Talk:Jihad

Older comments from the Jihad discussion page may be found at Archive1, Archive2, Archive3, Archive4, Archive5, Archive6, Archive7, and Archive8

Moving forward

From the period October 19, 2001 till today, there have been 1456 edits made to this article. The edits to this article generally appear to be oscillatory, and inspecting the article history, the content that is present today is not significantly different than versions which were present, say, 3 weeks ago. This suggests to me that the talk page to date has not been as effective as it should be. The discussions to date do not seem to portray an adequate sentiment of convergence. If I understand correctly, the edit dispute seems to revolve around determining whether a particular set of ideas should be included or excluded in the article, how these ideas should be expressed, or even if these ideas should be expressed.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are a significant number of intelligent editors who have contributed to this page - all from a variety of perspectives. Given the right editing environment, there is no reason why this article cannot be an exemplary example of collaborative editing on Wikipedia - and in fact, I believe we can still achieve this goal if we all earnestly make an effort to synthesize ideas together from all perspectives and write an article with synergy.

For a number of reasons, I have taken a few bold steps here with the expectation that contributors to this article will make a sincere effort to improve the article from its current state. This article needs a significant fresh start, so let us proceed with the following mentality going forward:

The contributors to this article are all in a classroom. They signed up for a certain project called Wikipedia. There is an calm murmur in the room - the sunlight filters in perfectly from the side windows. Looking to the left, you smell the spring flowers. Everyone is wondering what the overhead projector at the front of the class is for...

Suddenly, a voice from a speaker announces that within 24 hours time, a certain article will be posted for editing. You are told that it needs to be improved to be best of your abilities, and collaboratively with everyone else in the classroom so that all the ideas expressed are NPOV.

And you think: "I know a thing or two about this topic. I think I can do that, and I think it would be enjoyable!"

One of them happened to preemptively obtain a copy of this article, and apparently, it was posted somewhere on the internet...you all go to this site, take a look, and think: Hmm...this is missing X, Y, Z. It needs to mention A, B, C. I think D, E, F should be rephrased as ...

In that moment, everything in the past was forgotten and forgiven.

I noticed in the edit history that people were unusually careful regarding 3RR. There were a few violations, but I think it is unnecessary to block for them - this would simply be a deferral of responsibility, and would not help the article. We can do better than that - moving forward, let's encourage a sentiment of editing where we do not need to keep track of reverts - one where thoughts are focussed on combining and synthesizing ideas, rather than removing them. This is desirable for everyone, hmm?

Granted, I will be monitoring the edits to this page, and should it degenerate back into a situation where collaboration is not particularly productive, I may opt to block accounts uniformly for short periods, and protect the page once again. However, let me express the feeling that I think the editors here are capable, mature, and responsible - and moving on, I thoroughly expect to use the administrative features associated with my account to a minimum. Please do not test the boundaries of this trust I am reciprocating here.

Now, I am taking a few hours Wikibreak, and when I come back, I would hope that some productive dialogue will have taken place here. The idea that I am suggesting, is that we move on from what has been discussed already, and try something entirely new. As far as I am aware of, this has not been done anywhere on Wikipedia - but it is something worth trying to do, if it would help improve this article. Of course, should this degenerate any further, we will have to proceed with other measures - but I sincerely trust that this would be unnecessary.

The page that is currently protected is not an endorsement of its correctness. Although I am aware that certain editors may prefer the current version, I also expect that they will stay around and help with the article.

One final request - if there is a need to express certain disputed ideas related to this article, may I respectfully suggest that we all actively modulate our use of intensifiers, and keep them to a minimum if possible? There are effective alternatives which can be used to avoid escalating contention on this page; the idea is that we should be able to make this a good editing experience for everyone.

So, with this post, I leave you all look outside those sunny windows and observer the green pastoral setting that is outside. Yes, even this article can be as peaceful as that - but only if we all try to work towards that. And we are doing that right now...

For a head start, I think it might be judicious to summarize the content that is in dispute - paragraph by paragraph if necessary, and whether there are certain approaches that can be adapted to help with the article. Are there ways to combine the disputed content togther, so that it is amicable to all? Certainly, the answer is an unequivocal "yes" - and I want to see that when I come back later.

A green field with exciting possibilities just beyond its horizons...

--HC 17:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Reinstating discussions

I've archived the previous discussion in Archive 8 above. If discussions need to be reinstated, please choose judiciously the ones that you feel will be most beneficial for the article at this point in time. --HC 17:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Jihad as holy war

I would say that "holy war" is the main meaning people use whenever they use the term "Jihad", this sometimes even applies to a non-Islamic context.

