Talk:Shia Islam in the Indian subcontinent

Percentage of Shias in Pakistan
I've added to the article the correct estimated percenage of Shias in Pakistan by using trusted academic and government sources. Below is a list of the sources and next to each is the estimate. We must accept the outcome of these sources as 5-20% for the Shia population of Pakistan. User:SyedNaqvi90's version of the article starts with "Approximately 30 percent of the Muslim population of Pakistan are Shia..." and attempts to use the following sources as references to back up the exaggerated number and his POV. SyedNaqvi90's version of the article is all his personal POVs and doesn't make sense to the average reader. For example it states "Many international sources claim Shia population of Pakistan to be around 10% - 25%, yet the Shia Muslims in Pakistan claim to be one-third of the country's Muslim population, a claim that seems to be justified by the Political influence in the country... All these are personal POV's and original research, which is rejected by all the top academic sources. Unless we find more stronger sources then Library of Congress, the Pew Research Center, Oxford University, U.S. State Department, CIA World Factbook, and etc., we must avoid pushing our own POVs and just report estimates given by them which is 5-20%.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 02:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Library of Congress Country Studies, Religion: The overwhelming majority of the population (96.3 percent) is Muslim, of whom approximately 95 percent are Sunni and 5 percent Shia.
 * Pew Research Center, 10-15% (also 10-15%)
 * Oxford University, 10-15%
 * Naval Postgraduate School (Vali Nasr), 30 million of 174 million people of Pakistan = around 15%.
 * University of Pennsylvania (Pakistan Studies), 20%
 * U.S. State Department, 10-20%
 * CIA World Factbook, 20%
 * PBS, 20%
 * Time (magazine), 15%
 * BBC News, 20%
 * The Times, 15%
 * Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival (Norton), 2006, p.160 (he doesn't agree with 30% because he said around 15% see above)
 * http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/5400.html (this link is again to the above Vali Nasr article which suggests Shias at around 15%)
 * http://www.islamicinsights.com/news/international-news/violence-against-pakistani-shias-continues-unnoticed.html (this is an unreliable Shia news website run by Shias, interestingly, they also use Vali Nasr a reference and we already have Nasr's estimate which is around 15%, not 30%)
 * http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-rqm2oipIDMJ:www.pol.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0007/15649/Saleem_Khan.doc+Pakistan+has+the+second+largest+Shia+population&cd=22&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=pk (link doesn't work)

