Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 July 9

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July 9

Questions I've always wondered about Islam

What caused the changes of fortune of the "ruled by Muslims border" in the ex-West Roman Empire? From Medina to entire south Mediterranean coast exponential growth, Pyrenees crossed not that long after then suddenly (by Granada standards) Christian polities became much harder to invade or convert and started retaking (some zones and eras much more miles per generation than others). Perhaps different polities'/rulers' casualty tolerances was one reason for these speed differences?

Why was Granada last not Strait of Gibraltar? Was a "Granada last" strategy overwhelmingly better i.e. cutting off quick trips from Africa sooner or would "strait last" have been almost as good?

Why'd it take till a siege of Vienna in 1683 for the tide to turn on that side of Europe? Wasn't Austrian tech better than Ottoman by 1682?

Why are a relatively high percent of Balkan Muslims less observant or even just cultural Muslims? Proudly i.e. Albanian but not very religious.

Why are Kurds less strict than downriver? i.e. less strict female clothing.

Why are most Afghans traditional and hyper-Islamic on most things or at least not against that enough to flee but traditions that have been haram 1,000+ years are common for hardcore Taliban? (opium and sex with "willing" sometimes even extremely unwilling boys). Why are there photos of only headscarf/no hair cover/even miniskirts but now you have to avoid dancing, cricket, weather stations, girls schools and female skin (or almost that strict)?

What's the mechanism(s) for strictness seemingly being roughly inversely correlated with distance from Makkah? i.e. look at Indonesia Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Islam was very good at "climbing population gradients" in its early days (i.e. spreading from relatively sparsely inhabited areas to more densely populated ones), but after the initial impetus spent itself, such natural obstacles started making themselves felt again. Syria and Egypt were conquered quickly in the 7th century, but during the next 4 centuries, Islamic realms never could get onto the Anatolian plateau, where the Byzantine empire continued to reign supreme, despite continual warfare along the Byzantine-Muslim boundary. When the Byzantines were finally displaced after Manzikert, this was done by Turks, not by Arabs. Also, Gibraltar is a military strategic point (which needs to be continually externally resupplied), not any kind of population center or independent kingdom... AnonMoos (talk) 07:53, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Another important thing is extracting "Arabic cultural practices" from "Muslim religious practices", especially regarding "Why are Kurds less strict than downriver? i.e. less strict female clothing"; the notion that "Muslims" are always "strict" against females in ways that we tend to think of (not holding positions of power, being highly subservient or even not seen in public, covering hair or entire face and body from head-to-toe); these practices are not universally Muslim and never really have been. The travels and writings of Ibn Battuta are instructive here. Battuta made a fairly comprehensive travel of and documentation of almost the entire Muslim world in the mid 14th century, and what is striking about his writing (and indeed was very striking to him as a Moroccan Arab) was the diversity of cultural practices among Muslim peoples. He came from a society where women covered up in public and were rarely seen as having a major role in the political or even public sphere; in his travels he noted extensively that this was not really the norm in the Muslim world, and he noted it in the 1300s (he often noted it disapprovingly, I might add). The majority of Muslims in the world even today do not practice the sort of strictness you note; and Kurds are not Arabs, very proudly so, and as such, are not bound by such strictness of female clothing. You also don't see those female dress practices commonly in places such as Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc. which are highly populous Muslim majority countries. It's not that you never see it there, but you don't see it to the level you do in, say, Saudi Arabia. --Jayron32 18:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

What about non-alcoholic intoxicants like cannabis in Egypt, cannabis in Yemen, smoking in Saudi Arabia, khat/qat and tobacco hookah? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Fruit of the poisonous tree / meaning of “poisonous”

I'm not a native English speaker and in my native language (German) the jurists say “Früchte des vergifteten Baumes”, which translates literally to “Fruits of the poisoned tree”. Is that tree “poisonous” or “poisoned” now? Or is there no semantic difference? Are the german jurists trying to say something with this wrong translation? What is the contemporary opinion in the U.S.A about those fruits? Are they poisoned by Judge Felix Frankfurter? Or are they just rubbish, that caused that last Iraq war? Homer Landskirty (talk) 10:36, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

My instinct is that a "poisoned tree" is one that has suffered from poison, while a "poisonous tree" is one that contains poison. Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

