Talk:Takbir

RfC: Terrorist war cry

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

* Consensus clearly exists that the specific statement is inappropriate for the lead, and that it is poorly sourced. As such it should be removed.

• No clear consensus exists on the inclusion in the lead of a toned down version of the statement that discusses its use in warfare.
  • The question of whether a milder statement could be included falls into two categories of opinions; There also seems to be a strong argument that including a statement on the use of the Takbir in warfare or extremism is giving undue weight to its perceived use in warfare or extremism. Other editors would support a toned-down version being included in the lede, but only after careful consideration.

Acebulf (talk) 22:43, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

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Should the following text recently added to the lead section in Special:Diff/970457222/970590728 be included in the article?

It is also a islamic war cry for perpetration of communal atrocities against people of other faiths. Also, all over the world, terrorists use this as a war cry during attacks on civilians and military; similar to as in Charlie Hebdo Shooting or 2018 Liège attack where the terrorists used “allahu akbar” as a war cry.

— Newslinger talk 06:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• A recent social media campaign led by OpIndia (RSP entry) and other right-wing Indian Twitter accounts objected to the language in the Jai Shri Ram article. As a result, the above text was added to the Takbir (allahu akbar) article, although the sourcing here is not nearly as strong as in the Jai Shri Ram article (Special:Permalink/970912382 § cite note-28). If any editors are able to find academic sources for these claims or provide suggestions for alternative wording, both would be appreciated. — Newslinger talk 06:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam. — Newslinger talk 06:42, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The proposed text only focusses on modern terrorism, and is not properly sourced: it solely rests on primary sources of isolated events, but not on secondary sources which discuss the phenomenon itself. As it stands, the current way of using sources could also support a statement like "cars of the brand XXX are used by Jihadist terrorists when perpetrating communal atrocities against people of other faiths", with a news source about an attack which happens to mention the car manufacturer. This is the sort of quality you expect when edits are not driven by the intention to improve this encyclopedia, but by socmed campaigns.

