Talk:Jahiliyyah

Overhaul
I will completely change this article so that it addresses Jahiliyya the era, since this is the most common meaning. The meaning in this article is not common at all. I hope to get opinions before I do so. AbbasAD (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey, sounds good to me. I'll give you my section-by-section analysis of the article:
 * The lede seems to make mention of this and contain cited sources to this effect. As far as I can see at present, it does not require change.
 * The section In the Quran basically just includes a quote from a primary source. While I do think inclusion of its Quranic references and usage is important and helpful to the article, it's not encyclopedic to just copy-paste chunks of the Quran like that and have that be a whole section.
 * The section Muslim Scholarship also has some of the same issues, as well as some undue weight and non-neutral tone, heavily promotional of Qutbism. It seems to describe some Muslims' perspective on the world today only tangentially related to the subject matter.
 * The section Jahili poetry is unsourced, contains puffery and weasel words, and is woefully incomplete. In its present state I'd recommend the whole section being removed.
 * The section Jahiliyya in contemporary society, again, has undue weight in a promotional tone of Qutbism.
 * ...as such, I think that some of the things that would really help the article would be a clear distinction between sections discussing its usage in an ancient context (i.e. pre-Islamic societies that later convert to Islam) and in its application to modern-day societies and conditions. Some historical commentary on pre-Islamic society's conditions would be particularly helpful, such as the Hijaz under Quraish rule. William Montgomery Watt is usually an excellent source on things like that. Peter Deer (talk) 21:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

untitled comments
It would be useful to have phonetic spellings for non-english words like Jahiliyyah, or even wav file links. Since some languages have phonemes missing from English, I think a wave file is necessary.

Joshua Scholar

This page seems extremely oriented towards modern conceptions following those of Qutb. NPOV is needed. em zilch 06:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Although the article quotes Qutb's words, but it also quotes Dr. Hina Azam who is anti-Qutbi. That creates a balance in the article. If you think otherwise, please explain. --Islamic 20:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is off
I am surprised by the content of this article. Jahiliyya is not an Islamic concept relating to "ignorance of following Islam", it simply specifically refers to the pre-Islam era of Arabs, regarded by some historians to reach back 150 years before the start of the religion. The era was named so not only because of it preceding Islam, but also because of other traits of that particular era such as tribal pride and loyalty which to many over-ruled some ethics and morals. To say that "By extension, it has come to refer to the state of anyone not following Islam and the Qur'an" is completely incorrect. I say this because despite my reading and living in the Middle East I have never once heard this sort of definition.

Also, shi'r jahili does not mean "ignorant poetry", it literally means "Poetry from AlJahiliyya".

An article under this name should discuss the society and other aspects of pre-Islam Arabs. I call for a complete overhaul, and I hope some of the editors agree with me on this. AbbzAD (talk) 00:08, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Problem Term?
I think the correct form to express this point would be to use the adjetive ie. "Problematic Term".erasmocbc 17:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Emilyzilch - the term originally means a period of time in Islamic history and more need to be written about it. --80.178.234.123 19:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree - not an expert, but could someone with a broader view on this perhaps add something on Jahiliyyah in Islamic historyography and it's implications for the preservation of pre-Islamic literature, artifacts etc.. I recall reading, for example, that this concept endangered the pre-Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia that were revealed in a recent satellite survey... 213.121.242.7 (talk) 13:02, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the period of the Jahaliya was a wonderful time for Arab litterature and poetry, more needs to be mentioned about the great language acheivements of this more civilized age.

Implicit in this page, others that refer to it, and a few other Wikipedia pages is the idea that "pre-Islam" equates to "before the prophet Muhammed" or before "the rise of Islam" (whatever that means). Most Muslims will agree that Islam is an ancient religion of which Muhammed was the last (and greatest) of prophets; in other words, Islam did not begin with the prophet Muhammed.

