Talk:Hagarism

Islam(Q:3:19&85)was Never 'Hagarism'(Q:49:13) ever at any time
It was & is the Prevailing(Q:5:48)(Q:7:2)Universal Message (Q:9:33)(Q:15:9)(Q:48:28)(Q:57:9)(Q:61:9) from the Universal God (Q:3:83) to the whole of Humanity (Q:4:174)to each & every individual since it's very beginning - since the start of its first revelation(Q:96:1)in the Cave of Hira - till it's very end its completion of the message(Q:5:3) at Mount of Mercy in Arafat & acknowledges all the Prophets (Q:2:141)(Q:4:163-164)of God since the first to the last - Adam (Q:3:33) to Mohammad (Q:48:29) - with Qiblah (Q:2:144)being the First House (Q:3:96) on Earth built & approved by God for His worship in the first city the 'Mother of Towns' on the first spot to appear as foam on the molten Earth & the most beloved to God & was best of a nation ever brought forth to deliver the message(Q;3:110) as per the both parallel revelations of Qoran: the Primary & the Core & Hadith: the Secondary & the Clarifier (of the first revelation). Qoran is verified guarded (Q:15:9) by God with the its original being in the Guarded Tablet, & verified by the Angel Gabriel by revising it with the Prophet once every year in Ramadan & twice in the last Ramadan, & verified in the following year of the passing away of the Prophet by the First Caliph with the committee of the scribes of revelation when first collected in a scroll form from the clay tablets & the camel bones (shoulder blades), & finally re-verified 15 years later by the Third Caliph by reconstituting the same committee again to collect it in a book form, copied into number of master copies sent to each provincial capital of the caliphate. This is undeniable historically & is undisputed & is agreed by all Muslims & corroborated by all who had witnessed the revelation & who were the contemporaries. Perhaps she bases her doubt on hearsay, who did not witness the events first hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.181.167.165 (talk) 19:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh okay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.54.106.25 (talk) 15:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC) Funny example of a lack of historical critism. Basically useless. Polentarion Talk 21:29, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Serjeant's review of Hagarism
The quotation of Serjeant (not Sergeant!) about Hagarism is only improperly sourced. There is no article of him in "Journal of Royal Asiatic Society (1981) p. 210", but he reviewed Hagarism in an earlier volume: Serjeant, R. B. (1978). Review of Quranic studies: Sources and methods of scriptual interpretation by John Wansbrough and Hagarism: The making of the Islamic world by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 110(01), 76–78, 10.1017/S0035869X00134264. I don't have institutional access to the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, so could please someone else check this citation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.155.37 (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised this wasn't addressed earlier. I checked the 1981 volume for you, and you're right. The Serjeant review therein is of another book of Crone's: Slaves on horses: The Evolution of Islamic Polity. I also checked the 1978 article you linked to, and it does indeed contain the statements cited in the article. I'll make the correction. 24.217.97.248 (talk) 06:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

