Talk:Jarwanid dynasty

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Juan Cole does not positively say that they were Ismailis. He simply guesses that they might be because Ibn Battuta described them as "Ghulaat." But Ibn Battuta describes them as Ghulaat because they used a Shi'ite call to prayer that said "Ali and Muhammad are the best of humanity, whoever denies this is an infidel." Ibn Battuta never even hinted that they might be Ismailis. In fact, Sunnis will often describe Twelvers as Ghulaat. Britannica is merely a tertiary source, and it does not provide evidence or sources for the claim. I have read all the primary sources on the Jarwanids and none state that they were Ismailis. In fact, their ancestor Jarwaan was a leading member of the Uyunid state that destroyed the Qarmatians. -- Slacker (talk) 13:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, it's clear from reading the Britannica article that its source was Cole. They both say that the Qarmatians were destroyed by "local Sunni tribes" (the Uyunids), but we now know that the Uyunids were Twelver Shi'ites, not Sunni. -- Slacker (talk) 13:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

OK I just wanted to say something to explain my point of view. The lead sentence should stick to the general idea and eschew controversial points. I think it's enough in the first sentence to say "Shi'a" without specifying what sect, because the rest of the article adequately explains the Ismai'ili theory and the Twelver theory. -- Slacker (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point of view. However, if i may say, i think you are being overly conservative. I also disagree with your opinion about sticking to the general word shia; rather than a specific title such as twelver or ismaili shia. The job of wikipedia is to give visitors as detailed an article as is possible- as long as it is authentic. That said, i would now like to argue, and hopefully convince you, of the authenticity of my opinion- that the Jarwanids were an Ismaili shia dynasty.

1. Of all the references i researched in order to reach my ismaili shia conclusion, none explicitly mentioned that the jarwanids were twelver shia. These sources either only mentioned a plain shia affiliation, or as reference 2 shows, an explicit ismaili affiliation.

2. As you mentioned, certain distinguished historians suspected the jarwanids of ismaili affiliation. Also, if you look-up the Qarmatians (section: Collapse) page on wikipedia, the aforementioned opinion is further reinforced.

3. I think you are making an overly conservative assumption, by believing that just because the jarwanids opposed the qarmatians they must not have been ismailis. this is incorrect. The qarmatians (by the time of the jarwanids) could not be simplisticly classified as ismailis. In reality, they had diverged significantly from ismaili thought, and a proper ismaili would most definitely have opposed their extreme departure from the traditional ismaili thought. Therefore, it would be no surprise at all that ismaili jarwanids would oppose the excesses of the qarmatians.

With the points i have mentioned i hope you will agree with my opinion. I believe it is the stronger of the 2 differing points, and i believe it should be included on the page until a stronger argument against it can be decisively brought forward. Otherwise, if you still disagree, i at least hope to hear from you and your accompanying arguments. May the spirit of openess espoused by Wikipedia live on!!!! MR.SPECIFICS (talk) 11:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, first off, there is no point trying to convince each other of one POV or another, as that may have us run afoul of WP:OR. Our job here is to accurately reflect the sources.  You are (and I'm not impugning your good faith in any way) being selective with the source material and giving undue weight to one theory.  Now, having said that, since you seem like an open-minded fellow with a genuine interest in the actual history, I will go ahead and show you why the Ismaili theory is highly, highly problematic, and why I am about 99.99% sure that they were not Ismailis, and 100% that they were not Qarmatians.


 * With regards to point (1), you are wrong. Al-Humaydan, for example, explicitly says that they were Twelvers, and Al-Humaydan is a more qualified authority on eastern Arabian history than Cole. His works on the Usfurids and the Jabrids are classics in the field, and some of his work is even cited (if memory serves me correctly) in Encyclopedia of Islam.  Reference 2 is only a tertiary source (another encyclopedia), so it is not as strong.  It does not give a source for the claim either, though I think it is clearly relying on Cole if you compare what it says to Cole's writing, especially since Cole is mentioned in the bibliography.


