User talk:Bari' bin Farangi

Fire gods

Hello my friend. I will ask you one question. How Is Amaterasu considered a fire goddess??? She is the goddess of the sun OK but due to her role as a solar deity. If Amaterasu Is listed on fire gods page the why Apollo the greek god of the sun isn't listed here as well??? 2A02:1388:2091:53FB:0:0:ABE5:D6EE (talk) 09:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Akaora You have been blocked from editing Wikipedia. To find out how to appeal a block please read Wikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Requesting some article expansion help

Greetings @Bari' bin Farangi

Hi, I am User:Bookku, On Wikipedia I engage in, finding information and knowledge gap areas in Wikipedia and promoting expansion of related drafts and articles. You have been referred by @ProfGray.

Requesting your visit to Tashabbuh (still a draft in my userspace) and help expand the topic areas if you find topic interesting. Wish you very happy Wikipedia editing.

Thanks and warm regards Bookku (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dorud!

I'll gladly have a look! And thanks to Hillel! Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 20:34, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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A Muezza for you!

Thank you for likewise making many of the important Quranic biographies significantly better illustrated.

Remsense 🌈 论 03:03, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I was pretty shocked to find a sort of quasi-iconoclasm here for hagiography from a major world religion... Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 08:08, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I am done for now. But it really struck me how an entire genre of religious art was de facto absent or if present only in low quality scans of reprinted material. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I don't think it was some sort of iconoclasm as much as the consideration that many of the images you have now inserted may be illustrative and decorative, but they are not encyclopedic. In general, fictional portraits with no relation to the actual person have no place in the sidebar of biographies. Yes, they may have a place in the article and exceptions do exist for e.g. religious icons who are immediately "recognizable" in the art. I don't believe this to be the case for a significant number of the additions. I am not going to spend the day undoing these for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I can respect you may see it differently. I would ask that you read/review WP:PORTRAIT and consider whether or not all of the recent changes really are improvements. Thank you. A15730 (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They are all conventionalized traditional depictions indicative of the larger themes of Islamic religious illustrations following the conventions of their particular workshops (Shiraz, Tabriz etc) or larger cultural context (such as Persian miniatures, Ottoman miniatures etc). None of these are one off illustrations, otherwise I would not have added them. Hence for most of these you can immediately draw connections to other Stories of the Prophets illustrations or general Islamic devotional art of the characters. These depictions are pretty consistent from medieval manuscripts to modern Islamic cartoons illustrating Stories of the Prophets or devotional pictures hung in houses throughout the Islamic world. The fact that some Islamic sects hold iconoclastic beliefs doesn't take away from the fact that there are common topoi and conventions present throughout non-iconoclastic works of Islamic art. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 14:35, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take as an example Abu Hanifa because you seem to have been engaged with regards to this issue on that article already

If we compare this 16th century Ottoman depiction (part of a larger theme of Ottoman works derivative of religious Persiante miniatures) and compare it to modern copyright protected depictions of Abu Hanifa such as

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqbbA_n7PyA8-NR5aaAdsoSRpSDC0t3LRveA&s

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXWQhxcaGmOhuTE_iRrpa52EBC3kfsANuiUA&s

https://www.islamiqate.com/qa-plugin/islamiqa-core/upload/3617.jpg?1597760642

https://zahraa.at/WebRoot/Store/Shops/48397248/5DAA/F71B/A047/DB9C/896E/596E/84E2/3F34/front-cover-abu-hanifa.jpg

etc. pp.

We find that the depiction of an old man with a beard, seated with a turban, holding a book is immediately recognizable across all these images as it corresponds not just to other manuscript illustrations but nearly all depictions of Abu Hanifa. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 14:53, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the reply. No, I am not engaged on the Abu Hanifa article. People just keep flipping the images back and forth between no image and calligraphy as they do on many of these pages. Then, they issue edit war warnings. Then, they repeat the cycle. So, I was happy to see that at least you've done something different. As I said in the talk there, it seems to me that a picture of his grave/shrine would be appropriate, but I wasn't able to find one that's suitable.

With regards to the image. It is a fictional image. All of the fictional images you link have some guy with a beard and some sort of turban. So is the image for almost any of the other people. None of them are well-known representations. I don't think anyone looks at the image and says, "Ah, Abu Hanifa." It certainly is a typical representation of how Ottoman artists represented people about 1000 years after his death. It would belong in an article on Ottoman art. It can belong in the article on Abu Hanifa. I don't think it belongs as the landing image, however.

I would, again refer to WP:PORTRAIT. Yes, that is just an essay an not in any way a hard guideline, but I believe it makes a lot of sense. If you look at the images you have linked too, they are all representations of Abu Hanifa within somebody's tradition/imagination WHICH IS ALSO ASSIGNING FACTS. e.g. Each of the turban styles can be associated with particular places. Assignment of one them in the sidebar seem out of place when one of the persistent arguments that arises is his ethnicity/background.

