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:Okay, I'll continue the discussion over there. [[User:Jagged 85|Jagged 85]] 10:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC) |
:Okay, I'll continue the discussion over there. [[User:Jagged 85|Jagged 85]] 10:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC) |
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Over at Wikisource we are discussing the deletion of [[s:Age of Aisha]], which appears to be copyright. If anyone has evidence that it is public domain, that would be great. I suggest everyone who is interested in the age controversy go read it one last time before it is deleted from Wikisource. |
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That document ''used'' to be a source on the article "[[Aisha's age at marriage]]" which has been gutted and eventually redirected to this article, because apparently there were no named scholars except for Barlas (see [[Talk:Aisha's age at marriage#Redirect]]). From a quick review of both talk pages, I cant believe that the entire debate has been reduced to : ''"Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated.<sup>[][][][]</sup>"''. |
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That sentence is no where near enough to explain the amount of scholarly research that has been done on this topic, which was more adequately covered 12 months ago on the previous article. Without having dug very deep into what has happened here, my guess is that three aspects need to be revisited here: |
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# published opinion that is held by a significant number of people is notable, and warrants mention. If Barlas is being a reliable source of that modern opinion, I cant see why it is entirely excluded. In my opinion, inclusion of "modern opinion" is desirable as cultural themes and how they are shifted over the centuries are as important as the historical facts. That said, modern opinions need to be kept in perspective - they may be short lived. |
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# there is a systematic bias to omit or reject reliable sources from non-Western sources - removing chunks of text that do not have sources should ''never'' be done unless the person removing them is absolutely certain that no sources exist, including at a library - such removal of unsourced text makes Wikipedia into an amateurs encyclopedia. |
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# that sentence on this article does nothing to mention that age 9 was not an unusual for the era, which is a crucial point as it is often used to quell the controversy over the age of consummation. |
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[[User:Jayvdb|John Vandenberg]] ([[User talk:Jayvdb|talk]]) 21:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC) |
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==Did she do sex with Prophet Muhammad at the age of nine?== |
==Did she do sex with Prophet Muhammad at the age of nine?== |
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It is amazing and unbelievable.Scientifically speaking,it must be very dengerous for her.[[User:222.225.108.100|222.225.108.100]] 15:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC) |
It is amazing and unbelievable.Scientifically speaking,it must be very dengerous for her.[[User:222.225.108.100|222.225.108.100]] 15:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC) |
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Two sections were removed + I reverted
Accusation of adultery and story of the honey were removed (and I reverted this). If this is to be done it needs to be agreed upon. gren グレン 20:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with you. -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 20:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
PBUH's in the article
Several places in this article insert "peace be upon him" after naming Muhammad. I am aware that this is the custom among Muslims, but shouldn't this article take a more religiously neutral point of view? I mean, Wikipedia doesn't refer to Jesus of Nazareth as "Christ" or "Jesus Christ" when talking about him in a purely historical sense.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elchip (talk • contribs).
- Removed. If you see any more, please take them out.--Cúchullain t/c 20:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Aisha according to Central Mosque
Interesting link [1] hope this helps. Hypnosadist 12:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Hideous prose
Compare the following sentence:
The age of Aisha is believed by the majority of Muslims and by the Western scholars of Islam to have been six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad.
with what it replaced:
Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad.