 * With regards to point (2), the only distinguished historian who says that they are Ismailis is Cole (who is an expert on Shi'ism, not on eastern Arabia). Even Cole admits that his view is based on conjecture, and it is in fact very weak. Cole relies on two things and two things only:
 * (I) Ibn Battuta describing the people of Qatif as رافضية غلاة (extreme Rafidhis). Even Cole never claims that this is indisputable evidence; he just says he imagines that this is how a Sunni might describe Ismailis. [ Ibn Hajar does not say "extreme Rafidhis" but rather says من كبار الروافض, meaning "among the greatest of the Rawafidh")
 * (II) A quote by an Egyptian cleric, Al-Sakhawi, writing long after the Jarwanids' demise, describing them as "remnants of the Qaramita." Here, even Cole is unsure: he says it merely "suggests" Ismailism.  So if Cole is unsure, then why should WP take a position, when there are others who take another view?


 * Now, let me show you why Cole is dead wrong.


 * Regarding the Ibn Battuta quote, here it in its entirety: ثم سافرنا إلى مدينة القطيف، وهي مدينة كبيرة حسنة ذات نخل كثير، يسكنها طوائف العرب، وهم رافضية غلاة، يظهرون الرفض جهاراً لا يتّقون أحداً ، ويقول مؤذنهم في اذانه بعد الشهادتين: اشهد أن علياً وليّ الله، ويزيد بعد الحيعلتين: حيّ على خير العمل.. ويزيد بعد التكبير الأخير ـ أي بعد الانتهاه من الأذان: محمد وعليّ خير البشر، من خالفهما فقد كفر. I don't know if you can read Arabic, so I'll translate it for you:


 * Then we traveled to the city of Al-Qatif, which is a good city with many palm groves. It is inhabited by tribes of Arabs, and they are extreme Rafidha who announce their Rafidhism publicly and do not hide it from anyone [he uses the word taqiyya here].  Their muezzin says in his call to prayer after the Shahada: "I bear witness that Ali is the waliyy of God" and he adds "hayya 'ala khayri al-amal."  And he adds after the last takbir: "Muhammad and Ali are the best of humanity, whosoever fails to follow them is an unbeliever."


 * Now you can see here that Cole's conclusion is completely unwarranted.


 * First of all, Ibn Battuta is not even talking about the rulers here (the Jarwanids); he is describing the citizens of Qatif. Cole already admits that the ordinary populace were Twelvers, so the whole quote is irrelevant.


 * Second, even if, for argument's sake, he was describing the Jarwanid rulers themselves, clearly what offended Ibn Battuta was not Ismailism (of which there is no hint of in this quote), but rather that the people of Qatif announced their Rafdh openly and brazenly without fear or taqiyya, and that is why he described them as "extreme." Ibn Battuta came from 14th century Morocco, where Shi'ism was virtually unknown, and that is why open practice of Shi'ism offended his religious sensibilities.  Furthermore, Cole is completely wrong to think Sunnis would only use the term "Rafidhiyya Ghulaat" to refer to Ismailis.  Until the 20th century, most Sunnis referred to all Shi'ites as Rafidha, and any Shi'ite who openly attacked the three Caliphs was liable to be considered Ghali.


 * Third, again even if he was describing the Jarwanids, most Ismailis would not have a need to hold congregational prayers and do not even use a call to prayer at all.


 * Moving on to the Sakhawi quote. Sakhawi says "remnants of the Qaramita."  Sakhawi lived and wrote during the period of the Jabrids, so he was not a contemporary of the Jarwanids, and he wrote in Egypt, so he was not familiar with eastern Arabia.  But anyway, you seem to agree that the Jarwanids could not possibly have been Qaramita, because the Qaramita had already abandoned any pretense of Ismailism or Islam way back in the 4th Islamic century.  Therefore, I do not need to belabor the point that their promotion of Twelver Shi'ism means they could not possibly have been Qaramita.  Now, if we agree that, Sakhawi notwithstanding, they were not Qaramita, how can we possibly conclude from Sakhawi's quote that they were Ismailis? It is a non-sequitur.  COLE RECOGNIZES THIS, which is why he says it merely "suggests" that the Jarwanids may have been Ismailis.


