Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Sahaba not giving bay'ah to Abu Bakr


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was '''No consensus -- Long arguments on both sides by a few editors, but no consensus is demonstrated by those debating here. Give it some time and relist'''. Avi 05:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

List of Sahaba not giving bay'ah to Abu Bakr

 * - (View AfD) (View log)

This article represents the Shia point of view which sharply contradicts with the foundation of the faith of the mainstream (Sunni) Islam. Worldwide Sunni Muslims (comprising 90% of world Muslims) believe that this list is nothing but a fabrication by the Shia sect. This is not new; this has been going on for centuries. This online encyclopedia is NOT the proper place for those kinds of extremely controversial issues, especially when they represent points of views of a minor sect (Shia) of the global religion of Islam. Of course the Shia scholars will continue to claim that their views and deviant beliefs are supported by Sunni references and sources. However, all they have been doing over centuries is misinterpreting those references, taking them out of context and twisting them to support their views. They've had a historical enmity towards the 3 rightly-guided Caliphs of Islam which are revered by over 1.2 Billions Sunni Muslims and have been revered for the past 14 centuries, while Sunnis never carry any sort of enmity towards the sacred figures revered by the Shia such as Ali ibn Abi Talib or Fatimah. There is not one single Sunni Muslim or Sunni scholar that will accept the Shia interpretations of the references otherwise, if they do, then over a Billion Sunni Muslim will convert happily into Shia. Therefore, further attempts to quote the so called Sunni sources to support those Shia views should be discredited and not to be accepted a valid argument in any way. According to Sunni Islam, this list does not even exist. Ali, Fatimah and all those Sahaba enlisted in this list have given their full allegiance to Abu Bakr and to believe that they were at odds with him is totally absurd. Again WIKIPEDIA is NOT the proper place for those minority views.TrueWisdom1TrueWisdom1
 * Delete, I nominated this article for deletion for the second time because as I started reading the first nomination, a "no consensus" conclusion was made and the article was removed from nomination before I got the chance to voice my argument. Here is the reason again (sorry if this is redundant, but I'm not sure where is the proper place to put this note):