In the terms of Islam, I think it's a false believe and a bit of POV that Jihad "misunderstood" and has "nothing to do with war" when fundamentalist Islamists use it an excuse to murder innocent people.

For example, those of us in London where religio-fascist Islamic extremists recently murdered than 30 people and seriously injured, maimed or crippled about 700 others (fact) of all cultures and beliefs have now got a pretty damn good idea of what Jihad is all about:

An excuse for violence on "unbelievers" and the use of religious texts such as the Koran and Hadith to justify mass murder and genocide...

Recently the president of Iran said publically that he would like to "wipe Israel from the face of the Earth". This is at the same time as Iran pours billions into it's nuclear weapons program and fund schools dedicated to training children to become "martyrs" ("martyr training schools") by killing themselves as living bombs.

Iran is the most well-known country with an entirely Muslim, non-secular government and no freedom of religion, and is brutal in putting down those who dissent against their tyranny, their own citizens. Its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and National Security continue to be involved in the planning and the execution of terrorist acts and fund many terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda (who claimed direct responsiblity for the murders in London in a videotape aired on al Jazeera on the 1st September 2005).

That's the kind of future Islamofascists want, one where no one has the freedom of belief and "unbelievers" are "punished" or "destroyed" through torture or genocide...

As for Wikipedia, the reason the article changes so little is people like User:BrandonYusufToroPOV, User:Anonymous editor and the other members of the Islamic thought police (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Islam:The_Muslim_Guild#User_comments) incessantly patrol Wikpedia pages to try to bully their Mutaween versions of articles and target individuals who make any dissenting view...
--Chaosfeary 13:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Dishonesty and revert warring

The "Islamic thought police" are a permanent fixture on Wikipedia and they are rabidly supported by a small minority of editors who style themselves as "politically correct," "spiritual," "non-Muslim," "defenders of the Islamic faith" against "anti-Islamic bigots." It is NEVER the case that rationality, truth and neutrality prevail here. The only thing that prevails is the Islamofacism of the Wikipedia dawa party. I have met Muslims who were very honest about Islamic beliefs and did not try to lie to me in order to make Islam compatable with secular humanist ideals. I had a friend who was an American who converted to Islam and then went to Syria to study Islamic law and he was very knowledgable in Islam; despite our vast differences he was always truthful about Muslim beliefs, not like the hypocrtical Muslim PR campaign that is being run here on Wikipedia. It is a pity that Wikipedia only seems to attract "liberal Muslims" who are willing to lie and distort the truth in order to make Islam "look good" in the view of Wikipedia's very secular and discerning readership. Right now this lunatic Islamic PR campaign is trying to delete the US Department of Justice's definition of "Jihad" from the article (as well as the stylistic improvements that I made to the article) and (as usual) they have launched a relentless revert war to achieve those ends This is nothing but censorship, there is no honest reason for why such information should be deleted from wikipedia. The Muslim editors here, and the minority of supporters that I mentioned (notably Zora, who is seems to be the only non-Muslim who is trying to delete the DOJ definition), have not yet understood that Wikipedia is about freedom of thought and information, it is not about delusionally protecting the image of Islam from anything that would reflect negatively on the religion in the mind of a non-Muslim. Not a single pro-Islam/anti-DOJ Wikipedia editor has explained WHY the DOJ defintition must be deleted or WHY my reorganization of the article into two coherent section should be deleted. What kind of subsection title is "General theological issues?" or "The Muslim View"? This is just nonsense. And it should be noted that I authored almost all of this article, and it was ME who came up with the title "General theological issues" in the first place. I am only trying to improve things that I myself wrote, and here we have certain individuals trying to revert absolutely any change I make to Wikipedia. I am firmly convinced that all of the problems on Wikipedia that I describe would instantly end if only 4 or 5 certain sockpuppeteering editors were banned. --- Zeno of Elea 19:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Typo

Hey, yeah, I found a typo in the article. I'd love to fix it myself like I generally do with other articles, but the article seems to be protected. I guess I'll just post it here and let a sysop take care of it seeing as I can't.

In the second paragraph is this clause:

[...] for example a Muslim struggling to memorize the Qur'an is a called a mujahid.

It should be

[...] for example a Muslim struggling to memorize the Qur'an is called a mujahid.

Oni Lukos _ct 00:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It's been corrected now - see [1]. --HC 06:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Just a bit longer...

