Talk:Baháʼí Faith in Pakistan

if anyone can generate a map of the cities…
I've tried an succeeded elsewhere but it took a long time to get it to work. I'm talking about compiling maps from the various cities (see Rawalpindi on the right and imagine compiling them all. Just a suggestion if anyone wants to try. My previous work, as a possible model, was at Bahá'í Faith in the United Arab Emirates Smkolins (talk) 11:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Revision history showing large chunk of text changed; it wasn't
After changing a couple URLs, when I compare these revisions, after Line 14 it shows a very long paragraph all in red: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith_in_Pakistan&action=historysubmit&diff=370826614&oldid=370693604. However, the byte count has only changed minimally.

This post is just to alert mods that I didn't make major changes and there was no vandalism. Jonah Winters (talk) 18:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * no prob - I've seen this kind of thing scattere here and there. Thanks for communicating! :-) Smkolins (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick response! I guess you've got the Baha'i pages on watchlist and have noticed what I've been up to the last couple days. I'm finishing the project I started in 2003: migrating my old HTML filesystem bahai-library.com into the dynamic database. But I never finished the migration, got distracted in 2004 with a second child and multiple jobs, so incoming links mostly pointed to the old, uncorrected HTML files -- and newer links had junk PHP code in them ("file.php?file=", etc)). Now that the kids are in school I finally have time to clean up!

Jonah Winters (talk) 04:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Someone's got to keep an eye on these pages! Thanks for doing this - more often such links go dead and we have to hunt for replacements amidst the general work. Smkolins (talk) 19:27, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 7 one external links on Bahá'í Faith in Pakistan. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140222164713/http://bahai.pk/eng/history/historyPak.html#detail2 to http://www.bahai.pk/eng/history/historyPak.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110928150521/http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/articleprint.asp?article=317372&paper=60&cat=104 to http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/articleprint.asp?article=317372&paper=60&cat=104
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090904013155/http://bic.org:80/statements-and-reports/bic-statements/85-0319.htm to http://bic.org/statements-and-reports/bic-statements/85-0319.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101226173806/http://bci.org/nbihrd/archives/oct03_events.htm to http://bci.org/nbihrd/archives/oct03_events.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080828062040/http://www.bahai-institute.org.pk/statistics.htm to http://www.bahai-institute.org.pk/statistics.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080828061754/http://www.bahai-institute.org.pk/courses_offered.htm to http://www.bahai-institute.org.pk/courses_offered.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121017000426/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-6-2004_pg7_21 to http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-6-2004_pg7_21

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Mason Remy's influence
Hi Again sorry, for, the matter is of “Bahais of Pakistan” and not “Bahais of US.I added a subsection on this page Mason Remey's Influence "In 1960 when Mason Remey made his unsuccessful claims for leadership, a small group of Baha’i’s in Pakistan accepted his claims and published some materials from 1965 through 1972. Mason Remy appointed local assembly of Rawalpindi in Pakistan as the mother assembly. with report from the mother assembly, Remy decided on the number of delegates to be elected for National Spiritual Assembely (Announcement from Mason Remy, November 30, 1962) Finally the NSA of Remy group was formed in 1963. Remy announced that almost all the Baha’is in Pakistan accepted Remy as second guardian." removed the last sentence” Remy announced that……….. “and replaced it by “national assembly loyal to Remey, which was only active for a few years” The replacement done by Cunado is not found in any of his references it is his own judgment. MacEoin reference is dead and Momen does not contain it. It is anti-Orthodox Baha’i statement in the name of neutrality. And clean-up process.Jammu58 (talk) 15:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi,, no worries about the page mix-up :) It looks like your statement is now in, traced to a magazine loyal to Remey. Are you okay with how it is worded now? Unfortunately I don't know enough about the events to say for myself whether the section is neutral. Gazelle55 (talk) 03:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)


 * By the way, I also tagged what is portrayed as an opposing source as needing better references. Hopefully that helps. Gazelle55 (talk) 03:49, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Note on Abdul Fareed
His thesis is from the Islamic University of Islamabad and starts with, "In the name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. All Praise be to Almighty Allah Who is the Creator of the whole universe and the Benefactor of the mankind. Allah says in Holy Qur’┐n, the last and the ultimate source of guidance: ‘Such is the admonition given to him who believes in Allah and the Last Day. And for those who fear Allah, He (ever) prepares a way out. And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine.’(65:2-3) The blessings and mercy of Allah be upon His last messenger, Mu╒ammad, the Prophet of mercy for the whole world."

