Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of Uhud/archive1

Battle of Uhud

just passed GA... was wondering what in terms of content, style, expression (or anything else) could be done to improve the article and raise it to featured quality. ITAQALLAH 18:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

old windy bear

ITAQALLAH I have read the article carefully, and it is just my opinion, but it might benefit from citing from another couple of detailed military analysis of the battle itself, but it is generally quite good and manages to steer the narrow line between religion and history that is inevitable with the early battles during the rise of Islam. old windy bear 21:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• i'm currently in the process of looking to see if i can get any more in terms of narrative or analysis of this event. Watt's books and the Encyclopedia of Islam cover it quite comprehensively, and most biographies don't tend to go into meticulous detail about it. i'll see what i can dig up. ITAQALLAH 04:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

ITAQALLAH Watt is my source also, but I will check further too, but I think you covered it pretty thoroughly. It would be nice to have another good source analysis or two, but as you say, most histories of the period don't go into tremendous detail about the Battle of Uhad.old windy bear 20:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[User:Itaqallah|ITAQALLAH]] In a final review of the article, I added the fact that Khalid ibn al-Walid(ra) emerged as a brilliant general in this battle, displaying his talent for the first time as he would go on to conquer the Sassanids. Other than that, I think you did a superior job. Nice work! old windy bear 10:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

thank you Oldwindybear. i've got a hold of Tor Andrae's book ("Mohammad: The Man and His Faith"), and i'll see if there's anything else i can add. ITAQALLAH 15:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian

1. I checked the article and put some comments in the talk page. But why don't you use Arabic histories like Tabari and Ibn Athir. We can't find most of the details in the western histories.
2. You can use Battle of Badr which is an FA article to complete the prelude and get some ideas about what sections can be added like Badr in the Qur'an and Important participants.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The participants idea is a good one, actually. Certainly the Shiites make a great deal out of Ali's role in the Battle. I still think the article is a good one as he constructed it, but a participants section is a good idea. Ibn Athir does not have many more details than are currently in the article, as I recollect it concentrates most heavily on Battle of Badr ?old windy bear 09:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately Shia and Sunni sources are agreed on Ali's role. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 00:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t Then it would do no harm at all to put it in the article. I simply wanted to avoid lengthy arguments. old windy bear 00:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or

The general impression from the article is that it is poorly written, does not describe the battle adequately, and is trying hard to demonstrate that the battle "may not have been a defeat for Muhammad".