FAO AllahLovesYou - Please dont distort statistics and present here to use as a tool to disturb the entire article at least for those which are clear with sources. One such example is Vali Nasr's 30 million claim. As an editor you should have taken into consideration the 30 million claim was made in year 2006 which you have not mentioned in the article while mentioning the figure in as late as in late 2010. Also Pakistan's total Population in 2006 was 165,873,928 of which 30 million constitutes over 18%. Hope you calculate well next time since you mentioned that figure as 15% which no where is correct. If you Claim the Library of Congress to be authentic enough to have reported Pakistan's Shias as 5% of its total population what do you have to say about CIA World Fact Book and the renowned publication of '''Gall, Timothy L. (ed). Worldmark Encyclopedia of Culture & Daily Life: Vol. 3 - Asia & Oceania. Cleveland, OH: Eastword Publications Development (1998); pg. 549 ISBN-10: 0-7876-0555-7 ISBN-13: 978-0787605551''' (ISBNs provided for your reference check) which are reputed think tanks and have reported Pakistan's Shia Population to be over 26-35 million in late 1990s i.e between 20%-25% so why have you not done methodical research of all reliable sources and inserted the claims of these much more reputed think tanks?? I will wait for some time for your explanation and then shall I revert your edits with undisputed and agreed reliable sources. Humaliwalay (talk) 07:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * About Vali Nasr's 2006 estimate, I clearly stated "around 15%" and that does cover the 18% you mentioned. In the article I only mentioned him stating "about 30 million" Shias in Pakistan and since you noticed me forgetting to add the year "2006" then you should've just added it without critisizing me over this minor issue. We are not living in 1990s, to know how many Shias there are in Pakistan we use the latest information provided by reliable sources such as the ones I added to the article. If you keep reverting you're just going to get your self blocked and this isn't what I wish for. We cannot rely on outdated information from the past or by unreliable sources when we have more than enough fresh ones by experts. If you think you are more of an expert than Vali Nasr, Library of Congress and Pew Research Center (think tank) in Washingtond DC, then show us your qualification or otherwise just learn to accept these as authoritive scholarly sources and go on. Your reverting or removing of sources and even your argument here may be considered disruptive because no Wikipedian in their right mind would reject such sources that you are trying to deny here. The article currently states 5-20%, which are reported by Library of Congress (5%) and CIA (20%), comes to 10-15% median and that is how Pew Research Center got their number. So, we can either use 5-20% or 10-15%.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If anyone is familiar with the Demography of United States, the African Americans are just 12% of total US population but some how they appear much more to the average people. Especially if you live in USA because you see huge number of African Americans in every state, city, county, township, etc. In 1995 they organzied the Million Man March to make everyone recognize their number strength, but nothing like this took place among Shias in Pakistan even when they are constantly attacked. This is just an indication that they are not as many as the CIA claims and gives us reasons to believe that the Library of Congress is more realistic about the numbers of Shias in Pakistan, which they claim at about 5%.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 19:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Library of Congress Country Studies is on the face of it a Reliable Source and if you disagree take it to the WP:RS/N, please revert pending this. Codf1977 (talk) 11:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

There has been mixed reaction on both Library of Congress studies and Library of Congress I asked twice the opinion separately for both hence the authenticity of these is disputed whereas there are ample of other source cited hence it doesn't seem factual accuracy being disputed, PEW is taken as reliable. If you want to know further refer the discussion on WP:RS/N, keeping into account the authenticity of sources tags are not needed here all references are with perfect citation. Please feel free to discuss further rather than distorting and disturbing the article. - Humaliwalay (talk) 08:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Do not mislead it is clear - they are reliable sources and should all be summarised. please re instate the disputed tag. Codf1977 (talk) 09:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Per a request on reliability of sources... I don't see that there's been mixed reaction on the LOC sturdy, there is no reason to not consider the it reliable. Per the summation at top here, 5% to 20% is what should be represented per reliable sources.
 * I also see benefit (addressing some of the other content deletions) to contrasting Pakistan with the global population. Understanding where Pakistan stands in relation to the overall is useful information. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 01:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

shianumbers.com
I see no indication that shianumbers.com meets Wikipedia's standards of reliability. It doesn't confirm all the information given by 119.160.118.46 anyway. Huon (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2015 (UTC)


