Talk:Hunayn ibn Ishaq

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Untitled
If you noticed he's an arab ad they say, arab children study english,russian,french...etc. can we say there're english because they study it? it's same to him he's an arab studied syriac Latin greece and persian, can we say he's persian because he knows it. all what I can say that old sources say that he's an arab and am with who lived with him of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.189.69.65 (talk) 13:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Not an Arab, all I can say.... If he's an Arab, please provide credible sources/references that he's an Arab... ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ 20:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

mutiple text
I cannot find direct support for the quote but it is probably genuine. It is likely from his letter to Ali. Can anyone help? J8079s (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Italic not necessary?
The first paragraph is in italic typeface. I think this is unnecessary. Can someone indicate the purpose of the italic? If not, let's remove the italic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karl gregory jones (talk • contribs) 03:57, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The man was Arab, not Assyrian
According to

or

or

GoulGoul1 (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There seems to be controversy in terms of his ethnicity. Considering ethnicity was not much of a declaration at his time, I think it would be better to not label him anything in the beginning of the article, and later on mention how different sources have him be an Assyrian while others as an Arab. Chaldean (talk) 08:30, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

His Arab ethnicity is not disputed
Sorry, but there is no controversy over his ethnicity. The man was born in Al-Hirah which was the capital of the Lakhmids, an Arab vassal kingdom of the Sasanian Empire. His tribe of Ibad was one of the famous families of the Banu Lakhm tribal confedration. The arab Lakhmids themselves were followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, which explains why some non-scholarly sources naively refer to him as Assyrian. Because for the non-specialists Nestorians = Assyrians, which is wrong. The Assyrian Church was one of the biggest Churches in the Middle Ages, and had followers even in central Asia and chine.

Regarding Hunayn ibn Ishaq, here is what Encyclopaedia of Islam says about him: "He was born in Hira in ad 808, where his father was a pharmacist. His family was among the Arab Christians who remained faithful to the Syriac Nestorian church." It is also worth mentioning that even the medieval Arabic writers referred to him as an Arab and never as Syriac. Here is for example a reference from Ibn Abi Usaibia in his "Lives of the Physicians":

حنين بن إسحاق هو أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي بفتح العين وتخفيف الباء والعباد بالفتح قبائل شتى من بطون العرب اجتمعوا على النصرانية بالحيرة والنسبة إليهم عبادي

A rogh translation:

"Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, that is, Abu Zayd Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-'Ibādī, from the term" al-'Ibād "which is the name of an Arab tribe who lived in al-Hira and embraced Christianity."

Given all this, I don't see why we should keep any mention of non-existent Assyrian ancestry, specially with the references for it being non-scholarly and non-historical as mentioned in the article. Frasfras17 (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I suggest getting consensus before telling anyone to “read the talk page”. Your opinion does not constitute consensus. --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I say it is still disputed, how is it that Ibn Ishaq was an Arab yet knew enough fluent Syriac to translate different translations to Syriac? Wouldn't Ishaq have simply translated everything to Arabic? Secondly, did Al-Hirah not have any Assyrians considering Al-Hirah is part of Mesopotamia and was part of the Asuristan province of the Sassanid Empire? 2600:1700:C530:A70:0:0:0:44 (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)


 * To the anonymous user above. I am not sure what is your point exactly, but Hunayn was versed in both Syriac and Arabic. At his time, it was not uncommon to find Arabs who were fluent in Syriac. Do not forget that the Lakhmids -the tribal confederation to which he belonged- after they had converted to Christianity, they refused to establish an independent Arab church, and instead joined the already existing Syriac Nestorian one. That is besides that Syriac language was the lingua franca among Nestorians regardless of their ethnicity, and specially among intellectuals. Given all of this, it is no surprise to find Nestorian Arab scholars at the time who were versed in their liturgical and intellectual language beside their native tongue. As for Al-Hirah and its people, I've alredy mentioned above that it was the capital of an Arab kingdom. So, naturally most of its people would have been Arabs. Did an Assyrian community exist in the city at the time? Maybe. However that does not matter, since there is no argument over Hunayn's origin to begin with. Both his name and the writings of contemporary biographers confirm that he belonged to Banu Ibad, one of many clans in the the Arab Lakhmid tribal confederation.Viaros17 (talk) 15:21, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * "Some non-historical sources describe him as Assyrian."...
 * isn't that enough proof that the source is unreliable??! WeWuzPhoenicians (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:28, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Continuing the debate

