Talk:Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah

Incomplete - What about the madness???
Something should be said about the theory that he suffered from madness near the end of his life. One could also mention the beliefs of the Druze people.

I have never heard of the theory that he suffered from madness. In fact, the article is biased and does not give the perspective of the Druze.

Without any malice to the authors, I think this entire article needs to be re-written and more organized along chronological lines. One comes away from it with the feeling that one has learned nothing about the subject. True, the Caliph was extremely controversial, but even the talk page is a mish-mash of criticisms without any contributions towards clarity. Just the fact that he is the center of the Druze religion is enough to warrant a ton of research into this person, and an article that explains the man in relation to his times, rather than comes across as a list of names he was called, is needed. A lack of valid original research may be the cause of all of this, so one may not be able to fault the authors of the article, but I believe that this person is too important to leave an article in wikipedia.org about him in the chaotic state in which it currently stands.Daniel Sparkman (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Eccentric Behavior????
None of the information is cited, therefore there is no justification for its inclusion. There is no proof for any erratic or eccentric behavior in the academic literature. It needs to be removed or cited ASAP. Until it can be cited, I am removing it from the article.


 * I agree completely. I removed the section. --DRC27 (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately no one has attempted to cite that section, but I imagine it would be relatively easy. He had a reputation as "the mad caliph" because contemporary people said so - we didn't make it up for Wikipedia. We will just have to find those sources that say it. And is there nothing written about this in academic literature? I highly doubt it. Even if it is not true, it would be worth discussing as an historical myth. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The Encyclopedia of Islam, at least the second edition (which is the only one I can read online where al-Hakim's article is available), talks about his eccentric behaviour, along with everything else, positive and negative. It also has a lengthy list of primary and secondary sources. I don't see how the statement that there is no proof of this in academic literature can be supported. I suppose we will now hear that the EI, and everything else that mentions al-Hakim's eccentricities, is Sunni propaganda? Adam Bishop (talk) 19:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether or not al-Hakim behaved erratically, the section needs to be cited in order to not violate Wikipedia standards. I have reviewed the archives of the talk page for this article and it seems like there is bias on both sides; those who wish to paint a picture of al-Hakim as a violent eccentric and those who wish to describe him as a rational caliph. Chances are neither view is completely true. In citing any eccentric behavior, we should take care to describe it in such a manner so as to not incite hostility. For example, instead of saying something along the lines of "al-Hakim was eccentric" we should say "al-Hakim has been described as eccentric by..." Having done some work on the Fatimid caliphate, I am aware of the historical documents available to historians. Al-Hakim in particular had many enemies, Christian and Muslim, and many of the sources describing his reign come from such people. This is not to say the testimonia are false, but we should consider their origin and relay the information as objectively as possible. The academic study of history is more an analysis of historical facts than a compilation of historical records. We should keep this in mind. --DRC27 (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. I apologize for my assumptions about your motives. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Disappearance
I have here a copy of 'Millennium' by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in which al-Hakim's disappearance is claimed to have occurred following his retirement to his observatory where he studied astronomy with the aid of an astrolabe rather than during a night-time journey into the al-Muqattam hills. Can somebody clarify which it is? --J — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.36.143 (talk) 16:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

"The Mad Caliph"
It seems the question of the label "Mad Caliph" has been edit warred here a number of times, including the two discussions below (which I have brought here to centralise the debate), the discussion immediately above, as well as Talk:Al-Hakim_bi-Amr_Allah/Archive_1 from the archives.

==> Bringing from my talk page
 * Which "Western literature" are you talking about? Even if he is referred as being mad in western books, don't they mention his name alongside? Besides, he's not known as "the mad caliph", he might be said to have been mad by his dissident rivals and subsiquent patron historians. Our aim is to be accurate while being neutral.
 * Encyclopedia Britannica's page concerning "Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah" is not accurate and is highly misleading. Please don't use that as a source.
 * How do you know of al_hakim being "extremely well known by this name"? Britanica? That book about crusades? Both are thoroughly unreliable.
 * My edit is not vandalism, it is a correction. PukaChAo 03:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DistributorScientiae (talk • contribs) 03:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