I'm still waiting to see what the thoughts of BrandonYusufToropov and Anonymous editor are regarding the article - so, for now we'll protect the page a just tad bit longer. --HC 06:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see a point for unprotection yet. You have seen the type of arguments made by the people who want to insert the controversial POV material. There would have been no revert war if the major edits were discussed before by these users, namely user:Zeno of Elea. I think that the article should be protected longer until these additions have been sorted out. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 14:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I want to say too, though, that it's bizarre that this article so frequently gets frozen in place in a version that includes the absurd passages relating to the US Department of Justice's insights on Islamic theology.

That having been said, I think we should all be able to discuss what the consensus is for major edits to a page of this visibility, and keeping the article protected seems the best way to do that. BrandonYusufToropov 21:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

BrandonYusufToropov, you are involved in deleting information, specifically the DOJ defintion, through this revert war. You are asking that the page be protected for a longer time so that we can discuss the content dispute, but you clearly refuse to discuss the content itself. All you have done so far is whined about the "wrong version" being protected in the past, and you have baselessly asserted that the mention of the US DOJ's description of Jihad is "absurd." Why is it absurd? Why are you deleting it? Do you have anything to say for yourself in the interest of intellectual honesty? -- Zeno of Elea 01:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous editor and BrandonYusufToropov have already been given a suffucient amount of time to try to justify their revert warring and respond to the criticisms of their reverts that have been made. -- Zeno of Elea 17:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

And Zeno has been given enough time to discuss why she would make such large amounts of POV edits without a word of discussion when she knew the edits would be controversial. Also she has had enough time to realize that her major POV edits and the reverts to her edits are the ones in question. But remembering Zeno, she hasn't learned the meaning of discussion and would support any revert war as long as anti-Islamic material was presented. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 18:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous editor, first of all you are well aware that I am a "he" not a "she" (as I have told you in the past); you may want to see the article Zeno of Elea as this the name of a famous peson who was a "he" and who any educated person ought to have read about through study of "Zeno's paradoxes." Furthermore, all you have provided here are personal attacks and baseless assertions that my edits are "POV" (without any explanation of why), and now you expect your censorship practices to be accepted without question. I would recommend that you worry less about making personal attacks against me and worry more about addressing the points I have made above regarding the current content dispute (which you are a part of through your revert warring). Furthermore, you keep asserting that I have made "major edits" to the article, but this clearly not true. In fact, YOU are the one who is making major edits by deleting a good 30% of the article without any intellectually respectable explanation. -- Zeno of Elea 01:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

So far, Anonymous editor and BrandonYusufToropov (the prime instigators of this revert war), have gone to great lengths to (a) make personal attacks against me, (b) openly admit that the currently protected version of the article is their preferred version, and (c) insist that the article remain protected in its present state so that a "discussion" can take place. But it is THESE very users who are engaging doing the reverts, and it is THEIR justifications that we have all patiently been waiting to hear. Instead of hearing any specific discussion about the specific content dispute (and my comments regarding it above), all we have heard is that they would prefer that the page remain protected in its current state so that we can "discuss what the consensus is." It seems to me that these people are only interested in keeping the page protected so that they can keep their unjustifiable apologetic censorhip going, and they are interested in neither discussion nor consesus. But to give Yusuf and Anonymous the benifet of the doubt I am again inviting them to respond to my explanation of my stylstic edits (see above) and I am again inviting them to explain why they have suddenly started deleting the DOJ defintion of Jihad from the article. -- Zeno of Elea 01:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that the prime instigator of the revert war would be the one who came along and started making unexplained, POV edits. No one has made personal attacks against you and nothing as direct, but it's common to hear your allegations and useless rants rather than any productive discussion. Btw, this is not my preferred version, a lot of what has been added in this version is the way you want it, not me. For my edits, can you please tell me where I deleted 30% of the article? I only reverted unexplained edits by you and haven't added/removed anything to the article that is different from its version previous to when you and your friends started this revert war. And as for your edits, I think some edits speak for themselves [2]. Also the DOJ definition discussion is already discussed - see archived discussion. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 20:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I have explained all of my edits. You have not responded to my explanations. All you have done is engaged in personal attacks and you have thrown the word "POV" around without bothering to intellectually justify your claims. You deleted the DOJ definition, which constitutes about 30% of this small article. Your extreme POV beliefs are not a reason for us to delete the DOJ definition. There is no rational reason for deleting it, and it is here to stay. You had better find a way to compromise your beliefs, otherwise the next step is mediation. Also, the content of the article is not "the way I want it," it is what has been decided by consensus. -- Zeno of Elea 07:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

