Hello Jimmy, Parker Peters.
I did state that what I had written previously was all I had to say on this matter, but Parker's apparent 'rebuttal' compels me to respond.
" but Tariqabjotu (the blocking admin) has strong ties to him, including being an "ex" member of the same Guild."
"Strong ties"? I have no ties with Tariqabjotu. I have messaged him in total twice (last I remember). One was a festive greeting several months ago (to which he did not respond), and the other was a request for an update on the status of a mediation case involving the article 'Indian caste system'. Which "guild" are you referring to, by the way? The short-lived "WikiProject Muslim Guild"? I was never a part of that WikiProject. I've never been a part of any WikiProject. Can you please be a bit more explicit in describing how exactly Tariqabjotu has "strong ties" with me?
"to the point where it's almost two articles side by side"
That is patently false, and a total exaggeration. You're treating the content dispute with a heavy dose of bad faith. An attempt by myself to merge the two versions together in compromise seems to you a disguised revert. I don't believe that merits a response.
Incidentally, RunedChozo did not consist of the 'other' side of the debate. Nobody reverted to RunedChozo when they could have, they instead reverted one before him, removing the text he inserted (check the article history). In fact, the role played by RunedChozo here and elsewhere was as an abusive and disruptive editor, disinterested in discussion, unable to spare even his friendly advisors and uninvolved admins from paranoid accusations.
"Change three: Block of text removed. This is the same block of text introduced by RunedChozo, the same Itaqallah refers to in his email to us. Conclusion: This is the bone of contention, but we analyzed the whole thing just to be sure, so I'll continue."
Block of text? You mean two sentences? The first of which is original research? The second of which is the attribution to sources which do not verify the statement? Oh, right.
"Because the text block includes a definite Source: statement, we deemed that the edit summary was indeed deceptive."
Deceptive? Probably, but only because a source was slipped in of which I was not immediately aware. Intentionally? No.
As for the second summary you highlight. I think almost all of the changes in the revert had indeed been discussed, the most significant being the lead and whether the people of Medina "agreed" to the constitution. What had not been discussed was this OR insertion (and yes I will deal with these quotes you provide in a moment), perhaps I should have started a discussion on talk explaining why such an insertion was totally ridiculous, I regret not doing that now that I realise some did not see it with the clarity that myself and the people I was disputing with on the talk page did (Alecmconroy, Proabivouac; who did not endorse it and avoided reverting to RunedChozo).
"Unfortunately for Itaqallah, plenty of scholarly study of the life of Mohammed has been done, by people who are versed in Arabic and competent to read and analyze those sources, so we have a good number of scholarly and Muslim leadership quotes which seem to concur with the edit in question."
Fact is: the sources RunedChozo provided do not explicitly substantiate the claim he attributed them. At best, his insertion was an editorialised intepretation of events listed in those biographies (and thus still OR). At worst, it was a deliberate attempt to misrepresent sources.
I don't know if it's an appropriate use of the mailing list to engage in content disputes, but I'll respond to the other stuff here too.
The sources you provide present an opinion of the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, I'm not convinced that this is a substantial scholarly opinion, for reasons I will outline. According to you Lewis describes the murder of a Muslim as the casus belli for attack. Well... uh.. yeah, I think that's what the article states. The murder *is* what some scholars consider as the reason for the attack, because it is the murder which nullified the treaty. Does it imply deliberate searching by Muhammad to look for a reason, or mere convenience? Not entirely apparent from that small quote you provide.
Who are these people you're quoting? Is Yasir Arafat a scholarly, reliable source? No. He does not have any qualifications in Islamic studies or Arab history, last I checked. He's not considered an authority. Why, then, does his opinion matter here? I'm not sure who "MA Khan" is. Enlighten me as to his educational history, his qualifications, the fields he has worked in. Who is "John Glubb" A British military officer? Exactly what is his scholarly pedigree in the field of Islamic studies?? The opinions of such people, it seems, are completely expendable considering that we write an encyclopaedia with reliable, relevant sources.
Seeing as though you merely copy/pasted from a biased, unreliable article (http://www.danielpipes.org/article/316 , from a journal which seemingly has little connection with studies of early Islamic history) without doing your own research, why did you fail to present the other extracts also? Were they not as explicit in detailing Muhammad's apparently malicious intentions? So much for your "research". No wonder it's quoting Yasir Arafat, it's a political current affairs journal. The author himself is not known for his neutrality nor the quality of his work.
Beit Or on the talk page pointed out in his GA review that the Encyclopaedia of Islam (perhaps the best source for Islam-related wiki articles) describes the events leading up to the Conquest of Medina, stating that it mentions that tribal proxy warring contributed to the breaking of the treaty. This was a notable opinion I had overlooked, and I immediately inserted it into the article. Nowhere does it mention that the treaty was a guise under which an army could be amassed. In fact, the majority of academic scholarship does not endorse this view from what I know. To then defend an extremely subjective edit through equally subjective research doesn't say many positive things about how you are approaching this whole dispute in general.
"The comment by Yassir Arafat is most relevant, since it directly indicates that Muslim scholarly opinion sees the Meccan treaty as not a peaceful treaty, but one to buy time to build up military force."
It doesn't seem you're acquainted with Muslim scholarship then.
"And on the whole, the article [[Mohammed the Diplomat]], after spending a good amount of time going through the references and page history, appears to be very biased in favor of making Mohammed look as good as possible, rather than an NPOV presentation of diplomatic episodes in Mohammed's life and noting fairly when there is a controversy over his actions"
That's not the case, but I'm sorry you feel that way.
"And as for Itaqallah's claim that the source did not support the edit, well, I'm afraid that appears from my research so far to be not the case at all."
It doesn't, and I've discussed this above. Your 'research' is less than convincing, I'm afraid. If you would like to discuss this further, I invite you to come to my talk page or the talk page of [[Muhammad as a diplomat]]: I don't want to engage in verbose content disputes on the mailing list. I hope the issue regarding the edit warring earlier has been clarified, a little good faith would be nice. -- Itaqallah