• The number of Muhammad's troops is incorrect. Muhammad's army numbered 1,000 only before Ibn Ubayy's departure; thereafter they were 700 strong.
• Khalid ibn al-Walid was not a commander of the Meccans on par with Abu Sufyan. Khalid merely commanded the cavalry on the left flank. For this reason, the map that shows him on the right flank is also incorrect.
  • Watt and Muir both state that Khalid commanded the right flank, while Ikramah commanded the left. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• The outcome "strategically undecisive" means nothing, except as an attempt to show this was not really a defeat for Muhammad. Very few battles are strategically decisive; this meaningless "strategically undecisive" expression can be appended to pretty much every battle.
• Why is there no date for the battle according to the Islamic calendar?
• The intro is very bad. It contains very little information on the battle itself, but lots of details on where the Muslim emigrated from, where the Mount Uhud stands, what some scholars supposedly think on the outcome etc.
  • the intro does need to be more comprehensive, which i shall address shortly. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "The Muslims had the worst of the affair" is unencyclopedic style.
• "Prelude" is not an encyclopedic title for a section. Be sure not use the definite article in the titles of other sections.
• "Muhammad had preached the message of Islam in Mecca" is loaded religious language. Avoid such Muslim terms as "message" (risala) and "call" (dawah).
• "tight-knit community of followers" - bad English.
• "but had also succeeded in angering the rest of the Quraysh" I don't think that angering the Quraysh was Muhammad's intention, so he couldn't "succeed" in it.
• "After years of persecution" How exactly were the Muslims "persecuted"?
  • most sources relate the Meccan persecution of the Muslims. i don't think it's appropriate to delve into that here. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Abu Sufyan accompanied a party of 200 men to the city" Which men? Meccans?
  • Watt simply says men. we cannot assume that it was solely Meccans, it may have also consisted of nomadic allies. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "obtaining temporary residence with the chief of a Jewish tribe" What are the names of the tribe and its leader?
• "He then left the city, burning two houses and laying waste to some fields in fulfillment of his vow." Did he do this alone? It's pretty diffcult for one man to lay waste to some fields. Also, the article previously mentions no "vow". This whole passage referenced to Watt (1964) pp. 132—135 is so strange and murky that one needs at least the full quote from the source; meybe then it could be decoded.
  • will try to improve the flow. mention of vow has been made more explicit. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Defeat by the Muslims the Battle of Badr had infuriated the Meccans, who now wanted revenge for their dead kinsmen." Already mentioned above.
• "The following year on 11 March 625 with Abu Sufyan at the helm, they raised another force, often numbered at 3000" And less often numbered at what? In addition, this is bad English.
• Usually, the descriptions of battles start with the order of battle, describing the opposing forces and their location. We can see none of this here, so the account of the battle is haphazard, with archers, cavalry, Khalid ibn al-Walid etc, popping out of nowhere. The course of the battle is thus pretty difficult to understand even with the help of the map. However, a map is not a substitute for the order of battle; in addition, the movements of troops are shown on the map rather selectively. As a result, we know something only from the text, something only from the map, and the reader must string together the events on his own.
  • have tried to make the text about the battle more comprehensive, though i'm not completely finished with that yet. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Shortly before the battle commenced, 'Abdullah ibn Ubayy (the chief of the Khazraj tribe) and his followers withdrew their support for Muhammad and returned to Medina" Wrong, Ibn Ubayy left on his way to the Mount Uhud, long before the battle commenced.
  • "Shortly before the battle" is attributed to Watt. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Ibn Ubayy and his followers would later receive censure in the Qur'an for this act." How and in what verse?
• The article misses the famous story how Muhammad's uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib successfully fought in the battle before being killed by the Ethiopean slave Wahshi. For this reason, "the corpse of Hamza" just pops up out of nowhere.
• Why is there nothing in the article on what, if anything, Muhammad was doing during the battle?
• Why is there nothing on the role of Ali in the battle, according to the Shi'a tradition?
• "after some brief verbal exchanges with Umar ibn al-Khattab (a companion of Muhammad)" is an unnecessary detail.
  • the Abu Sufyan/Umar exchange is frequently mentioned in the accounts of this battle. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Other scholars such as Montgomery Watt disagree, noting that while the Muslims did not win, the Meccans had failed to achieve their strategic aim of destroying Muhammad and his followers; and that the Meccans' untimely withdrawal indicated weakness on their part." Watt may be right in what he notes, but I don't see any "disagreement" anywhere; namely, Watt doesn't state the battle was not a defeat for Muhammad. The who are the "other" scholars? I cannot see any. this appears to be an attempt to stir some non-existing controversy regarding the outcome of the battle, a major flaw of this article.
  • i will see if this opinion is restricted to Watt. however, he does appear to be disagreeing, as he says: "The battle of Uhud has sometimes been presented by occidental scholars as a serious defeat for the Muslims. This is certainly not so." (p. 47) - he then goes on to explain why. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "tactful military leadership of Khalid ibn al-Walid" How can military leadership be "tactful"?
• "A verse of the Qur'an revealed soon after the battle" This is not a NPOV statement: Quranic verses were "revealed" only according to the Muslim tradition.
  • the ambiguity is deliberate: it doesn't say from whom it was revealed. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "The success of the Meccans' rousing of tribes against Muhammad reaped disastrous consequences for him and the Muslims with two main losses: one was where a Muslim party had been invited by a chieftan of the Ma'unah tribe, who were then killed as they approached by the tribe of Sulaym; while the other was when the Muslims had sent out instructors to a tribe which stated it wanted to convert to Islam — the instructors had been led into an ambush by the guides of the would-be Muslim tribe, and were subsequently killed." This sentence is nearly impossible to understand unless one already knows what it's talking about.
  • will try to make the passage clearer. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• The section "The historical record" is unnecessary. The sources for the early Islam are all the same; there is no need to review the sources in every article. The paragraph on the battle in the Qur'an and tafsir must be moved to the section on the Muslim tradition. In addition, a Quranic "chapter" is known as sura.
  • there is substantial discussion dedicated to assessing this battle from a historical perspective in the Encyclopedia of Islam article, so it makes sense to cover that aspect. there is no section about the Muslim tradition, the section on the Muslim reaction is about the response of Muslims in the aftermath of the battle. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or 19:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or Some of the structural flaws you point out are legitimate. But other issues are not, for instance:

