just reflect what the RSs call these events". Calling them an expedition makes no implicit assertion about their military nature. The table reflects Watt's (also Caetani's and EI2's per citations) view about authenticity of the reports. As you can see from the text before the table, he thinks that the "points in dispute" relate to chronology of these events rather than their basic historicity. Note that I'm not proposing to include every row from his table; just the ones for which we have separate articles, because the purpose of the list is to provide a convenient reference to detailed discussions. Eperoton (talk) 12:08, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Watt wasn't even talking about their authenticity, he was merely noting that the "main" point of dispute is about the chronology of these maghazi & saraya. I would like you to re-read there, and particularly the previous dsicussion on the sources: "Ibn Ishaq, working in the second quarter of the second Islamic century (middle of the eighth century A.D.), usually gives his authorities, but not always a complete chain,and he does not always repeat the words of the authority verbatim. Al-Waqidi, half a century later, is similar in method, but his secretary and follower, Ibn Sa'd, some twenty years younger,always attempts to quote exactly and to give a complete chain of authorities. The insistence on complete chains is to be associated with the teaching of ash-Shafi'i, 2 who was roughly a contemporary of al-Waqidi" In sum, Watt didn't even speak about the authenticity of these siyar.
"just the ones for which we have separate articles" Ahmed al-Dawoody talked about there being in the Maghazi litterature 35, 38, 47, and 56 mentioned saraya, the previous version of the article contained 73, most of whom have an independent article created by @Misconceptions2:, so it seems this means that we should include all the table then.
17:25, 17 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: It sounds like you're reading too much into this passage. Like most academic historians, Watt isn't basing his historicity judgments primarily on isnads. But I think our last two replies are starting to drift into synthesis. Our job is to reflect what RSs state explicitly, no more. We have a table called "list of expeditions" in a prominent RS. We have to reflect it in an article called "list of expeditions". What is explicit in the source is whether or not the event is listed. It may not be entirely clear how best to handle events on whose presence in such a list RSs disagree, but removing these events from the article is not what NPOV tells us to do. It tells us to reflect all significant viewpoints found in RSs. I'm surprised we're having so much difficulty reaching a consensus on this. Eperoton (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

@Eperoton: Western scholars may not page their judgment primarily on isnad, but Muslim scholars do in general. I will readjust some of my expectations (to keep up with the general consensus), so are you willing to incorporate these changes with the conditions you mentioned earlier (+ def of saraya and maghazi in lede)? 12:40, 18 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

@CounterTime: I'm all for reflecting both academic and traditional views. Whatever method lets us do so adequately is fine with me. Eperoton (talk) 12:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Great! You can already start working on the article whose protection will end today. 13:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

@Misconceptions2, CounterTime, Xtremedood, Rentier, Edward321, Alexis Ivanov, and Wiqi55:: @Eperoton:: Please discuss and vote for the proposal here: Talk:List of expeditions of Muhammad/Vote. Al-Andalusi (talk) 20:19, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I think we've all had our chance to participate in this discussion and per WP:WIKINOTVOTE simple vote tally is not the way to go. The next step in WP:DR would be WP:RFC. Eperoton (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
@Al-Andalusi: This isn't a good idea, I can easily imagine socks pupping there to push a certain view, and the article page history is a testimony to that. We already suffer from an important problem, which is that Misconceptions2 hardly addresses any of the points of concern in the talk.
20:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
Ok. Thanks for the feedback. I guess we will have to wait for the next step. Al-Andalusi (talk) 01:24, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

@Eperoton: Your suggestion to Delete rows like "Assassination of Abu Afak" which you say don't belong in a list of battles or even "expeditions". contradicts an established academic practice to include such events among "expeditions". See for example: Jones, J. M. B.. 1957. “The Chronology of the "mag̱ẖāzī"-- A Textual Survey”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 19 (2). Cambridge University Press: 247. http://www.jstor.org/stable/610242 which lists "The Killing of Abu Afak". Rentier (talk) 14:19, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

