Talk:Mount Lebanon revolts of 752 and 759

Feedback from New Page Review process
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&maltese; SunDawn &maltese;    (contact)   06:19, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Issues and suggestions
Hello Thank you for starting the article about this notable event in the history of medieval Lebanon. There are important issues which should be addressed, however. Please consider these suggestions to improve the article. If I can find some time in the coming days or weeks, I will attempt to tackle as well.
 * 1. The article currently relies on primary or outdated (and arguably polemical) sources when there are several high-quality, secondary English-language sources which touch on the subject to different degrees (see the list with page numbers below).
 * 2. The article should essentially be about the Munaytira (Mneitra) revolt of circa 759 by the Christian peasants of the region led by the self-proclaimed Mardaite king Theodore (Bundar, Bandar, or Baydar) in coordination with the Byzantines. The purported event of 752 is not discussed in scholarly sources. It could be kept as part of a ‘Background’ section with attribution to Ibn al-Qilai and/or Shidyaq. The revolt began in either 759/760 or, less commonly, in 760–761, and not as a continuous revolt from 752 to 760 as the article implies in the infobox.
 * 3. The article needs to be retitled to the common name for the event: 'Munaytira revolt' (or whatever the most common spelling of Munaytira is in the English scholarly sources discussing the revolt). Another legitimate alternative would be something along the lines of 'Mount Lebanon revolt of 759'. The phrase ‘Mardaite revolts’ has no apparent basis in the sources for this event, certainly not enough to be a common name, though I have seen the phrase occasionally used for the Byzantine-sponsored Mardaite raids against Umayyad Syria in the late 7th century.
 * 4. The conclusion that the suppression of the revolt marked the beginning of Lebanon’s 'Arabization' is not supported by the sources. If Shidyaq asserts this, which would be surprising, then we can attribute the conclusion to him. Otherwise, we cannot draw our own conclusion that the Tanukh tribesmen being settled in the area as a military buffer of sorts marks the start of this gradual process, which could have started long before or after this event. Al Ameer (talk) 17:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, I have added a secondary source that mentions the Baskinta revolt to complement the primary sources. I have also renamed the page to a more common name per your request. If you have any more issues please let me know. Red Phoenician (talk) 07:51, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for incorporating some of the suggestions. Salibi's mention of the purported event of 752 is only a passing mention in his commentary on Ibn al-Qilai's history of the Maronite community, part of Salibi's larger work on the 3 seminal Maronite historians, the other two being Duwayhi and Shidyaq. Neither Salibi nor any other modern, scholarly source (to my knowledge) discusses this revolt. Paul Cobb, an authority on the revolts against the Abbasids in the Levant, comments on the sources for the main subject of this article, the revolt of 759 or 760: "Secondary accounts of this revolt can be found in Kurd Ali, Khitat, 1: 51; [Farouk] Omar, [Abbasid] Caliphate, 316–17; Salibi, Syria [Under Islam], 35–37; Crone, Slaves [On Horses], 71. [Ihsan] Abbas, Bilad al-Sham, 136–38, has by far the most complete account to date. —Cobb 2001, p. 191, note 33."
 * I cannot speak on Abbas, since I do not have access to his work, but I can confirm that none of the other secondary sources listed by Cobb mention 752 or Elias. We cannot rely on old or primary sources like Ibn al-Qilai, or Haydar al-Shihabi. Secondary sources should not complement primary ones—if anything, the opposite can be true and only sparingly and with great care. Even though it is not ideal for an encyclopedia, it could be acceptable to include some folk or traditional history in a 'Background' section with attribution ("according to the 16th-century local historian Ibn al-Qilai", etc), but the event cannot be included in the title of this article, which must be limited to the revolt of 759/760. This issue should be addressed promptly. Eventually (hopefully soon), the article should be rewritten to reflect the secondary accounts, instead of the mainly primary sources on which it currently relies.
 * Hello, I have supplanted sources where possible. I do not understand the claim that Salibi both mentions and does not mention the Baskinta revolt. The event is discussed on pages 42-44 by Salibi where he analyzes and compares the different interpretations of the revolt by the mukhtasar, Duwayhi, and Shihabi with Salibi explicitly describing it in his own words on page 43: "Whatever the case, the emir of Baskinta appears to have been the typical Mardaite chieftain of Mount Lebanon during the Umayyad and early Abbasid period, who lived by raids and plunder and occasionally met a violent death." Furthermore, I do not understand the idea that all primary sources are inaccurate as Wikipedia's policy itself disagrees with this (see WP:SECONDARYNOTGOOD). Notably it gives an example of the use of primary sources in regard to information "about the conquest of the hypothetical country" stating that the proclamation's authenticity, meaning, relevance, importance, typicality, influences, and so forth should all be left to the book that analyzed it, not to Wikipedia's editors. Red Phoenician (talk) 05:56, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Salibi is not giving credence to Ibn al-Qilai's claim. This is a commentary and analysis by Salibi of Ibn al-Qilai's history work and narrative style. It is part of a larger work on the Maronite Historians. It is a great source for our articles on Ibn al-Qilai, Duwayhi and Shidyaq but I would generally avoid this work for articles about historical events. Duwayhi and Shihabi for that matter do not mention a rebellion in 752, and even if they did, neither hold more weight than modern, scholarly sources. Keep in mind, as a rule, our encyclopedia is based on modern, secondary sources, which we rely on to analyze earlier sources and primary sources. The SECONDARYNOTGOOD guideline does not apply here at all. That guideline is to make us aware that just because a source is 'secondary' does not automatically mean it is reliable or more reliable than a primary source. In our case, the secondary sources presented are all modern, high-quality, scholarly sources. That is not merely my opinion as an editor. Paul Cobb, author of a seminal work on the revolts against the Abbasids in the Levant (White Banners), explicitly lists the modern, secondary literature about this revolt. Those sources do not treat with a rebellion by an Elias or Yuhanna in 752, only by a Theodore/Bundar/Bandar/Baydar in 759/60 or 760/61. To be clear, high-quality, scholarly sources should always be relied on first and foremost. Primary sources can, at times, and if used carefully and a limited way, complement the modern, scholarly literature. So again, we cannot make the '752 revolt' a main subject of this article, which should be the 759 revolt, but we can include Ibn al-Qilai's story of a 752 revolt, with attribution, as background. Al Ameer (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)