 * Sorry to tell you, but tribal affiliation in the middle east does NOT identify your ethnic background. Today we have the same tribal names that Assyrians share with Arabs or Kurds (after centuries of conversion to Islam, leading to one's ethnicity gradually change to the latter.) It's obvious ethnic labeling was not as clear cut in the 8th century as it is today, so stating he's for sure one or the other without solid proof (tribal affilation is not), is simply untrue. Chaldean (talk) 05:42, 25 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Regarding followers of the Assyrian Church - yes, while those who followed the church in China are Chinese, every follower of the Assyrian Church in Iraq was indeed Assyrian. Because any Arab in Iraq in the 8th century was a arrival from the Arabian dessert with the invasion of Islam. Chaldean (talk) 05:43, 25 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Your knowledge about the history of the middle east is atrocious. Did you even read what I have wrote above? Lakhmid Arabs were established in Iraq as a settled people since the 3rd century. They had their own kingdom and rulers long before Islam and the Arab conquests. Their cabital city of Al-Hirah -where Hunayn ibn Ishaq was born- was a main Nestorian center and one of the dioceses of the Church of the East. Many of the city's Arab population, including the rulers, were Nestorian Christians like for example al-Nu'man III. Even in Syriac sources the city was associated with the "'Tayyaye", which is the Syriac term for Arabs. For instance, one of the bishops of the city was known as Shemon of "Hirta d'Tayyaye" ('Hira of the Arabs'). So to claim that the only Iraqi Nestorians at the time were the Syriacs is very foolish and uninformed.


 * Let us put all of this aside, as you seems to be completely uninformed on the subject. And since we are in Wikipedia what maters here is reliable sources. Do you have at least one reliable source (an authority on Islamic history) that says Hunayn ibn Ishaq was an Assyrian? Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopædia Britannica, The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, History of Islamic Philosophy. All these sources which are among the biggest authorities on Islamic history unanimously agree that Hunayn ibn Ishaq was an Arab. On the other hand there is not a single reliable source to claim that he was an Assyrian. The Admins were generous enough to keep a mention of the Assyrian claim citing a non-historical and a non-reliable source. If anything, we should delete the Assyrian claim altogether from the article for lack of evidence, not act as if the issue is equally disputed like you are trying to portray. Viaros17 (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * First you need to be more respectful if you want to have an academic dialogue. If anything Admins should look into your history of abusing other fellow members, and find if there is any pattern in your behavior. No need to name call or insult people. The sources you all mentioned are all Islamic - Islam itself believes in Arab supremacy, so to legitimate your side with Islamic sources only is being unbiased. "Being an Assyrian like many other natives of al-Hira at that time he spoke only Syriac. It appears that ibn-Ishaq had to learn Arabic later in life." (O'Leary D. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1948.) His mother tongue language was Syriac. Thus making him an original Mesopotamian culturally and by blood. I suggest bringing third party individuals to make the best decision that is not biased. Chaldean (talk) 09:54, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Chaldean, i wanted to give you a perspective about Viaros’ contributions.
 * Check these diffs :,, and many others. This user’s goal seems quite clear ...—>Farawahar (talk) 14:16, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * "First you need to be more respectful if you want to have an academic dialogue."


 * And how exactly am I being disrespectful? you scandalously claimed that Arabs only existed in Iraq in the 7th century, and I proved you wrong. If that is what you call disrespect, then simply don't present audacious claims about topics you are clearly uninformed on.


 * "The sources you all mentioned are all Islamic."


 * LMFAO, please tell me you are joking. I never thought I would even need to discuss such a thing. The sources that I have mentioned are all considered among the best and most specialist on Islam and Islamic history. They are all written by expert western writers and none of them is written by "Muslims". Funny thing you are dismissing these sources while citing for your claim Gottlieb Guntern, who is a psychiatrist and has no specialty whatsoever on Islam or Islamic history.


 * " "Being an Assyrian like many other natives of al-Hira at that time he spoke only Syriac. It appears that ibn-Ishaq had to learn Arabic later in life." (O'Leary D. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1948.)"


