- The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by Allen3 talk 22:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Ya`fūr edit
... that Muhammad's conversation with Ya`fūr in the Innocence of Muslims film trailer was loosely based on a 14th century book by Ibn Kathir?
Created/expanded by Wnt (talk). Self nom at 01:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I can't find the hook ref in the article linked - the Time Entertainment one. I also think it needs a better source than a tv critic's article. Secretlondon (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
- Well, Time Entertainment seems like a good enough source for a movie. What it says is that in the movie "He has a bizarrely homoerotic, one-sided conversation with a donkey (a take on an old story that’s been cited by critics charging Muhammad with perversion)." The latter link goes to a writing about Zakaria Botros, who had some influence on the filmmaker, which explains about the donkey, "Perhaps most entertaining, Fr Botros spent some time analyzing an anecdote recorded in Ibn Kathir’s al-Bidaya we al-Nihaya. Here is a translation for this lengthy account:" Now of course Jihad Watch is a very partisan source!, but it is being used to explain the intent of a very partisan film from a related point of view, so that seems like a reasonably expert opinion. Besides, a pro-Muslim site I used to illustrate the opposing point of view, answering-christianity.com, gives the same translation. And I actually tracked down the original source to a direct Google machine translation of our own Arabic Wikisource version of Ibn Kathir, which has some lines recognizable as the "do you desire females? NO!", given by the two opposing partisan sites and recognizable from the film. So I think that my statement that the scene is loosely based on this book is pretty well documented, and I don't think the hook or what it described is biased toward one side or the other; it is their interpretations that differ. Wnt (talk) 03:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Quite apart from any sourcing problems, this article is a blatant coatrack (fails neutrality). AndreasKolbe JN466 09:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- But this article has great potential. John lilburne (talk) 12:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Leaving aside the inappropriateness of Jayen466 simultaneously purporting to review this article while ridiculing it on his hate site Wikipediocracy, it's premature to reject this nomination. The article is admittedly not very well written but there is scope for this to be a useful article; the story described in it is a fairly well-known Hadith. I'll do some work on it tonight. Prioryman (talk) 12:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Prioryman just accused Andreas Kolbe of running a "hate site." That's not just a lie, it's defamation.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, put a sock in it, Dan. I've rewritten the article; I think the Innocence of Muslims bit is undue weight on a totally fringe work. There is in any case a much more interesting story to tell (which I've told). I suggest an alternative hook, viz:
ALT1 ... that according to an apocryphal Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad owned a talking donkey called Ya`fūr that was descended from the one (pictured) that carried Jesus into Jerusalem?
Hopefully this will suffice... Prioryman (talk) 22:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks - that is indeed interesting, and I had no idea. The limit of my aspirations at the time were to figure out if the Innocence of Muslims scene was based on anything real or not, which I had - I see that the naysayers here completely nuked any reference to the original 1400s Arabic Wikisource document on which the story is based, or to modern commentary by pro- and anti-Muslim groups. There is no merit in deleting information just because you don't like it for some reason. Wnt (talk) 22:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Doesn't suffice. Make it "according to a story that most scholars of hadith consider apocryphal and unreliable, Mohamed owned a talking donkey." Don't mislead people.Dan Murphy (talk) 22:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Way too long with that addition, and the word "hadith" won't mean anything to most people without an explanation, which is why I used "tradition". I've added the word "apocryphal", which gets the point across. Wnt, regarding the Arabic Wikisource, I'm not really comfortable about using Wikisource for sourcing articles - that's why I concentrated on published sources. But I'll have another look at it and see what I can do with it. Prioryman (talk) 23:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- I had another look at the sources from Wnt's version. I haven't been able to verify the Wikisource information from published sources so I'm reluctant to include it. As for Innocence of Muslims it is, ultimately, a fairly trivial reference and many of the sources Wnt used are deeply unreliable. I'm convinced that the article is better off ignoring IoM, as indeed we all would be. Prioryman (talk) 21:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
- Doesn't suffice. Make it "according to a story that most scholars of hadith consider apocryphal and unreliable, Mohamed owned a talking donkey." Don't mislead people.Dan Murphy (talk) 22:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
