Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Al-Muti/archive1

Al-Muti

 * Nominator(s): Constantine  ✍  18:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

This article is about the 23rd Abbasid caliph, who ruled as a puppet of the Buyids. His tenure is generally held to represent the nadir of the caliphate's prestige and power, but the very powerlessness of the office allowed it to regain some stability and end the constant infighting of the Abbasid princes for supremacy. I rewrote the article effectively from scratch during 2021, and it passed GA in May 2021. Al-Muti and his time are not well covered in literature, but I am confident the article is the most complete English-language treatment of the subject in existence, and worthy of FA status. I am looking forward for any and all suggestions for further improvement. Constantine  ✍  18:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

AhmadLX
I will review this soon. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta) 13:58, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ? Gog the Mild (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I will finish my review by Sunday hopefully. Apologies for the delay. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta) 23:07, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


 * "apparently to general astonishment, Mu'izz al-Dawla raised al-Fadl to the caliphate". Why astonishment? The preceding para says that he was already considered a serious rival.
 * That is an excellent question. I have reformulated the section, but the gist of it is: he had been out of the picture for a while, and the sudden deposition of al-Mustakfi, and the reappearance of al-Muti out of nowhere, caught people off guard.
 * "the chief reason was likely simply that Mu'izz al-Dawla wished to have a caliph who was under his full control with no external sources of support." See EI2 Buwayhids (p. 1350) and Kennedy, The Prophet and the age of Caliphates (p. 216).
 * Thanks for the suggestion, added some more details.
 * Other than these minor points, I couldn't find anything needing improvement, and am happy to support. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta) 22:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your input and support, ! Constantine  ✍  17:19, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments Support from AviationFreak
I have next to no knowledge of this subject or the context in which he ruled, so I'll only be able to provide prose/formatting input. I'll do my best to follow the article though and if there's anything that I feel is overly unclear I'll make a mention of it. That's all I have. Truly stellar prose, particularly in the lede - I had to check a couple links for definitions to understand the context of everything, but the article itself is excellent. Really well done. AviationFreak💬 21:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * MOS:SOB in "Abbasid caliph"
 * Changed.
 * Suggest the rewording of the "nadir" phrase, or at least the delinking or linking to the specific section. The link to an article that is not obviously related to the prose at first glance is confusing, imo.
 * Indeed, not a wise choice to link it.
 * Suggest linking rubber stamp
 * Done.
 * - While the meaning here is obvious, I think something like "sharply declined during his tenure" is more accurate.
 * Changed.
 * sounds WP:WEASEL-ly.
 * Have rephrased a bit.
 * SOB in "Buyid Mu'izz al-Dawla"
 * Changed.
 * - I assume this is a typo?
 * Indeed, fixed.
 * - Suggest "reduced his income by 75%", appending "of its former size", or making some other modification to make this clearer gramatically.
 * Changed.
 * - Missing "of".
 * Fixed.
 * - Is this meant to be "the caliph"? I see this same omission of the definite article later on, but "the caliph" also appears. This feels like it should be consistent unless there's something I'm missing.
 * Missing 'the', fixed.
 * Suggest linking chamberlain
 * Done.
 * - Comma is extraneous to my eyes
 * Removed.
 * Thank you for taking the time, and for your corrections, . I am glad that despite your unfamiliarity with the topic, you could follow the article. Anything else that might be improved in that area, above and beyond FA criteria? Constantine  ✍  16:33, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * For sure! The only other thing I worry a little bit about is readability to a "general public" reader - Evaluating one's own abilities is always difficult, but I feel I have at least an average and likely above-average command of English as native speakers go. Despite this, there were a few terms that I had to Google to be sure of their definitions (e.g., "profligate"). As far as I know there isn't a guideline in the MOS against overly erudite prose and this article is by no means egregious in that respect, but I worry a little that it might be a bit difficult to read comfortably for many English speakers. In any case, this is at most a minor concern that is very much subjective so I am happy to support. AviationFreak💬 17:10, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Image review
Hi Constantine,, was this last point resolved? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Suggest scaling up the map, and see MOS:COLOUR
 * Coins need a tag for the original work. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:47, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * done, but don't know what I am supposed to do with MOS:COLOUR. Constantine  ✍  18:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue is that the map conveys information using only colour, and in shades that are difficult to distinguish if someone is colour-blind. This could be resolved for example by adding another indicator (such as lines or dots), or at least by changing the colour choices. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Not sure what is expected here TBH. One, I am not the author of the map so I can't change it. Two, political maps generally convey information by colouring different states with different colours, so I don't know what else would be appropriate. Three, the political entities are, to my eye at least, clearly labelled, so they are distinguishable even if the map were grayscale. Constantine  ✍  20:20, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * On one, you could, or you could request an amended version. On three, the labelling does not provide the information provided by the colours. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I had forgotten about this, but I also don't understand what the desired changes are supposed to be. The map does not, to my eyes, convey information only using colour. Indeed, the colours are almost secondary, as the colours only serve to distinguish the Buyids from other Muslim states, and the Muslim states from the Christian ones; the actual labelling of the states does the heavy lifting here. Even in grayscale, I can therefore read the map and distinguish the Buyid domains from the other states. Is the problem distinguishing the colours used in the map for colourblind people? In that case I will start a WP:MAPREQ, but I don't know what exactly to ask. Constantine   ✍  18:34, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * IMO the labelling and the colours are doing different things for the most part. Both identify the Buyids, which is great. But then the other states are labelled by name, and the colour conveys a different facet - religion. So if you're colourblind you can ascertain the former, but not the latter. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, request has been made. Constantine  ✍
 * BTW,, if this is the last remaining issue, would it be OK for me to proceed to my next nomination? Constantine  ✍  18:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay by me. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Source review from A. Parrot
Ten citations spot-checked; no verification faults found.

