Talk:Ahmad ibn Hanbal

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Contents 1 Requested move 2 Major Criticism 3 More details 4 Flogged by Al Mansur 5 References 6 Place of Birth

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Major Criticism

This is not a good article. It is much too long, too detailed and too admiring. I haven't got time to edit it just now. But I will be back!

I agree that the article is somewhat lengthy. I think that the material is all relevant though; I think all that needs to be done is to rewrite it (whilst keeping the information already here) in a more concise form. I do think there are too many red links. Not too long ago, I blued many of them, but an awful lot still remain. Perhaps the section on Hanbali scholars could be made into a separate article if there is enough to write about them. I could be wrong, but I'm not fully convinced that substantial biographical articles on the individual Hanbali scholars could be produced (which is why I'd rather see a separate article lumping them all together). MP (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More details

I have a copy of the book whose reference I added to the article. It contains many details about the life of Hanbal and has numerous quotes (well-sourced). I'd like to have a go at a major revamping of this article. We can include a lot more details on Hanbal's opposition to Mutazilaism, interaction with Shafei and other important incidents in his life. Of course, being a book written by a Muslim scholar, we'd have to be careful to pick out the factual items from the POV ones. MP (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flogged by Al Mansur

How is this possible if Al-Mansur died about four years before ibn Hanbal was born? (I think it was al-Ma'mun who had him flogged) DigiBullet 23:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

How frustrating it is to find that the first reference is in Arabic - this is the English WP ! MP (talk) 19:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Place of Birth

I have provided many sources to prove that Ahmad was born in Baghdad. To be exact, 7 official and reliable source + 9 web links just in case anyone wants to verify on the web. The original claim (that he was born in Merv) has no sources, yet I come and find that my edit was deleted and the original unsourced claim rewritten. Is this a game or what? How many more sources do I need to prove my tiny piece of information? --Maha Odeh 05:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

p.s. It's worth noting that the other languages (Arabic Dutch, Spanish, French, Русский and Melayu all seem to agree that he was born in Baghdad. Is there a political thing here that justifies changing facts in history that I don't know about? --Maha Odeh 05:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Most scholarly sources say he was born in Marv (I'll add the sources shortly), and something hosted in tripod.com (a personal web page) is not a reliable source, read WP:RS. --Mardavich 05:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you mean other than the 7 scholarly sources I provided? Did you actually check them? Don't forget that it seems that the sources that were added by others and the weblinks that were also added by others seem to agree too.

Until you do get more sources that are more reliable than mine (some of which were already sourced in the article, by the way) I'd say we keep it as Baghdad. Besides, why change the name at the begining? Or do you know how Arabic names are said better than everyone else including Arabic sources. You can check Arabic Name to verify. I'll remove the tripod link. --Maha Odeh 05:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am adding more sources as we speak, tripod and Islamic websites are not reliable sources. --Mardavich 05:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

My sources are:

1. Ali al-Masudi, Murooj Al Thahab wa Ma’adin Al Jawhar – Part 4 (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems); known as “He was the first Arab to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work”
2. Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah Part 10, “considered to be one of the most authoritative sources on Islamic history” while he was “a master scholar of History”.
3. Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat Al A’yan – Part 1, According to Britannica, ibn Khallikan chose "factual material for his biographies with intelligence and scholarship" and this book "
4. Al-Dhahabi, ‘Siyar A’lam an-Nubala’, which is mentioned in the Article in “further reading”.
5. Abbad, Abdullah, Usul Mathhab Al Imam Ahmad.
6. Main source in English is Encyclopaedia of Islam, Part I, page 492. It says in the article about it: “EI is considered by academics to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies”

The weblinks include some not-so-trustworthy sources but it also includes some very trustworthy ones. You see, it was very hard to find sources in English. Now, if the two Western scholars did not base their information on the above, I'd say then that there information seems baseless. To be realistic, Are you trying to say that Edward Granville Browne and John Malcolm (whom by the way seem to have had a focus on the overall history of Persia not on the biography of Ahmed + they are orientalists!!!) were able to find an inscription on a stone tablet in Merv that made the claims of four of the most authoritative sources in Islamic history void and null!

This is truely unbelievable. --Maha Odeh 05:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I looked up your sources, Browne is not valid because his book is not only not a biography, but also not history, it is "Literary History", i.e., the history of Persian literature; moreover, his lifelong work focus on two things, the Baha'i faith and Persian literature, both irrelevent to the matter at hand. Malcolm's book, on the other hand, is a history book; however, it is not a biography and I doubt that the birth of one person is going to affect the history of Persian hence it seems unlikely that he mentions it, if he did, it is even more unlikely that he researched the matter before mentioning it because it was probably besides the subject.

Accordingly, I would say that you need to find other sources. Maybe something that is more focused on Ahmed. --Maha Odeh 06:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)