No evidence that Crone and/or Cook have disavowed Hagarism
The opening paragraph stated that Crone and Cook disavowed Hagarism in 2006, citing page 48 of "Free Markets of Islamic Jurisprudence" by Liaquat Ali Khan. Page 48 of this paper makes no such claim. Based on this, I think it's safe to assume that Crone and/or Cook have not recanted and it's a hoax. Astrohoundy (talk) 03:40, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you were reading another page, because the second-to-last sentence of page 48 states quite clearly that the authors have reneged the thesis of Hagarism. 24.217.194.157 (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I cannot find it either; maybe the trouble is that my version of Khan's paper (here) has other page numbers. Could you cite the fragment where Crone and/or Cook have recanted their claims?Jeff5102 (talk) 09:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Why did you need to consult a second version of the article? It's freely available already within the link found in the citation. You just have to click "Download this paper." In your version, the relevant text is on page 1535, paragraph 1, second-to-last sentence. 24.217.194.157 (talk) 00:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * These are the exact words on Crone:We were certainly wrong about quite a lot of things. But I stick to the basic point we made: that Islamic history did not arise as the classic tradition says it does. So no they did not disavow the theory.--  R a f y  talk 10:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yet that quote is from 2002. The article I cited is from 2006. Not only that, but that they believe that history is not as stated in Islamic sources does not imply that they also still stand by history as they described it in Hagarism. Don't use your original research in place of plainly stated sourced statements. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Since you prefer the authors' "exact words", here are some more for you to chew on:
 * "However, what distinguishes this book is the fact that its authors, Michael Cook and Patricia Crone, no longer subscribe to its critical findings. On April 3, 2006, I had a phone conversation with Michael Cook and we talked about Hagarism. He said to me the following, which he later confirmed by means of an email:"The central thesis of that book was, I now think, mistaken. Over the years, I have gradually come to think that the evidence we had to support the thesis was not sufficient or internally consistent enough." On April 6, 2006, I interviewed Patricia Crone, as well, to see what she now thinks about the book. She was even more candid in repudiating the central thesis of the book. She agrees with the critics that the book was "a graduate essay." The book was published in 1977 when the authors lived in England. "We were young, and we did not know anything. The book was just a hypothesis, not a conclusive finding," said Crone. "I do no think that the book's thesis is valid."
 * 98.227.186.203 (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The professor of law (i.e non-expert of the subject which you have quoted several times) also writes in his polemic article: "It appears however that the authors do not wish to discount a book that launched their careers and brought to them contacts and fortune." I fail to see how you would interpret this as disavowment of their book.--  R a f y  talk 21:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how you can interpret this otherwise. You don't need to be an expert on the subject to quote other individuals. Regardless, the statement on Wikipedia is sourced from a law review article. Unless you can find something that directly contradicts the article, it should probably stay. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not a native speaker so bear with with me... How did you interpret the sentence "the authors do not wish to discount their book" as disavowment? Anyway, why do we have quote polemic writings of a Law professor in a minor state college?--  R a f y  talk 12:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Given the context that the sentence is in, with Crone and Cook describing the book's thesis as mistaken and not valid, I interpret the sentence this way: Although the authors have in the past been reluctant to publicly disavow a book that has launched their careers, they were willing to do so in their conversations with Liaquat Ali Khan. Also note that the sentence in Wikipedia states the authors no longer subscribe to the thesis of Hagarism. I believe this a very close rendering of their statements from this source. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 01:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

No evidence for the current claims in the lede
I strongly doubt that interpretation, its as well not being found in any of the sources used to state that claim in the lede. Its based on a mere blog entry. Take http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/14933.html http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7630524&fileId=S0038713400085997 for actual reviews, current or past. None of them confirms the rather strong claims in the intro. Misuse of sourcing. Polentarion Talk 20:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Then you must have not actually read any of the sources cited. 2601:243:903:3F5B:C917:8B32:A2D7:7A03 (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

"Generally rejected"
I don't think this is a good way of describing a scholarly book. Certainly there are many critical reviews but there are some positive as well and the books is refered by several other scholarly works (Which Midwest anon has conveniently removed). Better descriptions would be "controversial" or "revisionist".--  R a f y  talk 10:41, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Cite the positive reviews. What do they say about the book that contradict the "generally rejected" statement? It's best not to misrepresent the edits of others. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 20:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "Generally rejected" is a perfect example of WP:WEASEL. We should not include such words the same way do not refer to the Book of Mormon as "fake", despite having an extensive article about Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Most reviews do criticise the main theory behind Hagarism, but at the same time the book is considered a pioneer in scholarly revisionism of early history of Islam and the origin of the Quran.--  R a f y  talk 21:39, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The argument does not apply here. WP:WEASEL, as I've already explained on your talk page, states that "However, views which are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions if they accurately represent the opinions of the source." Multiple sources describe the book similarly. If you could find a source explaining Hagarism's status as a pioneering work, I would have no objection to that statement's inclusion. A pioneering work, however, is not also necessarily a work that has broad acceptance. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding praise of the book's revisionism see this and this.--  R a f y  talk 12:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think these are excellent sources to use both in the impact section as well as a mention in the intro. As I said before, I would have no objection to an inclusion of statements of those kind. By the way, even the second source you linked to affirms my point in the discussion above: "Apart from Internet enthusiasts and religiously-motivated polemicists, nobody today, not even Cook and Crone themselves, believes that the picture of early Islam put forth in Hagarism is an accurate one." (emphasis mine) 98.227.186.203 (talk) 00:56, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe that Wansbrough was referring to the "Jewish messianist" depiction of Islam in the sentence you quoted. The NY Times article also mentions that the authors have "revised" some of their original hypotheses while sticking to other. So I wouldn't say that the authors disavowed their book completely.
 * A fairly recent review of the books praises the book's revisionism as well, I quote here: "The imperfections of Hagarism should not lead us to discount completely the important insights that both this study and its approach have to offer." So we have three references more or less praising the book, or at least not rejecting it, isn't this enough to remove the "generally rejected" claim found in the first sentence?--  R a f y  talk 14:53, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What if we were to insert a sentence along the lines of this: "Although the findings of Hagarism have been generally rejected[sources], [something positive about it being hailed as a seminal work in its branch of Islamic historiography] [sources]"? Then the reader could find additional information about the second clause of the sentence in the impact section of this article if we were to expand the section with the sources you've cited. Do you think this is a reasonable compromise? 98.227.186.203 (talk) 15:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. The book is built upon a hypothesis rather than drawn from conclusions so a better description would be "Although the central hypothesis behind Hagarism...", or something similar.--  R a f y  talk 23:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * OK. Please go ahead with the changes unless you'd like me to do them instead. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 16:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅--  R a f y  talk 21:49, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am glad we were able to come to a compromise. Thank you. I will expand the impact section with the sources you have provided later when I have some time. 98.227.186.203 (talk) 04:34, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

