User:Amerique/AMA

Amerique's Advocacy page

for Thestick 's (talk) concern with Al-Aqsa Mosque Talk:Al-Aqsa Mosque

Involved Users

User:Thestick (initiator of request)

Opening Statement by Amerique

User:Thestick has contacted the WP:AMA requesting assistance in his attempt to address a WP:NPOV dispute over the content within the "Third holiest site- rival claims" section of the article. While I have no personal or academic background in Islamic theology or the politics of Jerusalem, this article, I note, attempts to situate the Al-Aqsa Mosque historically and etymologically. It seems to me that the section attempting to establish rival claims for "the third holiest site," while not uninteresting or at all poorly written, seems unnecessary, as there does not seem to be a way to determine a concrete basis for which the various claims or assertions could be verified as "rival claims" as opposed to "mistaken claims." If the Al-Aqsa Mosque's designation as "the third holiest site in Islam," is problematic, I would expect there to be some debate about it within Islamic scholarship. The attempt to problematize this designation as a form of propaganda can be interperted as being propagandic in itself, while any actual scholastic debate, within Islam, over "the third holiest site" could be referenced in some way with appropriate respect to the integrity of each particular site. The references taken from various political and news reporting websites may not have more insight into the theological matters supporting the designation than I do. On this basis I support Thestick's interpertation that this section "as is" may not fit within WP principles and policy and would like to assist in the attempt to resolve this matter civilly amongst all parties concerned.

To me the principles most involved seem to be WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY and WP:FAITH. Also, the WP policy WP:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox seems to have bearing here. As well as Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Words_which_can_advance_a_point_of_view --Amerique 21:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Opening Statement by Thestick

The main point of the section was that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not considered holy in Islam, and it is being considered the third holiest in Islam only since 1930 to aid the political aims of the Islamic world. However, this has been proven false without doubt. For example, [1] (dated 1910), and another web page explaining in detail it's history and significance [2]. Initially I had posted the verse of the Qu'ran in which the Mosque is mentioned.

To my suprise, the user Amoruso stated that the Mosque is not mentioned in the Quran and that I have a different version (Which is not possible since there is only 1 version of the Quran, this sheds some light on his lack of knowledge on the subject). And he went on to say that the "Farthest Mosque" which is the direct translation of "Al-Aqsa Mosque" from arabic, is highly disputed and it could be the mosque in Medina.

This shows he does not understand Arabic, and shows he has not conducted proper research on the subject and his sources of information are a few politically inclined or unreliable sites. (Which are not accurate sources of information, it's like citing everything written in blogs and hate sites).

Now, after removing the political allegation, the user Chesdovi is now posting a list of 'alternative third holy sites'. This list has no point, since there is no debate within the islamic community as to which the third holiest site is and is not a topic of dispute or interest. Furthermore, most of the sources are poorly researched or unreliable and isolated sources of information. (I can provide an explanation of each if you require).Some of the cited articles themselves mention that they may contain factual errors. Furthermore, some of the sites have no historical religious significance whatsoever in mainstream Islam.

I feel a list of alternative third holy sites serves no purpose, and provides no further information about anything. It just totally ruins the quality of article (just look at it now and tell me whether it belongs in an encyclopedia or a conspiracy theory page) , and is factually incorrect. Why are many of the 'sources' tourist brochures and travel agency pages.

Opening Statement by Amoruso

User:Thestick is acting on bad faith and is in fact lying. I have not disputed the fact that Al Aqsa is mentioned in the Quran of course, but the location of it being in Jerusalem is at the same time highly disputed, simply because Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran at all. This case where User:Thestick wants to delete the article comes from his perception of fear that this is an attack on Muslims or something of the sort. After vandalysing the page several times, including blanking out whole materials with no explanation (note that this is in sum up Thestick's entire contributions on wikipedia, and his IP address was used for vandalisying in the past, as shown in the discussion page of Al Aqsa Mosque here: [3]), he is now proposing to delete this sourced material article with no grounds at all.

Personally, I haven't written one bit of the article and I don't have a personal opinion whether the content constiutes "truth" or not. But I believe the article to be very well written, it cites complete WP:RS, WP:V and WP:CITE sources. It is not provocative in any sense, it allows the sections to be expanded and for opinions to be shared. It's a very informative and encyclopedic article.

The only problem was that the section was perhaps too large in the Al Aqsa Mosque article itself. It was cut down and incorporated into a different article. See again discussion page - [4]) - it was endorsed by other users such as David Kernow and Captainktainer .

I believe that what User:Thestick really wants is that no mention of any rival claims be mentioned at all, and what Wikipedia should so is quote his opinion only (btw, he hasn't provided any sources of his - just grudges and blanking). Citing himself only would make it WP:NPOV enough in his opinion, that seems. Well, the Wikipedia policy is still making it able for editors to quote reliable sources and create them as sections or articles, and I think that policy should be kept intact. Amoruso 12:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)