Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 May 12

= May 12 =

Muslims killed by .... won't go to Paradise
I have heard several versions of this tale. In the 80's I heard from a UN soldier that they used to fix bayonets because they were feared by Muslims who thought they wouldn't go to Paradise if they were killed by steel. I've heard that being killed by a bullet smeared with pig blood or grease will bar Muslims from Paradise. Lately I've heard the same about why female Peshmerga fighters are so feared: they say a Muslim killed by a woman wont go to Paradise.

I call bullshit on all of those, partly because (as I understand it) intent or recklessness is needed for an action to be considered sinful in Islam. Also, about the death by steel, dying by steel would for many centuries be the most common way to go for those that died in battle. Surely one would have heard something about how those warriors, even though they died for the cause would be barred from Paradise. But, I'm not 100 % sure that the tales are 100 % untrue, especially considering that Islam is almost as diverse as Christianity. There are in other religions ways to die that will prevent you from entering heaven, like suicide in Christianity or that Valhalla was only for those that died in battle, so it's not entirely unlikely. Are there any denominations in Islam where some ways of dying will bar you from Paradise? Sjö (talk) 05:41, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Suicide is the first that comes to mind, at least in most mainstream forms of Islam.Bosstopher (talk) 07:25, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Bullets covered in pig blood were supposedly used by Jack Pershing in the Philippines, and the idea has resurfaced more recently of course, although I doubt anyone has ever actually done that. Anyway, doing something terrible to a Muslim to prevent them from going to heaven is a 100% sure way for them to be considered a martyr who will automatically end up in heaven no matter what you've done to them. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:22, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * This is right up there with silver bullets for werewolves and a stake through the heart for vampires. There's no evidence that anyone goes to 'paradise', and certainly no basis for any claims that non-Muslims can 'invent' ways that 'prevent' Muslims from getting there. Beyond really bad fan fiction, it's drivel.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 11:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sjö is asking about doctrine and belief (which often differ), and is not positing an actual paradise. (This is WP:RDH, not WP:RDS!)  Sjö could have carefully carried the "feared" and "thought" used in the second sentence throughout the entire question, but doing so would yield a tedious passage. -- ToE 13:50, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Apparently you missed the point. The silly claims about what 'prevents' Muslims from getting into 'paradise' are typically invented by non-Muslims. As such, they are just stupid bigoted fiction.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 22:06, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well the "story" is that in Islam, if you are "unclean" you don't go to heaven, touching pork makes you unclean until you can wash (or whatever the appropriate purifiaction ritual is). So if someone put pork on a bullet, the last thing the shot muslim will touch is pork, making them unclean. Ergo.... I've seen a video of a soldier dipping bullets in SPAM before loading them into his magazine. I'm sure if you google muslim spam bullets you'll find it. Now having said that, I have NOT seen any muslim reaction to that kind of thing, whether they actually believe they'd be made unclean by those bullets or if it would have any bearing on their eligibility to paradise, I personally doubt it as it seems dying defending islam is amongst the highest honor (among people inclined to die "defending" Islam at any rate), but have no source to back that up. Vespine (talk) 06:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I shouldn't have stealthily linked to it above - shahid has plenty of references for that. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:36, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, Vespine, you're just wrong. Muslims are even permitted to eat pork if no other food is available, so the claim that someone else murdering them with 'bullets with pigs blood on them' will 'prevent them getting in to paradise' is just stupid bigoted nonsense. It doesn't matter how many bigoted idiots 'imagine' this nonsense 'works'. And how would the dead Muslim know that the bullet had been 'dipped in SPAM' anyway? You've simply demonstrated that it's not really about what Muslims believe, but what bigoted idiots believe.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 12:37, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Jeffro, I have no dog in this fight, but it appears to me that you are arguing with people who are saying the same things as you in slightly different ways. Just sayin'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:02, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Why do people end their posts with "Just sayin(g)"? What does it mean, apart from what was obviously true without them saying it, viz. that whatever it was they were just saying was something they were ... er, just saying?  Just askin(g).  I breathed about 40 times while I was typing this. Just breathing.  