==> Bringing from DistributorScientiae's talk page
 * I was not the editor that reverted your change, but I do believe in inclusion of the name. A search for that term in Google books shows multiple sources using that to refer to him: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=mad+caliph&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=bks&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp&ei=DfE6UKqwFumoyAG564DwAg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=ccbd65a7f6b1790d&biw=1920&bih=934
 * I tried looking for a source that took issue with that name, as then we could cite that notable source and make a statement like "He is referred in many works in Western Literature as the "Mad Caliph" but this term is seen as derogatory by some, such as [and then here we would note which notable took issue with that name]." Wikipedia has standards on who is notable (so it can't just be some blog), I am hoping there is a historian that makes this arguement or perhaps a leader of the Druze.
 * One of the main reason he is often referred to by this name is his erratic behavior when it comes to persecution of minorities, flipping back and forth without any apparent logic. This is usually brought up in contrast with the rest of the Caliphs in history who in general were far more tolerant. This term is also used to signify that his behavior doesn't make sense in either the culture of Egypt nor the precepts of Islam, so one should not seek to blame his behavior on either of these.
 * Because the statement that he is called this can be verified by multiple sources the statement meets wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, that is why its removal is seen as vandalism.
 * --Wowaconia (talk) 04:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, I had not seen that you had taken the information out again, so this time I will be the person to undo your change and replace that information as it meets the criteria for inclusion (as mentioned above). You should note that in order to prevent what are called "edit wars" Wikipeida has a set of rules and regulations concerning controversy over articles. If you still have issues with the inclusion of the term "Mad Caliph" you can call for a greater discussion on the matter in the article's own discussion page which is accessed by clicking on the "talk" tab at the top of the page.--Wowaconia (talk) 04:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have added sourced statements from historians that lay out why he is referred as the Mad Caliph, for reasons similar to what I stated above. I still would like to find a notable source that took issue with the term altogther - I can't believe a Druze would not take issue with that term, but we need to find a notable source rather than put words into people's mouths.--Wowaconia (talk) 05:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Oncenawhile (talk) 09:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * In response to the points made, I agree with Wowaconia. I also understand and respect that that Al-Hakim is an important figure in a number of Shia Ismaili reglions, particularly the world's 15 million Nizaris and the 2 million Druze (which, by the way, is an important point which is missing in the lead).
 * Here are another couple of good sources and, both of whom claim that the label "Mad Caliph" came about as a result of Sunni chroniclers trying to bad mouth him.
 * A good equivalent for this issue is Ivan the Terrible, who rather than being "terrible" as we understand it today, was in fact one of Russia's most important and successful leaders - it was under his reign that Russia was transformed from an inward looking medieval state into a fast expanding multi-ethnic empire. The "the Terrible" epithet came about because of a translation error.
 * DistributorScientiae, wikipedia does not shy away from such issues because they are sensitive, or because old western historians were wrong. Wikipedia precedent suggests we should deal with it in a positive fashion, explaining to readers that he was called the "Mad Caliph", but that this label was erroneous for x, y, z reasons. The Ivan the Terrible example is a good template to follow.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 10:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Certainly it should be mentioned, but not in the lead paragraph, where it is currently. Maybe a "legacy" section or something. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at improving the structure of the article as a whole, and also trying to get the balance right on this delicate point. Oncenawhile (talk) 11:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for finding those scholars who take issue with the term, I have expanded the segment by taking quotes from the sources you found, hopefully that should help balance the article. I couldn't determine that they were Sunni, so I changed that to "partisan" as that seems easily supported by the referrences. --Wowaconia (talk) 15:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Originality
Please do not indulge in elaborate religious discussion in this historical article. Please do not add entire quotes of Nissim Dana as this an independant article and must be written as originally as possible. Thanks. DistributorScientiae 12:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DistributorScientiae (talk • contribs)


 * I don't think you understand wikipedia if you are calling for original research, see No original research. The use of quotations of reputable scholars is actually a requirement in wikipeida, see Verifiability. If you desire to delete quotations please give a better reason than you think the article needs to be more "original". The quotes are clearly cited, authors are clearly credited and therefor thier inclusion is not plagiarism. In addition they are brief. If you want to write your own work on the subject independent of wikipedia standards, you should do so in a blog post not here. Wikipeidia is not a blog, see WP:NOTBLOG.
 * --Wowaconia (talk) 19:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * While it is legit for you to quote historians here and there, it's certainly not a necessity. What we need to do here is to extract information from the sources and frame it in an informative and concise manner. If what you're saying is true why not read that book instead? Why waste time on an encyclopedia article? You might have noticed that, while I have deleted quotations, I have been careful of not leaving out any key information, and the reference remains intact. While you are quoting Nissim Dana's work, my I bring it to your notice that his work contains many factual, historical errors, and the tone in which he writes is opinionated, and is not encyclopedic. I do not accuse anyone of plagiarism here. I am not creating original work here-i'm not writing fiction-I'm simply stating the same information contained in the quotations in from of neutral sentences. But you are being extremely discourteous by arrogantly reversing my edits. And by the way, I am not unaware of the guidelines, pages you are referring me to.
 * --DistributorScientiae 00:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