That said, good sources about the takbir as a battle cry are easy to find, a Google Scholar search will lead you there[1][2]. But it will also be clear that the use of the takbir as "battle cry" (or its Western perception as such) is not restricted to modern terrorist attacks, but has many historical precedents, including in contexts that do not count as "terrorism", but rather conventional warfare. The section "In Politics and warfare" offers good material about it, and the lead should summarize all aspects of that section, based on acadamic peer-reviewed secondary sources. But certainly, the appropriation of the phrase by modern extremists, and its ensuing perception as such by non-Muslims in public discourse deserve a mention in the lead. –Austronesier (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Add Maybe I should have been more clear. The notability of the abuse of the takbir by extremists cannot be separated from existence of the global right-wing bigot trope that Allahu akbar is "the Terrorist war cry". Peaceful Muslims are harassed, profiled or unduly come under suspicion just for uttering the takbir, the tahmid or just in sha'a llah in public, and that is notable, too. –Austronesier (talk) 18:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I mostly agree with the above comment, but disagree regarding the idea that the phrase's appropriation by modern extremists deserves mentioning in the lede. It is used "to express resolute determination" which includes its used as a battle cry (as pointed out in Takbir#In Politics and warfare), regardless of whether the violence is terrorist/non-terrorist/legitimate/illegitimate etc. Usually, this phrase would be used by religious Muslims in all activities involving violence, regardless of whether they are offensive or self-defence. It looks like the phrase's use in extremist violence makes up for a very small portion of its overall use; therefore, I believe mentioning this in the lede gives significant undue weight. In the lede, just mention that it also gets commonly used as a battle cry, don't see any reason to mention anything further. — AhmadF.Cheema (talk) 13:09, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Definitely not. Describing the takbir as an 'Islamic war cry', where its use is limited to extremist groups who profess to follow a very narrow interpretation of the religion, is inappropriate. This paragraph also seems to violate WP:NPOV in its prose. Sustenance in Sonder - IseDaByThatEditsTheBoat 17:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose It puts way too much weight on usage in extremism, compared to the literally every-day usage among almost 2 billion people. The wording is also very disingenuous, suggesting some normalisation of atrocities in Islamic terminology. One could write something very brief, such as "e.g. as a battle cry" after "used ... to express resolute determination or defiance". One could also add that in the Western world it is nowadays commonly associated with that usage, but only if a proper source is given (some linguistic/cultural commentary, not a news article) and the context is extended to emphasise the everyday usage. Tokenzero (talk) 21:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment While I strongly agree with the statement and it's necessity to be included the lede to maintain WP:NPOV and Due, the sources seems to be a bit lacking. I don't think the solution is to remove it completely, but to let be so that other editors can add to it, as this does not violate BLP. - BhaskaraPattelar (talk) 09:52, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose – there's so much wrong here, I don't know where to begin. For starters: the words war cry are used three times in two sentences in something proposed for the lead, thus of major importance to the article. All right then, so how many times do the four references supplied contain the expression, war cry ? One moment while I tally them all up... one second... almost done... Okay, done; I'm back: the total number of times that the expression war cry is used in all four of those references is: zero. What the editor has done here, is to take some accounts about terrorist attacks, and provide his own spin on what a shouted phrase means, supported by none of the sources. It's hard to take seriously an Rfc calling for a triple injection of a contentious characterization into the lead, supported by exactly nothing. Mathglot (talk) 11:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment As this New York Times article Allahu Akbar’: An Everyday Phrase, Tarnished by Attacks states it needs to be mentioned thin some form that is used by Muslim militants.Just a few references below there are several other references.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Per WP:LEAD, the "In Politics and warfare" text should be noticable in the lead, currently it is not. Also, it seems logical that "In Politics and warfare" should be part of "Usage" in the article structure, not on the same "level." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Per Austronesier and Gråbergs, include not just the instance of modern terrorism but all instances of its usage in the lead. That being said, not including its usage as a war cry in the lead (as it is currently) is missing out on giving WP:DUE weight to the MOS:LEAD. SerChevalerie (talk) 13:52, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, but . . . The suggested version goes too far. However, per MOS:LEAD, the "Politics and Warfare" section of the article should appear in the lead. Would support a toned-down version. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:24, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• I think the proposed wording is quite inappropriate for this article and so oppose for now. I appreciate Newslinger's request for alternative wording and let me come up some and we can then discuss that wording. The article's lead should reflect the rest of the article.VR _talk 14:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly support Leaders of the world agree that radical Islamic terrorism is the biggest threat to humanity today. Everyday people should become aware of this threat. The biggest war cry for terrorists in training camps in Pakistan is "Allahu Akbar", which means "There is no one greater than Allah." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahtirth94 (talk • contribs) 13:56, 15 August 2020 (UTC) — Shahtirth94 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Strongest possible oppose firstly, in WP terms this is interpretation of primary sources - which as Mathglot points out, isn't even very accurate and goes way beyond those handful of sources. Going beyond that, having edited many of these terrorist incident articles, what is much more commonly sourced than "the perp said 'Allahu Akbar'", is that "an unnamed witness or two CLAIMS they shouted it", this has happened even in incidents like 2016 Munich shooting - where the perp turned out to be a far-right, Christian convert, and 2016 Nice truck attack, where it has pretty much proven that background noise of truck and victims would have made it quite impossible for anyone to hear anything said by the perp. I don't doubt that there may have been incidents where the takbir was used by perps, but what is certainly true is that the claim, often by a small number of anon witnesses, that the expression was used during an attack has become a journalistic cliche, often dubiously sourced. As the NBC source says "The phrase “Allahu akbar” has become almost synonymous with terrorism in American popular culture" that is probably at least as reliably sourced as its actual use in attacks. Pincrete (talk) 15:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pincrete: If there are sources that cover the phenomenon of people falsely hearing Allahu Akbar that might be interesting to cover in this article. Do you know of any sociologists, psychologists who might have written about this?VR _talk 15:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