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by TrueWisdom1 (talk • contribs) 02:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC). POV fork of Shi'a view of Abu Bakr. Completely redundent and should be merged. Terrie12 14:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * nominator account has only contributed to his afd. --Striver - talk 16:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This is for deleting, not for merging. Use Template:mergeto on this and Template:mergefrom where you want it merged. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart  -  Receive My EviLove  16:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe controversial merges can be nominated here, can't they? &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 04:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletions.   --  &rArr;  bsnowball  11:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep
 * 1) This is not a view, this is a list that does not represent any particulate view and is in fact wrong to attribute it to the Shi'a view alone, just look at the sources.
 * 2) The Shi'a view of Abu Bakr article is clearly focused on a single person, while this is focused on an event involving multiple person.
 * 3) This article linked from a number of other articles, and it does not make sense for those links to be links to a Shi'a view. --Striver - talk 23:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, merge what is salvagable into Shi'a view of Abu Bakr. most of it is a "list of sahaba not giving bay'ah" according to shi'ites. others (i.e. the rest) in the list are redundant, as they only briefly opposed then subsequently offered their bay'ah, making their inclusion in the list pointless. furthermore, the some of the sources used are extremely poor: a fundamental source is the comical "Peshawar Nights", which narrates of a so-called "Sunni-Shi'a" discussion (which some believe simply did not happen and was frankly made up - the Sunni character clearly doesn't know his stuff), and is used nowadays solely as a polemical device.  ITAQALLAH   13:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you please explain to me why you ignored the following sources in your argumnent:
 * Do you regard those scholars as Shi'a scholars? If not, why are you suggesting that their information is of Shi'a origin, and more importantly, why does it belong in an article about the Shi'a view of a single person? Further your argument of "as they only briefly opposed then subsequently offered their bay'ah" is an straw man argument, since nobody has nowhere stated that this is a list of person that opposed him indefinitely but in fact, the article clearly says "was initially opposed" --Striver - talk 15:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Bukhari/Muslim/Tabari are narrating hadiths, not their opinions, so the material becomes a primary source, which is something which generally shouldn't be utilized. Ibn Qutaybah/Ibn Abi al-Hadid may too be narrating hadiths (seems unlikely in the latter case)- however, their attributions have seemingly been obtained from media less than reliable -- one being a wordpress ppt presentation, the other a Shi'a website. what is really needed is independant verification. Gibbon is one i overlooked, yet he has only been provided in verifying the existence of the dispute, and not for verifying the individuals in the list. this is why i suggested that whatever can be salvaged should be merged into the proposed article or in Succession to Muhammad which can then give it an appropriate overview.
 * if the opposition was temporary, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months even, then what's the point of making a list about a period of time as brief as this, apart from forwarding a particular view about this general dispute? thanks.  ITAQALLAH   21:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you regard those scholars as Shi'a scholars? If not, why are you suggesting that their information is of Shi'a origin, and more importantly, why does it belong in an article about the Shi'a view of a single person? Further your argument of "as they only briefly opposed then subsequently offered their bay'ah" is an straw man argument, since nobody has nowhere stated that this is a list of person that opposed him indefinitely but in fact, the article clearly says "was initially opposed" --Striver - talk 15:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Bukhari/Muslim/Tabari are narrating hadiths, not their opinions, so the material becomes a primary source, which is something which generally shouldn't be utilized. Ibn Qutaybah/Ibn Abi al-Hadid may too be narrating hadiths (seems unlikely in the latter case)- however, their attributions have seemingly been obtained from media less than reliable -- one being a wordpress ppt presentation, the other a Shi'a website. what is really needed is independant verification. Gibbon is one i overlooked, yet he has only been provided in verifying the existence of the dispute, and not for verifying the individuals in the list. this is why i suggested that whatever can be salvaged should be merged into the proposed article or in Succession to Muhammad which can then give it an appropriate overview.
 * if the opposition was temporary, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months even, then what's the point of making a list about a period of time as brief as this, apart from forwarding a particular view about this general dispute? thanks.  ITAQALLAH   21:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you regard those scholars as Shi'a scholars? If not, why are you suggesting that their information is of Shi'a origin, and more importantly, why does it belong in an article about the Shi'a view of a single person? Further your argument of "as they only briefly opposed then subsequently offered their bay'ah" is an straw man argument, since nobody has nowhere stated that this is a list of person that opposed him indefinitely but in fact, the article clearly says "was initially opposed" --Striver - talk 15:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Bukhari/Muslim/Tabari are narrating hadiths, not their opinions, so the material becomes a primary source, which is something which generally shouldn't be utilized. Ibn Qutaybah/Ibn Abi al-Hadid may too be narrating hadiths (seems unlikely in the latter case)- however, their attributions have seemingly been obtained from media less than reliable -- one being a wordpress ppt presentation, the other a Shi'a website. what is really needed is independant verification. Gibbon is one i overlooked, yet he has only been provided in verifying the existence of the dispute, and not for verifying the individuals in the list. this is why i suggested that whatever can be salvaged should be merged into the proposed article or in Succession to Muhammad which can then give it an appropriate overview.
 * if the opposition was temporary, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months even, then what's the point of making a list about a period of time as brief as this, apart from forwarding a particular view about this general dispute? thanks.  ITAQALLAH   21:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your civil and to-the-point arguments :)


 * Tabari is admittedly only narrating hadith, he stated that in his introduction of the book and thus is his book only a primary Source. But we all know as a fact that the same kind of thing can not be said about Muhammad al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj: both are celebrated by Sunnis for the great achievement of only including reliable narrations in their two Sahihs, thus is their work not only an extremely reliable secondary source of early Sunni scholarship, the sunni even praise Sahih Bukhari as the "most Sahih Book after the Qur'an" ummah.net, islamonline.com, sunnah.org, yarehman.com, inter-islam.org, fatwa-online.com. This is enough to end the disccusion regarding if this is only a Shia view or not, and considering the Bukhari/Muslim narrations, it is only expected that you find other non-Shi'a like Ibn Qutaybah/Ibn Abi al-Hadid narrating hadith to the same effect.


 * It is true that i found the Ibn Qutaybah in a non-Muslim teaching course, and considering that i also have two independent Shi'a sources give the same quote, but with small variations in translation, you either have a Shi'a/Shi'a/non-Muslim conspiracy to misquote Ibn Qutaybah, or he did in fact narrate that hadith. The same can be said by Ibn Abi al-Hadid the non-Shi'a non-Sunni Mu'tazili scholar who is widely known for quoting narrations that Sunnis agree are Sahih but do not feel comfortable being reminded of. Again, this is an editorial issue, add a request for a better tag if you wish, the Bukhari/Muslim quote is enough to refute the nomination arguments.


