Talk:Islam

Article Checklist for "Islam"

Workgroup category or categories	Religion Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Robert Stockman 11:12, 9 May 2007 (CDT) Petréa Mitchell 12:26, 1 April 2007 (CDT)Matt Innis (Talk) 13:38, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Started an entirely new article on Islam by editing my lecture notes. This version still requires a lot of cleaning up, which I will tackle over the next few days. Robert Stockman 19:03, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Made a zillion little edits to add macrons and footnotes, clarifying text, adding detail,and correcting dates as I went. Robert Stockman 19:07, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Hi, I've made some edits/suggestions which you're welcome to revert. I didn't deal so much with an overarching concern, which is that the voice seems to lean more to a Muslim self-description (emic) rather than a university-level outsider's view (etic). You may want to differentiate the traditional description, based on the Quran and later Islamic sources, from a more historical-critical account. That's why I added 'traditional' to one of the headings. Anyway, it's a full and ambitious article, good luck and hopefully we can help each other out as time goes by. David Hoffman 23:49, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

David, please stop adding Wikipedia stuff. Write original stuff or quote scholarly resources. Nancy Sculerati 00:08, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Is there a current Citizendium policy on adding bits of material from Wikipedia like this, or a good reason not to?—Nat Krause 18:23, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Thank you, David, for these edits. Most are very useful. I have smoothed out a few sentences by adding pronouns. I have dropped "traditional" because I don't think my description of the life of Muhammad is traditional at all. That would include reference to miracles, for example. It is "respectful" but as an academic historian of religion, it seems to me that is part of my ethical obligation. I don't depart from academic perspectives; I am not sure there is a single "etic" understanding of Muhammad. More a bit later. Robert Stockman 13:13, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

I apologize I had to dash out of the house before finishing. There is no single emic (insider) or etic (outsider) perspective on this subject, so we have to exercise a certain amount of professional judgment. If you have any specific suggestions about perspective, please feel free to discuss them here. I am still adding material to the article and the Wikipedia article on Islam, which is quite good, has some useful material that needs to be used, so I plan to "mine" it a bit, for ideas at least. An interesting issue is how to resolve different perspectives. Published encyclopedias rely on a single expert's professional judgment, as edited by professional editors. Wikipedia goes quite far the other way, so any little controversy has to be mentioned, just in a neutral way. But mentioning controversies in a neutral ay is not always the best either; some controversies really are controversies to a very small number of people, or are simply not important in a neutral summary of a topic. Islam is a hot-button topic with controversies of this sort. Robert Stockman 16:11, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Hi. Perhaps I reacted to the life of Muhammad section because of the overall organization. It seems like the later sections are intended to be historical starting with or after The Quran piece. The Muhummad section comes before Beliefs, so somehow it seems set up to be more confessional, like here's the basic religion and then later you read a more analytical-critical history. (Also, Muhammad's life is described at face value as if the Quran is a historical account, e.g. how people felt, what they said.) It would read easier for me if the section at least added "according to the Quran" much more. More importantly, perhaps you should think about maybe placing the Muhammed section within beliefs or within the historical exposition. The M-Station seems like it could go under beliefs. Also, Law and Theo/Phil could be extracted from the historical review, though they do have their own histories. Off the top of my head: Intro, Term, History (incl pre-Islamic context), Beliefs/Practices, Law, Theo/Phil. If history (or other sections) get too long, they can then be summarized here and moved into their own articles. I also was impressed with the quality of the wikipedia article and some other wp material, eg on Islamic thinkers. And I know what you mean about controversies. One controversy that you are starting to deal with is the modern polarization in Islam. Here I like your approach to the 3-prong reaction (provided you have scholarly sources to back it up), but you might want to touch upon the [academic and popular] controversy over how to describe the fundamentalist/Islamicist side, which I think is of high general interest. Anyway, hope you don't mind my stream of consciousness here, take care David Hoffman 21:52, 12 May 2007 (CDT)