Why are we using the passive? Why are we reifying an abstract as the subject, when perfectly concrete subjects (two of them, in fact) are available?Proabivouac 03:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- Because not everyone is sure, they had the first thing.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.211.213 (talk • contribs)
- You're not getting my point. If we wish to say that someone believes something, we say "A believes B", not "B is believed by A." That's writers' workshop 101.Proabivouac 04:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Puberty
There appears to be a bug in the software, as this revision contains changes not shown in the diff window. One of them is, "stayed in her parents' home till [sic.] she had reached puberty at nine…" From which of the cited sources did you get that, Aminz?Proabivouac 03:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- I am quoting F.E. Peters here: [2] or here: [3]
- Karen Armnstrong says that unconditionally. --Aminz 19:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- Note the 3 day delay in response. At the time he was quoting Spellberg, Asma, and the hadith, [4], which either don't mention puberty or, in the case of Spellberg, clearly state that the Muslim biographies draw attention to the fact that Aisha had not reached puberty. Arrow740 07:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Indeed. Well, that appears to be a good source, though for the life of me I cannot discern upon what basis he draws that presumption. However, Peter's "presumably" is less than an assertion of fact, and I don't see that we can in the business of blindly repeating other's presumptions. We can attribute them, though.Proabivouac 19:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- Can you please explain why Aisha stayed in her father's house for three years when she was Muhammad's wife? --Aminz 20:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- How should I know?Proabivouac 20:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- Can you please explain why Aisha stayed in her father's house for three years when she was Muhammad's wife? --Aminz 20:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Now tell me: why is it enyclopedically important at what age Aisha reached puberty? A couple of lines below the puberty speculation, Peters writes that Aisha was about eighteen when Muhammad died, so she was about nine when the marriage was consummated. If the insertion was meant to make her appear older than she was, then it was a nice try. Beit Or 20:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- No. It makes sense of the reason Aisha stayed in her father's house for three years. --Aminz 20:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- He couldn't guarantee her safety in Mecca. Arrow740 21:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Paedophile
There's a fairly common modern attack on Islam of "Muhammad is a paedophile", based on his six-year-old bride. Shouldn't this be addressed, probably with some historical background (was this controversial in the past).
It seems unbalanced to just say "He married her when she was six" with no further comment on the age, which seems outrageous to modern eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.31.166.240 (talk) 22:21, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
- The section used to be much larger, and there was even a page dedicated to her age at marriage. There ought to be some further discussion, I feel, but it seems that primarily only dedicated critics or defenders of Islam have published about it.--Cúchullain t/c 22:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
- To answer one of your questions, tho, the marriage was not seen as controversial at the time, even for Muhammad's critics. I believe the article once had a reference to that point (probably from Montgomery Watt), but it also had a lot more of the polemical nonsense from one side or the other which we can do without.--Cúchullain t/c 22:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
- I went through most of the posts related to Aisha's age at the time of marriage. The article does not address that there is a difference of opinion about her age at the time of marriage. Many scholars, for example Maulana Muhammad Ali, Khalid Masood, and others, have published research quoting from earlier sources the conflicting reports about Aisha's age at the time of marriage. Many people accepted six and nine because it is in Bukhari, but that does not discount other sources, such as Ibn-e-Kathir, who have noted events or reports which conclude a much higher age. In addition, even Bukhari's reports have been interpreted by Ghamidi, a philological scholar of Quran and Hadith, as in fact using a style of Arabic where assumed part (i.e. 10) is ommitted and the narrator only ends up saying six (which implies sixteen). In support of his opinion he presents the reports in which Laylat-al-Qadr has been told as one occuring on 3, 5, 7 or 9th night, whereas in fact, it refers to 23rd, 25th, 27th or 29th night during the month of Ramadan. I can point to resources of these scholars - I believe, given the large number of scholars and a significant number of Muslims accepting this view, it is only neutral to put in that point of view and explain the difference of opinion. I would like to put this in, unless there're objections to it. Omer 05:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Why isn't there a mention of the song "Islam's not for me?"
It has to go in greater depth the criticism of Muhammad this marriage created. Jknight 98. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.210.199 (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Age at marriage