Citations 18 and 19 look like they could be consolidated.

Most sources look unimpeachable—academic presses, et cetera. A couple (Bowen and Le Strange) are very old, but they're used in contexts that don't seem controversial or where the scholarship is likely to change. The one I'm not entirely sure about is Güner 2006, simply because I don't know what the Diyanet's reputation as a historical source is like. I'd be interested to know.

The ISBNs are inconsistent. Some have hyphens and some don't, some have ten digits and some have thirteen. Fortunately, you can convert them all to your preferred format using a page like this one.

This isn't citation-related, but articles shouldn't give instructions to the reader such as "(see below)". A. Parrot (talk) 05:41, 6 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your time and the suggestions, . Consolidated refs #18 and #19 as suggested, the '(see below)' has been removed.
 * On the sources, Bowen and (more so) Le Strange continue to be very good resources and are still cited by modern authors; they summarize the information provided by the medieval sources quite well, and nothing much has been added to that since except through ancillary studies (numismarics, archaeology, etc).
 * The Diyanet is, especially under Erdogan, a highly political organization and not in what I'd call a positive way, but the Islam Ansiklopedisi is an academic work, and the people contributing articles there are academics. The IA is often cited by English-language works as well, and should definitely considered a solid tertiary source.
 * On the ISBNs, I always use the ISBN type (10 or 13-digit) the work itself provides. Retroactive standardization is rather pointless. I have however edited the IA template to add dashes to the ISBNs produced by it.
 * Thanks again :) Constantine  ✍  19:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Support on sourcing. A. Parrot (talk) 22:56, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Funk

 * I'll have a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 13:21, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of WP:duplinks, which you can highlight with this script.
 * Fixed. There are a few that are duplinks because they are also in the quote box, but I don't consider them as 'real' duplinks; they should be treated like links in image captions.
 * Link Samanid in the first caption.
 * Done.
 * Al-Ta'i is linked twice in the infobox.
 * Hmmm, is that a requirement per MOS? I haven't encountered this one before.
 * There is no need for two links to the same article in so quick succession in the infobox, which is its own separate part of the article. FunkMonk (talk) 23:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Link Abbasid Caliphate at first mention in article body. Same with other terms that are now only linked in the intro, there are a few.
 * Done.
 * State on the article body he was born in Baghdad?
 * Done.
 * Considering how the Abbasid caliphs mentioned here were seemingly replaced at will, what was the purpose of even continuing their rule and not just taking over? To have some sort of legitimacy to their puppet?
 * The second paragraphs in 'Rise to the throne' and 'Role and relations with the Buyids' deal with exactly that. In short, "he served to provide legitimacy to the upstart Buyid regime in the eyes of the Muslim world" as the article says.
 * "The domains of the Buyid dynasty and the other states of the Middle East in 970" Perhaps state they had taken over Baghdad for context?
 * Have added a small clarification, but am not sure what exactly you mean... The article makes clear that they had taken over Baghdad and ruled Iraq.
 * Captions should establish context on their own, so that you understand then without necessarily having read the adjacent main text. But yeah, looking good now. FunkMonk (talk) 23:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it could be stated explicitly that the Buyids were Shia Iranian, contrasting with the Sunni Arab Abbasids?
 * This is already stated: "The Buyids themselves were Shi'a". Ethnicity did not (at this point) come into play.
 * Link Turk.
 * Done.
 * Any reason to use the term Alid instead of Shia here if the same term can be used? Could confuse unfamiliar readers.
 * They do not mean the same thing: Alids were the descendants of Ali, Shia were the supporters of the idea that only an Alid could be the imam of the Muslims.
 * "Over the years, Izz al-Dawla increasingly alienated the Turks under Sabuktakin" Clarify that he was at that point subordinate to the Buyids?
 * Done.
 * "Al-Muti's reign represented the nadir of the Abbasid caliphate's power and authority. During the previous decades, the secular authority of the caliphs had shrunk to Iraq, and even there had been curtailed by powerful warlords; with the Buyid conquest of Baghdad, it was now abolished entirely. Al-Muti was raised to the throne by the Buyids and was effectively reduced to a rubber-stamp figurehead" Much of this wording and evaluation is not specifically repeated in the article body. And while I recognise some of this is paraphrasis, some of the evaluating statements could be more explicitly stated outside the intro with citations.
 * Added some details on this in the text.
 * Hi, and thanks for taking the time and your suggestions. I have dealt with most of them, and have left remarks elsewhere. Please have another look. Constantine  ✍  14:40, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Support - looking good to me now. FunkMonk (talk) 23:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)