 * But, just to explain the context of Sakhawi's quote, Sakhawi was a conservative Sunni. So, he was liable to paint Shi'ites with a broad brush.  His description of the Jarwanids was merely incidental to a short, praise-laden biography of the second Jabrid ruler, the Maliki Sunni Ajwad ibn Zamil.  He was describing how the Jabrids came to power by killing the last Jarwanid ruler, "a remnant of the Qaramita."  So clearly he was just contrasting the "good" Sunni ruler with the "bad" Shi'ite ruler.  Since this was Bahrayn, he found the Qarmati epithet to be appropriate.  Shi'ites in that region are still sometimes abusively called descendants of the Qaramita even today.  So, Sakhawi did not literally mean they were Qaramita, and he never mentions Ismailism either.


 * Now, on the other hand, Cole gives us mountains of evidence that they were NOT Ismailis:


 * (1) The populace was Twelver
 * (2) The Jarwanids actively promoted Twelver practice and ritual
 * (3) The Jarwanids employed Twelver judges and officials
 * (4) The Jarwanids appointed the greatest Twelver scholar of the day as the chief of the hisba
 * (5) A member of the Jarwanid house was a distinguished Twelver scholar!!!!
 * (6) Qarmatians had not ruled the region since the 11th century, when they were replaced by the Twelver Uyunids for nearly 2 centuries. [OK this was not mentioned by Cole, I don't think, but it shows that Twelverism had already replaced the Qaramita completely]
 * (7) Cole does not give us a single shred of evidence of any trace of Ismailism in that region. We have many biographies and biographical dictionaries of Twelver scholars and personalities.  We know of dozens, perhaps hundreds of Twelver scholars, and many Twelver religious tracts from the period.  But where is the Ismaili religious leader at the time? (every Ismaili community has to have at least one leader!)  Where are the polemics by the Bahrani scholars arguing against Ismailism in favor of Twelverism?  Where are the Ismaili books from the region?  Is Cole telling us that the Jarwanid ruler was the only Ismaili in town????


 * In fact, it astounds me how Cole gives us argument after argument for them being Twelver, while blindly and religiously sticking to his initial assumption that they were Ismailis based simply on Ibn Battuta describing them as "Rafidha" and some guy in Egypt writing long after they were gone that they were "remnants of the Qaramita."


 * Anyway, like I said, even though there is a stronger source than Cole (Al-Humaydan) that says that they were Twelvers, and even though Cole is the only scholar that ever claimed that they were Ismailis, and even though I am quite sure that they were not Ismailis (and certainly not Qaramita), I recognize that there is another opinion, so I don't want to impose my view on the lead sentence. However, you should also recognize that the Ismaili theory is just that: a theory, based on some very weak and tenuous conjecture.  The article is fine the way it is: it gives both theories and the reasoning behind each one.  It should just say: "Jarwanids: Sh'ia dynasty ... bla bla bla ... some argue based on X and Y that they were Ismailis, others argue based on X and Y that they were Twelvers."  Why you would insist on the article taking a position in the lead sentence I just don't understand. Yes, I am being conservative, but we are supposed to be conservative here because we can't engage in Original Research. -- Slacker (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I honestly hope you have not perceived my dogged pursual of the ismaili view as being for an ulterior motive. This would be most unfortunate. I only seek to uphold the most authentic opinions that are presented to me. Having said that, i most definitely now see your POV as being a definite factual alternative. For that reason, i do agree with your opinion that the word ismaili should be omitted, and replaced with the simple shia descriptor. Thankyou for the oppurtunity to express the true spirit of the Wikipedia community; a spirit of mutual respect,openness, and education.MR.SPECIFICS (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, not at all. -- Slacker (talk) 15:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

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“ vassal of the Kingdom of Ormus”
I have yet to see a source claiming the Jarwanids were vassals of Ormus. Sources only claim that Ormus controlled the island of Bahrain. The core lands of Jarwanids was in Al-Hasa not in the small island of Bahrain. So Ormus controlling The Island of Bahrain and not Al-Hasa doesn't make the Jarwanids vassals to Ormus. Jasmkssnksskskskskz (talk) 18:42, 7 October 2022 (UTC)