Wiki143:Articles for deletion/List of wars in the Muslim world

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. NW (Talk) 21:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

List of wars in the Muslim world

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The introductory sentence of this list presents it as part of the Lists of wars series; however, it is in reality the only list of its kind and not part of any established series—there is no List of wars in the Christian world, List of wars in the Buddhist world, or any other listing of wars by cultural region.

A stand-alone list should have a clearly-defined, non-arbitrary, and (relatively) objective scope, which this list does not, and individual items included in the list must share a significant common element. The scope of this list is problematic for five reasons:

1. Unlike the List of conflicts in the Middle East, which lists events by geographic location, this list of wars (actually, most of the items in the list are battles) in the Muslim world lists events by cultural location. While the boundaries of geographic regions are usually relatively fixed over time, the boundaries of cultural regions are much more fluid (see e.g. File:Age-of-caliphs.png).
2. It is not clear how "Muslim world" should be defined. Perhaps the most objective definition would be: those countries whose present-day populations are mostly Muslim (see List of Muslim majority countries). But how, then, would these boundaries be relevant to wars that took place more than a millenium ago?
3. The common element shared by those wars and battles included in the list seems to be that Muslims were involved and not actual location, as evidenced by the inclusion of conflicts such as the Turkish invasion of Cyprus (in 1974, the population was approximately 80% Christian) and Islamic insurgency in the Philippines (90% of the population is Christian).
4. Following on the preceding point: although the list lists conflicts by the religion of (at least one of) the participants, many of the conflicts lack a religious element, and the article makes no distinction between actual religious wars and conflicts fought over ethno-nationalist or other political considerations. Compare this approach to that taken in the article European wars of religion.
5. The content of this list is largely redundant to content that is presented in a more cohesive fashion in articles such as Muslim conquests and List of conflicts in the Middle East.