@Rentier: I agree with Eperoton's assessment, but without even bringing that into account, the so-called "assassination of Abu Afak" has been largely described as inauthentic, remember what WP:MOS/Hadith is.
17:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Rentier: You're right. Upon closer inspection, the assassinations of Asma and Abu Afak are also listed in Watt's table. I think that justifies the presence of these rows in the table. What do you think about the "reason" column, though? Attempting to tabulate reasons for historical events runs counter to the two RSs, and, in my experience, to academic practice in general. The two books with such tables that have been put forth on this TP could not even be established as RSs on history either based on the publisher or the author, let alone as prominent RSs. Policy-wise, this seems to me at least to violate WP:WEIGHT in not giving approprirate weight to representation of the material in authoritative RSs, and substantively it strikes me as a travesty of historical analysis. It prevents placing groups of events in their historical and historiographical context, as RSs do, and it gives undue weight to sources that give credence to the motivations stated for the individual events in the primary sources, whose historicity nearly everyone treats with various levels of skepticism. I think this column should either be deleted to bring the table in line with RS models, or else the article should be converted into an essay-form article on the expeditions, which a bare-bone timeline for easy reference. Eperoton (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: I'm interested into how you may add the fact that these assassinations reports have been deemed to be inauthentic by traditional Islamic scholars in your assessment.
11:30, 26 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: If it's an essay-form article, then authenticity assessments can be discussed in text like anywhere else. If it's a list, then one could quantify support for autheniticity by citations, as I wrote above, though that's an admittedly clumsy solution. At the least, the reader should be alerted to historiographical controversies and directed to consult individual articles for detail. This is a challenge which applies to everything on the list, since there are prominent historians who believe the entire hadith tradition to be fabricated or unreliable. Eperoton (talk) 12:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Well why not going for my original proposal, which was to include here only things of convergence (which are the 27-8 Maghazi), and not divergence in the form a list, as in List of Napoleonic battles? Why complicate things with all these issues when the solution is, in point of fact, that simple?
13:22, 26 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: I think that's a question we've already discussed above, so I'll just paste my earlier take here: We have a table called "list of expeditions" in a prominent RS. We have to reflect it in an article called "list of expeditions". What is explicit in the source is whether or not the event is listed. It may not be entirely clear how best to handle events on whose presence in such a list RSs disagree, but removing these events from the article is not what NPOV tells us to do. It tells us to reflect all significant viewpoints found in RSs. Eperoton (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: But as I said earlier, the source itself states that some of these events aren't historical, that some sources (meaning some accounts in al-Waqidi for e.g.) aren't reliable, and that it includes things which other RSs wouldn't name as "expeditions". It seems to me, and I may be mistaken, that your only argument per WP:ONUS is that the meant source is "prominent", and somewhat, this justifies to ignore all that is mentioned in other notable RSs.
17:04, 26 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: My argument is based on WP:NPOV. We have lists of expeditions from two RSs and we have to reflect them here. All significant viewpoints on whether specific items belong in this list should be reflected, and I'm all for discussing how best to reflect them (I've made two such proposals already). However, removing an item from the article clearly fails to reflect the RSs that include it in a list of expeditions. Eperoton (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: By WP:ONUS, "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."
My basic position is that these sourced content in these RSs should be included in other articles (saraya articles) and only maghazi entries are relevent, since the other ones are off-topic, even do Watt calls them expeditions.
21:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: It's not just a matter of improving the article, but also of whether or not excluding this content violates WP:NPOV. Consensus can't override a core policy. In any case, we're both working on achieving consensus. Why would events that are called expeditions in a RS be off-topic in a list of expeditions? Do you have evidence that the term "expedition" is more commonly restricted in RSs to the events you propose to keep? Eperoton (talk) 22:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: See the quotes I gave earlier from Ahmed al-Dawoody's book.