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Revised article and ALT1 hook need a reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
The article, as it stands now, appears pretty well-written and well-sourced. I couldn't detect any violations of NPOV and the ALT1 hook is neutral, sourced in the article and interesting. Congrats, this nomination is good to go. --Al Ameer son (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Is the word "apocryphal" used in any of the cited sources or is it original research? FWIW, most of the hadith collections that mention this story describe it as Mawḍūʻ (lit. "fabricated"). Wiqi(55) 22:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I think it's a reasonable term to use. We know from the sources that it's regarded as being unreliable, as the article explains. I'm using "apocryphal" in the sense of "of questionable authenticity". The word is simply a way of getting that message across without an explanation that would be too lengthy for the 200-character limit of a DYK hook. Prioryman (talk) 22:50, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Then it's original research, as the word "apocryphal" is not commonly used to refer to hadith. It also doesn't get the point cross, i.e., that most historians since a millinium ago have denounced this story as "fabricated" (a well defined term when dealing with the subject). Of "questionable authenticy" does not carry the meaning of "fabricated" (not authentic, motive), and less so when using "apocryphal". Wiqi(55) 23:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Could you suggest an alternative wording then? Note that I don't have a source for "fabricated". Prioryman (talk) 23:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- We already cite one source (Juynboll) that renders a form of Madu as "fabricated". See the quote by Ibn al-Jawzi where "wadi'ahu" is rendered as "fabricator". Moreover, Ibn al-Jawzi's book where this story is mentioned is called al-Maudu'at, which a reliable source translates as "The fabrications" -- or the "weak" hadiths that belong to the fabricated category; see [1]. Juynboll also notes that all versions assert that "there is no truth to the story". Another cited source (Bulliet) calls it a "later lore". I have also seen sources refer to it as "weak" (although a better translation of dha'if in this context is "spurious"; "fabricated" is one category of weak hadiths). So based on looking at reliable sources, the keywords here are "fabricated", "spurious", "weak", "later lore", "no truth to it", etc. Wiqi(55) 01:33, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- Despite dubious claims in etymological fallacy, you never know what a word means until you know its etymology, and that apparently was never truer than in this case. Looking up Apocrypha, I found that apocrypha (wikt:ἀπόκρυφος) are hidden works, which may or may not be true. Nonetheless, the story is an Islamic tradition. I don't see you even need to call it "apocryphal". You could call it "non-canonical", maybe? Wnt (talk) 18:41, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- Using "apocryphal" or "non-canonical" is almost the same thing. It is still original research because a) no reliable source refers to our story using such terms, and b) both terms wrongly imply that this story "may be true" but we don't have a reliable source saying so. Instead, there seems to be an agreement that this story is a fabrication or a later invention. Also the "hidden" meaning does not apply here as there were plenty of medieval and modern works devoted to analyzing these fabrications. Furthermore, I wouldn't stress the Islamic tradition aspect, because Islam did not develop in a vacuum. The book I linked to states that one important source of weak and fabricated stories were themes/quotes found in other traditions (mainly the Isra'iliyat) but were falsely attributed to Muhammad. Which reminds me, how does DYK usually handles falsely-attributed quotes and events that most/all historians think did not happen? Wiqi(55) 23:01, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- I have no idea what the answer is to your last question - I've not seen this issue come up before. But I agree with your comments about the wording; you've made a persuasive case. How about the following alternative hook:
- Do you think that hits the mark? Prioryman (talk) 23:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- How about
ALT3 ... that Ya`fur, according to an Islamic fable, was a talking donkey owned by the Prophet Muhammad that was descended from the one (pictured) ridden by Jesus?"Fable" surely gets the point of "fabrication" across, and it was a word from one of my supposedly non-reliable sources (i.e. the answering-christianity site, which compares it to Aesop). Unfortunately, the current version of the article doesn't say what the original source was of these traditions, and after various events I am not motivated to try to track down his offline sources - I know the earliest I saw was Ibn Kathir's fourteenth-century book. It would be nicer to say "a xxx-century fable" if possible. Wnt (talk) 00:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)- It was certainly extant before then. Al-Jawzi's denunciation of it, which I quoted in the article, was 12th century. The Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth suggests that it can be traced back to the 8th century, but who knows when it originated. Given the uncertainty I don't think we can put a definite date on it. Prioryman (talk) 04:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
