Talk:Battle of Bosra

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Military history: Middle East / Early Muslim C‑class

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This article has been rated as C-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

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	Early Muslim military history task force (c. 600 – c. 1600)

Conversion of Romanus and minor errors

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The report here, uncited as far as I can tell is in contrast to that in "The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire" By Edward Gibbon, Chapter LI. There it is reported that the speech was given "After Caled had imposed the terms of servitude and tribute". Thus after the battle. An apostate ruler that walked out on his own people and then stood within speaking distance would certainly die by arrow wounds! Basically it seems that someone has read Gibbon and added a twist of extra pro-islamic voice to Gibbons writing.

Note also that Gibbon reports the loss of 230 Arabs, not 130. Also that the most recognised spelling appears to be Bosra and not Busra as used here.

I'll make changes in keeping with these comments unless objectors come forward with better references. Pbhj (talk) 02:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

The whole article reads like a piece of propaganda, and not at all encyclopedic.1812ahill (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Sources

Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'm removing a lot of the text sourced to Gibbons. It's been on this page forever, but I don't think many people have actually looked at the source itself, which says in a footnote from Gibbons: "The accounts of the wonderful march of Khalid across the Syrian desert must be received with caution. The story of the taking of Busra told in the text is taken from Ockley and has no good authority." That's in reference to Simon Ockley, who died in the year 1720, which uses "al-Waqidi"'s Futuh al-Sham as its base and "elaborates" upon it.

I have also axed a lot of text from "al-Waqidi" itself, a source that plagues nearly every page on early Islamic battles on this site. As a reminder, by wide agreement, this text was written hundreds of years after al-Waqidi's death. If details turn up in this book and are totally absent from earlier works, they should not be used as sources of historical information.

Given that these two sources account for every single citation on the page (including a link to the actual text of Futuh al-Sham) I will find better sources for it. Dragoon17 (talk) 02:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

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