Talk:The Jewel of Medina

More sources
If someone wants to expand this further, here are some sources which may be useful:


 * BBC News
 * The Guardian
 * MediaBistro

—Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

@ User:Bostbart
Regarding me undoing, once again, your edit:. Please edit WP with responsability. Thank you. adriatikus |  talk  12:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) It's not the same subject. The article is about a fiction book on Muhammad's wife. Your sentence is about a fiction book on Virgin Mary.
 * 2) Charles Webb's "Sex With the Virgin Mary" lacks, until providing reliable 3rd party quotations, WP:Notability (that's my euphemism for garbage).
 * 3) You say, in your edit summary, "How different religions approach the same subject is not irrelevant whatsoever". Let me point that "religions approach" is a very vague notion in this context. You're not referring to recognized and assumed points of view regarding a specific subject, you are comparing on the one hand a possible reaction of the Islam followers to a book with the (lack of) reaction of an institution (the Roman Catholic Church) to another book dealing with another subject. More, saying "contrast this with" is, even if you formally let the reader draw his own conclusion, only WP:Original Research.

Youngest wife?
Someone added a link to this site as support for the claim that Aisha was the "youngest wife" of Muhammad. I make no claims about that site's accuracy or lack thereof, but it clearly is a site pushing an anti-Islamic agenda. If Aisha was Muhammad's youngest wife, we should be able to cite a neutral source for that. If she wasn't, the article shouldn't say she was. Either way, we can do better than that for a reference. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * With respect, regardless of faithfreedom's agenda, it did list the authoritative hadith indicating that Mohammad's wife was a child at the time of consummation. Initially the link was from the phrase "child wife" and someone changed it to youngest. I fear this was done in order to justify removing the reference to Aisha being young. While there are anti-Islamists please be aware that there are also apologists for Islam who want to sanitize the authoritative references to Mohammad having a child wife. This was resolved in the Aisha entry since most historians agree that Mohammad had a child wife whom he had sex with at age 9. As for the historical inaccuracy section, the citation for the age of Aisha being 14 has been added.—Frozengeezer (talk • contribs) 08:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Fair enough — but, as I note below, I think that the "14 years old" line (and thus, your whole "historical inaccuracies" section) is based on a misreading. She's 14 in the prologue, but already married to Muhammad.  It seems likely that Jones would stick with the history, in which Aisha is 6 or 7 when engaged to Muhammad and 9 when the marriage is consummated.  Indeed, the BBC News story says "The novel follows the life of A'isha, often referred to as Muhammad's favourite wife, from her engagement at the age of six until the prophet's death."  That would suggest that if Jones does have historical inaccuracies, the age of Aisha at the time of her marriage and its consummation isn't one of them.


 * That said, I'm not averse to a mention of Aisha's youth in the intro. We just need to avoid synthesizing conclusions about the novel that themselves haven't been made in reliable sources. I don't have a problem with mentioning Aisha's age insofar as it's relevant to the novel and the controversy surrounding it.  Have any of the sources discussing the novel mentioned the young age of the protagonist when the marriage is consummated? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah — I may have found another source for the confusion. Fox News' story says, "At issue is Jones' portrayal of the prophet's wife A'isha, whom Muhammad is said to have married when she was 9 years old. In her novel Jones describes the consummation of their marriage when A'isha was 14."  Perhaps they're right, or perhaps their reporter made a mistake based on Aisha's age in the prologue.  I think the best thing may be to note Fox News' claim without saying anything indicating its accuracy or lack thereof.  I'll work on a neutral wording for that. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I think someone is sanitizing the fact that the book depicts Mohammad as having sex with a child. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.67.44.110 (talk) 01:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Find a reliable source that discusses that in relation to this book and it can be added to the article. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"Historical inaccuracies" section
I'm removing the following section, for two reasons which I'll list after I post it:


 * In the novel, the character of Aisha is 14 years old. Authoritative Islamic writings indicate that Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was [consummated].