It is a useful source and mostly well written, but its open bias should be taken into account and in-text attribution clear for any statements that are likely to be challenged. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  16:19, 21 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, well noted.Serv181920 (talk) 16:22, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Spelling of Bábí/Bábi/Babí
All three of these spellings seem to have appeared on Wikipedia. I standardized to Bábí on this page, but does anyone know if this is correct according to Baha'i orthography? Gazelle55 (talk) 15:12, 24 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Bábí is correct. The trailing i that makes it "from" something is always accented. For example, Baghádí is someone from Baghdád.Cuñado ☼ - Talk  16:29, 24 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Ah okay, thx for clarifying. Gazelle55 (talk) 17:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Baha'i statistics in the opening paragraph
Serv181920, you have consistently elevated the prominence of lower statistical data for Baha'is across many pages. In this case you moved two sources from a lower section to the opening paragraph. Those are not good sources to estimate the number of Baha'is (or ethnicity) and it shows your bias. The government of Pakistan has a registration system where people self-identify religion with the state, and it shows over 30,000 Baha'is. Shoba Das and Abdul Fareed did not perform any serious research, have no credentials in demography, and did nothing more than talk to a few Baha'is. Fareed contradicts himself on the same page by saying, "However, the statistics offered by NADRA has to be believed." and "A large number of the Bahá’ís of Pakistan belong to the rural areas of the province Sindhi. There are many Hindu tribes in the rural Sindh called the Bhels and Meghwar. A significant number of these tribesmen accepted the Bahá’í faith and converted to Bahá’ísm." Nobody counts the number of Muslims in town by attending all the mosques and counting attendance. Actual demographers know that. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  14:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, How are you? :)
 * That's so ironical. You accuse me of "elevat(ing) the prominence of lower statistical data for Baha'is across many pages." Where have I done that? On the contrary, I see that Baha'i editors inflating their statistics on almost every "Baha'i faith by country" article. At "Baha'i faith in India" article you are not ready to accept the Government figures and took the support of a news-article published in some newspaper that "census was biased towards some groups" and you put the inflated statistical numbers that are reported in one Christian encyclopedia. Reputed sociologists like Warburg says that the Baha'i statistics reported in that encyclopedia are inaccurate - you still put it. Former Baha'i scholars Juan Cole and Denis MacEoin have proved in their academic works that the Baha'is inflate their population statistics. This is now known to everyone who is aware of the Baha'i faith.
 * You claim that Fareed contradicted his own statement on the same page, but he further says "But many of them are no longer active in the Bahá’í activities. This mass conversion is due to some social works done in the areas of Hyderabad, Matli, Badin, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas. The Bahá’ís of Pakistan state that they do not know the actual population of Bahá’ís." But you don't want to mention this. You pick what you like and what serves your purpose. Am I correct or No?
 * You are free to edit the sentence to make it neutral and more clear. Don't remove it because you don't like it.Serv181920 (talk) 17:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Happy Good Friday.
 * India and Pakistan have very different methods of counting adherents of religion. Pakistan includes religion in their national registration for identification, and the 30,000 are self identified, also in the face of persecution and social stigma that would discourage such identification. Fareed's comments are self-contradicting, they are passing comments that would need focused research to substantiate, and they are published in a thesis that should not be used when better sources are available, see WP:SCHOLARSHIP. They are included below in the article in a collection of any and all estimates of size and demographics, but to include them in the opening paragraph would not be appropriate.
