Talk:Maqbara

Untitled

hai, why do you want to remove a caategory ISLAMIC SHRINES IN TAMILNADU and create a new page with title. contents found there are purely mine. -wasif

Article in poor state

This article needs to be completely changed. The article is not written in proper English. The tone of the article is neither neutral or encyclopedic. It also contains a great deal of original research(no references).WackoJackO 08:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I have taken out a few of the more blatant POV examples, but there are still more.WackoJackO 08:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't really saying that your English is not good. However, there were some mistakes in the articles that could be improved. Also, English is obviously not your native language. You are still learning it, so there are bound to be mistakes. You have good english for someone who is learning, and it will only get better the more you practice. So, my comment was not meant to insult you at all.

Also, we have to make sure that we keep a neutral tone in the articles we write here. That means that we cannot call a religious prophet "The Great", "The Magnificent", etc. We also cannot use honorifics, it doesn't matter what religion(Christianity, Islam, Judiasm, Hinduism, etc). Remember that this is an encyclopedia, so we need to make it sound like one. Furthermore, we should always use references for any any controversial or hard to believe facts.

I am rather tired now(it is late where I am), but tomorrow I will help you with some of the articles. We can improve them so they will be up to Wikipedia's quality standards.

I will be on tomorrow to help!

By the way Wasif, POV, stands for Point of View(opinion, as opposed to verifiable fact).WackoJackO 09:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Evidences

I have evidence for all information which i enter through my edits. Mostly in book format. Do i need to scan all those stuffs and upload it? If so, where? Wasifwasif

Hey Wasif. The references should be cited in the article. Please see Wikipedia:Citing sources, there is also Wikipedia:New_contributors'_help_page.WackoJackO 04:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Going over article

I am currently going over this article to try and help improve it, and to make it sound more like an encyclopedia article. I have went through the first two sections. Later today, I will go through the rest of the article later today. Hopefully, we can make it a bit more compact, and add references where they are needed.WackoJackO 14:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making it encyclopedic

It nice to see you, reviewing and deleting some non neutral contents. But the content which you have deleted regarding the dream, is referred from http://shadhilitariqa.info/index.php/ramadhan-13-urus-of-al-waliyyul-kamil-moulana-meer-ahmed-ibrahim-periya-hazrat-rahmatullahi-alaihi/

i can also give you some textual references from some books written in tamil. So kindly undo that content regarding dream. And it will be in a good state if you go through rest of the article also.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wasifwasif (talk • contribs) 05:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey Wasif, the references usually shouldn't be from blogs. Good references are from books from reliable authors, newspapers, magazines, journals, or other established sources. A small blog would usually not qualify as a valid reference. However, see the conversation below.WackoJackO 11:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

reboot

This article is awful. Much seems to be a straight copy of parts of shadhilitariqa.info, with some changes (I'm not sure how much is copyvio). Even if this isn't a copyvio, I suggest we start fresh, with a simple short stub, defining the topic. Then, build it up, with independent sources, not shadhilitariqa.info. I appreciate the work done to improve it. While progress has been made to avoid a copyvio, we're left with the problem of bad sourcing. --Rob (talk) 07:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you may be right. It is definitely way too long, and if what you say about the copyright violation is true, then all that would definitely need to go. I got about half way through the article trying to improve the tone, but it seems a fresh start is due.WackoJackO 11:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way Wasif, copyright violation means that the text was taken from another website. The articles here can't be copied from another source(unless it is a quote, etc).WackoJackO 11:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

What should i do?