And now i have reversed your reversal. FYI - Muawiah was not a warrier. So much for the the scholarship of Nissim Dana. DistributorScientiae (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


 * When you say its "not a necessity" to quote historians/scholars/experts in a wikipeida article you are flatly mistaken. Wikipeida standards demand them. When you question Nissim Dana, you just assert your own opinion, what notable historians have raised any questions about Nissim Dana's work? That work is published by an academic publishing house and held up to academic standards, it is not self-published. Why should anyone believe your "neutral sentences" over that of an expert? In your January seventh edit you included "much to the grievance of Sunni populace" where did you get that from? The answer is from nowhere. you assumed it to be true without citing anything but your own imagination. It was pure conjecture, pure original research.


 * A noted historian's reasearch vs an unknown wikipedia editor's feelings on the matter, sorry but wikipeida standards favor the actual historian. Further I think many would easily argue that if a leader commands a general to move troops and take up positions that leader can be described as a warrior. A simple Google search can find that Muawiya ordered his general Abul Awr to move 10,000 troops to block water access at Siffin to Ali's army along with other tactical decesions at the Battle of Siffin.


 * Please provide reasons for your deletions rather than you don't like the words. Wikipedia is not a blog so one person's opinion is not authoritative, things are run by consensus and the standards reached by that. One such standards is the need to quote reliable sources. You can persist on reversing things in an attempt to dominate the article but if you don't follow Wikipedia's standards they terminate your account and block your internet access address.
 * --Wowaconia (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes it demands that the work be previously be researched, however, the research work is may or may not included in an article directly. What we require is an article, not excerpts.


 * Regarding:"much to the grievance of Sunni populace"- you might notice that the entire paragraph was,and is, dedicated to that very subject. It is not out of place. However, you can still remove it in particular since it does bring in some redundancy in mentioning.


 * Regarding Nissim Dana, Nissim Dana is a human being.


 * Yup. Muawiyah was not a warrier.


 * Rather than being constructive and building on my work, you are incessantly undoing my edit in it's entirety. On top of that, you are giving me meaningless sermons on Wikipedia standards this and Wikipedia standards that.


 * --DistributorScientiae (talk) 10:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is an organization, it has standards set up by consensus. If you don't like the rules either raise a consensus to change them or don't participate. If you demand that people use a cement ball during a game of football people see that your trying to change the rules of the game and ask you to leave. If you want to make a new game with new rules somewhere else your free to do so. Wikipeida has rules/standards arrived by consensus, if you don't want to work within those you can make a new work somewhere else with different rules - your own blog.


 * I understand that your opinion is that Muawiyah was not a warrior - but your opinion in wikipeida is meaningless. My opinion in wikipeida is meaningless. Only expert's opinions hold any meaning here. Yes Nissim Dana is a human, but he is a human being that is an expert on the subject of this article therefor his opinion has meaning here. Both you and I are anonymous people with access to the internet who went on wikipedia, our opinions are not worth anything to some other reader trying to learn about the subject - therefor Wikipedia demands we cite experts. Wikipedia standards state "When there is dispute about whether a piece of text is fully supported by a given source, direct quotes and other relevant details from the source should be provided to other editors as a courtesy." As the subject of this article brings out a highly charged response from many readers and editors, the use of small direct quotations (properly credited) is given to show that it is not one anonymous editors reading/personal interpretation of an expert's statement.


 * If you wish to challenge the statement that Muawiyah was a warrior cite some experts on the matter in the talk page, a consensus might be reached that these experts outweigh Nissim Dana and changes could be made then. If you just want to insist that due to your ability to get on the internet and have an opinion the article must be made to conform to your personal whims - such a position is not persuasive.--Wowaconia (talk) 19:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

third or sixth caliphate
The opening sentence states he "was the third Fatimid caliph", with a reference to a MIT handout, but surely he was the sixth (and the third was Al-Mansur Billah). Jojairus (talk) 11:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I corrected this, notes from a college course are not considered reliable by Wikipedia standards. I changed it and pointed to a reliable source that clearly has him as the sixth Fatimid caliph like every other reliable source. -Wowaconia (talk) 02:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Assertions about the Druze, not up to wiki standards
I reverted the following material that was added and asserts things about the Druze and/or "aggressive historians" who are unnamed and apparently are deemed "aggressive" solely by the opinion of the editor who inserted the statements. The reference given appears to merely be a self published web site and as such would not raise to the level of reliable source by wiki standards.

