Talk:Ahl al-Bayt/Archive 1

Striver, you moved the article AND restored your preferred Shi'a-pious version. That's sneaky. Zora 19:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

lol :P

Sister, you can be sure that i never suspected you to miss it, I feel that Ahl al-Bayt is a better name for the article.

I have adopted a policy of naming all the "al-" to "al-" and no "ul-" or "az-".


 * Don't you think it would be a good idea to DISCUSS this with other editors first? Zora 03:31, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, i try to write "abd al-" instead of "abdul".

Now, aboud restoring. Sister, some hadith are disputed. I can understand if i find some hadith in "abu dawud" or "hakim" collection, and it becomes dissmised as shia pov. But when it commes to "Shia Muslim" and "Sahi Bukhari", ther is no dispute, Sunni belive them to be all authentic, so its no point saying its shia pov.

So im restoring the version since no muslim will refuse the sources i have quoted.

Best regards!

--Striver 21:25, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * We don't need the hadith. It took me a while to figure out what the controversy was. It can be stated without the hadith.


 * Other people will miss your point if you don't give both sides of the argument. If you only give the Shi'a side, and not the Sunni position they're arguing against, your edits are incomprehensible. Also confusing is your practice of just cutting and pasting hadith, without any indication of what they're supposed to prove or refute. Zora 03:31, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Sister, im not arguing agains anything!


 * If i tell you that a apple is red and round, am i arguing against anything? No. Im just describing the apple. Thats it! Both Shia and Sunni sources agree that "the apple is red and round". All im doing is quoting Sahi Muslim to describe the Ahl al-Bayt, im not arguing against anything!


 * --Striver 03:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Tightened up Shi'a section
Striver had tried to shoehorn a whole Shi'a apologia into the Shi'a section, where it was clearly overkill. I tried for concision, and eliminated all but one hadith reference. I'm not sure that even that should be included as an internal link rather than an external link. But at least this version is shorter and clearer, IMHO. Zora 18:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

people, was Ali Fatima's cousin or Muhammad's? I am for now changing it to Muhammad... I think I remember it correctly, Ali was Abu Talib's son, remember?

I'm not sure about all this...
I just started contributing stuff to Wikipedia recently. I'm just beginning to realize how it works. The person who starts the article has the final say in the material?

I just want to know since Ahl al-Bayt is a Shiite belief and claim. The bias would be hard to kill if a Sunni owns the article. Imagine I was the guy who started the Israel article - it wouldn't be balanced a bit, naturally. All I'm saying is that Ahl al-Bayt is a Shiite concept and claim. The article has statements such as, "The Shi'a believe that the leadership of the Muslims should have been kept within the Prophet's biological bloodline, whereas the Sunnis believe that piety should be the main factor which decides who is to be the leader of the Muslims."

So, the Shiites don't put piety as a main factor for Muslim leadership?!? What about the whole concept of infallibility as believed in Islamic theology? The belief that these guys were morally perfect. You have to allow what's in a theology, even in a secular social reality. It cannot be overlooked as if a certain belief system does not exist, even in the psyche of the adherent, which it naturally does. I have a britannica encyclopedia here, and it has different held beliefs by different groups of people mentioned in it. Also thanks for removing the "Penitents" heading under "Husayn ibn Ali". That was a clearly an unsound provocation. How about if we put a "Theology" heading? It has nothing to do with the culture and evolution of the politics of the two parties? --Muslimguy 77 02:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

NPOV policy
No, the person who started the article has no special rights. Perhaps just an interest. Nor does an article "belong" to any particular group, religion, ethnicity, nation, whatever.

The Wikipedia ideal is NPOV (see [WP:NPOV]). That is, if there's a dispute about a matter, we try to dispassionately present all notable views. Notable means held by a significant number of people, not just one person wearing a tin-foil hat. That means that instead of saying, "X is true" we say, "The Foo believe that X is true and the Bar believe that it is false". Then we outline the arguments for the Foo and Bar views, in terms that they themselves would accept as their best arguments. We should give citations, printed works or online links, so that readers know that we aren't just making up the arguments, or slanting them in some way. Then the reader knows that there is a controversy, and can make up his or her own mind about who has the right of it.

So if you think that Shi'a history is being presented badly, you have to say, "Twelver Shi'a (or whatever kind of Shi'a you are) believe that ...", list the beliefs, and give citations for them. You also have to allow someone else to say, "Academic historians say that ..." and give citations.

We don't always live up to this ideal. Sometimes people (including me) state things that we truly believe that everyone accepts, and we're astounded when someone questions it.

