Talk:Saqifa

I am not sure it's accurate to call him the founder of Islam. That is like calling Jesus the founder of Christianity or Abraham the founder of Judaism. He is a focal point but he was not the first Muslim (his wife was) so, I don't think that is a correct way to put it. gren —Preceding undated comment added 02:17, 22 December 2004 (UTC)

The details of saqifa
The details should be presented using authentic references. The phrase "the details of which are highly contested" is not a good reason to justify avoiding to disclose the narrated facts. Mhhossein (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Complete revision
One down, and Succession to Muhammad to go. This is a complete rewrite. I've tried to make it as NPOV as possible. We'll see what happens.

Besides all the stubs to be done, we also need references to Sunni and Shi'a accounts of the meeting. I took three hours to write this with just Ibn Ishaq and Madelung, and didn't take the time to google. It would be good to have a selection of Sunni and Shi'a websites with their versions of the matter. Zora 00:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I added some to the Shia section. Now we only need to wait for the VFD and the regular accusations of Shia biased propaganda :) --Striver 22:43, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, dang it, Striver, the Shi'a section is now a DISGRACE. You know your command of English is poor. You know that I'll rewrite if you bring up a good point in Talk. Why do you INSIST on presenting the Shi'a as illiterate tub-thumpers? Zora 00:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Well said. --AladdinSE 03:37, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Muslim

 * Striver, well written and an excellent article that introduces topics better than many I have seen. To those that advocate putting more in the Sunni section, after many debates it is apparent to me that there is not much of a Sunni section at all. The answer by the

Sunni brothers is that one should forget about the whole incidence and go on. In this regard there are two groups. One group wants to completely refuse all proof and label anyone discussing the issue as an enemy who hate what they call the pure sahaba and, the other, that think that it's no use crying over spilled milk as they call it. What is important for them to understand is that if Ali [as] was Divinely commissioned to make sure the real sunna of our Holy Prophet [saww] was not changed and appointed as a Khalifa by Allah, then we cannot forget about anything. Especially when there were wars over the same issue and there are so many interpretaions of the correct sunna. It is this point that rather needs to be dicussed and understood.

Striver, I went through your version and found the claims relating specifically to Saqifah that I had not included, and I wrote them into the Shi'a section. I deleted the rest of your version, and here's why:

You dragged in everything but the kitchen sink in trying to prove the complete Shi'a case against Abu Bakr and Umar. This article is only about Saqifah, it is not intended to cover the whole succession dispute. I am working on rewriting the Succession article right now -- I've spent hours and hours on it -- and many of the matters you included will be covered there. By the way, please DON'T start writing articles like "The Event of the Pen and Paper". That's completely opaque and useless.

It is not fair or right for the Shi'a section to be five times longer than the Sunni section.

A great many of your references are annexed from the tradition of Sunni-Shi'a debate, which I'm starting to think requires its own article. The game seems to be proving YOUR case with references to works that the opponent is believed to accept, which is why you cite Bukhari and Muslim so much. Most readers of this article will not be Sunnis and they are not going to accept Bukhari as an unimpeachable source. The Sunni hadith are completely irrelevant. Most readers are going to be more impressed with academic references. It's as if I were to try to convince you of something and kept bringing up quotations from Dogen Zenji to prove my points. "Dogen Zenji says X, so there!" That would leave you completely cold, because you don't recognize Dogen Zenji as an authority. Well, the hadith-hurling style of argument is just as irrelevant to Wikipedia.

I am rewriting the Succession to Muhammad article to remove all the hadith-hurling, which I think should be put in the Sunni-Shi'a debate article. It is a long-running debate, centuries old, with its own history and intricacies. It's worthy of attention -- it just shouldn't hijack all the Islamic history articles. Zora 00:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Zora, i hade no hadith dumping. I quoted where it was in place, quoted or not, the information needs to be there. As far as the preeceding events, why not have a succesion box following a timeline? As for the other events like the "pen and paper" event, it is a relevant and often refered to event and i realy do not see why it does not deserve its own aritcle, but this one does. --Striver 09:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Zora, you are in violation of WP rules, do not delet information. Is it a new rule that the minority also need to have less space than the others? As long as there is relevant informatino to write, it will be writen. And the reason i quote Sunni sources is simply that i am more accustomed with them. If you find a Shia source for it, you are more than welcome to add it as well. --Striver 22:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Striver, it is not exactly a rule... it's common sense to have some sense of proportionality. We are not going to represent Qur'an aloner views on hadith equally with Sunni.  Zora didn't violate any rules... to put it maybe crudely yet very correctly your edits sucked... it's good they were reverted... your edits are incredibly paranoid. gren グレン 04:53, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Zora is not in violation of WP rules. There is such a thing as the art of narrative of which you possess absolutely nil. You cannot dump large tracts of religious text like that with no analytical condensation. Don't you notice how the rest of the articles in an encyclopedia are written? Do you not notice a huge difference in general style with your own? That should tell you something. --AladdinSE 03:47, August 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * I know that i dont write good, i have admited it and its common knowledge. Wikipedia does not demand that i write good, however it does demand that information is not to be deleted due to pov or bad grama. Stop deleting, fix what is wrong. I am reporting the Shia view, in the Shia view section.