• Khalid, for instance, had begun to demonstrate the tactical, (not tactful), genius that would mark the career of the great general who destroyed the Sassanids, among other huge victories. You fail however to mention it was Khalid's swift movement to take advantage of the archers going after spoils that nearly cost the Muslims the field when you state he was a subordinate commander - the point is this is the day he began demonstrating why military history remembers him, and had the Meccan army followed his lead they would have pressed the battle home and ended Islam at Uhad;
• You state the article should outline the shiite claims regarding Ali - they claim he killed between 2 dozen, and 200 men, which is so impossible to even dignify with putting them in an article. I think you set a bad precedent by diving into the Shiite claims on Ali, frankly. You open a door that leads to religious arguments rather than military ones.
• You state the article is an attempt to sugarcoat a defeat. Quite the contrary - ITAQALLAH was very careful to state most historians regard it as a defeat. But what you do not say is the very simple fact that 3000 men had 700 at their mercy, and failed to follow up on Khalid's lightning advance, and let them fight their way to an effective draw - in addition, the Meccans had Medina at their mercy, and failed to follow up on that at all. Not only did they fail to follow up on the immediate battlefield and press home a victory that could have destroyed Muhammad's army, but even more disasteriously, they failed to attack a city that was effectively helpless. If ever an army managed to turn victory into defeat, it was the Meccan army at Uhad.

I don't want to minimize that you make some points on structure which I am sure ITAQALLAH will address. But I strongly agree with his decision to avoid the trap of discussing the Shia claims on Ali's slaying of hundreds, et al, and no amount of argument can change the fact the Battle of Uhad could have meant the end of Islam had the Meccan army pressed home their victory. Bluntly, strategically it was a huge defeat when you consider that Medina was at their mercy, in addition to the Muslim army, and they let both go. That is the real bottom line: thanks to Khalid's emerging genius they had the field, the opponent, and the entire city had they only fought to a conclusion! Instead in a few short years they were bowing 5 times a day! This was their last real chance to stop Muhammad, and they utterly failed when they could have and should have won a total victory. I agree ITAQALLAH has some language issues, but as to his work on this article, I would maintain he did a good job in avoiding the trap of arguing the claims on Ali, which are really religious in nature, not military, and he wrote a reasoned, basically sound article. old windy bear 20:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

thanks for everyone's input, including Beit Or's. i'll work on all the issues mentioned with some feedback on a few of the points raised. ITAQALLAH 20:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or, for some of the content-based concerns you raised (Muhammad's role during the battle, Hamza and Wahshi, and so on), could you refer me to some academic sources for these accounts? i agree that the intro isn't of good quality yet. as for the section "historical record", i included it because Robinson in the EoI Uhud article discusses this aspect in reasonable depth, and it seems appropriate to relate it in the article. ITAQALLAH 20:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

the Shia claims on Ali's slaying of hundreds!!!

You're kidding. Please show a notable Shia source which claims. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 00:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t I really do not want to get into what sources are notable, and which are not. (Actually, the only source which is without question is the Holy Qur'an) But as to others - and again, please understand I accept no source except the Holy Qur'an as notable, for example, for online sources, [[1]] is one that makes such claims. I don't claim this is a reliable or notable source, and this is the kind of argument that I wanted to avoid to begin with. old windy bear 00:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My dear friend, as I know Shia and Sunni sources are agreed on Ali's role and we can use Ibn Athir in this case. I've put a comment in the talk page of the article. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 01:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t My friend, I happily defer to your superior knowledge in this matter. Are you going to let ITAQALLAH put it in, or will you? Your help in this is greatly appreciated. old windy bear 01:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

as i've opined on the talk page, we should stick to using established reliable sources. i don't have an objection to classical sources in principle, but given that they are frequently misused, they should be related through reliable third party sources. anyway, this kind of discussion belongs at the villiage pump really or some other community forum. ITAQALLAH 01:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

ITAQALLAH In the end, I feel you should add or not add to the article based on the relevance of the proposed edit to the subject. If the role of Ali is a legitimate part of the military history of the Battle, it is fair to ask that it be included - but that is just my opinion. I feel strenulously that we MUST stick to military subjects. I still feel strongly you did a good job in constructing this article. old windy bear 01:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Old windy bear, in my long list of comments I never mentioned a single editor by name. In your much briefer response you mentioned Itaqallah several times. You may want to move somewhat closer to the policy and comment on content, not editors. You may feel Itaqallah did a superb job on that article. Fine, it's up to you. However, please comment on the article's content, not the person you may feel is its author. Beit Or 18:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or I always address the person I am speaking to, as in this case, to you. I have reviewed the comments you are referring to, and respectfully, don't feel my comments were inappropriate. I have found that newer editors tend to get discouraged in the process, especially during peer reviews when critiques of the article may be viewed as a personal attack. I feel I commented on the article, and made no personal references whatsoever except to compliment the primary author for attempting to work on a difficult subject. No one except for you felt that my comments were inappropriate. You and I simply disagree on how to review an article, and how to work with other editors. old windy bear 15:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

i have struck through those concerns which have been addressed (just so i know what else needs to be done), and the other points i have either commented on or intend to address soon. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)