 * @Huon, hello, well, the IP simply doesn't care about all of that, he/she's namely here with one reason and that's to spread a certain agenda. It would explain his/her zealous efforts to keep that link here while removing all others. - LouisAragon (talk) 12:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Establishing a consensus not to use that reference on the talk page can't hurt, if only to clearly establish that we did our part. If the IP editor doesn't join the discussion and does not present policy-based arguments for using that reference, that's not our fault. Huon (talk) 17:17, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Now the IP created an account to reinstate the same edit, with the same edit summary . I previously asked him to join the discussion as well in my edit summary, but to no avail. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi LouisAragon!I am here with your invitation.Thanks for inviting me to this talk page.(talk) 17:49, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The new sources still are unreliable, and worse, they're openly misquoted.
 * LUBP is an opinion piece on a blog. There's an explicit disclaimer that the opinions are the authors and don't represent LUBP. There is no indication of editorial oversight and fact-checking. And despite being cited for a total Shia population of 40 million, it in fact gives a number of 30 million.
 * ShiaNumbers.com also shows no indication of editorial oversight. Its sources include Wikipedia itself, but also the Pew Research Center which in fact gives an estimate of 10%-15%, or 17-26 million people in 2009. There's no way of telling how ShiaNumbers.com manages to arrive at almost double the numbers and 20%-25% - it's not even consistent, giving the (equally implausible) estimate of 18%-25% in the fine print.
 * Viewpoint Online is an opinion piece that takes the CIA World Factbook's numbers and extrapolates those. It cannot be more accurate than the World Factbook itself.
 * Conversely, Pew, the CIA, the Library of Congress Country Studies, Oxford and similar high-profile sources arrive at consistently lower percentages, with the CIA at 20% at the top of the range and the LoC at 5% at the very bottom. We should not take unreliable sources over reliable ones. Thus I have once again reverted. I'll also remove some redundancy that seems to have crept into the lead. Huon (talk) 19:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Sir no source show shia population as 5% and its very low as well because i belong to pakistan. User talk:119.158.10.163 19:46, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Numbers again
Every couple of months it's necessary to revert the page back to the version with highly reliable sources and the demographical figures based on those sources. As was discussed above, the Library of Congress is a priori reliable, and it should not be removed just because we disagree with the numbers it reports. Conversely, the source given for the "10%-25%" range was a Wikipedia mirror giving a copy of another of our articles - circular referencing. Wikipedia and its mirrors are not reliable. Huon (talk) 20:02, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Pew and 10 - 15 % Shias
In the process of one of my regular sweeps for faked numbers I have also removed the claim that according to a Pew survey, 6% of the population are Shias. What Pew actually said was that 6% of the respondents were Shias. That's hardly the same; there may be various kinds of bias (e.g. uneven geographical distribution of respondents, or a focus on presumed Sunnis for a study meant to show Sunni attitudes about Shias, or possibly a reluctance to publicly identify as Shia). Pew actually estimates the number of Shias in Pakistan to be 10%-15%. Huon (talk) 00:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I second what Huon said. This was an issue and I have fixed it--SharabSalam (talk) 00:15, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hereby the data from PEW webaite:-

Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 10:44, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

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Beginning of organised physical violence
On 21 April 1802, the puritanical followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab sacked the holy city of Karbala, killed more than 5000 Shias, and vandalized the holy shrines. In 1804, they attacked Prophet's Shrine in Medina and in 1805, Makkah, forcing people to adopt their creed. While this cruelty sent shock waves to the Muslims all around the globe, it encouraged Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Shah Ismail Dihlavi to take up arms and enforce their puritanical views. They were the pioneers of anti-Shia terrorism in the subcontinent. Barbara Metcalf says:

"A second group of Abuses Syed Ahmad held were those that originated from Shi’i influence. He particularly urged Muslims to give up the keeping of ta’ziyahs. The replicas of the tombs of the martyrs of Karbala taken in procession during the mourning ceremony of Muharram. Muhammad Isma’il wrote, ‘a true believer should regard the breaking of a tazia by force to be as virtuous an action as destroying idols. If he cannot break them himself, let him order others to do so. If this even be out of his power, let him at least detest and abhor them with his whole heart and soul’. Sayyid Ahmad himself is said, no doubt with considerable exaggeration, to have torn down thousands of imambaras, the building that house the taziyahs".

These attacks were carried out between 1818 and 1820. Rizvi has given more details about time, places and circumstances in which these attacks were carried out. In response to these attacks, some shias started to recite tabarra. Maulana Syed Baqir Dihlavi, the editor and owner of Dihli Urdu Akhbar, stopped them from doing so. After their death in Balakot in 1831 while being chased by Maharaja Rangit Singh's army, their legacy of sectarian terrorism continued. The incidents of Wahhabist Sunnis attacking Azadari gatherings were not uncommon. One such event is reported in Dehli Urdu Akhbar on 22 March 1840:

"Some Sunnis had come to attack the gathering of Taziyah-dari in the bungalow of Mrs. Amir Bahu Begum, the widow of Shams al-Din Khan. However, the magistrate came to know about it the night before. He met with the local police officer and ordered him to appoint sufficient force and stop the agitators from reaching there. As a result of timely measures, it was reported that the event concluded peacefully".