- How about
- Using "apocryphal" or "non-canonical" is almost the same thing. It is still original research because a) no reliable source refers to our story using such terms, and b) both terms wrongly imply that this story "may be true" but we don't have a reliable source saying so. Instead, there seems to be an agreement that this story is a fabrication or a later invention. Also the "hidden" meaning does not apply here as there were plenty of medieval and modern works devoted to analyzing these fabrications. Furthermore, I wouldn't stress the Islamic tradition aspect, because Islam did not develop in a vacuum. The book I linked to states that one important source of weak and fabricated stories were themes/quotes found in other traditions (mainly the Isra'iliyat) but were falsely attributed to Muhammad. Which reminds me, how does DYK usually handles falsely-attributed quotes and events that most/all historians think did not happen? Wiqi(55) 23:01, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- Despite dubious claims in etymological fallacy, you never know what a word means until you know its etymology, and that apparently was never truer than in this case. Looking up Apocrypha, I found that apocrypha (wikt:ἀπόκρυφος) are hidden works, which may or may not be true. Nonetheless, the story is an Islamic tradition. I don't see you even need to call it "apocryphal". You could call it "non-canonical", maybe? Wnt (talk) 18:41, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- We already cite one source (Juynboll) that renders a form of Madu as "fabricated". See the quote by Ibn al-Jawzi where "wadi'ahu" is rendered as "fabricator". Moreover, Ibn al-Jawzi's book where this story is mentioned is called al-Maudu'at, which a reliable source translates as "The fabrications" -- or the "weak" hadiths that belong to the fabricated category; see [1]. Juynboll also notes that all versions assert that "there is no truth to the story". Another cited source (Bulliet) calls it a "later lore". I have also seen sources refer to it as "weak" (although a better translation of dha'if in this context is "spurious"; "fabricated" is one category of weak hadiths). So based on looking at reliable sources, the keywords here are "fabricated", "spurious", "weak", "later lore", "no truth to it", etc. Wiqi(55) 01:33, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
- Could you suggest an alternative wording then? Note that I don't have a source for "fabricated". Prioryman (talk) 23:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Then it's original research, as the word "apocryphal" is not commonly used to refer to hadith. It also doesn't get the point cross, i.e., that most historians since a millinium ago have denounced this story as "fabricated" (a well defined term when dealing with the subject). Of "questionable authenticy" does not carry the meaning of "fabricated" (not authentic, motive), and less so when using "apocryphal". Wiqi(55) 23:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I think it's a reasonable term to use. We know from the sources that it's regarded as being unreliable, as the article explains. I'm using "apocryphal" in the sense of "of questionable authenticity". The word is simply a way of getting that message across without an explanation that would be too lengthy for the 200-character limit of a DYK hook. Prioryman (talk) 22:50, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Is the word "apocryphal" used in any of the cited sources or is it original research? FWIW, most of the hadith collections that mention this story describe it as Mawḍūʻ (lit. "fabricated"). Wiqi(55) 22:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Where is this now? It appears that ALT1, although approved, was problematic, and ALT2 was not considered ideal by the author/nominator. Is a reviewer needed for ALT3, or are we waiting to hear whether "Islamic fable" is an acceptable phrase first? BlueMoonset (talk) 14:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
- Sorry about the delay, I hadn't realised this was still outstanding. "Islamic fable" doesn't work for me - fable has a specific meaning that isn't applicable here. If the issue is getting across the concept of "fabrication", let's go for the following hook. Prioryman (talk) 23:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
- ALT4: ... that according to an Islamic tradition regarded as fabricated, Ya`fur was a talking donkey owned by the Prophet Muhammad that was descended from Jesus's donkey (pictured)?
- I can't find where the article supports "now regarded"; am I missing something? If the hook said "long regarded", there's that 12th-century historian who curses the "fabricator" of the story which has an inline source citation. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
ALT4 hook only approved (earlier ALTs struck). Offline sources for hook facts AGF; "regarded as fabricated" specifically supported by inline citation. Rest of article review per Al Ameer son above. Newly supplied image is on Commons and properly licensed, appears in the article, and the donkey is clearly visible in it. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