 * I've also noticed that you have an unhealthy preoccupation with active vs inactive data. People who study demographics count inactive members as adherents, as long as they would self-identify. Warburg and others have done a good job writing about the nuances and difficulties of trying to decide who is or isn't a member, how to count children, and how hard it is to keep accurate membership data. Data on activity levels and censuses are a useful part of the bigger picture, but your attempt to blow past the nuance and promote a conspiracy is not very helpful in writing good articles. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  21:34, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi . Much of what you have stated is WP:OR. Fareed is not the only one to have quoted that figure. Das has also interviewed a Baha'i and both give a similar number. Both Fareed and Das have interviewed different persons who I believe are prominent members of the community. Das also reports figures for Islamabad. There are two independent secondary sources then why do you say "to include them in the opening paragraph would not be appropriate."? Because you don't want it? WP:WEIGHT states "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." So it should be there just like all other "Baha'i faith in country" articles where all available reliable sources are mentioned in the lead. I would also request and advice you to remove negative thoughts about me. All that I have been doing is balancing the pro-Baha'i bais which many editors have noticed and you have also admitted to. Instead of appreciating my efforts you are thinking bad about me, that's not good. Have a nice day.Serv181920 (talk) 10:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't support the way it is worded in the lead now. It says estimates are of 30-34 thousand. It would be better to say estimates have ranged from 3-87 thousand. The way it is currently worded makes it seem like there is a lot consensus than sources have given. Also, we should not cite Fareed for 30-34 thousand, when he also gives the figure of 3 thousand. So this needs to be changed. Activity levels also deserve mention, though perhaps not in the lead because these discrepancies exist for all or most religions. Gazelle55 (talk) 14:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I thought of the 3-87 thousand number, but the estimates are clustered at 3, 30-34, and 87. There are good reasons to disregard the outliers, and good reason to quote the government data. Every country is different and Pakistan is the only country I'm aware of with a registration database that includes religion. I don't agree with including the low or high numbers in the opening paragraph because they are both misleading, so perhaps, Pakistan's government registered 33,734 Baha'is in 2012. could replace, Sources estimate the modern community at 30-34 thousand adherents. I'm also not clear whether there is a difference in the 2018 reference to how many "voters" there are. I assume it's the same as the 2012 number but not sure. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  15:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Serv181920, not all references to size should be "mentioned in the lead". Cuñado ☼ - Talk  15:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Cuñado, why Pakistan article should be an exception? In all other country articles different sources are mentioned, why not here? There are two sources Das and Fareed reporting similar numbers. I think Gazelle55 has a point, make it 3 to 34 thousand.Serv181920 (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * World Christian Encyclopedia has far more credibility as a source of religious demographics, but I consider it manifestly inaccurate on the high side, just as the 3 thousand number is manifestly inaccurate on the low side. Your elimination of one outlier and not the other is biased.
 * There is no rule stating that any and all size estimates should be in the opening paragraph or even the lead. I have never seen an MOS for this type of page. In most cases there are only 1 or 2 such statements and they have gone in the last paragraph of the lead, but here they needed their own section and the lead should summarize. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  17:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * , I agree with attributing the government figure rather than ascribing it just to "sources." Although I think it's better to go with 2018 than 2012. At the same time, I think Minority Rights Group International's figure and WCE's figure should be included too. They are reliable sources on the same level as the newspapers that reported the Pakistani government's figures. I would tend to think the government figure is the most reliable, but there are potential reasons it might be too high or too low and it's not our place to decide which sources are best. Attributing the figures should give a curious reader the resources to come to their own judgement about which source is best. Gazelle55 (talk) 19:01, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Could put the attributions in a footnote if it is too cumbersome in the article. Gazelle55 (talk) 19:02, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Well here is an attempt, but citing a specific source and number lacks the "summary" character of the lead. Not ideal but it seems like this or the "3-87 thousand" is the only way to get a consensus. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  20:00, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Lets go with "3-87 thousand" citing all available sources.Serv181920 (talk) 16:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)