I blinked a few times, too.  Just blinking.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * As with many expressions it means more than a literal interpretation of its words. At its best it is a modern appeal against "shooting the messenger" or a rephrasing of the older "I merely make an observation," and is tagged onto the end of a comment which the well-intentioned author fears might be taken as insulting or argumentative.  At its worst and most passive aggressive it is sarcastically tagged onto the end of an intended insult.  This latter usage is pervasive, but in this case all appearances suggest that Tpfka87 intended the former usage.  For more information you could re-ask your question on WP:RDL.  Just sayin'. -- ToE 23:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Just thankin' you. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You'd have to actually thank him somehow to be able to then tag that "Just thankin' you". On its own like this, well, I don't know. In this specific case you could, if you wanted, engage in a rant that does not much look like thanks and then go: "Just thankin' you". That would be the agressive or sarcastic use of the phrase mentioned above. I'm, er, "just tryin' to help". Contact Basemetal   here  10:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Jeffro77, I'M not wrong, I am simply reporting the 'claims', I am an atheists so I also believe it's all nonsense. Yes it's stupid bigoted nonsense, I don't disagree. There is I believe a "subtle" point you are "missing" though, and that is that peope can ACTUALLY BELIEVE these things, i.e. they don't need to be "aware" that the bullets are covered in pig's blood for it to 'work', for them this is the way the world works whether you believe it or not, that's why THEY are right and we are wrong (I'm talking about muslims AND christians). In their "reality" this IS the way things work, so simply showing muslims that there are bullets covered in spam is enough elicit the desired response. Of course in THIS particlar case, covering bullets in blood is based on a misunderstanding of Islamic doctrine, but the argument is sound: IF the unclean don't get into heaven (which probably IS the case in some circumstances) and IF getting shot with a unclean bullet makes you unclean (this is probably not the case) THEN someone shot with an unclean bullet won't go to heaven. The argument is valid, however one premise is almost certainly faulty. Vespine (talk) 22:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Further, if it's not abundantly clear, the action's intention is Psychological warfare. Vespine (talk) 00:12, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, someone can't actually 'believe' that they won't go to 'paradise' when they're killed by a bullet that they have no way of knowing was 'dipped in [insert pig-based food product]' because 1) they would have no way of knowing it was dipped in said foodstuff (so the claim is wrong in practical terms) and 2) the Koran doesn't forbid Muslims from unavoidably coming in contact with pigs (so the claim is wrong on doctrinal terms).-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 12:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Leaving aside the question of whether any of the specific stories alluded to above has ever actually occurred, as a general point it is worth pointing out that 1) there is a way to "let them know", by spreading rumors for example, and 2) not all Muslims are expert theologians, there are such things as superstitions and superstitious people especially among the uneducated, in other words what the qur'ān says, in your opinion or in the opinion of expert ʿulamāʾ, might not be what superstitious uneducated people believe, and finally 3) this thread is becoming tiresome. Just sayin'. Contact Basemetal   here  12:45, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Jeffro, of course it is possible for someone to believe (ie fear) that if they are killed by a bullet smeared in pork, they won't be let into to paradise. To illustrate: I may believe that, whether I know that the bullet was "tainted" or not, Allah will know... and keep me out of paradise (and wouldn't that be a nasty surprise!). That said... I do agree that the story is more likely to be something that was made up by non-muslims.   Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It's possible for anyone to 'believe' just about anything. It certainly doesn't make it representative of Islam (or any other particular group). It's a pretty limited scenario in which a particular Muslim dying from a bullet wound 'knows' at that time that the specific bullet came from a nutter who had smeared it with pig's blood. A dying person probably isn't going to speculate wildly that their hideous injury 'might' have been caused by some idiot they once saw on Youtube. A Muslim devout enough to worry that they might not be getting to paradise would also most likely know that something done to them in this manner would not be 'impediment' to such a 'reward'.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 22:00, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Following up on [[User:Jeffro77s comment above. From Halal it is clear that Muslims can eat pork rather than starve. So it's not likely that being killed by a bullet that they didn't know was dipped in pigs blood isn't likely to be a barrier to paradise. I would suspect that the question has been posed to one of the Islamic ask an Iman forums. Given the hits here it seems this is a non-Muslim belief more than a Muslim one.