I have restored the section on Aisha's age at marriage. There has been a controversial debate on this issue for at least a decade or two, and I see no reason for it to be excluded from the article. It seems the section may have been removed due to a lack of prominent adherents of the opposing view, but now I've added Maulana Muhammad Ali as a prominented adherent, and may add more adherents later. Jagged 85 07:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- It was removed previously not because there were no "prominent" adherents the the view, but because the opinions of the people presented were not notable in and of themselves. Was Maulana Muhammad Ali a historian? Your version certainly gives Ali's view undue weight with that long, uncontextualized quote. I don't object to the controversy over her age being discussed, but that's different than making it seems like only "'Western' historians" and "Muslim conservatives" believe Aisha was married young. I'm sure Japanese historians and many other Muslims will come to the same conclusion based on the evidence.--Cúchullain t/c 07:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- It would be original research to remove the arguments presented on the basis of personal opinion of how "convincing" we find them. How the section is written or whether it should stay depends on how the debate is viewed by scholars in reliable sources, not by how we personally view them. I am currently planning to re-write and shorten Muhammad Ali's argument in a non-quote form, which should balance out any undue weight issues. Jagged 85 07:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- "Maulana" Ali is not a historian. Please read the record of the development of the concensus on this issue. Thanks. Arrow740 07:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think it is best to summarize the minority view as following (sourced to Asma Barlas): "A minority of Muslims calculate the age of Aisha to have been over 13 and 14, perhaps between 17 and 19. These Muslims base their calculation on the more details we have of Aisha's sister (Asma); on the details of Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina; Aisha's reported knowledge of Ancient Arabic poetry, genealogy, and the the fundamental rules of Arabic-Islamic ethics at her marriage." --Aminz 07:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Feminist political scientists can be safely ignored on these matters, thanks. Arrow740 08:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is not Barlas's opinion. She is reporting of Muslims who do so and so. No analysis of her own is involved here. --Aminz 08:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- We've been over this too many times already. If you have anything to add to the old discussion, where you forwarded that Barlas was talking about people even less reliable than herself, add it. Otherwise please spare us the effort of pasting the old rebuttals here. Arrow740 08:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Likewise. --Aminz 08:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- So, I take it that you're satisfied with the quite conclusive past discussion and have nothing to add. That is the case for me. Arrow740 08:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- "CONCLUSIVE?" --Aminz 08:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think there should be more discussion on the subject, considering it has come up with critics of Muhammad and critics of Islam. If it were expanded, then perhaps we could have a sentance that some Muslims believe she wasn't so young, and probably point out that it wasn't seen as a problem at the time even with Muhammad's contemporary enemies.--Cúchullain t/c 08:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- We have to separate polemics from history here. Every historian of Islam unequivocally states that she was 6 or 7 at betrothal and 9 at marriage. Arrow740 08:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, certainly. But this comes up enough to warrant discussion, perhaps in a different section, and after making it clear that the primary sources all say she was that young.--Cúchullain t/c 08:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Arrow, if by historian, you mean those who study Islam in west it is correct. They accept it because the primary source say she was that young, because early marriage were not in anyways un-normal at that time, that there are reports of Aisha playing with dolls etc. But as a matter of fact there are contradictions in the reports implicitly touching the age of Aisha in the primary sources, and again as a matter of fact a minority of Muslims accept those reports. --Aminz 08:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Again, it's not just "Western historians". You've never been able to provide a single historian, non-Western or otherwise, who concludes that Aisha was older.--Cúchullain t/c 08:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- We have to separate polemics from history here. Every historian of Islam unequivocally states that she was 6 or 7 at betrothal and 9 at marriage. Arrow740 08:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think there should be more discussion on the subject, considering it has come up with critics of Muhammad and critics of Islam. If it were expanded, then perhaps we could have a sentance that some Muslims believe she wasn't so young, and probably point out that it wasn't seen as a problem at the time even with Muhammad's contemporary enemies.--Cúchullain t/c 08:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- "CONCLUSIVE?" --Aminz 08:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- So, I take it that you're satisfied with the quite conclusive past discussion and have nothing to add. That is the case for me. Arrow740 08:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Likewise. --Aminz 08:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- We've been over this too many times already. If you have anything to add to the old discussion, where you forwarded that Barlas was talking about people even less reliable than herself, add it. Otherwise please spare us the effort of pasting the old rebuttals here. Arrow740 08:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is not Barlas's opinion. She is reporting of Muslims who do so and so. No analysis of her own is involved here. --Aminz 08:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Feminist political scientists can be safely ignored on these matters, thanks. Arrow740 08:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think it is best to summarize the minority view as following (sourced to Asma Barlas): "A minority of Muslims calculate the age of Aisha to have been over 13 and 14, perhaps between 17 and 19. These Muslims base their calculation on the more details we have of Aisha's sister (Asma); on the details of Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina; Aisha's reported knowledge of Ancient Arabic poetry, genealogy, and the the fundamental rules of Arabic-Islamic ethics at her marriage." --Aminz 07:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- "Maulana" Ali is not a historian. Please read the record of the development of the concensus on this issue. Thanks. Arrow740 07:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- It would be original research to remove the arguments presented on the basis of personal opinion of how "convincing" we find them. How the section is written or whether it should stay depends on how the debate is viewed by scholars in reliable sources, not by how we personally view them. I am currently planning to re-write and shorten Muhammad Ali's argument in a non-quote form, which should balance out any undue weight issues. Jagged 85 07:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