Hai, As you rightly felt, some part of it has been referred from shadhilitariqa.info. Though maintained in a blog, its a good informative site regarding sufi order shadhiliyya and it's sufi sheikhs called as maqbara hazrats. you can see, no public visitor is scrapping in that site. As i am putting it in a different tone, i don't think this will violate copy rights. If it does so, what should i do? should i get a license from those people? if so, in what format? Also, i din't get a reply regarding the uploading of textual sources which i have and regarding undoing of some of your deletions. Wasifwasif —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wasifwasif (talk • contribs) 11:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to upload anything, and in fact you can't, due to copyright. Shadhilitariqa.info simply isn't an a neutral source. If you have paper sources, you can use them, if they are reliable, and they're widely published. So, for instance, for a book, you want the ISBN, publisher, author, page, etc... The key, is that it's published widely enough that anybody else could easily find the source, and double check it. Where appropriate, including a small quote in a footnote, helps also. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for standards on what's a legit source. You may want to read Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. You might use the {{Cite book}} template for books, or {{cite web}} for web sites. Of course, online sources are ideal, but Wikipedia accepts that they're not always available. --Rob (talk) 07:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Wasif, shadhilitariqa(dot)info is actually not a valid website to be used as a source on Wikipedia. Blogs can usually not be used as references on Wikipedia. Anyway, the blog is definitely not neutral, it is clearly an obscure religious blog. Articles on Wikipedia should be written from a neutral standpoint, not Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, etc. That is one of the reasons that we can't have honorifics like "peace be upon him". You might want to read Wikipedia:MOSISLAM#Islamic_honorifics to learn more about the policy on honorifics. Also, the article can not take a position on whether or not the religious aspects are true. We can only say, "X religious text says that X happened", etc. This all has to do with making sure the article has a neutral point of viewWackoJackO 12:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure. i'll follow.

I assure i can follow the wiki standards as you say, X religious text says that X happened",. - Wasifwasif

Hi Wasif, It is just a way of remaining neutral, and have the articles be more like an encyclopedia, as opposed to a religious work. I will also help go over the article more later.WackoJackO 16:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi wacko, I too nedd this articleto be Encylopedic, rather than a religious work. Sure you do it, and i'll give references. - Wasifwasif —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wasifwasif (talk • contribs) 13:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Radical pruning

This article needs to focus on the general term "maqbara". All the details about Madurai Maqbara Hazrats etc need to be a separate article. --Sarabseth (talk) 11:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

ok.. will do it in a while with more details and explanation about the general term Maqbara or this article can be re named as madurai maqbara-Wasifwasif

I think it's probably best to retain this article as Maqbara, and create a separate one for the maqbaras in Madurai. --Sarabseth (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Please do it soon. Meanwhile, I'll go ahead and delete the Madurai Maqbara Hazrats from this page. You can always access it from older versions of this page to restore it to a new article. --Sarabseth (talk) 10:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Wasifwasif has already agreed, a while ago, to move the Madurai Maqbara Hazrats material to a new article.

Please understand that this material does not belong in a general article titled Maqbara. Please do not restore that material to this article. --Sarabseth (talk) 12:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism

The entire content of this entry has been plagiarized from http://maqbara.com/. --Sarabseth (talk) 21:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Copying two comments from User talk:Sarabseth:

Sorry. The contents of maqbara.com are as such copied from wikipedia maqbara. As you may eb aware, Otherwise wiki wouldn't have allowwed to put that contents.

In that case, I apologize. It's hard for a third person to tell who copied from whom. I guess it didn't make any sense to me that someone would actually construct an entire website where all the content was just copied from Wikipedia (I still don't see the point of doing that!), so I had assumed Maqbara.com was the original.

I'll go ahead and copy these last two comments to Talk:Maqbara, since I had also put a plagiarism comment there. --Sarabseth (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

--Sarabseth (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It just occurred to me to check the earliest versions of this article.

Here's what I found: the article was created at 04:38, 18 December 2008. By 04:46, 18 December 2008, it already contained a link to maqbara.com. That doesn't seem to square with the entire content of maqbara.com being plagiarized from here. --Sarabseth (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for initiating a third opinion. As i have clearly mentioned above, the contents of maqbara.com were copied from Wikipedia maqbara article and not a single word is plagiarized from maqbara.com and you can check that site. The link which was placed during the creation of article is for a reference about maqbara. .-- wasifwasif

Discussions should be continued in the section in which they are begun. If you don't mind, I'll move this back to the original section, for continuity.

The question was really: if the entire content of maqbara.com was copied from the Wikipedia maqbara article, then what content did they have before the maqbara article was created? You have not answered that.

Also, I don't know what to make of this, but the site http://maqbara.com/ no longer seems to exist. A cached version (as of Dec. 17, 2009) can be found at http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:ZftVAP_4kvIJ:www.maqbara.com/+maqbara.com&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a.