First of all, I don't know which source claims that Aisha is 14 in the novel. The BBC article says, "The novel follows the life of A'isha, often referred to as Muhammad's favourite wife, from her engagement at the age of six until the prophet's death." Second, I'm concerned that unless a third-party source has commented on this particular inaccuracy, it's original research for us to discuss it. If we want to have a section on historical inaccuracies, they have to be inaccuracies that reliable sources have mentioned, not ones that we find. Spellman's complaints would be a good starting point for such a section; so would the review by Marwa Elnaggar. But we can't just copy bits from Wikipedia's article on Aisha and say, "this doesn't fit with what I've heard about the novel". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The section was restored, with a citation to the American Thinker blog, which is fine — except that if you look at the prologue to the novel (also available here), you can see where the blogger got the age "14". If you read the prologue, Aisha is 14 at that point — and already married to Muhammad.  The story starts in media res, and presumably flashes back to Aisha's earlier life. There's no evidence that Jones has changed the historical age at which Aisha weds Muhammad, or the age at which the marriage is consummated.


 * This is a good example of why we can't engage in original research — only report what others have said. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * BBC is a better source so should be used insted. ( Hypnosadist )  11:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

BBC on USA release
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7656084.stm ( Hypnosadist )  11:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

This topic should be discarded
This is basically a propeganda against Islam ,

every one should atleast post a comment to discard this topic... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.109.47.105 (talk) 09:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

New material
This article has recently been updated with material I've removed from the Denise Spellberg article due to WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP concerns. I'd like to hear the justification for the additions, as not all of it appears to be appropriate here, and I tend to doubt all of it can be verified.Cúchullain t/ c 03:49, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

As I explained, much of the material you removed from the article on Denise Spellberg was not in this article (you partially justified this by stating that much of this material was already available in this article, which I respectfully disagree with you). I don't think its undue weight here, since this article essentially deals with the controversy surrounding this book's publication and subsequent cancellation. The material I added deals with the this controversy and the responses it generated in both the media and academia. If you feel any of this information violates BLP (I don't think it does, although I suppose we could tame some of the specific criticisms of Spellberg) or is improperly sourced (I believe the sources cited are RS), I am willing to discuss any specific concerns.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 05:48, 21 November 2012 (UTC))


 * The justification for removing it at Denise Spellberg was that it was a gross violation of WP:WEIGHT and added a ton of negative material about a living person. And of course, the essentials of the story were already covered over hear (and are now covered there in a more concise form). Most of the sources are just opinion columns, not actual articles (the Nomani article is definitely an opinion piece, not a news story, though I don't have access to it any more). And those "response" columns are mostly specifically criticizing Spellberg, which is pretty irrelevant here. In the least that paragraph needs to be tamped down a ton.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I accessed the full article from Nomani on WSJ's website yesterday. Try accessing it from google as opposed to the link in Wikipedia (this worked for me, not sure why). With regard to the response columns, they are all from reliable sources, from individuals such as Irshad Manji, Adam Kirsch and Carlin Romano and newspapers such as the Washington Post. I have to disagree with your claim that criticism of Spellberg "is pretty irrelevant here" - given the extensive controversy surrounding this book and Spellberg's involvement in that controversy, it is certainly relevant to this article. Please note that, for balance, Spellberg has been given her own paragraph in which to respond. I've attempted to tone down the criticism towards Spellberg by removing/rewording some of the harsh langauge. Even so, the fact is that Spellberg was heavily criticised during this controversy, and this controversy, which made headlines across the country in numerous media outlets, is certainly relevant to this article, and (at least in my opinion) meets the requirements for both notability and verifiability. Currently, there is only one paragraph, which is the same size or slightly smaller than the paragraph defending Spellberg. I don't think it needs to be cut down further, but I am open to discussing this if you feel it is necessary.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 15:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC))


 * I'll bow to you on the access, as I still can't see the Nomani article. My issue with that is we're still sourcing factual material to a highly critical opinion column. And as basically all the response pieces are criticizing Spellberg specifically, rather than anything directly about the book, I think it's being overstated in this article on the book. However, I thank you for cleaning up the wording.--Cúchullain t/ c 15:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Criticism of Spellberg's involvement (or degree of involvement) in this book's cancellation is an important part of this article, given the amount of controversy it generated in the media. I'll see if I can find a (reasonable) website that has reproduced Nomani's article.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 00:41, 22 November 2012 (UTC))

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