"Generally rejected" is plain lying. Polentarion Talk 23:06, 5 December 2015 (UTC) Introduction to Islam, Cambridge mentiones the word hagarism on three pages, according google books. Neither does provide the content in question.
 * So you read the first source, ignored the five other sources and embedded quotations, and changed the lede based on your cursory glance at the first source? What an odd contribution and assumption of bad faith.
 * "Unsurprisingly, the Crone-Cook interpretation has failed to win general acceptance among Western Orientalists, let alone Muslim scholars ... The rhetoric of these authors may be an obstacle for many readers, for their argument is conveyed through a dizzying and unrelenting array of allusions, metaphors, and analogies. More substantively, their use (or abuse) of the Greek and Syriac sources has been sharply criticised. In the end, perhaps we ought to use Hagarism more as a 'what-if' exercise than as a research monograph." Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History, (Princeton, 1991) pp. 84–85.
 * The reconstructable past as presented in Hagarism relies only on sources outside of Islâm, and constructs a view of a past so as odds with conventional views that it has been almost universally rejected. This has been particularly so because the authors' criticisms of the possibilities of understanding the earliest periods of Islâm would seem, if applied as a general method to the sources used by historians of religion, to lead toward a kind of historical solipsism. Gordon Newby (1988). A History of the Jews of Arabia. Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. p. 110.
 * 2601:243:903:3F5B:C917:8B32:A2D7:7A03 (talk) 21:05, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect references
Note number 7 is wrongly cited. It is not Fred Donner's book that is being cited, but a REVIEW of Donner's book by Jack Tannous, in a journal called Expositions. I tried to edit the reference, but when I click on edit, I didn't get any of the note-text; that is buried in the text of the first para, in a way that makes it extremely difficult, for me at any rate, to figure out how to edit. The correct reference should be as follows:

Jack Tannous, Review of Fred Donner, Muhhamed and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (2010), Expositions 5.2 (2011), pp. 126-141.

I would greatly appreciate someone editing this for me, as I lack the skills to correct it myself. As it stands, the reference makes it seem as though the ideas and opinions belong to Donner. Some of Donner's opinions are indeed be reflected in the summary portion of the review. But the words used in fact come from Tannous, he deserves the credit, and the reader deserves to be fully informed of their origin.

I've just noticed too that notes 3 and 4, are also incorrectly done, in that neither lists an author. This is a serious problem with note 4, because it is clearly an edited collection, that is, it has multiple authors, so we need to know which one of the several is being cited. Theonemacduff (talk) 22:31, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