 * Several problems with this source here. First of all, this alleged sentence does not occur anywhere in the book. I tried to search for it here, and nothing turned out. Either the sentence is made up or it occurs in an inaccessible page. At least gave us the page number to check. Even if we consider the sentence to be legitimate, the source seems to be outdated and most of all factually-wrong. As I have mentioned above, al-Hira was an Arab city and most of its people were Arabs. Several sources actually confirm that Hunayn's native language was Arabic not Syriac like and . Now it is a known fact that Hunayn was fluent in both Arabic and Syriac, so determining what was his native language should be based on circumstantial evidence about his life, namely, his native city, its people, and the language they spoke.
 * Regarding al-Hira and its people here is what Encyclopedia Iranica has to say:
 * "Ḥīra was a creation of the Tanuḵhid Arabs....At all events, Ḥīra became essentially an Arab town, strategically situated as the starting point for caravan traffic westward across the Syrian Desert. Although Syriac was the learned and hieratic language for its population, a large proportion of whom were Nestorian Christians, famed for their literacy (the so-called ʿEbād “devotees” of Arabic sources), ethnically they must have been Arab."


 * The Cambridge History of Iran :
 * "The population of Hira comprised its townspeople, the 'Ibad 'devotees', who were Nestorian Christians using Syriac as their liturgical and cultural language, though Arabic was probably the language of daily intercourse."


 * Sufism in the Secret History of Persia :
 * "Hira was also home to the 'Ibad (“devotees”), who were Nestorian Christians using Syriac as their liturgical and cultural language, but Arabic for common daily use."


 * Another source :
 * "Hunayn was most likely trilingual from his youth; Arabic was the vernacular of his native town, Persian a frequently-used tongue in his region, and Syriac the language of the liturgy and of higher Christian education."


 * So as I have mentioned previously, al-Hira was an Arab city and Arabic was its native language. The city had an Arab Nestorian community known as the "Ibad" who besides their native-Arabic used Syriac as a liturgical and cultural language. Hunayn belonged to this community, thus, his name is Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq al-'Ibadi.


 * I think this clear the confusion quite well and provides the best explanation for this issue. Now it is your turn to show us an evidence that al-Hira was an Assyrian city with Syriac being its native language. As for Now I will alter the article so that it reflects the current reliable sources. I will keep the Assyrian claim mentioned, but not equally presented as the better sourced Arab one. Viaros17 (talk) 13:10, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I cannot continue this conversation with you as you have shown disrespectful behavior to multiple users now. Your obsession with painting a city entirely with one ethnicity clearly shows your unfair views. The "my sources are better than your sources" argument does not work in wikipedia. Even thou it's an established fact that he was of non-Arab origins (one of hundreds of Middle Easters that Arab scholars try to take credit for by creating false nerative to justify painting them as of Arab ethnicity), I was fair in presenting a bipartisan sentence that told both sides. Chaldean (talk) 17:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * "I cannot continue this conversation with you as you have shown disrespectful behavior" And could you please show me where exactly did I disrespect you? Do you consider me refuting your false claims a disrespect? Or is it that you are making up excuses to run away from the debate?


 * "Your obsession with painting a city entirely with one ethnicity clearly shows your unfair views." It is not me painting a city with one ethnicity or another. We are here debating facts. And the facts say that al-Hira was an Arab city as I have shown above citing a dozen of reliable sources including a Syriac one. On the other hand, you failed to produce even one reliable source for your claim. People could easily read the page and decide who has the better case here.


 * "The "my sources are better than your sources" argument does not work in wikipedia." Actually it does. Wikipedia rules say only reliable sources should be cited. You can not bring up a source written by "a psychiatrist" for a topic concerning Islam and Islamic history.


 * "Even thou it's an established fact that he was of non-Arab origins." Well, let us compare our sources against each other and see what fact is "established" here.
 * Encyclopaedia of Islam, The Oxford History of Islam , Encyclopædia Britannica , The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages , Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature , Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia , Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures , History Of Islamic Philosophy.
 * These sources are regarded as the biggest and most prominent authorities on Islam and Islamic history. They are all written by specialist western scholars and they all state clearly that Hunayn ibn Ishaq was an Arab who belonged to the Arab Nestorian community known as the "Ibad", who were fluent in both Arabic and Syriac.
 * Now let us turn into your sources and have a look:
 * O'Leary D. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. An outdated book, in which nowhere Hunayn's ethnicity is mentioned.


 * Guntern, Gottlieb. a psychiatrist who has no specialty on Islamic history.