You have explained nothing, you just keep repeating the same things over and over and keep alleging personal attacks. None of the stuff you added was with "consensus" unless you are referring to the opinions of just you and 2 editors who only reverted in this article. I even told you that there was a discussion on the DOJ issue which was archived, but once again you didn't read my message but repeated the same things over and over. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 20:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

"You have explained nothing, you just keep repeating the same things over and over" You can find above right on this page an explanation of my edits, as well as below, as well as in my edit summaries, all of which was posted before you asserted that I "have explained nothing." You also claim that I "keep repeating the same things over and over." How can it be that I have explained nothing and am also repeating things over and over? The fact is that you are wrong on all counts. You are simply a blatent liar. This very talk page is evidence that I have attempted to explain my edits to you several times and you have not responded a single time, other than to hurl false accusations and to try pathetically to decieve others.

"None of the stuff you added was with "consensus" unless you are referring to the opinions of just you and 2 editors who only reverted in this article" Here you go again, trying to decieve readers. Either that you are having a great deal of difficulty following conversations. As you clearly see on the screen in front of you, I was referring to the article as a whole and the long-term history of the article, in response to you bringing up this topic in the first place. I was not referring to the present dispute, yet you have tried to put words into my mouth, setting up a straw man claiming that I have said something about consensus on the present content dispute when I have not. -- Zeno of Elea 04:15, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Links

Let's start from the bottom of the article, and focus on one thing only: the external links and references. Take a look at this edit: [3]. What is the dispute surrounding these links? It seems that the only difference is whether they should be characterized as "Sites critical of Jihad", or whether they are "Secular sites discussing Jihad", and whether they should be placed closer to the top or bottom. Is this correct? Does this mean that all the editors agree that they are worthy for inclusion on this page? HC 02:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, not all non-Muslim sites about Jihad are "critical" of it, and it's POV to imply this, a siege mentality really.. - It's like if the Encylopedia bit said "Encylopedias critical of Jihad". --Chaosfeary 11:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Jihad's use as a propaganda term by reputable mainstream commentators is probably an important dimension of its meaning, and an underdiscussed one in this article. Sites from such commentators -- as opposed to hate-speech free-for-alls like faithfreedom.org -- should probably appear. As far as I can tell, everything on this links list should be in, though I think the title of that section still needs work. BrandonYusufToropov 11:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What this particular section is called and where it is placed is a minor issue. The question of where it is placed is easily solved by adopting an alphabetical listing policy. I would say that "Criticism of Jihad" under "External Links" is more appropriate, and a link to Criticism of Islam would be relevant. The links section is really not the issue here and it has nothing to do with the revert war that led you to protect the page, as the diff you provide indicates. -- Zeno of Elea

Really? I must have misunderstood them then. In some reversions, the location and the title of the links seems to change along with a specific paragraph of text. I must ask, does "DOJ" mean "US Department of Justice" on this page? Also, is there a reason why other national/international operating definitions of jihad are not mentioned in the article, in additional to the DOJ one? --HC 05:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes DOJ means US Department of Justice. The probable reason for why other national/international operating definitions of jihad are not mentioned in the article is because no editor has ever heard of such a thing. At any rate, no one has stopped anyone from adding national/international operating definitions of jihad besides the DOJ since no one has proposed anything of the sort. This does not justify deleting the information about the DOJ operating definition. -- Zeno of Elea 06:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. You're saying that no editor has ever heard of any other government body referring to "jihad" or defining it? BrandonYusufToropov 11:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

There is also archived discussion on this HC. [4]. As I mentioned before, I really see no reason why one country should have any authority in defining part of a religion. Would you hear the US "DOJ" define christian terms like trinity? No you wouldn't. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 20:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Or, perhaps more to the point, the opinions of Saudi Arabia's royal family on the topic of the Trinity. Perhaps someone who's heavily invested in this particular content could do some of the necessary research and then try to insert that Saudi material in Trinity so we can all see exactly what happens. Based on those results, we can discuss what should happen here. BrandonYusufToropov 22:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

"You're saying that no editor has ever heard of any other government body referring to "jihad" or defining it? BrandonYusufToropov 11:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)" I do not know of any other government that has a legal definition of Jihad, and I doubt that there is such a thing. If you know of some other country's Justice Department giving a legal defintion of Jihad, then let us know. -- Zeno of Elea 06:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