23:09, 26 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Hmm, what do you mean? He also uses in the word "expedition" to refer to both maghazi and saraya : "In most instances, biographers give their account in the form of a narration of the incidents, without explaining the background and objectives of these expeditions, and they give different totals for these incidents, such as 35, 38, 47, and 56." (emphasis mine) Eperoton (talk) 23:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: True, he says elsewhere that, "the attempts of the early biographers to refer to all the Prophet’s travels and engagements with others as ghazawāt or maghāzī and expeditions sent by him as siyar, without differentiating between the preaching and fighting missions."
The point being, as you stated elsewhere, the reason why an article like this can be kept is that it is similar to articles like List of Napoleonic battles, however it doesn't make sense to have a "List of expeditions of X", in fact, if you search for "List of expeditions of" you'll see that this is the only such article. What do you think?
00:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: The rationale for this article being kept is existence of such lists in RSs, per WP:LISTN. My allusion to other WP lists had to do with the choice of columns rather than rows. Eperoton (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: I agree with you for the most part, especially that the sources leave much to be desired. I have no strong opinion regarding the "reason" column. Perhaps a column named "summary" would be more appropriate (as in e.g. List of battles before 301)? I do not necessarily see a problem with compressing complex information into a table cell. The widely used Template:Infobox military conflict does just that. --Rentier (talk) 01:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: But again, per WP:ONUS, "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." Just because there's an RS with such information does not mean that it should necessarily be included in that specific form.
And you didn't address my concerns about the title.
10:19, 27 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Rentier: I think renaming the column would be a construtive first step. At least it would remove the arbitrary restriction imposed by the column title. Then, as the article develops, it should become clearer whether it should be converted to a standard article ("expeditions" without the "list") or to a standard list.
@CounterTime: As I wrote about, even a consensus can't sanction violation of WP:NPOV, so WP:ONUS isn't applicable here. What are your concerns about the title? Eperoton (talk) 12:54, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Here are they, "The point being, as you stated elsewhere, the reason why an article like this can be kept is that it is similar to articles like List of Napoleonic battles, however it doesn't make sense to have a "List of expeditions of X", in fact, if you search for "List of expeditions of" you'll see that this is the only such article. What do you think?"
BTW, it isn't obvious to me how basing an entire article on a single RS while ignoring everything else (including one simple solution) doesn't constitute a violation of WP:NPOV.
13:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Hmm, did you miss my earlier responses? On the first point I wrote: "The rationale for this article being kept is existence of such lists in RSs, per WP:LISTN. My allusion to other WP lists had to do with the choice of columns rather than rows." On the second one I wrote: "All significant viewpoints on whether specific items belong in this list should be reflected, and I'm all for discussing how best to reflect them (I've made two such proposals already). However, removing an item from the article clearly fails to reflect the RSs that include it in a list of expeditions." I'm flattered that our dispute is coming to consist out of appeals to my earlier comments... :) But I think it will be more productive if we switch to exploring consensual avenues for improving this article, whose results can also be applied to the individual article it points to. In fact, it looks like you had already started this effort the other day. Eperoton (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Yeah, but just because such list exists in an RS does not mean it should be added, per WP:ONUS, and owing to the fact that-as I stated earlier-no single article of the form "List of expeditions of X" exists in this wiki. In contrast, there are dozens of articles of the form "List of battles of X", so changing the article to that form would be more welcome. So, as such, I'm not even ligning up with the inclusion of that list, let alone changing it to include or remove certain items from it, hence there is really no WP:POV going on.
18:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
CounterTime and Eperoton, can we please postpone the disagreement on the number of rows and what constitutes an expedition for later? This has been dragging the discussion for long. Right now, the priority is to tackle the "Muhammad's order and reason for expedition" column, which is filled with Misconceptions2 lies and distortions. This is the *main* problem with the article IMO. Once the column is removed, we can resume the discussion on what rows to keep. Al-Andalusi (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Your the only one that wants to delete the reasons column. There is no consensus for that.--Misconceptions2 (talk) 17:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Muslims only want to censor wikipedia. I certainly do not think any controversial information about Moes expeditions should be removed. The truth may be hard to swallow but its not a reason to censor. --119.30.32.120 (talk) 17:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