 * Gibbon verified that the Banu Hashim "and their chief", ie, Ali, did not give the oath: "the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats of Omar". If nothing else, this is a secondary source of the Bukhari/Muslim secondary sources, voiding all allegations of this being a Shi'a only view. Gibbon is the second non-Shi'a non-Sunni holding this view, together with Ibn Abi al-Hadid.


 * At this point, i have not even had time to find all the Sunni secondary sources that the Shi'a sources quote, ie Muhammad ibn Khwand, Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri, Yusuf ibn Abd-al-Barr, Ya'qubi, Ali al-Masudi and all the other early historians like Ibn Hajar Asqalani. The fact that there was a large amount of Sahaba that just like Ali did not initially give his oath is uncontested and readily admitted among the early Sunni historians, the practice of trying to deny this is a more modern phenomena that is at strikingly odds with all the early historians, including Bukhari/Muslim.


 * The opposition is widely quoted as six month, an indeed notable time period considering that the state became engaged in warfare during that period and is nowhere near the 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months you mentioned. This event is notable enough to warrant a full and detailed article, something that can not be given justice to as a section in an already large article: going into such great detail in the Succession to Muhammad would spark even stronger felings and revert wars than if given it's own article, so given multpiple arguments, i strongly oppose merging this to Succession to Muhammad or an Shi'a view article.


 * The point is not to "forwarding a particular view about this general dispute", but to write an encyclopedia about a notable event. Wikipedia does not exclude information just because some people in one religious denomination might find the informations uncomfortable.


 * Thanks for your answer, peace. --Striver - talk 11:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * well, the reason we don't use primary sources is not because we doubt their authenticity, but because we're not in a position to intepret them. sometimes you can use primary sources when there are extremely explicit, but with most hadith there are too many ambiguities. the hadith cited in the article make little mention of duration (from my observation), it's difficult to tell whether the witholding spans a few days or a few months (apart from Ali). there may also be other sound narrations reporting slightly differently on the assumed chronology, events, and details. that's why we use secondary sources. did all personalities mentioned resist for six months? nobody is denying that a pledge may have been temporarily withheld, but for how long? and what is its encyclopedic relevence, if the problems of verification are overlooked (if the problematic sources were removed, then much of the article would also thus be removed)?
 * i don't think anyone finds such information "uncomfortable", it's simply about what is factually accurate. who, and when, are questions that this article doesn't seem to answer convincingly. that's why i think this stuff can be comprehensively overviewed in two paragraphs of prose in one of the other articles. as it stands, the article consists mainly of a list of names, and some blockquotes from certain personalities.  ITAQALLAH   00:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

َلَا يَغْتَرَّنَّ امْرُؤٌ أَنْ يَقُولَ إِنَّمَا كَانَتْ بَيْعَةُ أَبِي بَكْرٍ فَلْتَةً وَتَمَّتْ أَلَا وَإِنَّهَا قَدْ كَانَتْ كَذَلِكَ وَلَكِنَّ اللَّهَ وَقَى شَرَّهَا وَلَيْسَ مِنْكُمْ مَنْ تُقْطَعُ الْأَعْنَاقُ إِلَيْهِ مِثْلُ أَبِي بَكْرٍ مَنْ بَايَعَ رَجُلًا عَنْ غَيْرِ مَشُورَةٍ مِنْ الْمُسْلِمِينَ فَلَا يُبَايَعُ هُوَ وَلَا الَّذِي بَايَعَهُ تَغِرَّةً أَنْ يُقْتَلَا (بخاري:6830(.

No one among you should have the misconception that the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr took place suddenly. No doubt, the oath was pledged in this way, but the Almighty protected the Muslims from its evil consequences [which might have arisen] and remember! there is none among you like Abu Bakr, whose greatness cannot be surpassed. Now if a person pledges an oath of allegiance to someone, without the opinion of the believers, no one should pledge allegiance to him as well as to whom he [himself] pledged allegiance because by this both of them shall present themselves for execution. (Bukhari: No. 6830)
 * Comment:Well, this is a controversial topic, but I would like to point out that we should not miss the point that in these disputes the main concern of the early Sahaba should have been Islam rather than desire for wealth or power. --Aminz 01:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Delete per ITAQALLAH. He has given some very good points. --- ALM 12:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Comment - I would say delete, but only along with every other POV fork that comes out of this Muslim controversy. We keep doing this on a 1-by-1 basis, and get nowhere. Patstuarttalk 06:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Patstuart, i find it strange that you think that this controversy should be dealt with in one article, while the Muhammad cartoons has spawned so many articles. --Striver - talk 16:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the late answer, i have been doing other things IRL. Some anon is adding strongly pov material, so if you are looking at the article, make sure you are not looking at some pov version.