"There is also archived discussion on this HC. [4]. As I mentioned before, I really see no reason why one country should have any authority in defining part of a religion. Would you hear the US "DOJ" define christian terms like trinity? No you wouldn't. --a.n.o.n.y.m You don't see the reason for the Department of Justice to have a legal definition of the word Jihad? I am sure that the Department of Justice has its reasons, and given the violent and criminal nature of what they describe it is not hard to see why they have defined it. You may not agree with the definition, or you may think that there is no reason for the justice department to have a definition at all, but that does not change the fact there is a definition and that as an enyclopedia Wikipedia should mention this definition here. You are right that there is no rational reason for the Department of Justice to define the Trinity, but that is not relevant to this discussion. I can't see why any unbiased editor would accept your justification for deleting the DOJ definition from this article. -- Zeno of Elea 07:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Make a to-do list?

Based on the discussion above, it seems that there are a lot of fronts on which this article can be improved. Maybe this talk page can make use of a "to-do" list - and this list can be placed at the top of the talk page. This to-do list will simply be a point form summary of the ideas generated here - it can be used as a scratchpad for ideas. How does this sound to the editors? HC 02:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Heartily agree. A lack of consensus about what, precisely needs to get worked on next is a big part of the problem here. BrandonYusufToropov 14:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the page protection that you have enforced and which has been in place for quite a while now. You didn't protect the page so that we can make a to-do list in order improve the article. The page was protected because of a revert war, and the main point of contention is the DOJ legal definition of Jihad. -- Zeno of Elea 06:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

And your major edits too which were undiscussed. If the DOJ is the one dispute then we can add to that discussion which has been archived. I don't think that if the page was unprotected that much would change and the same conflict will continue. A to do list is a good way to resolve disputes. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 20:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Compromise and asymototic NPOV

Also, regarding the reversions related to the DOJ definition...How about this compromise? We insert the both the DOJ text, and the other text into two separate sections and place section NPOV tags on them? In this way, at least both sources of ideas will be present on the same page - it will make it easier to determine how to best merge the content together I think, if everything is on one page instead of two. How do all of you feel about this? If the presence or absence of a certain section of text is important enough to cause a sustained edit war, it seems reasonable to conclude that both sets of ideas deserve to be expressed in some form. Of course, the resulting text may not be immediately NPOV - but in this case, I think we can at least aim for what I call asymtotic NPOV - at least have all the ideas on one page, so that a variety of editors can come by and help rewrite the ideas into a totally NPOV form - giving the Wiki some time and patience to achive this. By reverting to different texts, the ideas are simply lost, and nothing can be built upon them. For this reason, I think the article has not progressed significantly for the past few weeks. Can we agree to adapt this approach for the next little while, or at least agree to try it out? Keep all the ideas, and instead of removing them, and strive to reword it so that it is palatable to everyone. HC 02:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

"Also, regarding the reversions related to the DOJ definition...How about this compromise? We insert the both the DOJ text, and the other text into two separate sections and place section NPOV tags on them? " Placing permanent NPOV tags is not a solution of any kind. Just because you think that the DOJ legal definition is "POV" does not mean that any article mentioning it should have NPOV tags. There is a difference between not adhering to NPOV and neutrally presenting a particular POV. Furthermore, what do you mean by "insert the both the DOJ text, and the other text into two separate sections?" What other text? What two seperate sections? And for what rational reason?

"...if everything is on one page instead of two..." Two pages? Which two pages? There is only one article, and I do not see how starting a second article is a reasonable option.

"If the presence or absence of a certain section of text is important enough to cause a sustained edit war, it seems reasonable to conclude that both sets of ideas deserve to be expressed in some form." I don't think so. One group is trying to delete text from a section, while the other group is trying to include it. The former group is trying to push their own POV by censoring the article, and the latter group is trying to neutrality present a legal definition from the US Department of Justice. We are not saying that Jihad is whatever the DOJ says it is, we are only describing what the DOJ legal definition is - whether or not you agree with the DOJ is up to you, and this is no place for a discussion of anti-American POVs.

"By reverting to different texts, the ideas are simply lost, and nothing can be built upon them." People who try to wage revert wars in an effort to censor articles for POV reasons that they cannot even be bothered to articulate should be asked to cease their hamrful activities.

"Keep all the ideas, and instead of removing them, and strive to reword it so that it is palatable to everyone." It is very simple, HC. Either the DOJ definition stays or it goes. Once we are agreed that the DOJ definition stays, we should revert to the version where it IS included. HOW it is included is a different matter entirely, and no one has raised any specific objections as to the currently manner in which it is included.