@Al-Andalusi: I thought we were already done with that column? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_expeditions_of_Muhammad#Multiple_issues The consensus reached resulted in the deletion of that row, before the re-coming of Misconceptions2 who was the only one to dispute that. 17:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

@119.30.32.120: I don't think I've seen someone state here: "This stuff should be deleted since it hurts our feelings", all the discussions have been going on about the sources, wp policies, ...etc So it's very strange to hear that from your part 17:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Eperoton:
I found an alternative table from an RS other than Watt, this time by Muhammad ʿImāra, a prolific author (with more than 50 books) and member of the academy of Islamic research at al-Azhar, Cairo (see his wiki page in ar for more details), he made a table listing the Maghazi and Siyar in which fighting actually occurred, in his book:
Muhammad ʿImāra, al-Gharb wa'l-Islam: ayn al-khatta' wa-ayn al-sawab? (Cairo: Maktabat al-Shuruq al-Dawliyya, 2004), p. 115 quoting Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, al-Durrar fi Ikhtisar al-maghazi wa'l-siyar, Cairo 1966.
I've screenshoted it, and it can be found here.
11:21, 17 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: That's a differently titled list: "ghazawat of Islam in which fighting took place". Also, I don't see the author's credentials as a mainstream historian. Eperoton (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Yes, but don't forget my comments on how this is the only article of the form "Expeditions of X" and my last proposal. I also disagree with your evaluation of the author, since he wrote many works on history such as:
معارك العرب ضد الغزاة.
الوعي بالتاريخ وصناعة التاريخ.
عندما دخلت مصر في دين الله.
He is also the editor of many historical accounts such as the Kitab al-Amwal o Abu 'Ubaydah for instance.
18:20, 18 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Hmm, I thought we've already discussed this issue. Referring to other articles is not a policy-based argument. They can sometimes serve as "inspiration", but it's RSs on the given topic that each article should be based on. Do we even need to get into credentials of this author? We have sources with lists that correspond to the article title, and this list isn't one of them. Eperoton (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: The way I see this issue is much broader, I do not consider this to be an appropriate title, based on the 'no-expeditions-of-X' argument (which isn't based on other articles but rather on the frequency of such articles, it would be astonishing and contrary to WP policies, I argue, to have a single 'expedition-of-X' article when none exists and this simply because it can be found in some handful RSs, keeping in mind that the existence of such article stems from the existence of dozens of 'battles-of-X' articles), and that as such, what is given in the RSs shouldn't necessarily be reflected in such an article. Using another name for the article, without even changing the used RSs may be more convenient. I hope you see my point, as I still can't see where we misunderstand each other.
17:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@Eperoton: But you know what, since the article in its current form already contains much problems, let's postpone the discussion on this problem till you fix these things based on Watt's table. Are you cool with that? 20:02, 19 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: I'm fine with postponing. Which problems are you referring to? There isn't much left to rewrite in the table without the reason column. Eperoton (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Synthesis. Delete all the given references, and replace it with Watt's table, as being the only source. 11:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Hmm, you're being a bit cryptic here. We can certainly use citations to better sources here, but why only Watt, and what does this have to do with synthesis? Eperoton (talk) 02:01, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Wow, I can't see how you failed to see that, the article is—in its present state—a direct violation of WP:SYNTHESIS, since it synthesizes from different sources a conclusion (in this case this whole table) not directly mentioned by the given RSs. To put it practically, suppose source 1 mentions a sariya X and source 2 mentions a sariya Y, then we can't use that to make a table composed of sariya X and Y since source 1 may reject the authenticity of Y and source 2 may reject the authenticity of X (as an example), hence the table will not be reflecting what the RSs state. Removing the current table, and replacing it with Watt's table would be the only (currently available and agreed upon) solution to solve that problem, I hope that this will be done very soon (@Xtremedood: would you like to help in that task?). Meanwhile I will not resume discussions on this article until the sockpuppet investigation on Misconceptions2 finishes.
11:07, 21 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)
@CounterTime: Reflecting multiple RSs isn't synthesis; it's what we're supposed to do per WP:NPOV. A table is not a conclusion, and NPOV holds for tables as much as regular articles. The question is how to reflect them appropriately in this case. I've already made some proposals before, including citations in the year column, and additional columns marking presence of the items in major RSs. By all means, let's exploit Watt's book, which is freely available here. I can also look up information from Jones' article, a standard reference on the chronology. There are a lot of citations to primary sources here that should be replaced by these two. Eperoton (talk) 02:56, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

@Eperoton: It's synthesis, exactly because: "suppose source 1 mentions a sariya X and source 2 mentions a sariya Y, then we can't use that to make a table composed of sariya X and Y since source 1 may reject the authenticity of Y and source 2 may reject the authenticity of X (as an example), hence the table will not be reflecting what the RSs state" Combining multiple RSs to make a giant list is also WP:SYNTHESIS. 11:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

@CounterTime: We're going in circles here. I've listed this dispute for consideration on the noticeboards for synthesis (OR) and NPOV. Eperoton (talk) 02:33, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Muir

@CounterTime:, your edit restored the dubious references by the 19th-century apologist of empire and mission William Muir (beloved by user Misconceptions2), who once wrote: "Britain must not faint until her millions in the East abandon both the false prophet and the idol shrines and rally around that eternal truth which has been brought to light in the Gospel." Al-Andalusi (talk) 17:05, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@Al-Andalusi: Thanks for the observation. 19:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

Removal of Sourced materials

user:Edward321 has removed sourced materials [4] and has included titles of expeditions that are not sourced. Such editing is clearly against WP policy. Xtremedood (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