 * If the information is to big and is dominatning the article, we can have a summary and have the complete version in a "shia view of Saqifah". --Striver 17:35, 30 August 2005 (UTC)


 * No, we don't have to include all your "information" -- some "information" is not encyclopedic. I'm trying to give the gist of your arguments, and cutting the hadith dumps. When I get round to writing Sunni-Shia debate, the hadith dumps could find a home there, if not in their current form. The best thing you could do, Striver, is to provide links to Shi'a sites -- the ones that you're using as sources of argument and hadith -- where real Shi'a scholars, who can spell and write grammatical English, can make a better case than you can. Do you want to convince people? Let them do it. Zora 18:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I dont need to hear you calling legit information on the topic for "information". The topic is Saqifah. The section is the Shia view. I represent the shia view of Saqifah there. I did extensive sourcing. You do not have the right to remove the information. Dont like the spelling? Fix it. Dont like the grama? Fix it. To much verbatim quoting? Refrase it. But do not delet the information. As in your version, the Shia view of the timeline is not represented.--Striver 03:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If the page links to Shi'a sites with what Shi'a think is detailed "information", there's no need to present it all here. I also dispute your assessment of your material as "information". You're presenting polemics. Zora 07:23, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Rename
Saqifah is a arabic word meaning something i dont remeber, so im going to rename the article to The meeting at Saqifah. --Striver 16:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Striver, you don't DO that without consulting other people. Saqifah means shed, and it is the usual shorthand for the meeting. The title you picked is bad WP style -- we don't use "the"s. I'm going to move the article BACK. Zora 10:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * So the article describing the event is named "shed", and not "the meeting at the shed"? Sure. Lets do that, im not going to bother... --Striver 11:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Some time have passed now. We need to fix the title of this article, this article can not simply be named "shed". Maybe "the meeting at the shed/Saqifah" or "the shed/Saqifah of Bani Sa`idah". Comments? --Striver 14:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Another complete revision
The article had been revised by Shi'a editors, and included huge swathes of Shi'a polemic and invention presented as fact, and later worked over by a Hizb ut Tahrir editor who larded it with references to caliphs and the caliphate.

I cut it down drastically. This is NOT the place to argue the succession to Muhammad, Shi'a/Sunni differences, or push HuT propaganda. Zora 08:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please be civil, provide evidence of the specific sentences you believe are Shia inventions, and what exactly you object to in menioning the word caliphate, after all that was what the purpose of the meeting was about. For your information do not throw around wild accusations, I am not a HT memeber, and most of what you deleted was not added by me, but was referenced so we cannot delete it unless it is challenged. Please list the sentences, or statements you diagree with and we can talk about it sis. I concede your point that there is a Shia bias, especially citing sources 2,3,7 & 8 is disingenious, because they are Shia websites, so it does need a reworking, but try and list your objections first Aaliyah Stevens 18:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Read Crone and Hinds; book, God's Caliph, which discusses the invention and use of the term khalifa. They believe that it was first used as khalifat Allah, meaning deputy of God, by the Umayyads starting with Uthman, and was only later understood as khalifat rasul Allah, successor to the prophet of God. They argue that hadith claiming that Abu Bakr and Umar called themselves khalifat rasul Allah are later, anti-Umayyad, inventions. Abu Bakr and Umar were leaders of the faithful, amir al-muminin. Hence larding the discussion with references to the caliphate is anachronistic and POV -- because it's assuming that the caliphate is the characteristic institution of Islam, and that it has always meant the same thing.

As for being civil -- if I say that the article should not be used to push HuT propaganda, and you assume that I'm talking about you, then you're the one accusing yourself of POV pushing. Zora 20:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)< -My what a clever point! Who are you referring to then?


 * Crone and Hinds; book, God's Caliph is a POV in itself, and contradicted by many western scholars (e.g. John O. Voll: Professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University), contradicts the Shia and Sunni scholars, and historical records, on the use of the term, but assuming they may have a point, so what? Call the caliph Amir al-Mu'mineen if you like, and call the Caliphate, the Imarat-al-Mu'mineen, or Imamah. The point is; it was a dispute on who should be the "successor" to Muhammads authority, or Imam of the ummah, or Amir of the believers, they are all the same. And for all intents and purposes, the ENGLISH terms Caliphate, and Caliph is de-facto term used now to refer to Abu-Bakr, whether the term khaleefa was used at his time or not. This is wikipedia engllish, and you can look up any dictionary on the meaning of these terms, you cannot contradict the english dictionaries, (let alone the arabic ones like lisan-al-arab)


 * If the term Caliph is what you have a problem with, as this is the only thing you have listed, then I will replace it with Amir-al-Mu'mineen, or leader of the Muslims. YOu still need to list your other issues if you want them changedAaliyah Stevens 21:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You have restored some completely A-HISTORICAL material
All those quotes from a Shi'a website are complete invention. If they aren't, they should be sourced to wherever the Shi'a got them.