"Reception" section
In what way is that section about how the book is received (its reception) as opposed to its significant claims? If it is about "reception," then why are there both "reception" and "reviews" sections? 2601:243:903:3F5B:45EF:36FB:2D7C:2FA3 (talk) 03:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The section "reception" begins by mentioning the name of a person who listed various controversial claims made in Hagarism. A book's "reception" refers to how people evaluated it. Describing a book's claims as controversial is an example of such an evaluation. The "Synopsis" section is there for describing what the book's claims actually are. As for why there are separate "reception" and "reviews" sections, that is simply a result of the way other editors have edited the article; I'm not responsible for it. There should be a single section entitled "Reception" which includes everything that is currently in the "Reception" section as well as what is currently in "Influence" and "Reviews". FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The section has one clause describing the column writer's impression about the claims ("'controversial claims'" of Hagarism's at odds with Islamic doctrine"), while the remaining nearly 200 words simply describe the claims themselves with no additional commentary by the writer. 2601:243:903:3F5B:45EF:36FB:2D7C:2FA3 (talk) 04:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That's totally irrelevant. The material is evaluation of Hagarism and as such obviously belongs in a section titled "Reception". FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * To what extent are the claims being evaluated? 2601:243:903:3F5B:45EF:36FB:2D7C:2FA3 (talk) 04:20, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * To the extent that he summarizes and addresses them. El_C 04:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * They are merely summarized. 2601:243:903:3F5B:45EF:36FB:2D7C:2FA3 (talk) 04:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree, the section "Claims" under "Synopsis" fits the content better. This is a summary of how the book diverges from the mainstream. As any summary, it might be cherry-picked or biased in some way (I personally believe it's fair), so it is good to make it clear who originally summarized it this way; but that's just making attributions and references more clear (and a lazy way to work-around copyvio, I admit). The section could also easily evolve with references to major sources that discuss these claims, to make it clear which ones have been retracted by authors or rejected by mainstream Western scholars, and which ones are still considered valid, to some extent. (But in any case I don't see any reason for just deleting the content as FreeKnowledgeCreator originally did.) Tokenzero (talk) 14:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I also wanted to ask: what's irrelevant? Your reasoning here is pretty circular. 2601:243:903:3F5B:6526:4CD7:E3DE:ACD4 (talk) 03:17, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Can you please stop edit warring? Reverting your edits again and again is ridiculous, all three of you. Discuss the issue here. For example, which part of the section, which specific words do you feel "evaluate" or "address" the claims? Is it only the word "controversial"? Tokenzero (talk) 09:29, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't pretend to be faultless but I've commented on the ridiculousness of FreeKnowledgeCreator's conduct here. There are open questions here but FreeKnowledgeCreator has stopped engaging in meaningful discussion. 2601:243:903:3F5B:8057:3EB0:C440:CE4E (talk) 19:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The IP editor and I obviously have different ideas about how to go about editing articles about books. The IP editor deems this edit to be a "valuable contribution". I would never add a section titled "Claims" to an article about a book. The title leaves it unclear whether the section's purpose is to describe the book's contents or to describe evaluations of the book's contents. The material originally added to the "Claims" section was, apparently, material evaluating the contents of Hagarism, describing them as controversial. It was very poorly written, consisting mainly of an excessively long series of quotations, taken from a popular magazine rather than a scholarly journal, and I have no apology for simply removing it, as I did here. The IP is now insisting in a childish manner that the removal of the term "controversial" improves the "Claims" material and makes it appropriate as a summary of the book's contents. Obviously the contents of a scholarly book should not be described using a series of overly-long quotations taken from a popular magazine. The material should simply be removed. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:04, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting. This seems like your original position was "We don't need that material in that particular location. It belongs somewhere else (because I might have not entirely read the material). I'll just delete it." Now it's "I've entirely changed my justification but my original removal was correct." I think I've adequately described here why it is your actions instead that are disruptive or childish. It's curious that you were okay with the "series of overly-long quotations from a popular magazine" while going back and forth about the title of the section as long as it was named "Reception."2601:243:903:3F5B:8057:3EB0:C440:CE4E (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The need for a scholarly journal to describe the contents of a book is not supported by WP:RS, which is satisfied by content from The Atlantic according to Reliable sources/Perennial_sources. 2601:243:903:3F5B:8057:3EB0:C440:CE4E (talk) 01:33, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't try to put words in my mouth. I never made any such comment as, "We don't need that material in that particular location. It belongs somewhere else (because I might have not entirely read the material). I'll just delete it." I was never "okay" with the quotations that were added to the article, it was simply that I took the view that if they were going to be included in the article at all, they belonged in a section devoted to the reception of the book, because they are material that, in the form in which they were first added, are concerned with evaluating the book, not simply describing its contents. The idea that the contents of a scholarly book should be described with quotations from a popular magazine is stupid. Even if Wikipedia's policies permit that, it's clearly not how an article should be written. The description of the contents of a scholarly book should be based on the book itself; quotations from non-scholarly popular magazines are not necessary or suitable for that purpose. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The Atlantic may well count as a reliable source per WP:RS, but that does not absolve editors of the task of deciding how best to use it. I have added a small amount of new content, summarizing the most relevant points noted in the Atlantic article. That's what is needed, not a whole series of long, unnecessary quotations. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:15, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that the (sub)section should not be a sequence of quotations from someone's summary. However, if "Hagarism" includes suggestions that the Quran did not exist in any form before 690 (in particular, that it was not compiled under Uthman around 653-656, but instead it is not unlikely that al-Hajjaj after ~690 collected and destroyed the old Hagarene writings and replaced them with others composed according to his own tastes), then shouldn't the article mention it? This is an example of a claim in the book which is notable because it is controversial, and the Atlantic article is a reliable source for that, in my opinion. (Of course there's better sources, in fact we can just link to the much more extended discussion at History of the Quran). Tokenzero (talk) 11:46, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The article is better off with the quotations than without them for the average reader, even if the quotations are not perfect. We should permit the content to remain; someone else, if not one of us, will eventually come along and integrate the source more fluidly. Wikipedia is always a work in progress, as you well know, and your deletions are not constructive. 2601:243:903:3F5B:7C90:4989:D076:6E5F (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with IP: having the quotations, even if not perfect, is preferable to avoiding the content completely. I'm working on a better synopsis (the most glaring issue being that both the current Synopsis and the removed Claims completely ignore chapters beyond the first, shortest one). But in the meantime the removed part pointed to important claims made by the book not covered elsewhere, so I believe there is no reason to remove it; if you don't like the quotation style, edit and improve it (or wait for me to do it)! your avoidance of discussion (even outright removal of requests for comment from your talk page) is disrespectful. Tokenzero (talk) 22:47, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