Perhaps if the statements were reworked they could meet wiki-standards as a critique of the Druze position. I place them here, should anyone wish to under take this endeavor --Wowaconia (talk) 19:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The Druze movement became a main tool of the aggressive historians to discredit al-Hakim and contrived baseless stories arount it. He had however tried to control the Druzes in Egypt and Syria with drastic measures, but most of them had migrated in the mountains of Lebanon.


 * Al-Hakim was anxious to promulgate Ismailism throughout the Muslim world and to convince the Muslims that he was the rightful Imam- Caliph. If this was a difficult, it would be even more so to convince them that he was an incarnation of the Divinity to boost his alleged claim. Al-Hakim's belief is seen in a personal letter which he wrote to one of his officials: "I fear no one; beg from no one except my God to whom I submit and from whom I receive all bounties. My Prophet is my grandfather; my Imam is my father and my religion is sincerity and justice." ("Itti'az", p. 403) Makrizi writes in his "Khitat," p. 286) that in 403/1012, al-Hakim had engraved on his seal these words: "By the help of God, the Almighty and Protector, the Imam Abu Ali is the victorious."

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Lead image
I've removed the current lead image as it is not a portrait of al-Hakim, it's just a fresco from the 11th-century at Cairo's Islamic Art Museum. The museum's own literature and other sources make this clear (e.g. p.50 of this book, p. 14 of this book, and so on). The file name, which is merely chosen by whoever uploaded it, is the only thing claiming otherwise and is not a reliable source in itself. Maybe the image could be relevant here as an example of art from this time, but it should not be used as lead image either way: per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY, an article about a person should not have a lead image that portrays a person other than the subject. Obviously, it would simply mislead readers of the page who expect the image to be of Al-Hakim. Articles for other Fatimid caliphs feature coins minted with the caliph's name as their lead image, so I've followed that example and replaced it with one such image from al-Hakim's time, but feel free to pick another. R Prazeres (talk) 06:57, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

House of Wisdom
The citation style in this article is generally way too slapdash for WP today - so many citations are to 'Random, P45' or 'Bunkum, 1847' - I'd argue for a complete cleanup of what is a really quite Augean stable. In particular, I intend to remove the section claiming he established the 'House of Wisdom', which pretty much every source available will tell you was established by Harun Al Rashid something like three hundred years earlier. Any objections? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2022 (UTC)


 * It appears he founded the House of Knowledge, a different creation altogether from the House of Wisdom of Harun Al Rashid. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Issa ibn Nestorius or Nasturis?
Is Nasturis a misspelling, or the Arabic version of Nestorius? Arminden (talk) 09:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Contradictory information cited by Britannica

 * "He is perhaps best remembered by his destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem (1010), a measure which helped to provoke the Crusades...." --The Encyclopedia Britannica, vol 2, page 96

And yet the sentence added by Snowstormfigorion states:
 * "However, it is worth noting that the church was reconstructed by al-Hakim's son al-Zahir before the Crusades, and as such his actions cannot be seen as a direct cause of the Crusades." --using The Encyclopedia Britannica.

As such I will be removing said sentence, since it clearly contradicts what the source provided by Snowstormfigorion states. --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:31, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The above is followed by "but was only part of a general scheme", as such, wouldn't it be valid? Snowstormfigorion (talk) 20:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Not really, since the rest of the sentence clearly does not support what you are trying to reference.


 * "He is perhaps best remembered by his destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem (1010), a measure which helped to provoke the Crusades, but was only a part of a general scheme for converting all Christians and Jews in his dominions to his own opinions by force."
 * You honestly think that supports your sentence? --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:36, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah I guess I didn't throughly read it then, my bad. I'll see if I can find a different source. Snowstormfigorion (talk) 21:50, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Lead should be amended
Half of the entire lead shouldn't be taken by one historian's quote on al-Hakim. It really should be (traditionally) a summarization of the most important points of this article Danial Bass (talk) 21:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)