This is important, because if care is not taken, this sloppiness of thinking leads to the great mistake amongst non-Muslims of calling Muhammed the "founder" of Islam (which can cause great offence). --The Lesser Merlin 11:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

attempted cleanup
Added footnotes and shortened a rather silly section on "false consciousness." --BoogaLouie 18:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism?
This edit caught my eye. It contradicts the previous content and does not align with the linked page. 5.28.71.37 (talk) 20:29, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Jahiliyya as iconoclastic rationale
Muslim justifications for destruction of ancient ruins, artifacts and records (not not only in Arabia) have been related to jahaliyya. Another trace of my start of new section in this entry... >Jahiliyya is associated with iconoclasms. In 2015, the ancient history scholar Lucinda Dirven noted that in the ongoing destruction of antiquities by the Islamic State, the religious rationale also covers for economic and political factors. "Cultural cleansing is a way to claim political power within a certain territory as well as control over history." The assyriologist Eckart Frahm said,  "Such iconoclasm is not specifically Islamic... What is quite unique in the case of ISIS is that the destruction is directed against images that are thousands of years old, often damaged, and no longer worshipped by anyone, and that there is a concerted effort to use these acts of vandalism as propaganda by broadcasting them through videos."

Addition with primary source citation
An IP user has been trying to add this text. The citation is titled "Islamic Books by Ibn Taymiyyah Maqdisi and Abdullah Azzam". This actually corresponds to three different authors: Ibn Taymiyyah (medieval scholar), Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abdullah Azzam (two al-Qaeda ideologues). It's unclear which author is being cited here, but all these are primary texts. The policy WP:PRIMARY forbids interpretative or synthetic statements based on primary sources, and this generalization about Islamic belief fits into that category. IP user, if you'd like to argue for inclusion of this material, for starters please identify the author so we can assess if their view would be due in the lead or indeed in the article. If we can agree on that, we'll next look at the specific text to make sure its summary complies with WP:PRIMARY. Better yet, I recommend looking for a non-primary source, such as an academic text about Islam. Also pinging the involved editor, in case they're interested in the discussion. Eperoton (talk) 03:44, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Primary source and original research issue rectified. Cited 3 different links this time, 2 from harvard and oxford. I trust there won't be any further issue. Thank you for your clarification and assistance.

Good day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.196.180.33 (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for finding non-primary sources, but the passages you've paraphrased still come from the primary sources quoted there. To make a generalization in WP voice, it needs to be made by the author of the non-primary source. When you take a quote from Qutb and present it as the view of "Islam", that's a violation of WP:OR. I've attributed these quotes and moved them to the appropriate place in the article. The lead is a short summary of the article and should not give undue weight to Qutb's views. Eperoton (talk) 21:17, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

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Jewish Diaspora
''I noticed that this section was excluded based on an "individual" decision. Therefore I want to include it here for further discussions'':

After the Bar Kochba Revolt of 132-135 CE, the Romans engaged in mass executions, expulsions, and enslavement, destroying large numbers of Judean towns and forbidding Jews from settling in Jerusalem, which was renamed Aelia Capitolina, or its environs (Dio Cassius, Roman History 69.12-14); there was no further Jewish government or overarching legal system thereafter in Judea, became normatively known as Syria Palestina; this effectively turned the expatriate Jews of the Diaspora into a permanently exiled people, deprived of their homeland. The exiled Jewish population went out of the Roman territories to the exile in Arabia Deserta. In Arabic, the term "Diaspora", Jaliyyah (compare גולה Golah ), is derived from the verb  (compare גָּלָה galah ). The term of that era was later scorned by Muslims to Jahiliyyah to refer to "ignorance" instead. The same mockery was used with Amr ibn Hishām "Abu al-Ḥakam" (أبو الحكم), ("Father of wisdom") who was called Abu Jahl (أبو جهل‎‎), ("Father of ignorance"); and with Maslamah bin Habib who was known as Musaylimah which means Mini-Maslamah. The term Jaliyyah (جالية) was used afterwards to refer to the Non-Muslims who should pay the Jizya. Sebeos, an Armenian bishop and historian, recorded the collaboration between the Jews and the Muslims to retake Jerusalem from the Christian Byzantine empire.


 * refs

Potentially add a new section on the debate regarding Jahiliyyah as having temporal connotations originally or simply being a state of being?
Hey everyone; added a couple of sentences under the etymology section detailing this debate. There is a lot of recent literature on this subject now in journals and am wondering if it would be worth expanding? Remthebathboi2 (talk) 22:53, 6 October 2020 (UTC)