New draft
At User:Tokenzero/Hagarism, I rewrote the Synopsis section to make it more accurate, concrete, structured, and detailed. I also rearranged the lead and first section. This is based on reading all of Part I and some of the reviews. Unfortunately Parts II and III are beyond my possibilities, partly because of the wider background they require; anyway I only see one review that actually refers to them, so perhaps only Part I is really notable. Any feedback? I can put references to specific pages if some sentence raises doubts (perhaps I should add them everywhere using rp?). The existing summary was a bit inaccurate, like in reasons for the name Hagarism, the role of Jerusalem (much weaker in the book), and a somewhat misleading chronology. I believe that this now also subsumes Toby Lester's summary points (most of them already in the lead, the remainder made more precise in the main text). Tokenzero (talk) 20:25, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I found the Synopsis section to be (1) well-written and (2) useful. Thanks. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 08:05, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

John Henry Newman citation
I can't make any sense of the citation to The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. The letters themselves were written way before Hagarism and neither the letters nor prefaces even mention Islam or Muslims, let alone Hagarism, Crone or Cook, as far as I can tell. Pinging as you added the reference, and  as you reversed its removal. I've since removed it again. Tokenzero (talk) 10:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

New lead
You've removed virtually all negative discussion in the lead and left all the positive. I believe this is far from a balanced view. Saying it was "criticised" is saying nothing, all scholarly work gets criticised, while "Hagarism" has definitely more serious issues, which are consistently pointed by even the most friendly references. Specifically, I think the words "generally rejected" (with reference to the specific factual theses listed in the paragraph above) and "controversial" should be in the lead, as equivalent formulations are found in numerous references, e.g. "universally rejected" (which is even stronger!) in Waines' An Introduction to Islam and the same in Newby's A History of the Jews of Arabia (and I can't find any reference that would say the factual theses were even slightly accurate).

We have to discuss these factual claims made in Hagarism, but doing that carries some weight: the reader can expect a rather large level of credibility from a scholarly monograph. This should be countered by an overview of the current scholarly view on these claims. I don't think I'm putting undue weight on the most critical reviews, I really tried to highlight later textbook references, which discuss Hagarism from a distance and in a wider context. Tokenzero (talk) 11:41, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I guess you have a point, but I just felt there was too much negativity in the lead, as if the main aim was to trash the book. But feel free to restore what you deem necessary. Regards, Joshua Jonathan  - Let's talk!  12:18, 29 December 2020 (UTC)