Talk:Nasr Al-Madhkur

Ahmad Mustafa Abu Hakima

This guy not a reliable source by any stretch of the imagination, his credentials are unknown, he's never been published by a major publishing house, and his name brings up a few results on Google. His claims and theories appear to be revisionist and contrary to mainstream scholarship.--07fan (talk) 08:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried searching for "Mustafa Abu Hakima" (with an 'a' at the end)? -- Slacker (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, my spelling mistake. Thanks for correcting it. Hakima's account based on Carsten Niebuhr's contemporary account of his visit to the region. A primary source. I can easily resolve the tag.Dilmun (talk) 10:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolved the tag as replaced the contested source with Carsten Niebuhr. Dilmun (talk) 11:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Carsten Niebuhr was just a traveler, not a historian. According to all mainstream historical accounts, Nasr Al-Madhkur was a local Khan or governor of Karim Khan, some obscure travel diary's claim that he ran "independent states" is of no value, and considered undo weight and fringe theory per Wikipedia policy. --07fan (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Disputed

User:Dilmun is using selective outdated sources to give undo weight to a fringe theory that Nasr Al-Madhkur was a sovereign "monarch" of an imaginary state in Busher and Bahrain that never existed, when all the mainstream modern sources refer to him as a khan or local governor of Karim Khan. This is historical revisionism, there are no records of an "independent state" in this area at time, the area was under the sovereignty of Zand dynasty. --07fan (talk) 14:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahmad Abu Hakima is a well-known, commonly-cited, and published author in this field. [1]. Nearly every statement on this page is accompanied by a citation to a "mainstream" source. If there is other relevant information that you think should be included, then you are welcome to add it, but you can't simply tag articles because you don't like what's in them. If you have an issue with the quality of the sources, then you can take it to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. -- Slacker (talk) 21:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I did add my own source, and that's the mainstream source. Read Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Until the fringe theory that Nasr Al-Madhkur was a "king" is on the page, the tag will remain in place. According to mainstream sources, no such state existed at that time, Abu Hakima is a revisionist pan-Arab from Kuwait, not a neutral and relaible source. --07fan (talk) 05:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

His nationality is irrelevant, and it is only your personal opinion that his works are "revisionist" or "fringe." It's not Abu Hakima that says Al Madhkur was independent; Abu Hakima was simply quoting Carsten Niebuhr, and the article makes it very clear that these are Neibuhr's assessments, not Abu Hakima's. Again, the fact that you don't like the information and think it's "pan-Arabist" has absolutely no weight here. I still hold out hope that you'll end your disruptive behavior and stop impugning people's motives with no good reason. -- Slacker (talk) 05:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Slacker, I really don't appreciate your accusatory tone. Wikipedia is no place for pan-Arabist revisionism, it's our job to evaluate the sources. If someone makes a huge claim that Nasr Al-Madhkur ruled an "independent state"? He or she needs to prove it with modern non-Arab scholarly works. What was the name of this imaginary state? No modern historian has ever spoken of such state, all mainstream account from that period point to the fact that the area was under the full sovereign control of Zand dynasty, this is the MAINSTREAM SCHOLARLY VIEW. One can not re-write history on Wkipedia cherry-picking obscure accounts by some random Arab writer and some traveler who wasn't a historian.--07fan (talk) 06:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Accusatory tone? You routinely accuse people of "re-writing" history, "tendentious editing," and "cherry picking," usually before any discussion has been done, so it's quite funny that you complain about other people's "accusatory tone," but no matter. If you want to believe you're fighting against imaginary "pan-Arabist" forces on Wikipedia that's your business. The issue that concerns me is that you don't seem to actually read the articles you're editing. The article does not say that he ruled "an independent state"; it only says that Niebuhr said so. You can't dispute that Neihbur made that statement, and therefore there is no factual dispute here, and the tag is improper. The article already says he was loyal to Persia (twice!), and it already uses the words "local governor" that you inserted. So, again there is no factual dispute here.

The real dispute here is whether or not to include a reference to Neibuhr's account. So far you have not given any good reason not to do so. Just complaining that the author Abu Hakima (who was simply quoting Nehibur!) is a "pan-Arabist" and that he's "Kuwaiti" (FYI he's Palestinian) is not good enough. Also, Niebuhr is not cited as a historian (another point you seem to be confused about); he is cited by a historian as an eye-witness -- big difference. You have no right to remove that information for no apparant reason other than that you don't like it, and you have no right to claim that it's "factually false" that Neihbur said those words when he so clearly did say them. Whether you agree with his assessment or not is not relevant to this question.