Your lavish insertion of links to caliph, caliphate, Islamic state, etc. are links, I think, to other articles that have been slanted to the HuT POV. This is definitely an attempt to use WP for sectarian purposes. The links are not needed to explain the article, which should be a minor one. All the major arguments should be at Succession to Muhammad. This is not the place to push your agenda. Zora 23:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Enlighten me on what my agenda is? Please calm down, and be civil, I want to accomodate you as much as I can, and I recognise that the article has a Shi'i slant, hence I have already removed material.  I am neither pro-Shia or Sunni/HT on this, but we can't remove referenced material just like that, and just because the article uses the words Caliph does not mean it is automatically a HT slanted article - HT do not and should not have a monopoly on the word, after all it is the core political institution of Sunni Islam, this fact is undisputed, regardless of if you believe it is an invented word, the Sunni Ulema considered it core to their political theology. I have removed most mention of the word caliph, and caliphate, except where it is used in the referenced quotes, or it states that a particular sect argue a point regarding it. Guillaume's translation of Ibn Ishaq is not a Shia source, ibn Ishaq is accepted by Sunnis, as a tabi'i. Ibn Ishaq has the earliest account of the whole issue, so we cannot discount him. I have removed more, but I am at a loss to work out what you want: I will remove anything you suggest if it is not properly referenced, or you convince me is irrelevent, please provide a specific list of issues you have instead of throwing accusations, possibly quote which parts you disagree with, and then we can move forward. Aaliyah Stevens 11:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Aaliyah, I have my copy of Guillaume's translation of Ibn Ishaq sitting right here in front of me and all the dialogue that has been added, from a Shi'a site, is not in Ibn Ishaq. It's either invented, or taken from some unspecified earlier source. You can't put it in an encyclopedia as if it were some reliable source.

In the version I restored, there's a section for Ibn Ishaq and a section for other sources. The account in Tabari is long, but I could insert chunks of that, in yet another section. If you want to find relevant hadith from the MSA database, you can. If you can read classical Arabic, and can find accounts of the meeting in Ibn S'ad, Waqidi, and Baladhuri, add them in the original and translate them. But don't defend material that's as unverifiable as dialogue from a taziyeh.

As for the repeated refs to caliph -- they're intrusive and the word wasn't even being used at that time, so far as I can tell. Translation of caliph as successor is POV -- Crone and Hinds say that it means deputy, which is how it is used in the Qur'an. The Umayyads called themselves khalifat Allah, deputies of God -- not khalifat rasul allah, successors to the prophet of God. You say that this is disputed -- fine -- argue it at the caliph article (which I really need to fix). Don't just blandly write your beliefs re the caliphate, and the centrality and necessity of the caliphate, into what should be a minor article. This article solely concerns what happened at the shed. It is not the place to push POVs or debate larger issues. Zora 21:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

To my extreme shame, I must humbly accept your points about ibn Ishaaq. I admit that although I have the book in arabic, I have not checked it. My problem is that I followed the 'Assume good faith' principle, in Islam, and as a policy in wikipedia. Feel free to edit those bits out. Regarding the definition of the english word Caliph and Calipahte, we simply need to look them up in english dictionaries. However it is defined in english dictionaries, is how it should be used. Regarding the arabic words Khaleef, and Khilafah, we can discuss this in the Caliph article, but it was a word used even before Muhammad, and by Allah to refer to Adam, and if needs be I can prove my point in that article, with reference to ancient arabic dictionaries. Thanks for you patience, and hope to speak soon Aaliyah Stevens 22:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

=Revise=

"Sunnis believes that Abu Bakr, first converter to Islam, Muhammad’s closest companion, adviser and Mohammed's father-in-law, is the successor of Mohammed, because he was the one had been appointed by the prophet to led Muslims in their prayers at Prophet's Holy Mosque at the time of the prophet's illness"

Abu Bakr was not the first converter to Islam. Ali is credited in more accounts to have been the first early convert to Islam. Change it or make it neutral and add "by some accounts Abu Bakr is believed to have been the ...

I am the city of knowledge and Ali' is it's gate so whoever desires knowledge let him enter the gate. Muhammad

24.80.105.24 (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)ditc

New edits
I'd like to improve the flow of the text, add a few new primary and secondary sources, and expand or clarify the Shia viewpoint in some places. I'll discuss major changes (if any) here on the talk page. Albertatiran (talk) 12:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)