Talk:Afghan (tribal chief)

Note
A HUMBLE REQUEST

Do not edit if you cannot provide a factual reference. Every edit must be backed up by a scholarly reference. Un referenced material cannot be accepted and will eventually be removed. Do not vandalizes, do not add personal references. Learn to respect and appreciate differences of opinion without personal prejudice. Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 08:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You are absolutely correct that material needs to be backed up by references but the guidelines used for wikipedia is reliable sources not just "scholarly" ones. --RadioFan (talk) 14:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Temple builder
This is the key bit that I've removed from the article:

Additionally, he is also credited with the building of the first temple: -

Here is what the source actually says:

"An interesting additional historical bit is that Kais, by similar legend, traces his ancestry to Afghans (in 37th lineal destent). son of Jeremiah, son of Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Communder in-Chief, and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005. Later Saul became King (Malik) of Israel." (Note I see Afghans but presumably this is Afghana). Why was the quote changed? And it seems to say that Saul was the temple builder. Dougweller (talk) 09:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you replying. Yes, there is a typo error in the para you have posted here. The error being the "s" in the word Afghans, which is actually an "a". This makes it Afghana. Contacting the publisher clarified this. The original words with the correction are:

"An interesting additional historical bit is that Kais, by similar legend, traces his ancestry to Afghana (in 37th lineal descent). son of Jeremiah, son of Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Commander in-Chief, and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005." Additionally the words "Later Saul became King (Malik) of Israel." represents Afghana's father Jermiah's father Saul, who became king, but this happened before King Solomon and David. It creates confusion since it is written at the end of Afghana's description. So the family tree descent is actually accurate but writing it later creates confusion.

Why are these errors present? the original version was printed in 1965!! they did not have computers back then!! however if you reach the publishers or any expert in the field they will clarify it and place the same views as I expressed. Thank you again. I hope if you have removed this part that you will re establish it. Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 15:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Ignore the 's', that was just my note to explain it. You've misquoted the source. You wrote (see above) ""Malak Afghana, grandson of Malak (King) Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Commander-in-Chief, and builder of his temple in BC 1005". The source says " Kais, by similar legend, traces his ancestry to Afghana (in 37th lineal descent). son of Jeremiah, son of Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Commander in-Chief, and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005." Where does it say ""Malak Afghana, grandson of Malak (King)"? I will not put something back that misquotes a source. I also (and this is a second point) don't see where it says Afghana built the temple. Dougweller (talk) 16:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, there seems to be some confusion here. I dont quite understood your last statement?!! the book says: "Afghana (in 37th lineal descent). son of Jeremiah...... and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005." Here it is clear that Afghana helped in the temple construction. And as I said, the Afghans is actually Afghana. But I dont understand the misquote part!! I put in brackets and within them the person in question's name so it would be more clear. It was not meant to change the original source but clarify it. For example, where it said, Saul I put in brackets (Talut) because both are the same person but it would help clarify for the reader. Similarly, Afghana is titled Malak, this is akin to saying President Obama and adding Mr with it.
 * Maybe, you could clarify a bit about the misquote part!! anyways, I dont understand why you removed this part from the article: "An interesting additional historical bit is that Kais, by similar legend, traces his ancestry to Afghana (in 37th lineal descent). son of Jeremiah, son of Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Commander in-Chief, and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005."
 * If the brackets are against some wiki rules then remove them but please do not remove the quoted part from the book. As you can see, it more or less is pivotal to this article. I would appreciate if you could enlighten me more. I meant no offense, I was just trying to understand what is going on. Thank you.

Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 17:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You can't change quotes to clarify them. And I don't think it's clear what is meant in any case. If you can find a statement elsewhere saying Afghana was said to be the temple builder then use that. If you can't it's probably because he wasn't. Brackets are [bracket], you used parentheses. Try again, add what you want to quote below. Dougweller (talk) 18:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh Ok, now I do understand. Thank you for that. However I did it for clarification, I did not alter the meaning of the original quote in anyway. As you yourself had some consfusion about Afghana taking part in the temple construction, my clarification was erroneous but helpful. Still, you can resume the original quote without my clarification as follows:
 * 0) "An interesting additional historical bit is that Kais, by similar legend, traces his ancestry to Afghana (in 37th lineal descent). son of Jeremiah, son of Saul (Talut) who was King Solomon's Commander in-Chief, and builder of his temple in B.C. 1005." which clearly and simply means Afghana was the grandson of Saul through Jeremiah and Afghana was involved in the building of the 1st temple.
 * Well, the same historical reference is present in many other books as well, please consider the following:
 * 1) "Saul had a grandson called Afghana, the nephew of Asaph, the son of Berachiah, who built the Temple of Solomon" given in the book "Among the wild tribes of the Afghan frontier, Theodore Leighton Pennell, Oxford University Press, 1975 - 323 pages - page 31"
 * 2) "Afghana, under Sulaiman, superintended the building of " Bait-ul-mukad- das," or Temple of Jerusalem, which David had commenced" given in the book "Journal of a political mission to Afghanistan, in 1857, By Henry Walter Bellew, 1862 - 480 pages - page 51".
 * 3) "Afghana, under Suleman. superintended the building of Bait-ul-muknd- da^. or Temple of Jerusalem" given in the book "Report of the regular settlement of the Peshawar district of the Punjab, Edward George G. Hastings, 1878 - Page 21"
 * 4) "The traditions of the true Afghans who trace their name and descent from Afghana, the s in of Jeremiah, the son of Saul, and Solomon's commander-in-chief and the builder of his temple" given in the book "Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier Province By H.A. Rose, IBBETSON, Maclagan, 1996 - 2076 pages - page 215"
 * 5) This one is even more explicit: "It was Afghana who superintended the building of the Bait-ul-Mukadas, or Temple of Jerusalem" given in "Lights & shades of hill life in the Afghan and Hindu highlands of the Punjab, Frederick St. John Gore, J. Murray, 1895 - 269 pages, Page 167".
 * 6) "Afghana under Suleiman superintended the building of Bait- ul-Mukaddas, or temple of Jerusalem" given in "The British Israelites; or, Evidences of our Hebrew origin, Henry William J. Senior, 1885, page 46"
 * 7)"the eponymous hero of the Afghans was Afghana ibn Irmia ibn Talut (Saul). Afghana himself was the commander-in-chief of Solomon's army, and through his executive ability he was enabled to complete the Temple at" given in "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Edited by James Hastings, Volume 1, James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie - 2001 - 343 pages - Page 159".
 * I think seven references is more than enough to satisfy your doubts. I have even more references from historical texts and ancient manuscripts but I doubt you will be able to confirm them through online sources.
 * In conclusion, please resume the Afghana building the 1st temple quote in its original form and add these 7 references for it as well. And to be more scholarly, remove my brackets and clarification if it suits. I hope this settles it once and for all. Thank you Doug. Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 19:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll work on this tomorrow. It really only needs a couple of good sources, seven is a bad idea (see the comment on my talk page by the editor who added the article tag). And if we actually need a quote it should be clear and not need any clarification, and you've provide some that are clear. Dougweller (talk) 20:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

