Talk:Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

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Date of birth
Someone has tagged this article indicating that it needs a precise day and date of birth. However, the sources do not appear to agree on Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's DOB. Estimates seem to vary and span the years 1919 -1921. None of these sources provides the level of detail that the tagger expects.


 * 1919 (the date given in the current article)
 * New York Times article reporting the destruction of his home, Online: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/world/middleeast/22house.html
 * Denys Johnson-Davies, The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010. p. 198

given by the following sources:
 * 1920
 * * Mejcher-Atassi, S., "Shakir Hassan Al Said," in Mathaf Encyclopedia of Modern Art and the Arab World, Online: http://www.encyclopedia.mathaf.org.qa/en/bios/Pages/Shakir-Hassan-Al-Said.aspx
 * * Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (Author), Issa J. Boullata (Translator), The First Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood, (author's autobiography) 1995
 * * Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā, In Search of Walid Masoud: A Novel, Syracuse University Press, 2000, [author biographical notes on inside cover]

BronHiggs (talk) 00:34, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The tag mentioned above, stated that: "Statistical information, such as date and place of birth, information on historical significance, and information on accomplishments is desired."


 * I have been able to expand this article by addressing 2 out of 3 issues. Considerable material on the person's historical significance and accomplishments has been added. However, it is unlikely that the statistical information on his date of birth will ever be added. It does not seem realistic to expect that type of information about a person who was an exiled Palestinian, and who lived through a particularly turbulent period in Palestine, and again later in Iraq. He likely could not provide birth certificates to support their date of birth or to produce a genealogy.


 * In the scholarly literature, three years, namely 1919, 1920 and 1921 are bandied about. In the subject's own memoirs, he consistently gives his year of birth as 1920. Now, I realise that primary sources are seen as unreliable (and sometimes downright "evil") in Wikipedia culture. Of course, it is possible that the subject may have underestimated his age for various reasons. Having said that, and in the absence of any other authoritative account, I am inclined to accept 1920 as the year of birth. At the very least, it occupies the middle ground of the estimates that appear in scholarly accounts. And, on that point, there is absolutely NOTHING in Wikipedia policy that prevents primary sources from being used in conjunction with other sources. Indeed, the policy goes as far as stating explicilty that primary sources are NOT evil, even though that message clearly is not getting through to the majority of editors. So, I am going to update the bio and infobox with 1920 as DOB, and remove the tag. BronHiggs (talk) 06:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)