 * Nelson, Thomas. Books editor who also has no specialty on Islamic history.


 * If we were to go by Wikipedia rules, no mention of the Assyrian ethnicity should even be in the article to begin with. The Arab ethnicity of Hunayn is strongly sourced in both primary sources and modern specialist ones. While there is not even one reliable source for the Assyrian claim. Again, you should be thankful that we have kept a small mention of this dubious and false claim in the article.


 * My stance on the argument has been explained well enough. You failed to provide the required sources for the Assyrian claim that are on par with the Arab ones. Thus, your version of the article has been rejected. Any future revert on your part and I will notify the admins to interfere. Viaros17 (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * You seem to be very selective with the quality of other contributors sources, but when it comes to you, you use low quality sources (as you did in the ibn al Nafis’ article), By the way, a 3 days old user edited the article in your way just now, if this is a sock of your account, this will not end well for you ...—>Farawahar (talk) 22:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Lmao, so much for "Personal attacks". Kingesh (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC) <--- CU blocked sock of User:Ehsan iq


 * Please use the correct indentation if you want to answer messages. There is no personal attack from me, i just said i hope that you and Viaros17 are not the same user.—>Farawahar (talk) 22:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

please don't try to throw around accusations. Kingesh (talk) 23:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC) <--- CU blocked sock of User:Ehsan iq

here are two sources for the Assyrian claim, since user Viaros failed to check the fact (this is not the first time ...), i give them to you :,. I have other sources if these ones are not enough. If Viaros17 cannot prove that these sources are unreliables, then they will be added to the article with the associated claim when the protection eill expire.—>Farawahar (talk) 15:00, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

And more sources (by a Lebanese-American historian) : —>Farawahar (talk) 15:11, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The first source: Christian Laes. Professor of Latin and Ancient History, he has no specialty on Islam and Islamic history, unreliable.


 * The second one: AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SYRIAC STUDIES, Samir Johna. Samir Johna is a surgeon and also has no specialty on Islam and Islamic history.


 * Edmund Ghareeb. He is not a historian but a scholar on International Relations.


 * Typical desperate google search from your part as usual. Viaros17 (talk) 15:31, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Clearly, you cannot read. Here are listed Ghareeb’s skills . I quote : “Edmund Ghareeb is the first Mustafa Barzani Scholar of Global Kurdish Studies at the American University's Center for Global Peace. He is also an Adjunct PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE EAST HISTORY and politics in the School of International Service at American University. He is the author of The Kurdish Question in Iraq.”
 * Typical don’t like it from your part, as usual. BTW, if you are so selective with others sources, please recheck the ones you used in the Ibn al Nafis article, laughable ...—>Farawahar (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jbh, i hope you’re ok. Since you proposed me to ping you when i need so (and also, the admin Vanamonde93 asked Viaros to get a third opinion about this case : ), your insight would be welcome here. AND since, according to me, you’re one of the best and more honest users on English wikipedia, Let me tell you that any conclusion you will draw will be endorsed by me. To spare you the trouble to read all the thread, i sum up the situation : Chaldean and Viaros17 have a dispute about a possible Assyrian ethnicity of Hunayn ibn Ishaq and engaged in an edit war. I came here and since Chaldean provided sources for his claim, i supported him. Viaros17 began another edit war with me and Chaldean, supported by (very) new arrival Kingesh who is, i think, a sock, but this is only my opinion and i have no proof for it yet. User Pinkbeast, not involved in the edit warring, notified Viaros17 on the noticeboard/edit warring and the page got protected by an admin who clearly said in his edit summary that the protection does not mean that he endorsed any version :. Viaros asked below a ”dispute resolution with the admins” because he clearly does not know what admins are for and the admin who protected the article Refused to get engaged here and i understand him. While viaros claimed below to sum up the situation, he only provided the sources supporting his POV and makes no mention of the other sources (i don’t give them again here because Viaros’ list is quite clear and easily readable). I provided some sources to support the Assyrian claim above and among them, Edmund ghareeb, who has historical skills for this topic :. Be aware that Viaros is an especially aggressive editor who is far away from being nice :, you can check his editing history if you want, but just to give you a perspective, here are some diffs : ,. Quite strange how some human beings get on their nerves when they meet someone who disagree with them ... I hope not to bother you with this mess and to be clear about it, i would completely understand your refusal to get involved (in fact, if i was pinged here now, i would probably refuse to get involved). Take care.—>Farawahar (talk) 12:50, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Another source for the Assyrian claim : [30] by Luke DeMaitre, medieval historian and historian of medicine : [31].—>Farawahar (talk) 18:35, 12 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Farawahar (talk • contribs)

Resolving the dispute with the admins
I made this section exclusively for the admins, in order to sum up the dispute and spare them the trouble of reading all of the talk-page discussion.