reference spam
It's hard to see these all these references as either necessary or actually used in creation of this brief article. When so many references are added to such a short article, it's generally because of one or more of a couple of reasons:
 * 1) an attempt to make a borderline notable subject seem more notable to avoid deletion
 * 2) serve as a place holder for further expansion of the article based on
 * 3) serve as a bibliography on the topic

Based on the responses on my talk page from the article's creator, it seems like #3 is the primary reason for so many references. This violates, at least in part, WP:NOT. References should be used to demonstrate where information in the article came from, not as a notepad for future reasearch on the topic.--RadioFan (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Reasons for extensive usage and placing of references on my part were:
 * this specific article is tied to multiple aspects of Afghan history and so the references are far too numerous of which only about a tenth have been used.
 * the said article is part of a much larger research project that includes all aspects of Affghan history many of which intersect with this article.
 * further expansion of the article in the future.
 * the basic pattern of information coming from these sources is more or less the same with minor differences and representing all of them in text would be repeating the same albiet the minor difference between them so they are mentioned as references.
 * if researchers or editor willing to expand on the article are interested they might find these helpful.
 * Yes I did access all of these references, and in time this article will expand. So the short length of the article is only trivial.

Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 22:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, far too numerous so we should remove as many as we can.
 * Irrelevant, not a reason for keeping references we don't need.
 * In what way?
 * Because they say more or less the same thing, we don't need them all. In a physics article we wouldn't keep all the possible references either.
 * That's the same as further expansion and not a reason to keep them.
 * Since you have them, if you plan to expand the article (and I'd like to know in what directions), there's no reason for you to keep them here. Dougweller (talk) 08:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Malak Afghana
This section starts by saying "Afghana is always referred to as Malak". However, a search on "Malak Afghana" on Google books and Google Scholar turns up nothing at all for me. On the other hand, it's easy to find the name Afghana mentioned without the word 'Malak'. We can't have a section with this title as it clearly is wrong. Dougweller (talk) 13:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I just noticed, even the source for the first sentence doesn't have the word Malak. Dougweller (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That intro sentence is also pretty difficult to read. The complexities of the topic should be saved for the body of the article.  We need to just say what the topic is.--RadioFan (talk) 14:14, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that at one point in the article his name suddenly changes without explanation to 'Malik Afghan' (only one 'a' in Malik, no 'a' at the end of Afghan). Although there is more than one Malik Afghan, that seems to be another way of referring to Afghana. That doesn't change the fact that he isn't always or even often referred to as 'Malak Afghana'. Dougweller (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

stub and start over
Should this be reduced to a stub and start the article over? Between the questions on how information is being presented (above) and assertion from the article's creator that the article is being used to publicize references for other researchers on the topic (which is arguably in violation of WP:NOT]. The topic is likely notable and history is worth keeping (I'm not seeing anything inflammatory or a copyvio).--RadioFan (talk) 14:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * There's some redundancy in any case, and we don't need the quotes. The fact he is using references that 'can be verified online' shows why one of them looks like the sort of abbreviated title you find online and that is unacceptable. I'm going to remove a lot of the references, I've made a start. The alternative is to turn it into a stub. Dougweller (talk) 15:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Nimat Allah al-Harawi
Should be featured prominently and mentioned in the lead. A bit from Hastingg: "Though pre-Islamatic Afghanistan has no real history, it is rich in legends of its origin. The best known of these traditions, to which allusion haa already been made in the preceding Article, is preserved in a Persian history of the Afghans by Ni'amat Allah [Ni'matullah] an author of the Itth ccntury... According to his account, the eponymous hero of the Afghans was Afghana ibn Irmia ibn Talut (Saul). Afghana himself was the conmander-in-chief of Solomon's army, and through his executive ability he was enabled to complete the Temple at Jerusalem. When, however, the Israelites were scattered abroad by Nebuchadnezza, Afghana and his children (numbering forty) were also dispersed; and some settled around Ghor and others near Mecca, where they remained for fifteen hundred years, obeying the Torah in all things." Dougweller (talk) 18:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes that would contribute greatly towards the article. Please make a section of it. Thank you. Dr Pukhtunyar Afghan (talk) 20:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll have a go tomorrow. Dougweller (talk) 20:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

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