User talk:1234567

Sorry about the auto block, I removed it now. --Whale (talk) 23:29, 25 July 2012 (PDT)

Thanks. I fully understand why you have to do it on a site like this. It was only my own work that I deleted!

Yea that system helps prevent a lot of vandalism (e.g. logs) and saves us time. I added you in a list where it wont monitor any of your edits so it wont happen again. --Whale (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2012 (PDT)

Muhammad and his Wives

Hi 1234567! First off, thanks for creating the new article on Muhammad's wives! The level of detail you went into looks incredible.

That being said, I have added our "under construction" template to it because it's style currently doesn't adhere to the site's guidelines. Articles should be free from sensationalist, emotional, humorous or sarcastic commentary. See this article, for an idea of what we're aiming for.

It would be great if you could edit it to conform with these guidelines. As a rough example, I have edited the conclusion of the article below:

Before:

Muhammad died in June 632 at age 61 with his head in Ayesha’s lap and he was buried in her house. His concubine Tukana was passed on to his uncle Abbas, but the official widows were all forbidden to remarry. Sawda was probably in her fifties; Zaynab was about 42; Maymuna was 39; Ramla was 38; Hind was 35; Hafsa was 25; Juwayriya was 24; Mariya was probably in her twenties; Safiya was 20; and Ayesha was only 18. They were all sealed behind their veils, forbidden ever again to do anything interesting.

Occasionally they defied the veil. Ayesha even started a war against her old enemy Ali, causing ten thousand Muslims to kill each other in one day. This disaster simply confirmed to the Muslim men that when women did anything important, misery followed. So the men banished their women to behind the curtains and then carried on killing each other anyway. Whenever Ayesha recited the verse, “Women, remain in your houses,” she wept until her veil was soaked.

It is easy to laugh at Muhammad, the champion adulterer who lusted after women and took as many as he could. Attempts to demonstrate that his marriages were motivated by politics or charity, or that his wives were old and ugly, collapse quickly. Nor is there much evidence that he treated his wives fairly or kindly, or that they were happy women. Of course this damages Muhammad’s credibility as the world’s greatest Prophet who was supposed to perceive realities beyond the boundaries of his own culture and whose life was the perfect example for humankind.

But there is a serious lesson to draw from this tragic story. One fifth of the world’s population nevertheless believes that Muhammad was a Prophet and the perfect example to the human race. Muhammad’s example as a husband sets the example for Muslim husbands throughout history. Muhammad set a bad example. That is why Muslim women still suffer to this day.

After:

Muhammad died in June 632 at age 61 with his head in Aisha’s lap and he was buried in her house. His concubine Tukana was passed on to his uncle Abbas, but the official widows were all forbidden to remarry. Sawda was probably in her fifties; Zainab was about 42; Maimuna was 39; Ramla was 38; Hind was 35; Hafsa was 25; Juwairiyah was 24; Mariyah was probably in her twenties; Safiyah was 20; and Aisha was only 18. Due to being the widows of Muhammad in addition to being women, their personal freedoms were severely restricted.

Occasionally they defied expectations. Aisha started a war against Ali, causing ten thousand Muslims to kill each other in one day. This confirmed to the Muslim men that when women did anything important, misery followed. Whenever Aisha recited the verse, “Women, remain in your houses,” she wept until her veil was soaked.

Attempts by apologists to demonstrate that Muhammad's marriages were motivated by politics or charity, or that his wives were old and ugly, do not hold up to scrutiny. Nor is there much evidence that he treated his wives fairly or kindly, or that they were happy women.

One fifth of the world’s population nevertheless believes that Muhammad was a Prophet and the perfect example to the human race. Muhammad’s example as a husband has set the example for Muslim husbands throughout history.

Again, thanks for such a great article. --Admin3 (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2012 (PDT)

Okay, I can convert it from "story" to "history" mode. But I'm on a time-budget so it won't happen immediately.

In fact I may be adding more information as I go. I have found several more interesting facts on Muslim sites. However, most of these do not cite sources, and it will take me a while to work out exactly how we know what we think we know.1234567 (talk) 17:01, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

Sounds great. Thanks. --Admin3 (talk) 19:44, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

Page splitting and pseudonym

Hi 1234567. Since the article is very large, I think once you're done, it's best to split it into several pages (a page for each wife etc.). You can see examples of this (we call them "in-depth studies") here and here. We would also need a pseudonym (or real name if you're comfortable with that) for attribution on the "front page" and navigational TOC. Do you have anything in mind? --Admin3 (talk) 05:27, 11 October 2012 (PDT)

I think this is a great idea! Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to use the software, so someone else may have to take responsibility for that. That's the advantage of a wiki - no one person is the author.

Several of the wives already have pages, so we should think how we are going to amalgamate these old articles with some of the new information.

We could perhaps amalgamate this article with the "list of wives" article (on which I've done some work). Make the list the hub article, then link it to separate pages on each wife, plus a page for "Broken Engagements," etc.

You can use the pseudonym Petra MacDonald for the author. This is the English translation of Asma bint Marwan (with the elements reversed).1234567 (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2012 (PDT)

Questions about the Wives articles

Hi 1234567, its me Whale (changed my username). I'm now Axius. Thanks again for the work you've done on the Women articles. I'm starting to look at them and trying to understand the approach you took and check if there are any issues with following our policies and guidelines. My first questions are about references.

