Talk:Mark Ibn Kunbar

Arabic name
In this edit, I added the Arabic name مرقس بن قنبر المنشق (Marqus ibn Qunbar al-Munšaq), sourced to this page, because the subject matter is closely tied to the Arabic-speaking world. However, I noticed later that the epithet al-Munšaq might be derogatory and non-NPOV; while I don't speak Arabic, from what I do know about the language, it appears that the root n-š-q-q, from which this word is apparently derived, has to do with splitting (consider e.g. the Qur'anic verse اقْتَرَبَتِ السَّاعَةُ وَانشَقَّ الْقَمَرُ, The Hour has  come  near,  and  the  moon  has  split  [in  two].) منشق is also listed as a translation for separatist and dissident at Wiktionary.The reason that I find this to be a potential issue is that the source could be implying, using this name, that Ibn Qunbar was a heretic who sought to divide the religion. (I'm not familiar with the terminology that Christianity uses in such matters, but hopefully my point is understood.) The problem is that I was not able to find any other RS that mentions him in Arabic, and I don't know if it would be a good idea to remove the epithet from the end of the name while citing a source that contains it. M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 17:21, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the edit. I was hoping someone would add that in; I don't know any Arabic. The thing with Mark Ibn Kunbar is that according to most of the tertiary sources I found, all of the extant secondary sources are anti-Mark Ibn Kunbar. The most information is from Abu Salih the Armenian, who said that he was also known as Marqus ibn Qunbar al-Munšaq. Abu Salih was pretty anti-Mark Ibn Kunbar. Since Mark was excommunicated three times and officially declared a heretic by the Coptic church, I think it's not surprising that epithet was attached. Let me know what you think. Awsomaw (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess that makes sense, . So, if I'm understanding you correctly, we have a situation where the WP:COMMONNAME in the sources happens to be one that appears biased against Ibn Qunbar. If I'm not mistaken, the meaning of NPOV is that our "bias" must match that of extant sources... so I guess al-Munšaq can stay, then? M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 17:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , I would say so. Honestly, I wonder of "the blind" is also just a biased name, but it's really unclear from the sources I gathered if he was blind for his whole life or not. But we do have "Ibn Kunbar" as a disambiguator, so we in theory could remove it. Many tertiary sources don't mention al-Munšaq at all, they just have Mark Ibn Kunbar (or Qanbar, Kanbar). Awsomaw (talk) 19:41, 28 June 2020 (UTC)