"strive to reword it so that it is palatable to everyone." We are quoting the DOJ definition. Rewording the DOJ's definition, so that it is palatable to Muslim apologetics or for any other reason, is not an option. Perhaps you are referring to rewording the article in general, in which case I again point out to you that the present dispute is only about whether or not the DOJ definition is included - the current manner in which it is presented has not been disputed by anyone.

HC, it seems to me that you support keeping the DOJ definition. This much I can agree with. Your idea about changing the way in which it is presented are vauge and without any justification - if you could explain specifically is wrong with the current version, then perhaps we can get somewhere. But keeping the DOJ definition while rewording the article, inserting NPOV tags, and creating incoherent subsections, just so that we can please a group of people whose only concern is to delete the DOJ definition, is neither rational nor is it fair. The DOJ definition was presented in a neutral manner, and two users began a revert war to delete the definition. You are alleging that the way in which the definition was presented is the problem, but no one has said raised objections about the way in which the definition was presented - the only objections raised are against any and all presentation of the definition. -- Zeno of Elea 07:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Word etymology

Also, I found this site here from Canada [5]. The summary at minimum suggests that the meaning of the word "jihad" is contextual. It may be worthwhile to introduce explicitly a "word etymology" section into the top of the article so that the history of its usage, and its application is clearly outlined for the rest of the article. We can make it a goal of the article to convey to the reader that the concepts associated with "jihad" have carried different meanings under various contexts for different people over time. Once we have established that the purpose of the article is to convey these different perspectives, it should not be so difficult to present the reverted versions of the page in a manner which complements each other. How does this approach sound to everyone? HC 02:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

"Also, I found this site here from Canada [6]" First of all, NC, this is the website of the Canadian Islamic Congress, which is not a reliable source. Secondly, the article goes into great depth about the different contextual uses of the word "Jihad." Please see the article content on the different kinds of Jihad, eg. Jihad by the hand, Jihad by the pen, Jihad of the heart, etc, etc. - this covers all of the issues raised by the link that you have provided.

"It may be worthwhile to introduce explicitly a "word etymology" section into the top of the article so that the history of its usage, and its application is clearly outlined for the rest of the article." Etymology is the study of the origin and history of words. Etymology is NOT the study of the present usage and "application" of words. The link that you gave does not say anything about the etymology of the word. If you have information on the Arabic etymology of the word "Jihad" then you are of course welcome to add it, but please realize that a word's defintion is not the same as its etymology. I would imagine that the Arabic word "jihad" has its origins in Aramaic or Hebrew or Proto-Semitic.

"Once we have established that the purpose of the article is to convey these different perspectives, it should not be so difficult to present the reverted versions of the page in a manner which complements each other." NC, which different perspectives are you talking about? You went from talking about context to talking about etymology and then you went to talking about "different perspectives" - these are three completely different issues. I realize that you are only trying to help and do so in an even handed way, but suggesting that we resolve this revert war but carrying out an unrelated etymological study is not appropriate. As for the different usages of the word Jihad, this is already covered by the article. I do not know which "different perspectives" you are talking about, nor do I know what you mean by "conveying" these "different perspectives." You are speaking in very general terms and you seem to lack famaliarity with the subject matter. I do not see how your flurry of ideas on how to expand the article is going to help us resolve the issue of whether or not the DOJ legal definition should be included in the article (which is the cause of this revert war). -- Zeno of Elea 07:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Mainstream Muslims consider jihad to be misunderstood by non-Muslims

The article asserts: "Mainstream Muslims consider jihad to be the most misunderstood aspect of their religion by non-Muslims." No source is given here. This is just one specific Muslim Wikipedia editor's assertions about what "mainstream Muslims" think. Has a world-wide statistical survey been conducted on this issue? Or what? This sort wording is inappropriate for Wikipedia, and is suited for blogs and POV websites which try to convince the reader that non-Muslim perceptions of Jihad are wrong. These sorts of apologetic are impossible to source or verify and are designed to poison the well - they have no place here. When dealing with this very controversial subject, every single statement must be sourced and any statement that is not sourced is liable to be deleted (especially if it is an unsourced vauge statement about what the majority or "mainstream" adherents of a religion think). -- Zeno of Elea 07:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Clarification

Let me clarify a few things here in response to some of the posts made by Zeno. I really appreciate how quickly posts are made to this page. I do have other responsibilities outside of the Wiki, so my apologies in advance if I tend to reply with a bit of tardiness.