ITAQALLAH argued that we should not interpret primary sources, and i agree 100%. Problem is, the article is not trying to interpret anything. ITAQALLAH said "sometimes you can use primary sources when there are extremely explicit". I argue that the following qualifies as "extremely explicit":
 * 1) ''She remained alive for six months after the death of the Prophet. When she died, her husband 'Ali, buried her at night without informing Abu Bakr and he said the funeral prayer by himself. When Fatima was alive, the people used to respect 'Ali much, but after her death, 'Ali noticed a change in the people's attitude towards him. So Ali sought reconciliation with Abu Bakr and gave him an oath of allegiance. 'Ali had not given the oath of allegiance during those months (i.e. the period between the Prophet's death and Fatima's death).
 * So Abu Bakr refused to hand over anything from it to Fatima who got angry with Abu Bakr for this reason. She forsook him and did not talk to him until the end of her life. She lived for six months after the death of the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him). When she died, her husband. 'Ali b. Abu Talib, buried her at night. He did not inform Abu Bakr about her death and offered the funeral prayer over her himself. During the lifetime of Fatima, 'All received (special) regard from the people. After she had died, he felt estrangement in the faces of the people towards him. So he sought to make peace with Abu Bakr and offer his allegiance to him. He had not yet owed allegiance to him as Caliph during these months

You do not get any more explicit than that, there is no interpretation needed in this issue, Bukhari and Muslim are crystal clear when they state that Ali did not give baya for six month. And the article is not quoting hadith, Gibbon, a noted scholar, is also quote, and he is not the least ambigous regarding the rest of Ali's tribe, the Banu Hashim:
 * ''After the simple inauguration of Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of Arabia: the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the daughter of the apostle.

But in either way, the article does not try to pin point how long the whit holding was, it faithfully presents the sources that are available, it gives dates when they do and omits dates when they do. When a source only states that the subject only withhold for a period, but does not specify the period, it does not make the withholding any less notable. Ie, if the source does not state for how long, it is not our job to try to guess how long, we only report what the source states.

Also, we are not here to determine what sources are sound or not. If other relevant sources exist, then of course do they need to be presented, but that does not make the other sources any less relevant.

Regarding "did all personalities mentioned resist for six months? nobody is denying that a pledge may have been temporarily withheld, but for how long? ", that is irrelevant. We report a timespan when there is one, and do not report one when there is not one. Lack of timespan does not make the subject any less notable. There is not problem with verification here, there is no un-verified information present in the article, every single part is sourced.

And im sure that nobody would argue that the question of how many people did not give the baya in the most crucial event in the Islamic history is irrelevant or non-notable.

Regarding "Well, this is a controversial topic, but I would like to point out that we should not miss the point that in these disputes the main concern of the early Sahaba should have been Islam rather than desire for wealth or power.". I don't understand this, what does their motivation has to do with anything, we are not here to guess or do original research.

And this is most certanly not a pov fork, stating that something is a povfork is a bad faith statement, accusing me of creating this to do dodge consensus. I most certanly did not do that, at most, this is a content fork, and it is not even that, since this information is not covered in any other article. Further, the article is a apart of the Succession to Muhammad series and it is way to detailed to be included in the main article. Im sure nobody that surprised is by the fact that the Succession to Muhammad can not be described in full depth in one single article.--Striver - talk 16:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I spoke on this, because I have seen a history of POV-pushing in Islam related articles before, and I think all can agree those exist: Third holiest site in Islam, Reforms under Islam (610-661), just to name a few. Please please please Assume good faith - it was not a bad faith statement. And, it appears that this has continued here, from at least one side of the issue: every single keep so far has come from a Shia, and every single delete from a Sunni. This, unsurprisingly, should lead me to the idea that it may be a POV fork. I would probably speak out, at this stage, in favor of keep, but I see absolutely no evidence at compromise on including the Sunni POV that this list is bogus (clearly, neither side appears to be have accomodated at all: -, and no talk page discussion). Patstuarttalk 11:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Bro, it is true that one (1) single anon has edited that this list is "bogus", but he did that with no source to back it up, while the article contains voluminous references to Sunni scholars that have written that the named persons did not give their bay'ah initially. Surely there needs more than an anon edit to sidestep sourced scholars? If reference to a scholar who did not agree with some part of the article is provided, then that needs most certanly to be included in the article. But a single anon edit with no source? --Striver - talk 15:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is information. Information is the currency and value of WP. Deleting it would br an act of POV.--Zereshk 02:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.