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)

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)