Wikipedia:Peer review/Siege of Jerusalem (637)/archive1

Siege of Jerusalem (637)
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because i want to put it forward for the status of feature article. This article have gone through a peer review of wikipedia military history task force, the suggestion given there are followed and now i wonder if it is ready to be send for the nomination for feature article. Comments and suggestions please ...

Thanks, الله أكبر  Mohammad Adil  17:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments from
 * You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
 * Please alphabetize your references.
 * As I pointed out in the Yarmuk article, using Gibbon is not using the best quality sources. He's out of date, and at this point should only be used as a source for articles about the history of history.
 * Your book references lack details to allow them to be verified. They should have year of publication, publisher, etc. at the very least.
 * Decide if you want the sources author last name first or author first name first, (suggest last name first as it's much more common in history articles)
 * Again, the Runciman works are before 1987, should note that you're using a reprint edition of a much earlier work (first published 1951). Like the Gibbon, Runciman is starting to get a bit outdated and should be used with care.
 * Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 16:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Any other suggestions ???
 * Done.

الله أكبر Mohammad Adil  20:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: Since others have commented on the content, which I know little about, and the sources, I'll comment on issues mainly related to prose and the Manual of Style. I found the article interesting but a bit confusing in places. Here are my suggestions.


 * Overlinking. Generally, linking a term once is enough in a short article like this. It might be OK to link once in the lead and then once in the main text. But Caliph Umar should not be linked twice in the lead; dates like 637 and 614 should not be linked; Patriarch of Jerusalem and Sophronius should not be linked twice in "The Siege" section; Christians and Caesarea do not need to be linked twice, and I think you may find others.


 * Long paragraphs. The lead and each section consists of a single paragraph. I'd consider breaking the long paragraphs in "Prelude" and "Siege" into two or more pieces along logical lines. For example, paragraph 2 of "Prelude" might start with "Prophet Mohammed". Paragraph 3 might start with "In 634 Abu Bakr died and was succeeded by... ".


 * Heads and subheads. The Manual of Style suggests avoiding starting heads and subheads with "The" and also recommends against repeating the main words of the article title in the heads and subheads. For these reasons, I'd suggest changing "The siege" to "Siege" and "Surrender of Jerusalem" to "Surrender".


 * Proofreading. I see quite a few small things that need attention. For example, "Unable to decide the matter, he wrote to caliph Umar for instructions. In his reply the Caliph ordered the Muslims to capture Jerusalem". This sequence uses "caliph" when "Caliph" is needed, and uses Caliph when "caliph" is needed. The word takes a big C when it's part of a formal title and a little c when it's being used in a generic sense; i.e., Caliph Umar is a caliph. Another example would be "true cross"; it's linked twice in the article, but it appears as "True Cross" the first time and "true cross" the second time. True Cross appears to be a formal name; if so, the big T and big C are correct.

Lead
 * "After a prolonged siege of six months, Patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender the city but only to the caliph himself. In April 637, Caliph Umar... ". - This is confusing because "caliph" links to Rashidun here, whereas "caliph" links to Caliph later in the article. Would it be helpful to link to Caliph in the first instance for readers unfamiliar with "caliph" or "Rashidun"?

Seige
 * "The Byzantine garrison could not expect any help from the humbled regime of Heraclius and after a prolonged siege of four months, as expected the Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, having no hope of any help from the emperor, offered to surrender the city and pay the jizya, he however put a condition that the caliph himself would come and sign the pact with him and receive the surrender." - Too complex. Suggestion: "The Byzantine garrison could not expect any help from the humbled regime of Heraclius. After a siege of four months, Sophronius offered to surrender the city and pay the jizya on condition that the caliph come to Jerusalem to sign the pact and accept the surrender."

Surrender
 * "On Umar's arrival in Jerusalem, a pact was drawn up, which surrendered Jerusalem and gave guarantees of civil and religious liberty for Christians in exchange for jizya ("tribute") – known as the Umariyya Covenant." - Suggestion: "Upon Umar's arrival in Jerusalem, a pact known as the Umariyya Covenant was drawn up. It surrendered Jerusalem and gave guarantees of civil and religious liberty to Christians in exchange for jizya (tribute)". Also, it would be better to give the translation of jizya on first use rather than here.
 * "It has been recorded in the annals of Muslim chronicles that at the Zuhr prayers time Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but Umar declined fearing to endanger the church's status as a Christian temple and that the Muslims may not break the treaty to make it a mosque as the Caliph had prayed in it." - Suggestion: "It has been recorded in the annals of Muslim chronicles that at the time of Zuhr prayers Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar, fearing that accepting the invitation might endanger the church's status as a Christian temple and that Muslims might not break the treaty and turn the temple into a mosque, declined." By the way, these two thoughts seem contradictory. If Umar was planning to break the treaty and throw the Christians out of the temple and turn it into a mosque, why would his saying of Muslim prayers in the building bother the Muslims?

"Note b"
 * "al buladhuri" - Should this be al-Baladhuri?
 * "A.I.Akram believe 636-637 to be the most possible date." - Date ranges take en dashes rather than hyphens; thus: 636–637. Also, "believe" should be "believed", and "most likely" would probably be better than "most possible".

References
 * For consistency, either use the author's full name (last name first) or just the last name, but it's best to be consistent whichever form you choose. The existing refs are a mix; e.g. Gibbon in one place but Bernard Lewis in another.

I hope these comments and suggestions prove helpful. Finetooth (talk) 04:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The images need alt text, meant for readers who can't see the images. Alt texts are not the same as captions. WP:ALT has details. Helpful alt text is one of the requirements at FAC.


 * thanks for ur suggestions, i have edited the article as suggested by you, also images nw hv alt text. As for the why didnt umar prayed in the mosque fearing the muslims might not break the treaty making the temple, a masque. So dont know from where the work not jumped in and made the statement ambiguous. The confusion was all because of tht not, i have removed it.

الله أكبر Mohammad Adil  15:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)