To be honest, I don't know what would be best to resolve the edit war. It seems to me that both sides are fairly entrenched regarding what to do with the DOJ definition, and I am fairly certain that if the page were unprotected, the reversions would happen once again. I hope that this will stop after my intervention here. Let's make it clear that if anyone feels that I am not helping the situation here, please feel free to let me know, and I'll move on to some other project on Wikipedia. I only decided to help out because I thought this article might benefit from having an administrator who is firmly neutral on the topic - after all, my background is in an entirely unrelated field, and I do not keep up with this topic in the media. Of course, it may not be what this article needs, but I felt a few days ago that there was at least a chance that it would be beneficial for the article if I tried to help out.

The to-do list was something I suggested because when I read through the archives, I felt that there were always the occasional ideas which came up, but were never acted upon because the focus was elsewhere. I just thought that it would be a good idea to keep track of these, but I suppose for the current situation, it would be somewhat of a distraction.

The suggestion to place NPOV tags arose from another page where there was an edit war. An NPOV tag was placed at the top of the page and protected. After a few days of discussions, all the regular editors then agreed to unlock the page, take the page off their watchlist, not edit the page at all for a fixed amount of time, and come back when anonymous editors and other users had made a reasonable number of edits to the article. This helped end the edit war and resulted in a more stable article - I thought this approach might work here as well.

I know that word etymology deals with the origin of and history of words, and I suggested this based on my experience with Chinese. Single words in Chinese can be associated with other words and concepts in subtle metaphorical ways, and in modern China, these associations are important and shape the politics of how certain concepts are presented. I thought that there might be a similar situation in Arabic after I read the first sentence on that site from the Canadian Islamic Congress. I did not read further into the that page or its merits - I just found it based on some Google searches for "jihad definition", "Canada", and other keywords - I picked Canada simply because it was the first country that I thought of after "United States" that day.

Yes, I freely admit that I know very little about this topic, so if I am asking questions which seem out of place or irrelevant, I hope you can forgive my ignorance. I have kept the questions somewhat generic for this reason. However, it seems that everyone is quite keen to address directly whether the DOJ definition should be kept or excised from the article, so I will try to stick to that topic from now on. I was hoping that my posts would encourage some thought regarding other things which might supercede the issue regarding the DOJ material, but based on your feedback, it seems that this approach would not be viable, so we'll try and talk about the DOJ material first.

The "two pages" I was referring to was this [7] version here. The content on the yellow and green side seemed to be completely different, and I did not notice until now that it is looks like a reshuffing of content.The yellow side seems to have the extra paragraph: The United States Department of Justice defines...<ending with a book source by Maxime Rodinson>. Is that section the only source of dispute on the article right now?

I did not intend this post to be so long, but I thought it would be good to clarify my position regarding this article. In the future, I'll try to keep it more concise. Posts that are too long risk introducing too many unrelated things to the discussion table, so I'll refrain from writing so much in the future. I hope this has helped explain a few things. --HC 00:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

This will go nowhere until BrandonYusuf and Anonymous User begin to engage in honest and good faith discussions. That will not happen until they have a need to argue their position. As it is, the article is locked in the version that they want and so they are avoiding discussion. How long is this supposed to continue? Can you honestly say that you have heard a reasonable justification for deleting the DOJ information? In my opinion, BrandonYusuf and Anonymous User as well as others need mediation - someone who they are willing to listen and talk to must convince them that revert wars and censorship are not the way and that it is in their interest to use the talk page. -- Zeno of Elea 04:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

What next?

I'm going to unprotect the page and see what happens. There's at least some willingness to make a "to-do" list, which means there is a willingness for some discussion. If changes are made to the article, please keep them incremental. --HC 01:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

"If changes are made to the article, please keep them incremental." By saying this, you are in effect endorsing the version of the article that you protected. -- Zeno of Elea 04:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

This is exactly what I would say had the other version been protected. I'm not endorsing anything, and I don't like the insinuation that I am. I don't think I can do anything else beyond what is already done, with the exception of filing a peer review. So after that, I think I'm moving on to some other project on Wikipedia. There were no more 3RR edits after the page was unprotected, so as far as I am concerned, the edit war is over. --HC 04:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