In Italian it works the same as in German (avvelenato vs velenoso). --79.22.6.128 (talk) 16:17, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Our article on the topic is named Fruit of the poisonous tree. Although Frankfurter was Austrian-born, he was a US Supreme Court judge and wrote his opinions in American English; the sentence in which he coined the term is, "Once that is established – as was plainly done here – the trial judge must give opportunity, however closely confined, to the accused to prove that a substantial portion of the case against him was a fruit of the poisonous tree."^[1] I don't know who came up with the German translation, which is not wrong but ambiguous: just like the English verb poison, the German verb vergiften can mean "to administer poison" (e.g., to an animal), but also "to make poisonous" (e.g., food, or a well). In connection with the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, I see "Frucht des giftigen Baumes",^[2] as well as metaphorical "Früchte des giftigen Baumes" in reference to the legal doctrine.^[3]  --Lambiam 17:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a tangent, but I think someone needs to revise the fruit of the poisonous tree article to avoid conflating it with the exclusionary rule (or maybe the former should be merged into the latter, as the latter seems to do a much better job of explaining the difference). The distinction is, the exclusionary rule keeps out evidence that was illegally obtained; the "fruit" doctrine excludes evidence that may itself have been obtained legally, but would not have been discovered had it not been for the illegal search. --Trovatore (talk) 19:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I would actually like to know whether I have this right, so let me lay out a scenario and see if one of our lawyers can clarify.

• The police suspect Smith of a crime.
• They don't have probable cause sufficient to get a search warrant, but they break into Smith's place anyway and search it.
• They do not find any direct evidence against Smith, but they do find a suspicious document linking him with Jones, whom they had not previously suspected.
• They interview Jones, who, not being in custody nor believing himself to be in custody, spontaneously and voluntarily confesses, implicating Smith.

The police did not do anything illegal in interviewing Jones, and there was no Miranda issue. However, they had no independent reason to suspect Jones. Therefore Jones's confession is excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree. Because the prosecution has no evidence that the police would have found without the illegal search, both Smith and Jones go free.

Did I get that right? --Trovatore (talk) 05:57, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

This is essentially the scenario used to explain the doctrine in the first cited source in our article, except that the "suspicious document" is a diary, while the "Jones" is merely a witness to the crime.^[4]  --Lambiam 08:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

And if the diary they found during the break-in said "I did it, here is how" followed by lots of things only the perpetrator of the crime could know it would fall under the exclusionary rule instead? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I think so. But I'm starting to get the idea that the "fruit" doctrine is actually just a nuance of the exclusionary rule, and the articles should probably be merged. --Trovatore (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I would say it is an extension of the exclusionary rule, in so far as everything that was found based on something that falls under the exclusionary rule (but does not itself fall under it) is ruled out by the poisonous fruit rule. (At least that is my understanding of the difference.) -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

By the way, during much of the 19th century, the idea that the "upas tree" was virulently poisonous (maybe even at a distance) was fairly well-known (this appears in Charles Dickens' writings, etc). The Wikipedia article is Antiaris#Poison... AnonMoos (talk) 23:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The alledged distance being 15 miles, see Antiaris#Poison. Alansplodge (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

This may actually be related to the German (mis-)translation. While "Giftplanze" ("poisonous plant") is a common word in German, I actually had to look up whether "Giftbaum" ("poisonous tree") is even used (turns out it is). So while "poisonous tree" may have been in common usage in English, "Giftbaum" certainly was not in German. That might explain why whoever translated it first used "vergifteter Baum" ("poisoned tree") instead. (Of course it is also possible that they just mis-translated it because they mixed up "poisonous" and "poisoned"). -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

or: they express their protest against the torture prohibition, that is possibly forced into the german law system by the U.S.A... by making that mistake... e. g.: i saw an opinion of a german federal court, that mentioned the “expert” name about 10 times, but the last time there was a funny typo (the ending “hauer” became “horst”... so they made a “Horst” out of him... which could mean in german, that they made fun of him...)... the publicly available version just calls that “expert” “S.”, so that i cannot link it... Homer Landskirty (talk) 06:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

or: that your sole purpose in posting here was to badmouth America. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

uhm... the plan was more to find out, if there is a dispute about that poisonous tree opinion of Judge Frankfurter... and if that dispute is driven by Germany... to openly guess that the U.S.A failed to civilize the german law system is not bad mouthing... imo... Homer Landskirty (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer and I have nothing to with the judicial system. But as far as I know German laws about evidence of questionable origin are far less strict than their American counterparts. Just look at the Murder_of_Jakob_von_Metzler. The police got a confession by threatening the suspect with torture. The result was basically "Oopsie, our bad, we'll pay you some damages, but we'll use the evidence anyway." -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 14:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

At least they didn't make him a "Vollhorst". -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 14:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)