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]
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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.
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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
Illustration of a 1585-1590 Ottoman manuscript depicting Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān ibn Thābit.
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
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...")
Tomb of Abu Hanifa
Parts of this religious practice are discussed here
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
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").
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?
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
More recent (post-1980) artistic monumental depictions of imams displayed in Najaf etc commonly obscure faces as a compromise with iconoclastic sects of Islam.
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 noticed you keep deleting the calligraphy for the grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and replacing it with image depictions. I need to be very clear — this is extremely disrespectful and offensive to Muslims.
Most Muslims do not accept visual depictions of religious figures, especially members of the Prophet's family like Hasan and Husayn رضي الله عنهما. Using respectful calligraphy is the appropriate way to represent them without causing offense.
This isn’t about restricting content — it’s about respecting the sensitivities of a global community. Please stop removing the calligraphy and replacing it with images that many Muslims find deeply offensive.
I hope we can keep the page accurate and respectful.
There is a consensus on Wikipedia against restricting depictions on these grounds expressed by wp:notcensored, so religious considerations of this kind fall beyond the scope of Wikipedia as a project, there are alternative wikiprojects which try to conform to such beliefs such as wikishia.net which might be more appropriately what you're looking for. As to what Muslims do or don't find offensive per wp:npov it's not the job of Wikipedians to take sides in inner-religious debates about the appropriateness of iconographic depictions in a certain religious tradition, there are iconographic groups in almost every major world religion and were all their feelings respected on Wikipedia there would be no religious illustrations left on the site. Islamic art depicting Islamic saints with their common iconographic traits such as the Cream of Histories is encyclopaedically relevant for the same reason that iconographic Christian depictions of saints are relevant to the project. Also, the prevalence of such depictions is very regionally different see for example this feature of a Shiite imam in this Iraqi Ahwari meeting hall
Or common cartoons and films about these figures from Iran. If Wikipedia were to censor religious iconography so commonly displayed in parts of the Islamic world, in political, religious and private spaces, shown in religious schools and mosques etc. it would implicitly take the side of iconoclastic sects within Islam. If you understand that some sects might take offense to the inclusion of images you will also understand that the censorship of such images would be equally offensive to Moslems sleeping beneath extremely widespread icons such as a picture of Ali and the photograph of the youthful Muhammad and therefore that neither of these feelings can be taken into account when deciding what images to include and which to exclude. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 15:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that you are trying to remove calligraphy from every Islamic article, and you previously have been warned about it, the MOS part you cite reads "Images containing Islamic honorifics or calligraphy should have a well-documented usage outside of Wikipedia and not be user-generated." First, the part is debated and it doesn't have consensus, "This section is the subject of a current discussion. Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this section, but that it would be a good idea to check the discussion first." (see the talk page), Second, if calligraphy is in thousands of WP articles regarding early Islamic figures i would say theres consensus regarding its use. Third, many of them are digitized versions of actual ones at mosque's. So please stop removing them AlexBobCharles (talk) 05:47, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem comes down to neutrality. Even user-generated imitations of 19th century Ottoman calligraphic works appear at first glance to speak in Wikipedia’s own voice. Which includes the “may God be pleased with him” next to Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud’s name for example. If we were talking about normal photographic reproductions of these works one could debate their encyclopedic relevance to illustrate articles but I wouldn’t have removed them as there would be no indication of authorial endorsement. But as it stands this goes too far and is a violation of mos:calligraphy. Calligraphy is an art form and as such I can see it’s relevance in some articles, that includes the artisanship, exact brush strokes etc which are present in these works (and entirely absent from these simplified user-generated imitations). Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 06:02, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think anyone is going to go to Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud’s articles and see the calligraphy and think "Wikipedia must assert that God is pleased with Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud". It's similar to someone looking at the illustration's and thinking "Wikipedia must think that Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud looked like this". Also رضي الله عنه is an Arabic term and if someone understands its meaning they probably already know enough about the context to not think so. Besides this probably goes against consensus set by precedent. AlexBobCharles (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also the vast majority of other language Wikipedia's use calligraphy in Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud’s article, all containing "may God be pleased with him", so while consensus is intra-wiki i would say calligraphy is generally accepted worldwide as the way to display early islamic figures AlexBobCharles (talk) 06:19, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, if you have photographs of historically-valuable artistic works and not merely user-generated content trying to imitate them feel free to add them back to the articles—but half-hearted reproductions of 19th century Ottoman calligraphy don't have artistic value by themselves that would bestow artistic relevance to them, the same way that a user generated .svg trying to look like Da Vinci's Last Supper is not the same thing as a photographic reproduction of the Last Supper. And there absolutely is no inter-wiki consensus here ar.wikipedia has these kinds of Islamic honorifics in unicode in the article text, something against which there absolutely exists a consensus on en.wikipedia. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 06:25, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I should illustrate my issue more clearly: These works are three-dimensional pieces of art which means they A aren’t flat but concave/convex and the writing is actually varied in height to imitate the stroke of qalam. Masjid Nabawi (Umroh Ramadhan 2023)-43
So digitization of this is more complex than merely tracing a single photo in Illustrator. So let’s actually look at the work presented here by comparing this user’s digitizations with photographs of the same work: let’s focus in on the last Waw, in the original it tapers out quite artfully while in the digitization it remains much too thick in the end and doesn’t convey the same movement, the proportions and thickness of the surrounding Zammat are also off, proportions of the zakhrafa are also incorrect in many places. Most of the calligraphic fine art and thus the artistic value of the work was lost somewhere in the process of digitization here. And this is comparing a flat artwork that comes with none of the additional challenges of the concave/convex emblems trying to imitate writing in iron work with height in addition to thickness…
واجهة قبر النبي محمد عليه الصلاة والسلام في المسجد النبوي
Only as a last resort. See the "Before posting" list, below the notice that says "This page is for urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems." --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:22, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well what then? If neither RfC nor ANI? Third opinion isn't eligible either because its not two editors. Talk page discussion is here. Just start on RfC at Wikiproject Islam? AlexBobCharles (talk) 10:46, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the issue is specific to one article, hold the discussion at that article's talk page. If it concerns two or more articles that fall within the scope of the same WikiProject, hold the discussion at that WikiProject's talk page. Only go for RfC if all the suggestions at WP:RFCBEFORE have been exhausted. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you want there to be a picture of Aisha in the infobox at Aisha, and that another editor keeps removing it. If this keeps on, admins will be asked to intervene. So please could you use the article talk page to explain why you think the image you want should be the one in the infobox. What about other images such as the one of her on a camel, or the calligraphy? I have also asked the other editor.-- Toddy1(talk)18:21, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
-43.jpg)