<reset>Reliable sources have already answered the question for us. The only people disputing it are people who are not scholars of Islam, and have an axe to grind. We can't give their wishful thinking undue weight. Arrow740 08:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- You're not following me. It wouldn't be giving them any weight at all, it would just be giving the basic points of a notable modern discussion. If anything, I think that just saying she was six and not bringing up how this looks to modern eyes makes it seem like we're dodging an issue, covering it up to avoid offense.--Cúchullain t/c 08:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think the real and authentic "scholars of Islam" include exactly those who study Islam in west, nor have they ever made this claims of themselves. They look at the events from a certain perspective and based on certain principles and assumptions; and so do others.--Aminz 08:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- I've searched through the archives and I have found nothing on Maulana Muhammad Ali or Asma Barlas being unreliable sources. Ali is a notable Islamic scholar who has written many books on Islam, and is therefore a reliable source on Islamic issues by default. As for Balas, her book in question was published by the University of Texas Press and is therefore also a reliable source. There is absolutely no reason why the views from notable Islamic scholars or writers from reputable publishing houses should be excluded from the article, regardless of whether of not it is a minority view. Excluding significant minority views from the article is nothing more than a suppression of information which goes against the fundamental Wikipedia policy of neutrality, which holds that all majority views and significant minority views should be presented in Wikipedia articles. It is only tiny minority views without reliable sources that should be excluded according to the undue weight guideline, not significant minority views with prominent adherents. The fact that this view has prominent Islamic scholars adhering to it like Maulana Muhammad Ali, Allama Habib-ur-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi, Khalid Masood, etc. means that this view is a signficant minority view and cannot be excluded under any circumstances. My suggestion is something along the lines of what Aminz suggested earlier, i.e. stating that there is a minority view which disagrees with the majority view. Not doing so would be a breach of Wikipedia's policies. Jagged 85 09:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- No, it wouldn't. Fringe theories which are not even addressed by serious scholars have no place here. Read the talk page from the old article and you'll see explained that Barlas is reliable for some things but not all, as is the case with anyone. History is outside her area of expertise. Further Maulana Ali is undeniably an apologist and highly partisan. We will not include his propaganda here. It is already included in the criticism articles to a worrying extent. Arrow740 21:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- On who's authority do you claim it to be a fringe theory? Like I said, personal opinions and original research have no place of Wikipedia. If you're claiming that the consensus is that Aisha was nine, then you will need to cite a reliable source that confirms your claim of consensus. The only reliable source that even discusses any kind of consensus on the issue is Barlas, therefore you will need to reference her to confirm your claim either way, regardless of whether you agree with her views. I've read some of the previous arguments on her at Talk:Aisha's age at marriage and find their reasons to be biased and unencyclopedic. All I saw was just personal opinions being thrown around with hardly any references to Wikipedia's own policies. Barlas has written many books on Islam which have been published by reputable publishing houses like the Cambridge University Press and the University of Texas Press, therefore she is a scholar of Islam, and yet some users still try to claim she is not a reliable source based on their own biased opinions rather on Wikipedia policies? Like you said, propoganda does not belong here, and the suppression of information is by far the worst kind of propoganda. Suppressing such vital information is misleading and is, again, a breach of Wikipedia's policies. Jagged 85 03:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- She's a feminist political scientist. Those are her qualifications. Read a biography of Muhammad by a serious scholar. They all endorse the explicit statements in the sahih collections regarding her age. This makes the silly attempts at obfuscation by apologists such as the ones to which you are giving undue weight fringe theories. Arrow740 05:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- On who's authority do you claim it to be a fringe theory? Like I said, personal opinions and original research have no place of Wikipedia. If you're claiming that the consensus is that Aisha was nine, then you will need to cite a reliable source that confirms your claim of consensus. The only reliable source that even discusses any kind of consensus on the issue is Barlas, therefore you will need to reference her to confirm your claim either way, regardless of whether you agree with her views. I've read some of the previous arguments on her at Talk:Aisha's age at marriage and find their reasons to be biased and unencyclopedic. All I saw was just personal opinions being thrown around with hardly any references to Wikipedia's own policies. Barlas