Miscellaneous desk
< March 14	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 15

Category request

Please add the category category:Opponents of Muhammad to the sub category category:Jewish Opponents of Muhammad. 2001:44C8:4554:78B0:D0D2:2212:C08A:96AA (talk) 19:56, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you believe all opponents of Muhammad were or are Jewish? --Lambiam 20:04, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the intended sense might be "add alongside". This person has been trying to edit several pages so that instead of belonging to category:Opponents of Muhammad they belong to the non-existent category:Jewish Opponents of Muhammad. Somebody else followed along five minutes later and reverted them all, saying "rv move to non-existent category".

These are indeed the pages of historical Jewish figures (in some cases their Jewishness is debated) who opposed Muhammad, so maybe this makes sense as a category, or maybe it would be inflammatory, I don't feel equipped to decide that. But anyway the process for creating a new category is described at Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating_category_pages, and the necessary step is to click on the above red link and add that category itself to a parent category, in this case presumably Opponents of Muhammad (so the inverse of what appeared to be requested). Card Zero (talk) 13:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Those whose Jewishness is debated can go in the category "Jew-ish opponents of Muhammad". --Lambiam 17:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Jew" is a noun, not an adjective. The Santos misusage "Jew-ish" would be more properly rendered as "Jewish-ish". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not according to Jonathan Miller in Beyond the Fringe (1961): I'm not really a Jew; just Jew-ish, not the whole hog. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:09, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Methinks "real" Jews will actually reject the whole hog, snout to tail. --Lambiam 10:03, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If there's going to be such a category, there should also be "Arab opponents of Muhammad", which should pretty well cover the bases. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:20, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Only if you interpret "Jewish" in the proposed category name as an ethnicity. There were also polytheistic opponents. In any case, the word opponents in the proposed name should not be capitalized. --Lambiam 17:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, at the time of Muhammad, Judaism was one of the more popular religion in Arabia, and was also adopted by quite a few ethnic Arabs. See Jewish tribes of Arabia and Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia. So "Arab opponents of Muhammad" and "Jewish opponents of Muhammad" would most likely have some overlap. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello to all commenters. User:Lambiam, I don't believe that all opponents of Muhammad were Jewish, but rather that some of them were, and for the sake of better categorizing the articles about them, I believe that there is a need in a standalone category, which will be a sub category of the more general category "Opponents of Muhammad". 2001:44C8:4105:1141:8D4F:2C18:C463:6E35 (talk) 17:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of such a subcategory would be to denigrate Jews. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Opposing Mohammed is not necessarily a dishonourable state. It is possible to oppose a religious person with respect, and those who disagree with what Mohammed taught might find themselves opposing him without any intention of hating, disrespecting or insulting him. The category "Opponents of Mohammed" is not synonymous with "Persecutors of Mohammed" (and would probably be more enlightening if it didn't include them). -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 21:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I count 28 total entries in the overall category, which is not all that many. What's the purpose of singling out Jewish opponents? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:06, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It will make research on the allegedly Jewish opposition to Muhammad easier and anyway the more general category "Opponents of Muhammad" may still grow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:44C8:444A:84D7:69AE:24F7:2FE5:552F (talk) 15:11, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Baseball Bugs, I disagree that the purpose of such category would be to denigrate Jews. The only purpose I find in such a category is easing the research on these individuals and on early Islam-Judiasm relations. 2001:44C8:4105:1141:15AE:8F13:7E12:E60 (talk) 08:09, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And I don't believe you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:41, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will now tag the accounts of the following users to decide the case, all are great contributors to the article Islam; User:Riversider2008, User:Modeltookmodeltook, User:Awilley, User:Sodicadl, User:Johnleeds1, User:Khabboos, User:Bilorv, user:FreeatlastChitchat, User:Eperoton and User:VenusFeuerFalle, User:Qayrawan and User:Guavabutter. 2001:44C8:444A:84D7:69AE:24F7:2FE5:552F (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First, thanks for the tag,

second, regarding the matter in question. I don't think that the category is judgemental in any particular way, neither good nor bad. However, I think Category:Opponents of Muhammad is still comprehensible and doesn't need further sub-categories at this time. Especially, when some relgious affilations are disputed or come largly from one source (for example Muslim Historians only) or the pages included might be controversial for other reasons, it isn't helpful to create a specific category. If the number of pages for Category:Opponents of Muhammad would increase drastically, sub-categories might become useful. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 17:29, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think this hits the nail on the head. The actual religious designation of a lot of these individuals, along with other biographical information, is definitely sketchy, with a smattering or marginal sources. Furthermore, everyone had a religious persuasion, but are we going to create categories for pagans, etc.? Why is supposed affiliation with Judaism being singled out? Iskandar323 (talk) 06:19, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Four of the users you tagged are blocked sockpuppets, so probably not "great contributors". CodeTalker (talk) 18:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what hat my name was pulled out of. With the big caveat that categorization is not really my thing, 1. I don't buy the argument that such a category would necessarily denigrate Jews, and 2. I'm not convinced that the sub category is needed with such a small parent category. Is there something particularly notable about Jewish opponents of Muhammad compared to opponents from other religions or ethnicities? ~Awilley (talk) 00:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]