Talk:Jonathan A. C. Brown

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Did Jonathan Brown write this page about himself? Certainly sounds like it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.110.86.138 (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Slavery views[edit]

The new section is formally a BLP violation, because cherrypicking the views to highlight without reference to non-primary coverage in RSs is WP:OR. Megalodon34 has fixed some substantive problems with the section, and since there seems to be an uproar brewing on some blogs regarding this video, experience shows that it's better to leave reasonable coverage in place rather than remove it and wait for someone else to insert a less accurate version. Let's see if this becomes a notable controversy covered by non-primary RSs, and if so adjust the coverage. Otherwise, it will be liable for removal based on WP:NOR and WP:PROPORTION. Eperoton (talk) 18:14, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I don't understand how a short summary of JACB's views on slavery is WP:NOR, even if no well known RS newspaper/magazine discusses them in the future. His speeches, essays, and Reddit AMAs are reliable sources for information about his own views, and the para just baldly repeats them without any SYNTH. Of course, this material is highly controversial so needs care, but if there are weight issues the article can easily be expanded with other notable less controversial stuff. NPalgan2 (talk) 19:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The question is how one decides which statements or views of a person to highlight from a large body of work. This should be based on non-primary RSs, if they're available, according to WP:PROPORTION. If there are only primary sources available, deciding which statements deserve coverage is a form of interpretation, which is disallowed by WP:PRIMARY. Of course, some direct use of primary sources is straightforward and can get consensus, but this particular section seems to take these views out of their context in his broader body of work. Yes, one could write a more extensive summary of these and related views based on primary sources, but it's not what we should be doing. Eperoton (talk) 20:08, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Perhaps this example will clarify. Suppose all we had for an article on the Bible was its text. Some editors might want to highlight the stoning laws, while others would prefer to highlight the Sermon on the Mount. Both would be misusing the primary source, and inviting everyone to summarize their favorite bits is not the way to address this problem. Eperoton (talk) 20:17, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Eperoton Yes, but I think this is a case when a balanced, well-sourced, *short* precis of Brown's public statements on the slavery/concubines issue is pretty essential to the article and worthy of invoking WP:IAR.
Megalodon34 First, thanks for finding the twitter status, I hadn't seen it. But I disagree with this "Brown was misrepresented by certain tabloid outlets as "advocating slavery and rape," when in reality he has condemned it unequivocally." Which outlets? What's the source for misrepresented? Why take a position in wikipedia's voice on whether his previous statements are in conflict with the tweet? I am changing it to: "On 11 February 2017, Brown wrote on Twitter, "Islam as a faith and I as a person condemn slavery, rape and concubinage."[1] NPalgan2 (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also, you write in your edit "It is not about what "Brown believes"; he was simply restating the position of classical law". Brown is not only restating the position of classical Islamic law, he has repeatedly taken the position that he cannot, as a Muslim, consider slave concubinage inherently immoral. What is the justification for edit? There's the cited reddit answer, the lengthy discussion in the lecture Q&A, and back in 2015 he spelled it out very clearly: https://twitter.com/holland_tom/status/830531868705554433 NPalgan2 (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Eperoton NPalgan2 Ok yes I appreciate both your constructive comments; my bad! Megalodon34 (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@NPalgan2: Possibly, if there is consensus to ignore them in this case, which we should be extra cautious of in view of BLP. I'm curious to listen to his lecture and I'll wait until I've done so before forming a judgment on this point. Eperoton (talk) 22:59, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken a closer look and removed the bit sourced to reddit for two reasons. First, it mischaracterized a response discussing a point of Islamic law made to a question posed in the past tense, making it seem that Brown was advocating having sex with slaves. That alone qualified for a very quick BLP removal. Secondly, it was a case of WP:SYN, piecing together that discussion with Brown's unrelated informal comparison, making it seem as though they referred to the same conceptual categories. Eperoton (talk) 05:01, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, @Eperoton: I don't think that the removed material mischaracterized JB's position. First, listen to the question asked by the woman at 1:12:25 here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpFatRwdPm0 (Brown answers another guy's question first but comes back to her question later.) Brown says modern Western criticisms about consent are not valid, Islam sanctions a slaveowner's sexual access to