has written many books on Islam which have been published by reputable publishing houses like the Cambridge University Press and the University of Texas Press, therefore she is a scholar of Islam, and yet some users still try to claim she is not a reliable source based on their own biased opinions rather on Wikipedia policies? Like you said, propoganda does not belong here, and the suppression of information is by far the worst kind of propoganda. Suppressing such vital information is misleading and is, again, a breach of Wikipedia's policies. Jagged 85 03:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- I am not giving them any undue weight, as I have explicitly stated in the article itself that their view is only supported by a minority of scholars. The reason why Barlas is an important source is because she is the only one who actually confirms what the the majority and minority views are, therefore she cannot be ignored. I honestly don't see how her being a feminist is even relevant to the discussion. She is a scholar of Islam who has written plenty of books on Islam published by major scholarly publishing houses like the Cambridge and Texas university presses, therefore she qualifies as a reliable source in every way by Wikipedia's standards. Jagged 85 06:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- She is an unqualified polemicist. Read the work you are citing for some bizarre statements. Arrow740 06:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- I am not giving them any undue weight, as I have explicitly stated in the article itself that their view is only supported by a minority of scholars. The reason why Barlas is an important source is because she is the only one who actually confirms what the the majority and minority views are, therefore she cannot be ignored. I honestly don't see how her being a feminist is even relevant to the discussion. She is a scholar of Islam who has written plenty of books on Islam published by major scholarly publishing houses like the Cambridge and Texas university presses, therefore she qualifies as a reliable source in every way by Wikipedia's standards. Jagged 85 06:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not too sure what exactly you are referring to, but like I said above, we should not be judging her based on our own personal views. It really does not matter whether we agree with her or not, but what matters is how other academics view her work. If her work has been published by reputable publishers (which it has) and not received any negative reviews from other scholars (which it has not as far as I know), then her book qualifies as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Jagged 85 06:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- It is not the case that everything published by a reputable press can be produced here. That has been an issue with Bat Ye'or and others. Barlas' statements are simply ludicrous. I have shown some of the humor on the other talk page. "Some Muslims..." and as Aminz found out, those "Muslims" likely includes other political scientists, sociologists, and the like. Something stated by the sahih hadith and confirmed by mainstream scholars is what we present. Something in direct contradiction of that needs quite a case, and you haven't presented one. Arrow740 06:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Arrow740. We don't need to include polemics from unqualified sources. -- Karl Meier 06:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- It is not the case that everything published by a reputable press can be produced here. That has been an issue with Bat Ye'or and others. Barlas' statements are simply ludicrous. I have shown some of the humor on the other talk page. "Some Muslims..." and as Aminz found out, those "Muslims" likely includes other political scientists, sociologists, and the like. Something stated by the sahih hadith and confirmed by mainstream scholars is what we present. Something in direct contradiction of that needs quite a case, and you haven't presented one. Arrow740 06:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not too sure what exactly you are referring to, but like I said above, we should not be judging her based on our own personal views. It really does not matter whether we agree with her or not, but what matters is how other academics view her work. If her work has been published by reputable publishers (which it has) and not received any negative reviews from other scholars (which it has not as far as I know), then her book qualifies as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Jagged 85 06:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Karl: Barlas is a fully qualified source by Wikipedia's standards. Read my reasons above. Jagged 85 07:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Arrow: Again, it would be original research to be presenting our own case for what we think about the topic. If you are not satisfied with Maulana Ali's argument however, you can read Allama Habib-ur-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi's book for a full rebuttal of those hadiths and he presents substantial alternative evidence from the hadiths and other sources. Jagged 85 07:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Don't change the subject. Barlas has no qualifications as a historian. Arrow740 07:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Jagged 85: Please be careful about that strawman. I have read the comments and I believe that no one has argued that his personal opinions should be included. What we are dissatisfied here are the sources that you want to include. As mentioned, we do not have space for all published polemics by partisan sources such as the above mentioned: We are supposed to be concise and such things can be omitted per among other things WP:NPOV#Undue Weight, in order to avoid wasting our readers time. As for Barlas specifically, it is clear just from reading her article, that she doesn't have the necessary qualifications to be a useful source on the subject of Islamic history. -- Karl Meier 07:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Arrow: Again, it would be original research to be presenting our own case for what we think about the topic. If you are not satisfied with Maulana Ali's argument however, you can read Allama Habib-ur-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi's book for