1-The dispute is regarding the ethnicity of Hunayn ibn Ishaq, whether he was an Arab, an Assyrian, or of a disputed origin. 2-My stance is that according to reliable sources, both primary and modern ones, Hunayn was an Arab and there is no dispution over his ethnisity. The user Chaldean on the other hand claim that it is disputed and that there are reliable sources for the Assyrian claim. 3-Hunayn ibn Ishaq was born in al-Hira, an Arab city and the capital of a pre-Islamic Arab state. 2-According to medieval biographers, Hunayn belonged to a community called the "Ibad", thus his name: Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq al-'Ibadi. This community was composed of different Arab tribes who converted to Christianity and lived in al-Hira. 3-Hunayn ibn Ishaq was a Nestorian Christian which caused the confusion here. In the 20th century, the Nestorian church changed its name into "The Assyrian church of the east", a name it has never had before. The non-historical sources which refer to Hunayn as an Assyrian are basing their claim exclusively on the modern name of the church, to which Hunayn belonged. That is however anachronistic and factually-wrong. The church was not known as such during the middle ages, and at that time it had followers from different ethnicities like Persians, Arabs, Chinese etc. Hunayn for example, was an Arab as mentioned above. 4-Last thing, and the most important one. All reliable sources refer to Hunayn ibn Ishaq as an Arab. This alone should settles the issue according to Wikipedia rules.

Here are some examples:

Encyclopaedia of Islam: "Ḥunayn was born in 192/808 in al-Ḥīra, where his father was a pharmacist. The nisba indicates that he was a descendant of the so-called ʿibad, i.e. Arab tribesmen who had once embraced Christianity and who after the rise of Islam remained faithful to the Syrian Nestorian church."

The Oxford History of Islam: "The most famous of these translators was a Nestorian (Christian) Arab by the name of Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808–73)."

Encyclopædia Britannica: "Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq,, (born 808, al-Ḥīrah, near Baghdad, Iraq—died 873, Baghdad), Arab scholar whose translations of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, and the Neoplatonists made accessible to Arab philosophers and scientists the significant sources of Greek thought and culture."

The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine: "The major ninth-century medical figure in Baghdad was a Christian Arab, Hunain ibn Ishaq, an amazingly accurate and productive scholar, who travelled to the Greek Byzantine empire in search of rare Galenic treatises."

The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages: Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Johannitius) (d. 877) Christian Arab physician, scholar, and translator into Syriac and Arabic during the Graeco-Arabic *translation movement in Baghdad.

Henry Corbin, History Of Islamic Philosophy: "The latter was succeeded by one of his students, the famous and prolific Hunayn ibn Ishaq (194/ 809—260/ 873), who was born at al-Hirah into a family belonging to the Christian Arab tribe of the 'Ibad."

Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia "Medieval biobibliographical sources report that his father, an apothecary by profession, was a 'Ibadi, a member of one of the Arab tribes that had embraced Christianity."

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Westen Cultures "HUNAYN IBN ISHAQ Abu Zayd Hunayn Ibn Ishāq al'Ibadi (Johannitius, AD 808–873), a physician, philosopher, and translator, was born in al-Hirah (Hira), now southeast of al-Najaf (Iraq). He and his ancestors were Syrians who belonged to the Nestorian church. The family nickname, al-'Ibadi, is derived from “al-'Ibād,” a Christian Arab tribe."

Sidney Harrison Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: "Hunayn was a member of the Arab Christian tribe of Ibad from al-Hira, hence the sobriquet al-Ibadi, which we often find added to his name in the sources."