Note: Article creator notified using Template:Tl. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 21:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Keep adjust the title if necessary, but it seems a valid and appropriate list. From the criticism, I expected a much more disorganized list than I found at the article--it seems fairly well done. To divide up wars by the national/cultural groups or empires engaging in them makes a great deal of sense. The battles--battles important enough for individual Wikipedia articles-- are listed reasonably enough as subdivisions of the wars. It might be well to end the article at some point like the fall of the Ottoman empire, and continue in another articl, becasuse there scope might have to be redefined. DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that it makes sense to list wars "by the national/cultural groups or empire engaging in them"; however, Muslims are not a single, unified national or cultural group, and it is not accurate to lump together all Muslims throughout history. There is a world of difference between List of wars involving Argentina (a list for a single country) and List of wars involving Christians, wouldn't you agree? –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 01:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Keep Per DGG. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge. I'm not sure what the purpose of this list is. The nominator points out many valid problems with this article. In addition, I'm concerned about WP:SYNTH. Since this is a subjective and unclear criteria (as pointed out by nominator), we should not construct such a list unless some respected scholar has done the same. I cannot see why this list would be necessary/useful either. No one would want to create nonsense like List of wars in the Christian world either. Lists using geographical or time period as the criteria are the way to go, and the content should be merged into such lists instead. Offliner (talk) 02:54, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —AustralianRupert (talk) 04:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. I think defining inclusion as "wars in which a majority-muslim country or group was a party" is pretty clear, and useful to readers studying the topic of jihad, war in Islamic theology, and the justness of wars actually waged by Muslims compared to their religious beliefs. It seems more objective than "wars which are jihad", and Muslim conquests does not cover everything that might be of interest when studying the topic. List of wars in the Christian world would also be interesting to create, since European wars of religion doesn't cover Christian wars in North America and Africa. It might be a bit easier to objectively distinguish "in the Muslim world or not" than "a war fought on Islamic religious grounds or not", but both are interesting ways to slice it. This list has been called "racist" on the talk page, presumably because its existence is taken to imply that Islamic religion promotes warfare. That question is being actively debated, which is probably why this article exists, but it's a valid question for research, and I don't think the mere existence of this list weighs in on that question one way or the other. The fact that a similar list hasn't been created for other religions simply indicates less interest in those topics. I agree that's not balanced, but I think the best way to correct it is to expand the available information, not shrink. -- Beland (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Discussion of the topics of "Jihad" and "war in Islamic theology" are covered in the articles Jihad and Islamic military jurisprudence, and it is inaccurate/misleading to connect the concept of a war in which a majority-Muslim country fought with the topic of "Jihad". And if we are to cover the topic of "the justness of wars actually waged by Muslims compared to their religious beliefs", we should do so directly by drawing from reliable sources, not indirectly by hinting at possible connections through a list. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 18:01, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I have to second Black Falcon's comments about the inaccurate conflation of "Jihad" with wars involving Muslims. It is just that kind of inference that makes this list, and others like it, anti-informative and an actual detriment to the encyclopedia's quality.PelleSmith (talk) 03:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete It is a great list. So comprehensive. It is compelling to think that it represents a coherent categorisation, and that it is therefore useful. But the nominator's thoughtful analysis is also compelling, and changed my mind about this article. The title is obviously faulty; normally I would be demanding that namechange discussions be limited to the talk page. But what would you change the title to? There is not anything that would not be setting a precedent for 'List of wars in the Christian world', and if you think this one is a long list, you ain't seen nothing yet. It is one of the reasons why Germans were so supportive of a nationalist movement in the 1930s; they had been rampaged over so many times by petty dukes and princes duking it out, from the Middle Ages all the way through the Age of Cannon. Anarchangel (talk) 01:02, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
  • There is nothing wrong with creating "List of wars in the Christian world", although it should be divided to periods on chronological basis to be readable.Biophys (talk) 15:28, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
    • How would you define "Christian world"? Would you include all wars within the boundaries of said cultural sphere or only wars fueled or motivated by religion? If you are including all wars, regardless of their relation to the prevailing culture of the cultural sphere that you chose (i.e. the "Christian world"), then how is your choice of boundaries not ultimately an arbitrary one? After all, the "Christian world" as a grouping is neither fixed nor unified. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 17:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. It satisfies all criteria for a standalone list. It looks great. There are no any reasons why a list can not be based on cultural criteria.Biophys (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 03:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• Delete per nominator. Lists should be subjected to the same basic notability standards that regular entries are. If scholars don't find this a meaningful category then we shouldn't take it upon ourselves to declare it one. I don't see how "Muslim world" is a meaningful category in terms of this list and its inclusion criteria. We know that related subjects are meaningfully discussed in scholarship or other reliable sources and we already have entries like Muslim conquests and List of conflicts in the Middle East which adequately cover those subjects as the nominator points out. There is no encyclopedic use for this list. If anything it perpetuates all kinds of incorrect assumptions about the connection between Islam and the wars on the list, per the nominator as well. And that is the heart of the problem. Encyclopedias are not repositories of facts lumped together in our favorite patterns, but repositories of mainstream scholarship. We let the experts decide what is and is not a meaningful presentation of historical data and then we paraphrase them.PelleSmith (talk) 03:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete per nominator. excellent points, particularly #4. the list may be excellently structured, but it appears to be based on nonobjective criteria for inclusion. Its sad that a lot of good research on WP may be this way, but that doesnt change the fact that subjective lists are not encyclopedic. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep This article has serious problems, particularly the inclusion criteria and functional definitions. However,it represents a large section of humanity and history. It can be fixed but will take some serious thought.Aaaronsmith (talk) 05:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete I have to say that the nominator makes excellent points, none of which has been effectively refuted by any of the keep positions. It is an unscholarly, neologistic, capricious historical category that is redundant with other articles that offer the same information. I strongly urge the closing admin to consider the merits of the arguments and not just count votes as the nom is very compelling here. Eusebeus (talk) 15:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. This article has serious problems, and no amount of serious thought is going to fix them. We have comprehensive lists of wars by both era and geography (see Lists of wars), so someone wanting to know about wars in (say) Egypt, or wars between 1000 and 1500, can easily find them. But a list that encompasses both the wars during the rise of Islam (highly religious) and wars involving the aging Ottoman Empire (many of them balance of power fights initiated by the Great Powers in the 1800s) combines unlike things in a way that implies that these things are in fact related. They're not. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete per nominator. A prejudiced POV fork. Might as well have Wars involving in MuslimsTemplate:Spaced ndashor Wars involving atheists, or Wars involving Jews. PasswordUsername (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. "Muslim world" is too vague a descriptor around which a list should be built. What constitutes the Muslim world? It has no clearly defined boundaries, no commonly agreed upon nations or states (India? Sudan? The Balkans?) and no "point-to" quality. It is a societal and academic construct rather than an unimpeachable quality and is thus unsuitable for the encyclopedia. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.