It's a very short page. The entire content of the page is identical to the first four paragraphs of this article. Hence the question: That site clearly existed before this article was created; if they copied their entire content from here, then what did the site contain before this article was created?

Here's a related question: why would it make sense for anyone to spend money to host a web page which simply takes the first 4 paragraphs of a wikipedia article and puts it on the web again? --Sarabseth (talk) 14:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Maqbara versus Madurai Maqbara

As I have pointed out before (see "Radical Pruning" above) and also User_talk:Sarabseth#Maqbara, it doesn't make any sense to have an article called "Maqbara" (which is a general concept) with 99% of the content being about the Madurai maqbaras (which are just one example of the maqbara concept).

If you want to merge the little bit of material that was in Maqbara with the enormous amount of material that was in Madurai Maqbara, the combined article should be called Madurai Maqbara, and not Maqbara.

We have been over this before, and yet you have put the Madurai Maqbara material back into Maqbara without any discussion or explanation. --Sarabseth (talk) 15:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to quantify my criticism a bit, and expand it:

In this article, only the first 121 words describe the general concept of maqbara.

The remaining 2330 words pertain to 3 specific Sufi saints. And it's not even as if what is being described is their maqbaras. There is just one brief mention of the maqbaras:

The place where these three holy sheikhs' graves are found is called Maqbara and is located in the Premises of Kazimar Big mosque (Periya Pallivasal) in the Heart of Madurai, city which is the cultural capital of Tamilnadu in South India.

The rest of the 2330 words are devoted to the life stories of the 3 saints. Actually, the rest of the article consists of a highly POV and religiously charged account of their lives. Religious fables are presented as fact. For example:

Once, a mureed of Chinna Hazrat in SriLanka was struggling to breathe, as some food got struck in his vocal chord while eating. Suddenly he shouted, Yaa Sheikh, help me..! Within a few seconds, Chinna Hazrat could make his presence there in Srilanka, to help him. It took some few months for that Mureed to come to Madurai and thank hazrat for his timely help.

So here's the bottom line:

-- It does not make any sense for an article entitled "Maqbara" to consist almost entirely of an account of the lives of 3 Sufi saints.

-- These accounts should be split into 3 separate articles about the saints themselves, or perhaps one group article, but the title should make it clear that the article is about the group of saints and neither Maqbara nor Madurai Maqbara.

-- The material needs a lot of work to make it conform to Wikipedia standards and guidelines. A lot of people have tried to point this out before, but you seem to have effectively ignored all such advice. If you continue to do so, it's probably best to refer the matter to Wikipedia administrators and let them take whatever action they deem necessary.

--Sarabseth (talk) 12:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

- Your comments suggestions regarding the contents of the article are always welcome. But according to me, i feel better if all the articles relating to Maqbara (including Madurai Maqbara) are brought together rather than seperating it and orphaning the parent article. and regarding yor lines it's probably best to refer the matter to Wikipedia administrators and let them take whatever action they deem necessary.. Am always ready to discuss and solve the matters with any of the wikipedia admins rather than discussing with a person like you

I have spelled out specific problems with putting all this material in one article and titling it Maqbara. Can you please respond to that? In particular, what do the life-stories of these 3 Sufi saints have to do with the concept of a Maqbara?

I shall also be very interested to learn what exactly you mean by "a person like you". --Sarabseth (talk) 12:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

-The definition and explanation of the word Maqbara will hardly run to 3 lines which will be too short for an Encylopedia article. So it will be better to bring Maqbara related articles under one roof. a person like you- i meant, who is very stubborn on views. I am really very Sorry if it had hurt you.

Please note that on Talk pages, it is not considered kosher to go back and edit previous comments the way you just did. You need to leave material parts of the discussion intact, so that later comments continue to make sense. Accordingly, I have restored the fragment you removed.

I don't see on what basis you have concluded that I am "very stubborn on views". Or that your statement had hurt me. (I think it's clear to anyone who reads this discussion that what you said sheds light who you are as a person rather than who I am.)

I would like to point out once again that you are refusing to respond at all to the specific issues I raised on Dec 22, and drew your attention to again on Dec 23. The bulk of the material you are trying to describe as "Maqbara related articles" consists of the life-stories of three Sufi saints. That is not Maqbara related material at all.