No I don't. Except with the Munich attack (where early media assumptions about the perp were very wrong), other claims - including many in the sources here - tend to be dubious, rather than consciously dishonest. "An unnamed witness says", "an unnamed police officer says that unnamed witnesses heard" … … . It's WP:OR on my part of course, but in all the confusion, noise and panic of a violent incident, people who don't know a word of Arabic are suddenly clear about what was shouted? I have heard interview tapes in which the interviewer is clearly leading fairly peripheral witnesses as to whether "Allahu Akbar" was what they had heard shouted. That this was said several times in the Charlie Hebdo incident is better sourced, and possibly on other occasions, "she said he left, shouting, “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar”,… … "She said they yelled “allahu akbar” or “God is great” before running out of the office", but neither of these uses could possibly be described, and is not described, as 'a war cry' and the characterisation of it thus is mainly a media cliche in my experience. If terrorist use is covered at all, it should not be as proposed here IMO. Pincrete (talk) 16:14, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The few sources about this usage focused on the term (as opposed to ones that mention it in passing) specifically note that it is overstated and that that usage does not have any special meaning outside of its generally common use as a battle cry. --Aquillion (talk) 00:19, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How can jai shree Ram is war cry https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Jai_Shri_Ram and Allah hu akbar not terrorist war cry RamTripathi33 (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

brother they won't answer you because they are hypocrites. 2402:8100:39EC:641D:D167:2D63:D28F:8182 (talk) 16:11, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The section, 'Usage by extremists and terrorists' as it stands, is not balanced

Responding to the (14 March 2024), puerile comment by @M.Bitton: > "another day, another SPA. Please read the talk page and find something actually useful to add to the article".

The above 'Talk Page' discussion concludes that, "Consensus clearly exists that the specific statement is inappropriate for the lead". Not that, 'specific statements' are inappropriate in the body of the article.

The article editing includes (random-editor-opinion) statements such as "random occurrences must not be quoted". The article then proceeds to quote a random occurrence [cite 27] leading to an Allah Akbar example buried within a 19,000 word report. ( and what is so special about this particular random occurrence? ), followed by 4 detailed POV rebuttals of, the (very subject of the section) 'usage by extremists and terrorists'.

The entire section, paradoxically-headed, 'Usage by extremists and terrorists', lacks encyclopaedic balance.

It is proposed that the following RS, scholarly inclusion, be added.

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The term Allah Akbar is often misunderstood by Western media.

DublinSunrise5 (talk) 04:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC) DublinSunrise5 (talk) 04:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

References

May 2024

@Kelator: please refrain from edit warring and seek consensus for your change. The first source says "when we say Allah in our prayers we mean the Creator of this world" and the second doesn't support what you added: the "however ...." is clearly your WP:OR to differentiate them from the Muslims when the source that you cited does no such thing). [[User:M.Bitton|M.Bi@Skitash: tton]] (talk) 01:37, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Since you refuse to use the talk page and have ignored my request to refrain from edit warring, you have now been reported for violating the 3R policy. M.Bitton (talk) 02:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

In the article section ==Usage by Christians== the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia explains that :

• Allah Akbar is used by Christians

and

• how Christians define Allah.

The proposed wording :

__

The phrase (Allah, meaning "God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ" and "the Creator of this world" in English) is only used by Arab Christians in third person view, and is rarely mentioned during prayers or church service. For example, the phrase Allah is used in liturgical contexts among Palestinian Christians, and its use has been defended by Theodosios, the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia.<ref  name = christian/>

Kelator (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

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Above addition needed to differentiate the Christian Allah from the Islamic 'Allah' contained in the current article.

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'==Etymology=='

The form Allāhu is a nominative of Allah, meaning 'God'

Kelator (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

@Skitash: @M.Bitton: Do you have any comments here. If not I suggest the above para is reinstated.

Kelator (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I see no point in repeating the fact that I disagree with you. If you restore your POV in full knowledge of this, you will be reported to the admins. M.Bitton (talk) 21:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

It is not my POV. It is the theological position, as specificied in his introductory paragraph, by the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia. Before I restore the paragraph, please state clearly why you disagree with me.