Original research is frowned upon. This is not the place to put forward your dazzling new theory that those fuddy-duddy journals won't publish. We have to limit ourselves to just summarizing what other people have said ... though I must admit, when you put a lot of stuff together and look at it, wonderful vistas present themselves ... when we must not go down :)

Another problem that has arisen, particularily in my disputes with Zereshk, is copyediting. Freedom to state your views doesn't mean that you can state them at whatever length you feel is necessary. Your prose may need to be tightened up and extraneous material either banished or put in a breakout article. It's also necessary to be fair. You don't give your views twenty inches and edit the other side down to one inch.

This is not censorship, it is copyediting, and everyone working at WP is subject to it. Including me. I have written clumsy prose, and various people have slashed away at it. You just have to have enough discernment to know when someone is improving your prose and when someone is mangling it beyond recognition. My experience is that the best writers often say, "I see what you mean", and leave the edit, or say, "How about trying it this way?"

Does this help? Zora 07:54, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

kindly leave comments here
i noticed that comment had been placed at the main article.. i removed it and pasting here..

"COMMENTS FROM AN INDEPENDENT MUSLIM: I am neither Shi'i nor Sunni. However, I believe in the superiority and leadership of the Ahlul-Bayt like the Shi'i. However, unlike them, I also recognise the excellence and sacrifices of Abu Bakr. My contribution to this article is in support of the Sh'i concept of Ahlul-Bayt. It is quite understandable that a man's wives are part of his family. However, the Qur'an says that the Prophet (PBUH) is the interpreter of the Qur'an. That is why I am surprised that Ahlus-Sunnah (sunnis) find it difficult this time to accept hadiths in books they consider very authentic like Sahih Muslim. These authentic hadiths are all to the effect that when the verse of purification was revealed, the Prophet invited Fatima, Ali, Hassan and Husain and prayed for them, having recited the verse. Secondly, the context is also plain. The two verses (sentences) that precede and follow the passage in question use feminine pronouns (referring to the wives) while the verse of purification (in between the two verses)uses masculine plural. Besides the gender, the two verses also refers to the houses (buyuut) of the Prophet's wives respectively and repeatedly, while the verse of purification refers to people of "al-bayt" (the house, not houses). It is also noteworthy that in the same chapter, believers were advised about entering the Prophet's houses (not house) with clear indications in the rest of the verse (33:53) that Allah was making reference to the homes of the Prophet and his wives.

Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Husain were literally people of one house and theirs, according to all Muslim scholars including Bukhari in his Sahih, was in the middle of the houses of the prophet's wives. It is also well-known, even from Bukhari, that the Prophet used to visit them at odd hours of the night, to prove that he was himself the head of that house. The fact that Ali and Fatima were with the Prophet in the same house in Makka before the Hejra is also clear. Even Ali was the one that slept in the Prophet's bed and covered with his blanket on the night of his flight.

What I have noticed about sunnis is that clear hadiths about Ali's superiority are often interpreted to make them insignificant, whereas these hadith sound much more convincing as they are not only direct, clear and emphatic, but also based on well-known historical facts. The places, dates and circumstances are always given. False hadiths can hardly be situated in historical contexts since people could easity detect them, as well-known historical events are known by many and generally transmitted from generation to generation. Most of the hadiths about the other sahaba are either not directly from the Prophet himself, or they are based on the reports of individuals well known for their hostility towards Ali. The rest are hypothethical statments. Besides, there are often no historical contexts. For Example, Amr Ibn al-Ass asked the Prophet who was the most beloved. Then he named Abu Bakr and Aisha. One wonders why the Prophet did not by himself make such a statement in public like the statement of Ali's comparason with Aaron made during the Campaign of Tabuk, or the statement at Khaibar, etc.? Secondly, how could it be Aisha and Abu Bakr when even non-Muslims know that Fatima was the dearest creature to Muhammad, something to which Aisha herself attested, according to Sahih Bukhari. This internal contradiction suffices as evidence of the fabrication of the hadith. It requires volumes to dismiss one by one such similar hadiths of the sunnis which clearly contradict both history and other hadiths that they themselves consider true. I have however discovered that in Sunni Islam, like Christianity that I abandoned to become a Muslim, contradictions seem not to matter, only in support of a dogma. This said, I am not a Shi'i, for though I believe in the leadership and superiority of Ahlul-Bayt based on Sunni sources, I didagree with Shi'is about certain beliefs and preactices. Just call me an independent Muslim (umfo1419@yahoo.com)."

iquadri 15:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Shia section
How can an article about the origin and the name of Ahl al-Bayt be transformed into a Shia POV section, only containing copy/paste material from a Shia website? I will delete this section. Shia POV goes into the Shia View section. Hamid-Masri 12:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)