Please note, I respect the effort and work you've done on the articles which is far more than I have done-- my criticism is limited to biographies of historical figures and the use of fictional portraits which are not immediately associated with them as the landing image. A15730 (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most historical religious iconography is at its core "fictional", we don't know what Jesus looked like and yet there are common themes throughout religious art depicting him, there always will be elements of inculturation, Chinese Catholic depictions of Jesus are likely to differ significantly from Ethiopian orthodox depictions just as the turbans do in our example but between them we can observe visual topoi and iconographic signifiers. The same is true about Abu Hanfia, we don't know what he looked like and we can't know if Islamic depictions of his derive from fiction or if they build on illustrations, sculptures etc of him that were simply lost to time. We can observe throughout time and place though that he is depicted as a scholar with a beard, commonly engaged in teaching or study, wearing a turban. The same way that other iconographic depictions of religious figures such as Paul the Apostle don't assign facts by depicting him in one fashion or the other as a balding man with a long beard writing letters as they simply reflect the common iconographic language of Christianity so too don't iconographic depictions of Abu Hanifa assign facts about him. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 15:34, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The examples you cite are religious icons. You may note that neither I nor WP:PORTRAIT objects to those cases. Abu Hanifa is not a religious icon or a saint. He is a historical figure and is regarded as a historical figure. The image must be conveying something or it wouldn't be there. i.e. It certainly is implicitly assigning facts and biasing the reader. (I further think that the fact that all of images I have looked at in the biographies appear to be Ottoman representations belies much of what you are writing.) I think there's at least one other editor who would agree, which is why I keep citing WP:PORTRAIT. Perhaps, there are just two of us? Anyways, I asked you to give it some thought, and you obviously have. So, I thank you for that. Best Regards. A15730 (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Historicity and religious veneration are not mutually exclusive categories. Paul most likely was historical figure and yet there is corresponding religious veneration of him. Categories like saint and icon don't transfer neatly from Christian contexts to Islamic ones—however Abu Hanifa's resting place is an Islamic shrine. One that's visited by thousands of people each year, that had number of grand mosques built around it, it's a local pilgrimage site, and there exists a widely held belief that one praying two rakʿatayn at the tomb will be granted Tawasul through it etc. This corresponds to most aspects of sainthood in a Christian context. ("Ora pro nobis...")

Parts of this religious practice are discussed here

https://mrehan786.blogspot.com/2013/02/imam-shafis-tawasul-through-grave-of.html

The texts produced about him largely have the character of hagiographies. Sure, this veneration is stronly connected to historical developments within Sunni Islam under the Seljuk dynasty and the later Ottoman one to whom he was one of four integral figures of jurisprudence through which the religious identities of their dynasties were defined. But this in no way disqualifies the practices especially because this connection extends into the present, for example the most recent renovation of the shrine in 2019 was undertaken by TİKA

https://tika.gov.tr/en/detail-tika_renovates_the_shrine_of_imam_al_adham_abu_hanifa_in_baghdad/

Anyone is free to believe that these practices are misguided or wrong. That his grave shouldn't be a pilgrimage site and that praying there does not have special effects on reality, that saint-like depictions of him from Turkic dynasties who supported these practices are deviations from a particular religious truth etc. However, it isn't our purpose as Wikipedians to adjudicate religious disputes. There are Protestant iconoclastic groups who would object to any depictions of Paul the Apostle, who think of him purely as a historical figure and wholesale reject the category of saint, who view almost every cultic practice associated with the Tomb of Saint Paul as wrong and would surely object to his visual depiction in his Wikipedia article as idolatrous fiction about a real man. Wikipedia as a neutral platform can't conform its articles to such beliefs however, if there exists certain cultic practices around a figure and clearly defined set of iconographic traits that's shared among most religious depictions of the figure then those are conventionalized traditional depictions and we should show them especially because they are of encyclopaedic importance. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 21:09, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with most all that you have written both here and above. It doesn't change my position on the matter because it is not germane to my point of contention. Paul is, in fact, a religious icon. Pictures of him and other icons are readily recognized as the people they are supposed to represent. This is not true for the Abu Hanifa portrait. That is an important distinction. I don't know why this seems to be a difficult point to grasp. Take representations of Jesus, Moses, Mary, Paul, various saints, etc. and show them to a well-schooled catholic and ask who they are, and I think most can be readily identified. It is entirely appropriate that a well-known version is used in wikipedia. This is certainly not the case with some of the recent biographical pictures you have added. In fact, several appear to be the same face turned to different sides and having different colored clothes. That's just fiction and biases the reader to one particular representation separate from reality.

With regards to your example of tawasul above, that seems like it might be spurious for a number of reasons, some of which are included in the link you give. HOWEVER, if this were a wide-spread belief clearly associated with Abu Hanifa, then I could see having iconography which demonstrates that. e.g. If the painting of Uqbah Ibn Nafi riding onto the sea were the sidebar image, that would be fine with me.