his concubines. The reddit question was "While I understand the reasoning and historical background, I have not been able to find an answer to the question about whether slave rape occurred or sex with a slave had to be consensual?" JB is clearly interprets this question as asking "did the prophet and his companions have sex with their slaves / is having sex with slaves permitted by shariah?". He says "her 'consent' would be meaningless since she is his slave." He doesn't mean "she can't consent, therefore it's rape", as his long critique of the whole concept of consent in the youtube video shows. The question from the reddit thread and the youtube question are the same, and JB's answer is the same, though he answers at more length in the youtube version. This isn't SYN. Also, look at point 4 here. https://twitter.com/holland_tom/status/830531868705554433 Brown clearly states that Islamic slavery sanctions sexual access. NPalgan2 (talk) 05:35, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I've reviewed the material more carefully and I'm even more disturbed that we're attempting to piece together a scholar's views using snippets of social media exchanges and bits of rushed Q&A where he says he doesn't have time to address the question properly. There are some innocuous PRIMARY violations of the "book report" type, which attempt to present the main points of a complete work, but this is definitely not policy-compliant.
Substantively, there are different issues getting mixed up here. First, there's comparative exposition of different institutions of slavery, which Brown as a historian attempts to present on their own terms, without projecting anachronistic conceptual categories. Second, there's discussion of Islamic law, which he again treats as a historical phenomenon, without sacralizing it ("The legal ideal is developed from the existing traditions, with a little bit of inspirations from the Quran and the sunnah") and how "we" (i.e., Brown and his audience) are supposed to grapple with the historical realities reflected in Islamic scriptures. Third, a Muslim asks how to respond to ISIS' traditionalist argument, and Brown cites a traditionalist argument which has historically played a role in the Islamic consensus on abolition of slavery (the classical doctrine of siyasa shar'iya, aka administrative action). The Facebook screenshot alludes to another workhorse of consensus-building legal reform in the Muslim world (the somewhat refurbished classical doctrine of maslaha, aka public interest). Fourth, he has some cross talk with a guy, whose mind he's trying to read, perhaps unsuccessfully, as a specimen of mainstream Muslim opinion. Sixth, as in the removed bit, he's trying to clear up confusion about Islamic law and the notion of slave rape, which has led some Muslims to make conceptually wrongfooted arguments in response to ISIS' perversions. I'm taking time to get into these details because I believe you're genuinely trying to summarize what may strike you as beyond-the-pale and hence notable views. One can disagree with some of Brown's actual arguments, but as someone who has a bit more background in the area, I can tell you that none of the above are substantively remarkable in the context of mainstream Islamic studies, though in these snippets they are presented in an abbreviated form and sound provocative without context. Eperoton (talk) 14:13, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Eperoton: Hi, am working now and don't have time to look into this, feel free to edit the paragraph if you feel the current one is unfair to Brown/remove it and get admin to protect if you feel it shouldn't be there. PS I do realise that most of the people passing this round on social media wouldn't have batted an eyelid if JACB had been a Southern Baptist prof discussing a passage in the old testament. Will look at this this evening. NPalgan2 (talk) 14:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'm glad we have consensus. I think the current version should be removed to stay on the right side of BLP. If the controversy reaches a tipping point of notability (I see some commentary on sites which don't seem like RSs to me, as they don't separate newsroom coverage from opinion pieces and have uncertain "reputation for fact checking and accuracy", but some editors have a broader notion of notability), and to the extent we need to rely on primary sources, we should summarize his views based on the article whose content was presented in the lecture ([1]) and then mention criticism of the lecture. I'm also busy now, but I can help with that later. Eperoton (talk) 15:32, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I had some free time and wrote a new version. The jury on notability is still out, but I think it's better than waiting for someone to try summarizing Brown's views based on the opinion pieces. Eperoton (talk) 16:43, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Eperoton: Thanks for the new version. I still don't understand exactly how the removed material was unfair, how would you have summarised Brown's views? When you say "none of the above are substantively remarkable in the context of mainstream Islamic studies", well, hundreds of millions of people support execution for riddah, so if Brown announced he supported it, it wouldn't be "substantively remarkable in the context of mainstream Islamic studies", but it would be substantively remarkable for a Georgetown professor. NPalgan2 (talk) 22:31, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]