Mirko Dražen Grmek, Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: "Hunayn ibn Ishaq was able to satisfy their needs. Of Christian Arab descent, he had spent many years of his life in Byzantine territory, in pursuit of his studies, most probably in Constantinople." Viaros17 (talk) 17:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The person you have to convince is not me; it's the other party to the edit-war. Please try to reach WP:CONSENSUS here. If you are unable, the best thing to do would be to seek a third opinion, seek dispute resolution, or open an WP:RFC. I am personally quite uninterested in the actual text you are arguing over. Vanamonde (talk) 07:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Resolving the dispute
We need a third party opinion for this topic Farawahar (talk) 18:54, 12 May 2018 (UTC) your opinions would be welcome.—>Farawahar (talk) 18:55, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. From the sources presented above and assuming the quotations are accurate, the accepted way to describe him seems to be as a "Christian Arab". All of the discussion about what town he was from, what language he spoke etc is original research ie combining facts to come to a conclusion which is not stated in the source, which is prohibited by policy. The source which describes him as Assyrian  is just a bare mention so I give it less weight than an article which discusses his life in detail. I will see if I have any books in my library which discuss him but my initial thoughts are to describe him as Nestorian/Arab Christians.  Jbh  Talk  19:18, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * No worries Jbh, you have the right to be busy, my appologies to bother you again. What about the other sources i presented above ? I mean Ghareeb, who serms to have skills for this topic : . Here is his book : and also Luke DeMaitre’s book : ? If you confirm your opinion, then i’ll self revert.—>Farawahar (talk) 19:35, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This one is a passing mention rather than an article about him so I would not give it much weight. As is this. Please keep in mind that I have not looked at the context of the 'Arab Christian' quotes above yet but some do appear to from articles which discuss his life rather than just mentioning his work in passing. Of the ones presented I give the Encyclopedia of Islam and Britannica the most weight because the quotes seem to be from those work's article on him. They are also tertiary sources similar to Wikipedia so they have already considered what the secondary sources say and have, based on that, come up with what they, as encyclopedias, think is the most encyclopedic way to refer to his ethnicity.  In cases of the contested ethnicity of historical figures I generally find it best to look at what scholarly biographical works and encyclopedias have to say; If those are not available I think it best to look at the preponderance of sources say, giving weight proportional to the detail/depth of biographical material each source provides; Depending on the level of agreement among the sources it is sometimes best to simply avoid ethnic terms ie 'he was a Nestorian from Wherever'. Only in the last resort would I recommend using the 'Some say he was X, while others say Y' format. In this case I am leaning towards what the biographical articles in encyclopedias say although I am open to, and will continue looking for, biographical sources which say otherwise.  Jbh  Talk  20:13, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't have an opinion on the topic itself. I reported one of you for edit warring after a 3RR violation, that's all. Sorry. Pinkbeast (talk) 19:50, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Jbhunley, Thanks man, I really appreciate your comment. The sources that I have mentioned are all authentic. Most are already linked in the article, while the rest I will provide their respective links tomorrow.


 * Just to add more perspective to your comment. Hunayn ibn Ishaq was a member of the Ibad, who were an Arab community that converted to Nestorian Syriac Christianity and lived in al-Hira. They were versed in both Arabic (their native tongue) and Syriac (their liturgical language).
 * Karl-Heinz Ohlig:

"'The 'Ibad are tribes made up of different Arabian families that became connected with Christianity in al-Hira.'"


 * Encyclopedia Iranica:

"'Ḥira became renowned for its literate population of Arab Christians, or ʿEbād [al-Masiḥ] “devotees [of Christ].” '"


 * So, as you can see, the matter is undisputed. The root of the argument can be traced back to the fact that in the 20th century, the Nestorian church changed its name into "the Assyrian church of the east", a name it has never had before. That is why some modern uninformed authors might confuse all Iraqi Nestorians as being Assyrians, which is both anachronistic and historically-wrong. Viaros17 (talk) 20:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * yes, that is why, as mentioned above, I tend to weight sources based on how in depth the biographical material. For instance if a source just contains a passing mention of ethnicity for context — "He was an Arab physician…" or "He was an Assyrian physician … who wrote X" without further detail — I do not give much credence to the statement because the purpose of the statement, generally, is to place the person in time and place rather than to give biographical information and, as you said, is subject to confusion, misinterpretation or just a bad assumption. While sources which provide in-depth biographical material will, generally, avoid such pitfalls since their purpose is to relate accurate biographical information. Jbh  Talk  20:25, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * As i promised previously, i endorse you opinion on this issue and self reverted. Thanks for your valuable time and insight here. Take care.—>Farawahar (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you and you are quite welcome. Enjoy your weekend  Jbh  Talk  20:25, 12 May 2018 (UTC)