Kelator (talk) 23:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

It's your POV, based on your own interpretation (after reading what you want to read) of the source, just like you did when you were persistently edit warring and ignoring the talk page (that you only started using after you were blocked). The Archbishop, who uses other expressions such as mashaAllah, etc., says in no uncertain terms that he uses Allah to refer to god because that's what the word stands for in Arabic. More important is the fact that he says We Christians also say Allahu Akbar. This is an expression of our understanding that the Creator is great...... Allahu Akbar is an expression of our faith. If you still disagree with that, then you seek consensus for whatever you're after. M.Bitton (talk) 00:07, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I have adjusted the proposal taking into account your comments. Trust that is satisfactory ?

The proposed wording

__

Theodosios, the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia says that, the phrase (Allah, meaning "God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ" and also that, "we Christians also say Allahu Akbar. This is an expression of our understanding that the Creator is great...... Allahu Akbar is an expression of our faith"[1] The phrase is only used by Arab Christians in third person, and is rarely mentioned during prayers or church service. For example, the phrase Allah is used in liturgical contexts among Palestinian Christians.

Kelator (talk) 00:30, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Not it's not. Here's what I suggest:

The Palestinian Christians use Allah in their prayer to refer to the creator of the world, and the takbir as an expression of their faith. The use of Takbir has been defended by Theodosios, the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia.

Simple and to the point. M.Bitton (talk) 00:32, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Simple, accurate and to the point.

The Palestinian Christians use Allah in their prayer to refer God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the world, and the takbir as an expression of their faith. The use of Takbir has been defended by Theodosios, the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia.

Kelator (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Theodosios, the Palestinian Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia says that, the phrase (Allah, meaning "God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ" all your proposals are based on your misreading of the source and attribution of your POV to the Archbishop who never said anything resembling "God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ".

Anyway, since I'm clearly wasting my time trying to reason with you, I'll ask the other editor (Skitash that you pinged above) to weigh in. M.Bitton (talk) 01:33, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

OK The paragraph - from the same source - does not even need the Archbishop's endorsement :

The Palestinian Christians use Allah in their prayers to refer God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the creator of the world. The takbir is used as an expression of their faith.

Kelator (talk) 02:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

This is obviously POV pushing. Your own source clearly says "when we say Allah in our prayers we mean the Creator of this world". Skitash (talk) 10:48, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Skitash: Thanks. I think we wasted enough time with this. If you agree with what I suggested above, please go ahead and implement it. M.Bitton (talk) 22:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Certainly. I concur with your suggestion, and I have now implemented it. Skitash (talk) 22:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Skitash. You are absolutely correct. The source clearly says :

"We the Arab Christians say Allah in our Arabic language as a way to identify and address the Creator in our prayers.”

The section under discussion, Usage by Christians refering specifically to Christians for which the source clearly clarifies :

”Arabic speaking Christians also call God Allah when they speak of the one whom we worship as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"

Kelator (talk) 21:31, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Reiterating --

The above addition is needed to differentiate the Christian Allah from the Islamic 'Allah' contained in the current article.

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"==Etymology== The term Allāhu is a nominative of Allah, meaning 'God in Islam'."

Kelator (talk) 22:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Please refrain from forcing your POV against consensus. M.Bitton (talk) 11:39, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

References

Deletion of sourced antecedent

@User:M.Bitton Under the section "Usage by extremists and terrorists", I notice the sentence "This usage has been denounced by other Muslims" lacks antecedent. The original antecedent "The phrase has been used as a battle cry by Muslim extremists and Islamic terrorists", which was well sourced ([3]), has long been deleted. Actually this was deleted by an SPA ([4]). Without this antecedent, the sentence that follows lacks merit or has no purpose. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:18, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@Rasnaboy: you're right and, after checking, I did restore the stable version (prior to your notification). M.Bitton (talk) 10:31, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Noticed that. Thanks. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Is the citation from only the proffesor needed?

The citation of the professor in the part of the article about usage by terrorists claims that the usage of takbir by extremists is over exaggerated by media and television. That makes it sound like it's purely a stereotype with zero or very rare occurence in real life, which is not true. While it is definitely likely that most other muslims condemn this use, it is a fact that it's not exception where extremists used it while commiting terrorist attacks, and it's not just baseless islamophobic stereotype. Should more balanced view maybe be added instead of presenting only the claims of just one person (the professor) in the whole section as if it was the overall consensus? 77.240.104.6 (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2024 (UTC)