a full rebuttal of those hadiths and he presents substantial alternative evidence from the hadiths and other sources. Jagged 85 07:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Arrow: Again, on who's authority do you claim Barlas to be an unreliable source for Islamic history? She has written works on Islamic history published by the likes of Cambridge and Texas university presses. It is not up to you or me to review her work, and it would be original research to do so. Your opinions on her work are irrelevant unless you can find scholarly reviews that actually support your view. Jagged 85 08:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Karl: The undue weight guideline states that only tiny minority views may be ommitted, NOT significant minority views. Using the undue weight guideline to justify the removal of ALL minority views would end up breaking another rule: the Space and balance. Jagged 85 08:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Re: Arrow & Karl: If both of you believe that there is a consensus regarding Aisha's age, then you will need to cite a reliable source to support your claim of consensus... And the only source that actually claims the majority view is nine years old is none other than Barlas. Jagged 85 08:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
The "claim of concensus" clause refers to claims stated in the article. Nice try. According to WP:V, you have to show that your source is reliable. You can't. Arrow740 08:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Guys, please read continue discussion here [5] --Aminz 08:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Forum-shopping. You lost the argument the first time and are losing it again, so you prolong it. The result will be the same for the same reasons. Arrow740 08:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is all your imagination Arrow. --Aminz 09:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, I'll continue the discussion over there. Jagged 85 10:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Over at Wikisource we are discussing the deletion of s:Age of Aisha, which appears to be copyright. If anyone has evidence that it is public domain, that would be great. I suggest everyone who is interested in the age controversy go read it one last time before it is deleted from Wikisource.
That document used to be a source on the article "Aisha's age at marriage" which has been gutted and eventually redirected to this article, because apparently there were no named scholars except for Barlas (see Talk:Aisha's age at marriage#Redirect). From a quick review of both talk pages, I cant believe that the entire debate has been reduced to : "Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated.[][][][]".
That sentence is no where near enough to explain the amount of scholarly research that has been done on this topic, which was more adequately covered 12 months ago on the previous article. Without having dug very deep into what has happened here, my guess is that three aspects need to be revisited here:
- published opinion that is held by a significant number of people is notable, and warrants mention. If Barlas is being a reliable source of that modern opinion, I cant see why it is entirely excluded. In my opinion, inclusion of "modern opinion" is desirable as cultural themes and how they are shifted over the centuries are as important as the historical facts. That said, modern opinions need to be kept in perspective - they may be short lived.
- there is a systematic bias to omit or reject reliable sources from non-Western sources - removing chunks of text that do not have sources should never be done unless the person removing them is absolutely certain that no sources exist, including at a library - such removal of unsourced text makes Wikipedia into an amateurs encyclopedia.
- that sentence on this article does nothing to mention that age 9 was not an unusual for the era, which is a crucial point as it is often used to quell the controversy over the age of consummation.
John Vandenberg (talk) 21:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Did she do sex with Prophet Muhammad at the age of nine?
It is amazing and unbelievable.Scientifically speaking,it must be very dengerous for her.222.225.108.100 15:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Please answer the question whether Muhammad had sex with Aisha when she was nine or not.That is very important problem on Islam and the Prophet!210.235.223.102 15:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- You can read the article for yourself.--Cúchullain t/c 15:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- There are sentences which says that Muhammad married Aisha when she was nine.However,there are no sentences about their sexual activities.
- If Prophet Muhammad had married Aisha when she was nine but he did'nt have sex with her,he must be normal,not pedophil.And it should be written in the article to protect his honor from anti-Islamists.But if he did the deed,he must be pedophil...This is very important question about the dignity of Islam.210.235.223.102 15:39, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- Again, you can read the article for yourself. It says pretty clearly that he married her when she was about six and that the marriage was consumated when she was nine, according to the sources. How to deal with this on Wikipedia has been discussed to death on this talk page.--Cúchullain t/c 15:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- It is not certain that to consumate the marrige actually means having sex! If there are no reliable sources that clearly suggest Muhammad actually had sex with Aisha when she was nine,it should be noted clearly in the page!Unless,that's equal to push Anti-Islam propaganda in the article!It's against NPOV!210.235.223.102 15:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- Dude, the definition of consummating a marriage is having sex for the first time. You can check any English dictionary to discover that for yourself.--Cúchullain t/c 16:03, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- Muhammad is not pedophil!It mustn't be the truth!You must be anti-Islam!All sources in the article are from the anti-Islam side!Do you know what you are doing!?This article is completely nonsence!!!210.235.223.102 16:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)