 * I'm just struggling to work out what jeffro and I are disagreeing about, he seems to keep saying "no you're wrong" but to me we're saying the exact same thing. Forget the fact that a pork bullet doesn't in fact stop a muslim going to heaven, pretend it does. The whole POINT of dipping pork bullets in spam and making a video is not to "really stop muslims getting into heaven, in reality" it's to spread fear amongst muslim combatants. In this case it's based on a misconception so most likely does not succeed. But IF muslims really believe that you wouldn't get into heaven after touching pork then just the possibility that they might get shot with a pork bullet would be enough to succeed in spreading fear. It has nothing to do with whether or not they "acutally know" if they've been shot with a pork bullet, or with what they think in the moments they are dying, the FEAR of being shot in the 1st place is the objective, as i said it's a form of Psychological warfare. I didn't think it was that difficult a concept. Vespine (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess it's also a form of psychological warfare directed at one's own troops. If you can do something that you think will make your enemy fear you, then you will go to battle with greater confidence in yourself and your unit. For the person who believes these tales and acts on them it can also be a way to gain some control over what is in many ways a chaotic and unpredictable situation. Sjö (talk) 05:55, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Vespine, I'm not interested in the semantics of whether it is 'you' or 'the claim' is wrong. Irrespective of whether the superstition about heaven is 'for reals', I have already indicated that it is neither an official Islamic belief, nor a prevalent belief among any notable proportion of Muslims that dipping bullets in a foodstuff of porcine origin will prevent ingress to 'paradise'. There is also no evidence to suggest that any significant number of fundamentalist Islamic insurgents are terrified of pork bullets. It's just a tale told by ignorant bigots. Sjö's comments about the psychological effect on the proponents of the tale are accurate enough though.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 08:22, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistent apostrophes in older work
See this page, where crucify'd appears in reſponſe #1, rais'd in point 10, receiv'd and confeſ'd in point 11, and betray'd in the final full line. I've encountered this use a lot lately while working with 17th- and 18th-century English publications. What was the point? I mean, I understand that it conveys a two-syllable re-ceived versus a three-syllable re-ceiv-ed, but why print it that way? The printers generally don't seem to have attempted to use eye dialect for these publications, and anyway -ed also appears numerous times; ſtrengthened and confirmed appear just before crucify'd, and the final large paragraph on the same page includes purchased and admitted. Nyttend (talk) 13:22, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Under the original pronunciation, there was a deliberate strong accent on the -ed part of past tense words, so "confirmed" would have been pronounced "con-firm-ED", with the last syllable distinctly sounding like the male name "Ed". The addition of the 'd is a note that those words were pronounced -d rather than -ed.  Remember that prior to the early 18th century, there was no standardized spelling.  All spelling was foneticklee done, so each writer did their best to spell words as they felt they would most likely be read.  There were some dialectical standards that developed somewhat organically among people who were formally trained in the same tradition (that is, people who learned to write in the same area in the same sorts of schools), but it wasn't until the great dictionary writers of the late 1700s and early 1800s that there came to be a standardized English spelling, people like Noah Webster (for American English) and Samuel Johnson (for British English) are often credited with establishing the formal standardized spelling we see today.  The best Wikipedia article I can find to cover this in one place is probably English-language spelling reform, though it concentrates more on unrealized attempts to alter English as she is wrote today, it does cover some of the historical movements to standardize English, touching on the various printing "house styles" that were used, as well as the work of Webster and Johnson and others.  Prior to them, there simply wasn't any authority on English spelling, and there was wide variation.  When researching an older topic, like for example when I was working on the Plymouth Colony article, you find in the original writings a wide variety of spellings, for example Myles Standish is as often as not spelled Miles Standish, and the name of the settlement itself can by Plymoth, Plymouth, Plimoth, Plimouth, etc.  There just was no standard.  It got better throughout the 1700s, and by the early 1800s there was more unformity, by the middle of the 19th century we had reached the modern standards.  -- Jayron 32 14:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] Prior to the 17th century, the e in -ed actually was pronounced, especially in careful speech. (See this source.) This pronunciation may have been remembered during the 17th and 18th centuries as old-fashioned, and/or it may have survived in some contexts longer than in others, for example after a stressed syllable. So the apostrophe represents a conscious omission of the vowel.  