It does seem that I did unintentionally remove reliably sourced material from this article once, which is an error which I will avoid repeating. OTOH, when it come to removing sourced info, Xtremedood has done it quite a bit in the last couple days. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] Edward321 (talk) 01:11, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
I have checked the sources and they do not say as the author says. You can, however, check the sources in this article and they do indeed say that. Also, it is simply a rehash of this article and creating multiple articles for the same topic is against WP policy. For the Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi article, you can see the discussion I had with user:MezzoMezzo, over here [17] where we mutually agreed upon what to put in the article. WP is indeed about collaboration and it is important that you first get the entire picture before making an accusation. An issue with the so called "caravan raids" issue is that the sources do not indicate as the sockpuppet article creator [18] states it does. I have checked several of the indicated sources and it does not state as the author says. Therefore an unsourced article with clearly misattributed sources that is also a rehash of the materials in this article is nothing more than a redirect to one of the article it tries to emulate, but while going against WP policies. Xtremedood (talk) 05:17, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
User:David A, the Caravan raids article is nothing but a collection of misattributed sources which consists of materials that are in this article by a confirmed sockpuppet [19]. To rehash this article goes against WP policy. To create an article based entirely on misattributed sources is against WP policy. Other users like User:Al-Andalusi have discussed and worked on bringing articles in accordance to WP policies, as seen here Expedition of Hamza ibn 'Abdul-Muttalib. Xtremedood (talk) 05:41, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Primary sources

I have removed the primary sources, unaccompanied with secondary sources to adhere to WP:No original research as edited here [20] Goldenhornstar (talk) 06:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I've been watching these edits, but David A asked me to comment. WP:PRIMARY says: "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." The Quranic citations certainly involve interpretation. Some of them were sourced to non-primary sources, but generally to Ibn Kathir (a classical commentary) or to Mubarakpuri (a modern religious book). In a text, these should be properly attributed and not treated as RSs for historical facts. Whether or not it involves interpretation to state that certain hadith and sira passages mention these events would need to be examined on a case-by-case basis, but many of these are probably not problematic. On the other hand, stating, as the column title did, that these sources are "notable" maybe does, depending on how much selection among alternative passages which mention these events is involved. However, as I've argued on this talk page before, it does not really help the reader to list primary sources here. Such details should be left to the individual articles, where the passages can analyzed with the help of RSs and quoted as appropriate. This is a list, and where similar lists appear in academic sources such as The Chronology of the "Mag̱ẖāzī"-- A Textual Survey by J. M. B. Jones and Watt's Muhammad at Medina, their context is chronological studies. So, while some material in this column may not formally violate PRIMARY, I don't think inclusion of the column was justified. Eperoton (talk) 02:01, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Consensus version

@Edward321, David A, and Bolter21: I have restored the actual consensus version of the article, it seems to me that only SPAs have opposed this version until now and they don't even out number those amounts of editors who wanted to preserve this version. Capitals00 (talk) 10:59, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