"This is exactly what I would say had the other version been protected. I'm not endorsing anything, and I don't like the insinuation that I am." A version of the article was protected and I'm not insinuating anything, I'm describing to you upfront what the consequences of your actions are. Just as in any edit war, there are two versions of the article - let's call them version A and version B and say that A is the version of the article which includes the DOJ definition and my reoriganization of the article into two sections (discussed above), and B is the version of the article which deletes the DOJ definition and reverts my reorganization. You protected version B of the article (this is not to say that you endorsed version B by protecting it). Then after a while you unprotected version B article, and simultaniously wrote here that changes to the current article (version B) be kept incremental. Why must the change from B to A be incremental, and not the change from A to B? Just because you happened to protected and unprotect version B of the article as opposed to version A? After you unprotected version B and made these declerations, the article was reverted to version A (meaning that the DOJ definition and the reorganization (both of which were discussed above, without response from the opposing side) were restored. Shortly thereafter, User:Yuber reverted back to version B and wrote in his edit summary, "RV non-incremental edit" and now he is spear-leading this revert war supposedly in the name of "incrementalism." Where did he get this idea that any changes of the article from version B be kept incremental, but that changes from version A of the article not be kept incremental? Your suggestion that changes to version B be kept incremental is now the latest justification for deleting the DOJ definition of Jihad without any discussion or justification by users who are known POV warriors on year-long probabations. The emperical evidence is that your latest comments / actions have resulted in official endorsement of content. -- Zeno of Elea 10:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Some Reader Comments

I apologize if I'm not doing the peer review right. As a reader without any special expertise in these thoughts, it seems to me that this article suffers from a frequent Wikipedia problem - a casual reader can see that there is some kind of debate under the surface of the article, but the article is arranged in such a way as to make it hard to understand the arguments of each side or their evidence. As an example of this, it takes three or four readings of the "Greater or Lesser Jihad" section for a new reader to figure out what the disagreement is and what statements are meant to support one side or the other.

1. As far as I can tell from the article, everyone agrees that, today, some people use "jihad" to mean primarily or even exclusively war against the unbelievers (which may then be divided into defensive war and offensive war), and some people use jihad to include non-violent struggles. In this sense, jihad is similar to the Western use of "crusade," although its origin may be different.

2. One side to the debate seems to argue that, more or less: (i) jihad meant both violent and non-violent efforts as early as the birth of Islam, (ii) personal non-violent jihad should be understood by true muslims as being superior to holy war, (iii) jihad should not be understood to mean primarily holy war today, and (iv) moreover, in many cases where jihad does mean holy war, it really means a defensive holy war.

3. The other side seems to argue, more or less: (i) the primary understanding of the meaning of jihad, both today and historically, is holy war; (ii) the use of jihad to mean personal struggle is primarily a sufi tradition that has been seized upon by jihad apologists, but does not have a historical basis outside the sufi tradition.

If I understand the debate correctly, as a reader, I would prefer to have the debate spelled out (presumably in its own section), and then have the evidence pro and con each side arranged in a clear way, with citations to support. OHOH, if I misunderstand the debate, then I'm not sure why there's so much struggle on both sides.

A separate page of "historical uses of the word 'jihad' in literature" might be helpful to address some of these issues as well.

Lastly, Zeno, I think you're wrong on sourcing your definition to the "Department of Justice." That's not the DOJ opinion AFAICT, it's just an indictment written by some DOJ attorney in the trenches. (An indictment is, by definition, a set of unproven allegations). If you can find a similar cite in the US attorney's manual or some global publication, you'd have a much stronger case on this point. --TheronJ 17:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

This is, I think, an excellent analysis, and it remains only to be seen whether people are willing to discuss it and implement it. BrandonYusufToropov 19:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

"This is, I think, an excellent analysis, and it remains only to be seen whether people are willing to discuss it..." And you are not discussing it because ... ? -- Zeno of Elea 08:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Zeno, I endorse its contents in full and commit to implementing it. Will you join me in doing that? BrandonYusufToropov 11:22, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

"This is, I think, an excellent analysis, and it remains only to be seen whether people are willing to discuss it...I endorse its contents in full and commit to implementing it. Will you join me...?" Why arent you discussing it, Yusuf? Why should I join you in some quest that you havent discussed? Your statements are completely void of substance. By saying "it remains only to be seen whether people are willing to discuss it" you are insinuiating that it is up to other editors to discuss while you can sit back and demand that others discuss it and "commit (submit?)" to "it." -- Zeno of Elea 14:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Reverts

What I don't quite understand is why the same text is being repeatedly inserted and removed...if text needs to be added, why can't a different wording be used and added incrementally? If text needs to be removed, why can't it be removed incrementally?

Anyway, I've protected the page again...please start debating amounst yourselves what to do next - the purpose of me filing a peer review was to invite more dialogue between the active editors (not so much with me) and other Wikipedians who might know more about this subject, and so far it has not happened to any significant extent. I'll come back when everyone feels it's ready to unprotect again. --HC 04:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)