If all this material needs to be collected in one article, that article cannot properly be titled "Maqbara" or "Madurai Maqbara", but perhaps something like "Sufi Saints of Madurai".

I will thank you to actually respond to this, instead of repeatedly dodging the issue. --Sarabseth (talk) 01:38, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Since you have chosen not to respond for more than 5 days, I am going ahead and initiating the process of getting other editors/administrators involved.

Please also note that you have not responded to my last comment in the plagiarism section for almost 3 weeks. Since plagiarism is a serious issue, you are requested to respond. --Sarabseth (talk) 11:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Is WP:SUMMARY style appropriate for resolving this dispute? 99.27.134.160 (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Response to Third Opinion Request:

Disclaimers: I am responding to a third opinion request made at WP:3O. I have made no previous edits on Maqbara and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process (FAQ) is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes. Third opinions are not tiebreakers and should not be "counted" in determining whether or not consensus has been reached. My personal standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here.

Opinion: All content under the headings "Madurai Maqbara Hazrats" and "Genealogy" is utterly inappropriate for this article about a type of structure and place, except for the "Madurai Maqbara Hazrats" heading itself and the first sentence ("In Madurai, South Tamilnadu ... waliyullah Rahmatullah Alaihi.") and the third sentence ("The place where these three ... Tamilnadu in South India.") under that heading. All the inappropriate material should either be removed to one or more new articles or deleted. The remaining material in the article needs to be edited for grammar and WP:NPOV. Moreover, once all the inappropriate material has been removed or deleted, this article will be wholly unsourced and the article should be sourced or, if it cannot be sourced or is not sourced after a reasonable effort or reasonable time, then be proposed for deletion.

What's next: Once you've considered this opinion click here to see what happens next.—TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 19:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

TransporterMan: Thanks very much for taking the time to look into this and give your opinion.

Wasifwasif: I guess the ball is in your court. Will you take his advice and remove the material that is inappropriate in this article to a separate "Madurai Maqbara Hazrats" article? --Sarabseth (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

---

Re the Third Opinion: After issuing the Third Opinion set out above, I removed the "3O-requested" template ({{3O}}) from the Article page, per the WP:3O guidelines. Wasifwasif put the template back on the article page with the edit summary, "(Lets go for one more opinion before we conclude)." I have now reverted that action (which was ineffectual, in any event, since Wasifwasif did not relist it at WP:3O). Once a third opinion has been issued in regard to a dispute, no further third opinion on the same dispute is proper, per the guidelines set out at WP:30. If consensus cannot be reached by the disputants after the third opinion, then the users may wish to do what is suggested in the "What happens next" section of the 3O FAQ. Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 17:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Wasifwasif, it's been almost 5 whole days since TransporterMan gave his third opinion. Please respond whether you accept his opinion, and will remove the material that is inappropriate in this article to a separate "Madurai Maqbara Hazrats" article. Please note that if you do not respond soon, I will go ahead and take the next step to have the dispute resolved. --Sarabseth (talk) 13:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

yes. you can go ahead. Wasifwasif

So be it. (In retrospect, it's pretty funny that you called me stubborn.) --Sarabseth (talk) 11:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

In contradiction to your above reply, why have you removed those contents? --Wasifwasif

No idea what you mean. There's no contradiction. And it isn't such a difficult conversation to follow, really.

I said "I will go ahead and take the next step to have the dispute resolved." You said: "yes. you can go ahead." I said: "So be it." And I went ahead and took the next step (which was submitting a Request for Comment). --Sarabseth (talk) 13:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality and verifiability of sources

The reference list for this article now reads:

1. ^ Qazi Tajuddin Qasidah and History of Madurai Hazrats authored by Moulavi. Hafiz.S.M.Mueenuddeen Ibrahim M.A., Chief Imam Kazimar Big mosque,published by Kaziyar publications,Madurai

2. ^ Soofiyar Thilagam Shadhuli Nayagam, written by Moulvi.A.Syed Abdus salaam Ibrahim, B.A., Govt.Kazi of Madurai, published by Shadhuliyya tariqa welfare association.

