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