[21] furthermore it seems that article has enough reliable sources including Oxford, Routledge. Is there any reason other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT to remove the content of most article? Capitals00 (talk) 04:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I am personally fine with keeping the more thorough version that you restored. David A (talk) 08:32, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Capitals00 (or Misconceptions2?). Stop reinstating disputed content that was discussed to death on this talk page and removing the tags on the pages, or some serious measures will have to be raised against you. Al-Andalusi (talk) 14:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@Al-Andalusi: Who is misconception2? You are not providing any explanation that how your disruptive reverting can be justified other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT which is not even a justification. Capitals00 (talk) 14:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Discussions of this content fill up almost two archives of this talk page. Not everyone objected to all of it (e.g., I supported inclusion of additional rows based on academic RSs), but there were plenty of objections to go around. A version that hasn't seen the light of day for over a year certainly does not represent consensus and the WP:ONUS is on you to get consensus for it. If you'd like to reintroduce some parts of it, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the past discussions and then make incremental proposals for expansion. Eperoton (talk) 19:45, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
What kind of consensus you are talking about? All I am seeing is that edit warring erupted on 26 February 2016,[22] when an SPA made too many removals due to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and also seeing seeing shameless edit warring by 2 users most of the time.[23][24][25][26] and around dozens of reverts by Countertime. Was there any consensus for this recent disruption by SPA?[27][28] And we are having same people to WP:CENSORSHIP this article who had voted delete.[29][30] That alone shows that these edit warriors never assumed good faith. I am confident that none of the wikipedia policies forbid content removal based on WP:JDL. How many people have opposed the removal of content and how many have supported the removal? I count 5 as supporters of the removal and 8 as opposed to removal. There was no consensus to remove the content, that's why per WP:STATUSQUO the older version needs to be restored. Capitals00 (talk) 01:02, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
@Eperoton:, I'm with you in favor of including additional expeditions, many of which have their own pages already. Any objections? Al-Andalusi (talk) 15:14, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
@Capitals00: I mean the consensus status that the current long-standing version is taken to have per WP:CONSENSUS: "Should that edit later be revised by another editor without dispute, it can be assumed that a new consensus has been reached." The discussion a year ago didn't reach consensus even on what version should have been considered the earlier consensus version, since a dispute arose a few weeks after an earlier consensus to remove some of the content was reached on this talk page in Feb 2016. However, the subsequent removal was accepted by the editors watching this page and now the direction of WP:ONUS is not in doubt. If you'd like to revisit this debate, we can, though your insistence on dismissing the arguments I pointed you to as JDL doesn't bode well for a policy-based discussion. To recap briefly, most of the citations in the extended version are either to primary sources or to religious texts. Neither can be used to source what looks like statements of fact without attribution, and some of the citations are clear violations of WP:PRIMARY. More generally, all that extra material belongs in the individual articles, where it can be attributed and elaborated properly, and not in a list, which should be just that -- a list. In fact, I believe it's already there (unless it was removed for policy violations), since the list was created by the editor who also created most of those articles. There was a mostly accepted proposal to base this list on the two standard academic references that include a list of this kind -- those by Watt and Jones, which I mentioned in the previous section. In the coming days I'll try to find time to expand the list with additional rows based on those sources and rectify the outstanding sourcing problems. Eperoton (talk) 23:53, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
I've expanded and rewritten the article based on academic sources, correcting much chronological OR from primary sources, as well as some naming OR. There's more work to be done here (e.g., getting another view on chronology from Jones), but I've already spent more time on this than I had planned, so I'll stop here for now. Eperoton (talk) 00:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Still seems better than the one stayed "over a year". Capitals00 (talk) 06:06, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
@Eperoton: Fantastic work! thanks for your genuine efforts. Al-Andalusi (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Restore sourced ORIGINAL version which was voted as "keep" instead of the version that seeks to subvert information

The 2 versions

The recent version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_expeditions_of_Muhammad&oldid=882643830

The sourced ORIGINAL version with much more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_expeditions_of_Muhammad&oldid=882616154

I see no reason to use the recent version that seems to suppress the data over the version with sourced data.

I have been told there was a previous conversation about the 2 versions, this was tainted by canvassing. There was also several different discussions over the years for and against all versions. Saying there was a consensus does not mean there was. Examples including:

Around March 2016 There was a debate at the time about which version people should vote on, it was the sourced version and it was voted as as keep in the articles for deletion vote. Then later someone removed the data:

(cur | prev) 16:09, 15 May 2016‎ CounterTime (talk | contribs)‎ . . (36,638 bytes) -63,379‎ . . (going back to the original 26 February 2016 version per consensus in the #Multiple issues in the talk (see archive) and since no one seems to have made any changes based on Watt's table.) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 15:35, 13 April 2016‎ Anasaitis (talk | contribs)‎ . . (100,017 bytes) -5‎ . . (undo | thank)

I am restoring the version people voted to keep because more people (including senior members) voted on that discussion, than the SEVERAL tainted (canvassed) discussions that followed where consensus is disputed. --Misconceptions2 (talk) 12:03, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Comments

Which version should be used e.g the one users voted to keep in deletion discussion, the recent version or other? Misconceptions2 (talk) 13:13, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

  • Keep the "recent" version of 2017, which reflects how the subject is covered in standard academic references (Watt and Jones) and has been stable since it gained WP:CONSENSUS on this talk page in June 2017. Your "original" version has been discussed twice over the last 3 years and failed to reach consensus both times because of massive WP:OR and WP:NPOV violations - cherrypicking dates and snippets of narratives from primary and/or religious texts or superseded 19th century Western books; and failing to distinguish them from modern historical research or to give proper weight to the latter. Also, as has been discussed before, the kind of narrative detail you're trying to add (motivations, casualities, etc) belongs in regular (non-list) articles, where primary/religious sources can be properly attributed and modern perspectives on their historicity properly reflected. A list of this kind should reflect similar lists found in RSs, as it does in the 2017 version. Eperoton (talk) 14:33, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
P.S. And by the way, the linked discussion above is an AfD, which was closed with the comment: "There is consensus that the article at least can be rewritten to comply with the policies". The current (2017) version of the article was rewritten to comply with the policies, putting an end to the content disputes, until the original author came back wishing to restore it. Eperoton (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_expeditions_of_Muhammad/Archive_2"