Another puritanical movement was launched in Bengal between 1820 to 1840 by Haji Shari’atullah. The following statement is inscribed on his grave:

"The learned of all learned, the exponent of Divine law in eloquent and elegant tongue, the source of all guidance in the land of Hind and Bengal. Defender of religion against the menaces of the Shi’ahs and the disbelievers against all falsehood and vanity, deliverer if Islam (which) was covered by darkness like the sun enveloped in clouds. Whose words in truthfulness were like mountains in the open field".

While Syed Ahmad’s military adventure failed costing him his life, his ideological legacy continued in the Deoband school of thought. Data shows that around 90 percent of religious terrorists in Pakistan are Deobandis by faith and many of them belong to the Pashtun belt (the area where Syed Ahmad carried out his military endeavour).

The said content is irrelevant, synthesized and questionable as to reliability and needs major rephrasal.

Karbala incident is not much relevant to this portion along with mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Shah Ismail Dehlavi's since the said sources give no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's and Shah Ismail Dehlavi's getting influenced and taking up arms against Shias from that event. The only mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi as to sectarian violence is in Barbara Metcalf's book which is just saying about his urgence to people for that thinking it to be unislamic. About torning down of imambarahs by him, she herself says that it is no doubt considerably exaggerated. The other scholar's mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi in sectarian violence needs to be clarified and the source itself needs to be checked with WP:HISTRS. Rest about the incident cited from Delhi's Urdu Akhbar has no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's link to it. The legacy part has an unreliable source and even that too has no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's link to it. It's just pushing a particular POV and amounts to WP:SYNTH and has language not up to WP:NPOV.

Thus the content below this heading needs a major rephrasal and poorly sourced and synthesized content needs to be removed. Thanks and regards! USaamo (t@lk) 13:39, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Nadir Shah was Shia
Nadir Shah is mentioned as Sunni. He was a Shia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2409:4043:2C9F:F51D:C9BF:C051:A06E:7629 (talk) 10:21, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

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India
A chronicle by an author named Bourienne mentioned that: during the age of Napoleon "religion in India would have been for Ali."

This is an opportunity to discuss the "Mogul Empire" where regions such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were mostly identified with the "Shia Islam".

11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)43.242.178.92 (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)/////////////11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)43.242.178.92 (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)//////43.242.178.92 (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Removed quotation about Tafazzul Husain Kashmiri
Having an entire sub-section about Tafazzul is undue in relation to this topic – Shia Islam in the Indian subcontinent. Tafazzul was a Shia, but his religion didn't influence what he was notable for – scientific writing and translation – and he didn't affect the course of the religion.

Scholar of Islamic studies Andreas Rieck wrote one sentence about Tafazzul in his The Shias of Pakistan (2015), as one example of "some of the pioneers of Islamic modernism in India had been Shias." If the intended point of including Tafuzzul in this article is that Shias in the Indian subcontinent have made contributions, surely that point could be made in just a sentence or two.

I have removed the following quotation to reduce the overuse of quotations in the article:

The pertinence of the quotation in relation to Shia Islam in the Indian subcontinent is unclear. Its tone, verbose and meandering, is unsuited to an encyclopedia. Readers won't know who William Palmer or Anderson were. If they're especially knowledgeable about the Mughal period, they might conceivably know William Jones, Burrow, and Shore, but they aren't relevant to Shia Islam and aren't mentioned again in this article. The fact that Tafuzzul translated Newton's Principia has already been established in the previous paragraph. The quotation distracts from the rest of the section both visually and by its length.

I would support condensing the section further.

Worldbruce (talk) 15:29, 23 December 2023 (UTC)