3. ^ History of Madurai Hazrats Vol(II) pg.33 published by Kaziyar publications authored by Moulavi. Hafiz.S.M.Mueenuddeen Ibrahim M.A., Chief Imam Kazimar Big mosque

4. ^ http://www.yahussain.info

5. ^ Edition 2 of Shajra, written by Syed Ziauddeen sahab published by kazimar periya pallivasal.

6. ^ Failul Majid, Fi Manaaqibish Shaheedh, authored by Haji.Syed Ibrahim, co authored by Haji.Ameer batcha levvai and Syed Ruknuddeen levvai and published by Sarvare Alam publications, Erwadi durgah, Ramanathapuram District

7. ^ Shahul hameedhu nayagam moulid, edition 1, authored by Haji.S.T.M.Imam Hussain Saabu and published by Periya Hajiyar Publications,Nagore dargah, Nagappattinam District

From Talk:Maqbara#What_should_i_do.3F above:

So, for instance, for a book, you want the ISBN, publisher, author, page, etc... The key, is that it's published widely enough that anybody else could easily find the source, and double check it.

Clearly, none of the books above meet this criterion. They are obscure books, which appear to be religious tracts rather than objective, respected neutral sources.

The website, too, is a religious website, and not a neutral source.

As such, this article has no neutral verifiable sources at all.--Sarabseth (talk) 12:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

shazuli.com reference

Please note (as pointed out above in Talk:Maqbara#What_should_i_do.3F) that web sites such as Shadhilitariqa.info or shazuli.com simply cannot be used as references since they aren't neutral sources. You cannot use either religious tracts or religious web sites, only respected neutral sources. --Sarabseth (talk) 12:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Request For Comment

Is the bulk of the material in this article appropriate (as discussed in Talk:Maqbara#Maqbara_versus_Madurai_Maqbara above)? --Sarabseth (talk) 17:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Maqam

The Arabic word "Maqbara", which means mausoleum, is derived from the word "qabr", which means grave.

This definition comes from someone who either took a translation from someone who was attempting to convey to a Western audience a general meaning of the word that they could relate to, or someone who does not have the least bit of understanding about where these holy masters rest and the significance in visiting their "home". Sufism is not an intellectual subject open for mind production discussions, it is a subject pertaining to the heart, not the mind. To understand the meanings of these words one must know and to know means someone must have seen – experienced the truth. The only way to see is with the senses of the heart, not the physical being. If you physically can not see, smell, taste, touch or speak how are you a witness to the world around you.

I really wish people would have a little more humility when addressing these matters and leave them to people who have the senses to speak. Sufism is a matter for people who have activated the senses of their heart, everyone else speaking on the subject is engaging in the same kind of conjecture a blind man from birth has when asked about what an elephant looks like. A man who never even touched an elephant informing others what an elephant looks like.

Amongst most western people a grave is a tomb is six feet under. All places where dead people are buried. Not so with a Maqbara or more correctly a Maqam which is best translated as "Residence".

Sufi's flock to these holy sites to visit the saint living in that Maqam either because they believe what they have been told, were ordered by a Sheikh or actually know. Khalwas, or seclusions, still performed today, are normally spent in a Maqam in the presence of a Saint who has full awareness of the presence of the seeker. If an opening comes, the seeker will become acutely aware of the Saint.

You go to a Maqam to visit and pay respects to a Saint. There is no need to go visit someone who is dead. You can make your prayers and remember the person anywhere. So a Maqam is a residence, a power station where the focal point of the saint’s blessings is strongest. The respect paid by visiting the Maqam comes with much reward – no matter what path you follow. In reality, you must have had an invitation to enter. An invitation from the Saint to enter his/her home. This is why you will find, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and others converging on Maqams. Many Maqams have reputations for healing and spiritual advancement. Saints are not exclusive to one religious group. They transcend man’s foolish ideas about religion.

So next time you go to a Maqam, if you ever go to a Maqam, enter with full respect and know that you are a guest of that Saint. Be still, listen to your heart, and see if a message comes. This is not easy; many Sufi’s try their entire lives and only reach seconds before they pass from this world.

It is good to see interest in topics on Sufism, but the subject is for those who know, not those who think they know. Humility is the only path to real knowledge.

Peace —Preceding unsigned comment added by BeUnknown (talk • contribs) 07:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)