I'm going to ask for a third opinion. -- Slacker (talk) 21:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, you ARE indeed cherry-picking sources, giving undo weight to some quote attributed to Niebuhr by Abu Hakima. FYI, Abu Hakima is an unknown writer who was a Kuwaiti citizen of Palestinian origin, and whose works were never published by a major publishing house, and whose credentials are questionable to say the least. This is not a matter of Al-Madhkur's "royalty to Persia", Nasr Al-Madhkur was merely a governor of Persia who was appointed to the job, and took his orders from Karim Khan of Zand dynasty, this is the modern scholarly view. You can't just put a random quote from a traveler in the lead, and pretend that he ruled "an independent state" which never existed, this would be historical revisionism ( a common Pan-Arabist practice) and a clear violation of fringe theory and undo weight policies of Wikipedia.--07fan (talk) 16:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe you're repeating those false claims about Abu Hakima after the links I provided. His works are reviewed in journals such as the American Historical Review and the Bulletin of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He has authored articles in the Encyclopedia of Islam [2] [3] and is cited in almost a dozen other article in that encyclopedia. The academic books that cite his works are in fact many. The only reason you seek to discredit him is because of your own obvious prejudice against anything Arab. -- Slacker (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

The use of Carsten Niebuhr in this article is most certainly problematic. The immediately obvious problem is that he is used very prominently in the introduction to assert the existence of an independent state and monarchy. At the very least, this is a serious problem with undue weight. While historical sources are suitable for illustrating information drawn from modern reliable sources, they are not at all suitable for asserting central claims, let alone introductory claims. If no modern reliable source affirms such claims, then we can be assured it is an extreme minority view unsuitable for inclusion. If only a few sources support the claims, then it should be treated as minority view, with relative little of the focus and space of the article devoted to such claims. There are further problems with improper synthesis in this article. The opening sentence is a perfect example of such a problem. If the latter two sources make no mention of an independent state, it is highly inappropriate to string all three sources together to form the claim presented in the article. As a final note, the referencing is somewhat insufficient in the article. The notes are missing information such as publisher, year, etc that are essential for solid citation and ease of verifiability. Vassyana (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

So, where is the factual dispute? The article says "Neibhur said X." Is it disputed that Neihbur said "X"? If not, then the appropriate tag is "POV," not "factual accuracy." That's the first issue. The second issue, is whether the Neibhur quote should be included to begin with. You haven't shown any reason why a very famous eye witness account should be completely omitted. I don't have a problem moving the quote to a different part of the article, but again that's not a "factual" issue. Furthermore, no evidence that Abu Hakima's citation of Neibuhr represents a "fringe" view or even a "minority" view; it is simply an unsourced assertion by the editor above. He has not provided a source that shows Abu Hakima to be a "fringe" or "revisionist" historian, while I on the other hand have shown that Abu Hakima is indeed a widely-published, and widely-cited historian. Where in WP is it required to provide a dozen sources for a claim in order to answer an unsupported claim that it is a "fringe view?" Shouldn't be up to the other editor to provide sources for the alternative sources first?

I seriously have no objection to treating Neibhur's assessment as a "minority view," or even saying that "most historians contradict what he says" (provided there's a source of course) and it doesn't matter where it's placed in the article, and have previously invited 07fan to add whatever information he had. In fact, on the Bahrain page I myself wrote that he was a governor on behalf of Persia. In fact, I did not contribue anything to this article myself. That's not the issue for me here; the issue is that a very famous eye-witness account may be omitted simply because it offends someone else. I'm also concerned that this may serve as precedent to remove all references to travelers' accounts from WP because they're "historians" (as if a traveler is supposed to be a historian!). If a respected historian saw fit to quote Niebuhr, there is no reason to remove the sourced content here. -- Slacker (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is not simply the use of the historical source, but the improper use of other sources to support those claims and the emphasis those claims are given. One historian citing or quoting the historical source does not automagically make it appropriate for inclusion. If Neibhur is only supported by an extremely small minority of historians, this is not the place to document such claims. If a reasonable minority supports the claims, then it's not a problem to have the information given some passing treatment in the article. Regardless, if you're willing to work with it as a minority claim, I'm sure if you edit the article to reflect such an approach you will be much more likely find some common ground with the objecting editors. Vassyana (talk) 22:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Vassyana. A source from 1792 is unacceptable to be used in asserting central claims. Also here are some sources which firmly establish Bushehr under the Zands. [4] Encyclopedia Britannica also says about Bahrain: "though it was ruled by the Portuguese from 1521 to 1602 and by the Persians from 1602 to 1783. Since 1783 it has been ruled by sheikhs of the Khalifah family (Al Khalifah), which originated in the Al-Hasa province of Arabia." --alidoostzadeh (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ali please read the discussions and the article first. The issue here is not whether Nasr al Madhkur was a Persian subject, because that's already stated in the article. The issue is whether sourced content should or should not be removed. -- Slacker (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it should be removed if it is from 1792 and is up for contention. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 22:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:42, 20 June 2013 (UTC)