By Islamic studies I meant the academic discipline, not traditional Islamic scholars, but that last comment actually had no bearing on my argument. It's not our job to evaluate what is and isn't remarkable. I wouldn't venture to guess and summarize Brown's views on a complex topic like this based on causal comments on social media and hurried Q&A exchanges. That's just not appropriate use of primary sources; WP is an encyclopedia, not a social media aggregator. That's why I summarized the article, presenting its thesis and a couple of illustrative examples. The criticisms are also mentioned, and interested readers can follow the links to read the quotes and the commentary. Finally, the quoted tweet was evidently meant as a self-contained public statement. We can continue this discussion if you have concerns about the current version, but if you're ok with it, we can just move on to other endeavors. Perhaps we'll meet again when Brown presents the promised parts 2 and 3. :) Eperoton (talk) 00:50, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Washington Post on the subject: [2] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]


@Eperoton: and everyone else, Hello. I really appreciate everyone's help. I am new to WP and i believe I have made some mistakes. I did a lot of research on JACB and Slavery Issues. He wrote a scholarly paper and then tried showing that academic paper to the audiance at a lecture. None of those views that he is being blamed for are his own. If you look at his article at the below you can see all the references and sources of his article[2]. Then when he tried mentioning that the word slavery had different meaning and connotation across the time and cultures, this is where people started misquoting him, for which he even responded then by writing another essay[3]. This was the reason I kept on fixing his article page. My apologies if I have disrespected anyone, it was definitely not my intention, please feel free to coach me if you think i am doing something wrong. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larkin.Bryze (talk • contribs) 02:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Larkin.Bryze. You've made the right step in discussing the changes you want to make. As you can see from the section below this one, at least two editors (Robert McClenon and myself) think that your edits are not compliant with Wikipedia policies. When that happens, per WP:CONSENSUS, you are expected to stop repeating your edits (this is known as edit warring), let the previous version stand, and try to resolve the objections of the other editors to your proposed edits on the talk page.
Here's main problem with your edits: per WP policies (WP:V and WP:NOR), this article should be based primarily on non-primary reliable sources. That means we can summarize the coverage from respected newspapers like the Washington Post. This was done in the second paragraph you have deleted. Removing material summarizing such sources because you disagree with it, as you have done, violates another WP policy, WP:NPOV. Occasionally, we can summarize a primary source, like Brown's own writings. This was done in presenting the main thesis of his paper in the passage you have deleted. However, we can't make assertions not supported by citations (e.g., "attacked by may Alt-Right, Xenophobes, etc" or "he was among very few scholar who came out") and per WP:PRIMARY we can't make our own generalizations about primary sources (e.g, "he has maintained his clear views") or take initiative to highlight their seconary points instead of the main ones. As of now, as Robert has pointed out, the article reflects your own views about the controversy, and not the range of views reported by the Washington Post (which happens to be the only mainstream newspaper to have covered this topic). This is a violation of WP:NPOV. As you can imagine, with all these policy violations, we can't replace the previous version with yours.
The right thing for you to do in this situation would be to restore the previous version yourself, and then if you have concerns about some parts of it, or if you would like to add something to it, we can discuss it here. Eperoton (talk) 02:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Twitter account of @JonathanACBrown • /r/islam". twitter.
  2. ^ https://yaqeeninstitute.org/jonathan-brown/the-problem-of-slavery/
  3. ^ http://muslimmatters.org/2017/02/16/apology-without-apologetics-jonathan-brown/

Larkin.Bryze's changes / NPOV banner[edit]

Larkin.Bryze, who appears to be a new editor unfamiliar with WP policies, has been replacing the "Views on slavery" section in this version [3] with OR. A message on their talk page didn't work, so rather than reverting their changes myself again, I'll ping some editors previously involved in discussing this content on this page (NPalgan2, Megalodon34) and related content elsewhere (Robert McClenon, Cordless Larry). Comments? Eperoton (talk) 18:34, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't reviewed the subject in detail, other than that I declined a draft by Larkin Bryze. It appears however that the edits by Larkin Bryze are stating opinions and are not neutral point of view. User:Larkin.Bryze - Please discuss before making any further edits, because your edits are controversial and appear to be non-neutral. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted your edits, Larkin.Bryze. Please discuss the issue here and seek consensus for the changes you want made. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:29, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oshwah (talk · contribs) irrational revert of one of my additions.[edit]

@Oshwah: decided to delete my addition, which consisted of mentioning two quotes from Jonathan from his own article that was already cited, under the pretext of "Failure to cite a reliable source". How is, on Planet Earth, quoting of a person from an article written by that same person a "failure to cite a reliable source"? Do we base our English definitions on two different dictionaries or what? I want explanations! You can't just revert my effort under a false pretext and get away with it. --2A05:1700:0:1:400:1FFF:FE29:2CE7 (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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