Talk:Gentile/Archives/2022/September

Islam section - undue weight

The current section headed Islam involves a very long, extensively referenced, and quite confusing discussion of the translation into English of the Arabic word الْأُمِّيِّينَ (al-ʼummiyyīn) which some Quran translators have rendered "gentile." This is giving undue weight to what is a fairly minor point of translation. The section could be substantially reduced and made much clearer by reducing it to a few referenced lines (using the same citations as currently) as follows:

"Some Quran translators have used the word Gentile to translate the Arabic word لْأُمِّيِّينَ (al-ʼummiyyīn), which is understood to refer to non-Jews and/or people not versed in or not able to read scripture. Some scholars have argued that al-ʼummiyyīn is related to the Hebrew word "goy/goyim" (which is often translated to gentile - see above)."

I propose to make this edit Atrapalhado (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Masterofthename: The editor @Masterofthename who produced the original text for this section has been entirely resistant to any revision I have made to attempt to improve readability and make it more concise. He/She has simply reverted any changes to their original text. As he/she will not accept my text I would like to ask him/her to revise the text to address the following issues:
1) The section needs to explain at the start what "ummi" means in general terms: for readers unfamiliar with the word "ummi" it is not helpful to just say "gentile is sometimes used to translate 'ummi' "
2) The section is overlong: you are only making two points - (a) some translators have used the word gentile to translate "ummi" and (b) "ummi" may be related to the word "goyim." You only need two sentences and two quotes to make these points. (This article is about the word/concept "gentile: I agree with you that a separate article on the word "ummi" may be a good idea).
3) Some of your quotes/statements are unreferenced
4) Many of your quotes/references are from one book which is 100 years old. I included some more modern references in one of my revisions, which you deleted. It may be worth looking at these.
5)There are some minor grammar problems - particularly missing articles (a or the) - eg in "However many other western scholars of the Quran came to similar conclusion" needs to be "a similar conclusion"
Atrapalhado (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

From the endless discussions on the talk page of this article, it is obvious that some people feel that this article would be better off redacted, removed, censored or outright deleted. While I am not accusing you of this behavior, removing a large chunk of material that is properly referenced might be perceived to be on similar grounds. I completely agree that this section maybe long and perhaps might be better to be moved to a new article called "Ummi". However, it is relevant to this article that many orientalists and christian converts to Islam believed that the Arabic word Al-Ummi (الامی) is equal to the Hebrew Goyim and Latin Gentile. This view, although not mainstream, is essential to understanding inter-religious conflicts between various groups. The cited orientalists believed that the reason Jews rejected Mohammad was because of his gentile heritage not because his message contradicted those of the old testament. If you feel that having a short paragraph here about the concept and having a new article called "Al-Ummi" or "Ummi" would be a good middle ground solution to our different points of view on this section I am up for that. However I do not think that removing all the material added is a good idea, maybe rewording would be a better solution. No offense but in my opinion you are not an expert on Islam, Arabic or Hebrew, you might want to leave this section for somebody more knowledgeable on those subjects to edit. Perhaps it is better for somebody else to give opinion on all above points so we can decide a path forward. Peace. --Masterofthename (talk) 21:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

My opinion, as an editor that has been following the discussions here, is that you should leave the editing of this page to Atrapalhado, who has done a good job of curating it so far in my view, and you should go and try to add this new page you are suggesting. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 15:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

To be honest I don't really think you qualify as a neutral third person with what you wrote in the Kabbalah section above. Masterofthename (talk) 21:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Are we discussing Kabbalah here? Do you want to discuss Kabbalah or Islam? Whatever I say regarding Kabbalah above had nothing to do with the opinion I am expressing here. I expressed my opinion on this matter above, and my opinion as an editor of the page, just like you or like Atrapalhado, stands. I will restate it: Atrapalhado has done a good job curating the page so far, and if you think you have a case, you should go and try to get your suggested new page approved. I doubt it, but that is your right. Go ahead. Be well, warshy ^(¥¥) 22:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Masterofthename:Well that went well :-) user:Masterofthename how do you suggest we move forward from here? Atrapalhado (talk) 22:24, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Well I followed Wikipedia recommended practice, and had a cooling off period from this debate - of very nearly a year. However, I still feel strongly that the Islam section of this article needs to be improved for the reasons I lay out above. I think the proposed revised version of this section I developed (see [revision of 14 October 2021 21:23.]) is clear and addresses concerns expressed. This is notice that in a few days I will replace the current text in the Islam section with that in the [revision of 14 October 2021 21:23.]

I would support the creation of a separate article for the term "ummi" and have no wish to be involved in the content of that article.

Atrapalhado (talk) 19:55, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I had almost forgotten about all this 'brouhaha' here, and had to re-read this thread and the one above to remind myself of the problems I saw and the positions I took back then. I still think the Kabbalah section of the page suffers from unnecessary bias, and that the previous version was much better. But alas, I haven't had the time to research this matter as seriously as I believe it deserves to be researched. And so, I'll have to leave that matter at that once again. As for the Islam section, I agree with all your points above, and I will still support the implementation of your new revision when you do it. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 21:46, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that a lot of this article is quite problematic and while I don't know anything about Kabbalah, that section is certainly poorly explained and yes, seems to carry bias. The other section that I particularly object to is the "Judaism/In Modern Times" sub-section which seems to be weighted towards presenting extremist views. This article is very widely read - around 20,000 views a month - and it worries me that some of the content could be feeding anti-semitism. Atrapalhado (talk) 17:02, 22 September 2022 (UTC)