Talk:Ali Bey el Abbassi

Mistake?
In the spanish edition of Wikipedia states, under the title "Domingo Badía y Leblich" that he was actually sent by Manuel Godoy, first Minister under the rule of Carlos IV. In the english version of the article, it is said that Domingo Badia was a spy for Joseph Bonaparte. My impression is that the english version was written without too much care about the importance of this spanish citizen, who apparently was the first european to enter Mecca. I have read some of his works and are impressive. Depicts a very accurate vision of the muslim society of those times among other subjects, such as botanics, geography, geology, etc. Iaquil 19:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The Godoy connection would be interesting to develop, with citations. The English version now develops the French connection for his second trip, but doesn't suggest any government support for the first one. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 19:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Needs more
I have had reason recently to read parts of his book, it is fascinating. This article is woefully inadequate.Historicist (talk) 00:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Name
The original placement of the article was well-meaning but misleading. The article shouldn't go at his real name because his nom de plume is more famous but it also shouldn't use some  transliteration of the Arabic form of his name. He's not famous in English through Arabic translation but for his French works, which were written under the form "Ali Bey el Abbassi". It's still the more common form. (And, for what it's worth, Google seems to disagree that the OR transcription was correct anyway.) — Llywelyn II   14:23, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I also question whether the Arabic itself isn't or a confused appropriation of Ottoman Turkish. Bey is a title which is usually rendered as bek (بك‎) in Arabic. I don't see any reason he would've written it the wrong way as a spy. — Llywelyn II   14:37, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Death
I'm not saying Britannica doesn't have its own biases, but it's generally reliable. The EB9 and 11 both mention he died under suspicion of poisoning in Aleppo, not " was murdered by British agents in Damascus ". Given that there's no source whatsoever for that statement, I simply removed it. It's fine to reïnclude it, so long as the source is reliable and not some Spanish conspiracy tract. If it's a theory, phrase it that way... and still source it. Accusations of political assassination shouldn't just be tossed around. — Llywelyn II   14:26, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
Obviously, the Spanish page is much more detailed but not very well sourced. Try to bring over its sourcing if we use that.


 * Alí Bei : un pelegrí català per terres de l'Islam: [catàleg]. [Compilació i coordinació dels articles: Alberto López]. Barcelona : Proa, 1996. ISBN 84-8256-309-2
 * Badia, Domènec, "Alí Bei". Viatges d'Alí Bei. Ed. completa amb tots els viatges, làmines i mapes realitzats pel mateix author. Barcelona: Llibres de l'Índex, 2004. ISBN 84-95317-79-6

were listed in the bibliography section but were not being used at all. Kindly return them to the article once they are being used to verify facts in the text. — Llywelyn II   15:27, 6 October 2015 (UTC)