Also, spelling was not standardized during these centuries, so it is not surprising that the spelling varies between apostrophes and silent 'e's. Marco polo (talk) 14:05, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Jayron, are you sure that the last syllable of premodern English preterites was actually stressed? Certainly it was pronounced, with a distinct vowel (probably ɛ) in Middle English but with a schwa (ə) by the 16th century.  However, it would be a striking departure from the Germanic pattern for that syllable to be stressed.  Marco polo (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Please read what I already wrote. I understand that it conveys a two-syllable re-ceived versus a three-syllable re-ceiv-ed.  Moreover, I'm not addressing what today we consider alternate spellings — believe me, I could go on about this; not being familiar with the University of Michigan's online edition, I transcribed the contents for William Gouge's Of domesticall duties, fourteen pages of wiues and inioying, or wanting of prosperitie.  I'm asking about the phenomenon that the same page of the same book will alternate between -ed and -'d, a phenomenon that is common to many works.  Nyttend (talk) 14:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Both Jayron and I stated that spelling was not standardized before the 19th century. So it is not surprising to see spellings change within a work, even on the same page, between an apostrophe and a silent 'e'.  I don't understand what question of yours has not yet been answered. Marco polo (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * They may have wanted it to be pronounced differently to match the different spellings. This is similar to how I often use the full form of a word or a shortened version, to avoid sounding repetitive: "I utilize long forms to complement use of short forms." StuRat (talk) 14:47, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * In some dialects of English in the north of the country, and notably Braid Scots, the "ed" is still enunciated as a distinct syllable to this day, though the syllable is unstressed and unvoiced, and the vowel is virtually a schwa rather than anything clearer, so the "ed" tends to be written as "it". See, for example, the "waukit" in this sample. RomanSpa (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Traces remain in some words, e.g. "markedly", "reservedly". I think "much-deserved" occasionally still rates the third syllable for emphasis, though more likely to be encountered without it. Wnt (talk) 00:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * This question may have attracted some more good sources if it had been posted to the Language Desk. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:00, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It may be worth mentioning that printers of the time felt free to use variant spellings to remove or add space in justified lines of type. I obviously can't say whether that was the case in the OP's example, but it can account for such inconsistencies. Deor (talk) 13:00, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Stella van der Loopen
Is Stella van der Loopen a chrysanthemum, a heroine of the American War of Independence, or something by Romney in the Louvre? DuncanHill (talk) 22:48, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you sure she's not made up by H. H. Munro? Clearly "van der Loopen" is a Dutch surname, but the only google hits for "Stella van der Loopen" point to the novel you just quoted. If she was a war heroine, she is now thoroughly forgotten; if a flower was named after her, the name didn't stick and I find it frankly inconceivable that a painting by a famous artist hanging in one of the world's most prestigious museums would get no results on google whatsoever. - Lindert (talk) 23:28, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I suppose Saki could have made it up, but I find that he usually refers to real people, icebreakers, restaurants, etc in comments like that. DuncanHill (talk) 23:37, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * But in this case he may have felt it wasn't him who made it up, but his character. And I think it is "Novipazar", but, again, it wouldn't be Saki's mistake, but his character's. It'd still be interesting to figure out what may have led him to specifically manufacture "Stella van der Loopen". Are there maybe a chrysanthemum, etc. whose names sound a bit like that but are not quite it? Contact Basemetal   here  23:46, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Novibazar would have been standard English usage at the time. But the chaplain also found himself unable to remember which Stella van der Loopen was. Your suggestion of something or someone that sounds a bit like it could be right. DuncanHill (talk) 23:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Note Google returns no result for "Van der Loopen"/"Van der Lopen" or "Vander Loopen"/"Vander Lopen" or "Vanderloopen"/"Vanderlopen". The latter would be a newer way to spell such names, but the spelling of surnames rarely gets updated. There does not seem to be a surname "Van der Loopen" etc. In any case Google only knows about "Van der Loop" etc. Contact Basemetal   here  19:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It may have to do with search location, but I do find one facebook page of someone with the surname "Van der Loopen". - Lindert (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2015 (UTC)