Regarding your statement about Wikipedia being neutral, I think that is an argument against you. I would consider it to be beneficial to the article on Abu Hanifa, if you could show multiple representations of him representing different traditions within it. Limiting it to the Ottoman depiction seems to be making a choice. We aren't supposed to be discussing changes to articles here, but I would be thrilled if you both changed the sidebar to his grave (I'm not sure about the permissions) AND added a section regarding some of the various depictions. If you did really just want to keep one in the sidebar, I would at least like to see one produced by Persians used since he was most likely Persian.

I didn't intend to drag this out and appreciate the consideration. A response wasn't really needed. I hope that you understand that my intent was to raise the general issue of the suitability with respect to the use of the portraits as laid out in WP:PORTRAIT which, you can probably tell by now, I think is well thought out. If you think that it is fundamentally wrong, that's simply your choice as an editor and I can respect that. A15730 (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we're going to find agreement in our judgement here, as I do think in a context where Abu Hanifa is revered as a quasi-saint, which also does pictorial depictions, our Ottoman ones of him are going to be recognizable.

Regarding your estimation that early Ottoman miniatures are not "Persian", that's difficult to state. Modern notions of ethnicity or borders are absolutely not transferrable from the present to 500 years ago. However, until the mid-17th century at the very least Ottoman society can be considered Persianate, they spoke Persian at the court, the manuscript we are looking at for example is entirely in Persian. The six workshops that produced our manuscript according to that years payroll draw heavily from ones in modern day Iran and likely employed people from the region. The same applies to Abu Hanifa's Persian identity (or likely Persian background) which has nothing to do with modern ethnic identities and rather means hailing from a Persianate society (like the early Ottoman Empire), which makes our miniatures about as Persian as Abu Hanifa (should he have been "Persian").

For more information see:

Persianate_society#Ottomans Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 05:16, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedia Iranica uses the term “cultural continent” to navigate this issue of what’s Persian narrowing significantly in the modern period but that sort of specialized academic terminology is unfit for the general audience targeted by Wikipedia Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 05:31, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Yes, as I said, a response wasn't really needed because we generally agree on the subject matter, I accept editorial discretion, and I don't think it's beneficial to nit-pick other people's positions. BUT now, I would really like to hear your response to this question:

Question: You write, "... I do think in a context where Abu Hanifa is revered as a quasi-saint, which also does pictorial depictions, our Ottoman ones of him are going to be recognizable." If you printed out a number of the portraits we are discussing here and took them to a Hanafi dominated mosque and asked people to pick out which one was Abu Hanifa, do you really think that people would pick the correct one at any rate significantly higher than random chance? :End Question.

I don't think they could because virtually all of them are simply a man with a beard and turban. In fact, I think that even if you went to Abu Hanifa's grave and asked people who were literally worshipping him, they would not do any better and may do even worse. I find your statement absurd with reference to any modern group of people of any size. This is quite different than the case of a picture of e.g. Michelangelo's David, or numerous depictions of Jesus, Moses, etc. (and even some representations of Ali) virtually anywhere in the English speaking world. I've asked this a couple of times above and you've ignored it, but it goes to the very purpose of having a side-bar image.

Whatever your answer, we'll call it the last word on the subject. I've made my point as best I could and, again, I thank you for considering it.

Separately, would you mind sharing two things: 1. Is this general topic simply a passionate interest of yours or is it related to your professional career? 2. Within this general topic, which one or two books would you recommend as essential reading?

Best Regards. A15730 (talk) 14:33, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Images Addition

Take your matter to either talk page solely and discuss matter either other than just reverting up edits on your own, if you really adhere to wiki policies I mean! Yeah there might get confusion thou... you know! 🤷 122.129.67.34 (talk) 17:14, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please actually read WP:NOTCENSORED. There already exists a consensus here against censorship on religious grounds. Additionally, if you wonder why later traditional hagiographic depictions are relevant to the articles even though they offend your religious sensibilities please read the non-binding essay Wikipedia:PORTRAIT. Icons of Shiite imams are standardized pieces of religious art with common themes and conventions adequately captured by the Ottoman works used. They are very common in Shiite sects without iconoclasm, though most popular icons in use today are still protected by copyright. They commonly feature in important social and religious spaces, see for examples this Ahwari meeting hall

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVZ4ZawXsAMK-Qt?format=jpg&name=medium

adorned with an icon of a Shiite imam, the typical depiction of the youthful Muhammad

https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/img-4-small491.png

and a portrait of Saddam Hussain.

More recent (post-1980) artistic monumental depictions of imams displayed in Najaf etc commonly obscure faces as a compromise with iconoclastic sects of Islam.

https://en.ifilmtv.ir/News/Content/43317/

However, especially in more rural communities in Iran and Iraq, where international contact to members of Islamic sects with differing views on iconoclasm is uncommon portraits of these figures with a face are widespread in public places of political and religious life and in private homes.

Wikipedia is explicitly NOT in the business of appeasing your or anyone else's religious sensibilities, there are alternative projects for such an end such as wikishia.net

I therefore ask you to refrain from further trying to enforce your religious beliefs against the consensus expressed by WP:NOTCENSORED. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]