Could you tell me a little about your sources for example:

What were the main/most important sources you used?
How did you have access to them? For example physical books, ebooks, electronic PDF or a website or all of them? Please tell me the type of format for the main sources in #1.

I'm asking this because I'd really like to have access to these sources if possible. I have Gulliume/Ishaq (book) and Tabari (40 volumes).

I'm just doing some random checks and I may do more later.

When you say "Tabari 6:19-26" (ref #3 on that page), do you mean the 6th volume and page 19-26? I have the 40 volume set of Tabari and I cant find mention of Khadija in vol 6, page 15.

How about:

Bukhari 73:151. See also Bukhari 8:150. (ref #26)

The way we format Bukhari on our site is: {{Bukhari|8|76|537}}. But even if your reference was in our format (e.g. Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151), sometimes that website may not have the hadith we're looking for. The way we do this is, if the linked reference doesn't show anything, we try to quote the actual hadith in the reference so its preserved on our site and the user can see it if they want to. This is important.

For the reference you used, that one is available on the USC site. I type {{Bukhari|8|73|151}} and it comes out as Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151. Notice the complete reference for the hadith there "Volume 8, Book 73, Number 151" and note "volume 8". So the format we've used for Bukhari is based on how this website has the reference. So Bukhari references would have to be fixed and for hadiths which are not present on that site, we would need to quote that hadith verbatim in the Reference section.

Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 155. (ref #38), which says "When they mocked his beliefs, she railed against them with counter-mockery and continued to declare to the world that Muhammad was Allah’s messenger.[38]"

I have Ishaq/Guill and I cant see anything about Khadija there (I'm looking at the book 'the life of Muhammad', translation of Ishaq by Guill, Oxford Univ Press, ISBN 0 19 636033 1). Or did you mean 155 to be the numbering on the sides? There I see some relevant matching information. Is there a reason you went by the side-numbering for Ishaq and not the page numbering?

After this I may do some more random checks and sometime later I'll be talking about policies and guidelines, for example:

Sources: We must only talk about what the sources say. We cannot make assumptions, guesses, create facts or any kinds of derivations and embellishments (negative or positive).
Anything not related to criticism of Islam does not belong on our site. Neutral information is fine.

thanks, --Axius (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2012 (PST)

hi 1234567, you probably haven't logged in in a while. There are additional problems with the text which need to be discussed (I can talk about those after you've responded to the above). All the text has been moved out of the main article space into WikiIslam:Sandbox/Muhammad and his Wives until the concerns are addressed. --Axius (talk) 03:28, 20 November 2012 (PST)

Examples of problematic statements are "Muhammad liked to play with children and he must have been a good stepfather to Hala and Hind, for they remained unswervingly loyal to him." - (article on Khadija near ref 25, bold emphasis mine). The bolded statement is original research. The kids may have been loyal to him out of fear or cultural reasons. It doesn't necessarily mean he was a good stepfather. There are other statements and more may exist because we haven't looked at all the material, but these kinds of assumptions are not right for our site. We focus on simply "quoting" sources and not editorializing content. Still I believe an effort can be made to save this work and I hope you come back and talk to us about it. --Axius (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2012 (PST)

Hi Axius, sorry I haven't been in touch. I am currently travelling with limited internet access and no access at all to my books (I was using hard-copy English translations of Tabari and Ibn Saad). For this reason it will be difficult for me to do much before January.

I do intend to respond to everything you have written but I would rather not do it on the fly. Some friends who are native speakers of Arabic (non-Muslims now living in a safe country) have offered to help me and I would like their opinion on some of the English translations I have been using. To give quick answers to some of your questions...

I used Poonawalla's translations of Tabari. I have volumes 6, 7, 8, 9 and 39.

I used Bewley's translation of the eighth volume of Ibn Saad, which I'm well aware is a dodgy interpretation of the original, but no other English translation is readily available.

I used an electronic copy of Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq, converted to a word document, because a format that allows the use of CTRL F is the easiest way to track the careers of the minor characters, which throws a great deal of light on facts that can otherwise be overlooked. E.g., the career of Muhammad's divorced wife, Fatima bint Al-Dahhak, suddenly became clear when I searched for her father, whose later adventures are also mentioned in the hadiths. The use of this format is the reason for the page-numbering I cited.

I used this site http://www.searchtruth.com/searchHadith.php for Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and Muwatta because, once again, a search function is the best way to ensure that significant minor information is not overlooked.

I will be logging in again but probably not before January.

No problem, let us know when you're back in/after January. Safe travels. --Axius (talk) 07:55, 24 November 2012 (PST)

I am back. Actually I have been back for a while, but I delayed contacting you because I have lent out my copy of Ibn Saad, which impedes my ability to do serious work.

However, it would be foolish to delay indefinitely. I can still fix some of the other referencing - which, I promise you, is all real.

While I was away I accessed a copy of Ali Dashti's Twenty-Three Years. One thing that jumped out at me was that he anticipated several of my conclusions. Although I reached my own conclusions independently, in scholarship the race is to the swift, so of course I shall be adding his work to my references. The other thing that I noticed was that a "mistake" that I had attributed to Dashti was not his mistake at all, but one made in transition by someone (anonymous) who had misinterpreted his list. Unfortunately, the wrong version is now all over the internet and falsely attributed to Dashti. It does pay to read the sources in their original form.

I've also been going over William Muir again. I don't have access to many of the early sources he cites, but he makes some excellent points that, if we can find a way to verify them, are well worth revisiting.