User:Karl Dickman/Threads/06/12/05a

Safiyya bint Huyayy

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Having trouble with continuous reverts on the above mentioned article. This woman clearly was a concubine of Mohammad, as clearly depicted by the content of the article itself, one paragraph it titles 'her capture' etc. Please advise. Chavatshimshon 13:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I have posted my opinion on the issue at Talk:Safiyya bint Huyayy. Based on my reading of the article, I am forced to disagree with your interpretation; I explain my views in some detail on the talkpage. As I have not read the Quran or any comparable piece of Islamic literature, this really isn't my area of expertise, so feel free to correct me with citations from those sources.

Please respond to my comments at the article's talkpage, so that everyone else involved in the dispute can critique them.

A closing FYI: reversions of the sort that were done to your edits are not 'vandalism', as defined by Wikipedia policy. The editors who reverted you may have been doing so to push a point of view, or for any number of non-vandalistic reasons. Under our definition of vandalism, an edit constitutes vandalism only when it was made with the sole intent to deface the site.

Cheers, Karl Dickman ^talk 03:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, you did indeed check a dictionary as i proposed and you have made four good points. I make one point which as you will hopefully agree resolves all four of yours. I therefor am re-including the term for the second time in 24 hours.

• The article below describes the massacre of her family, whole tribe by Mohammad and his men. It is taken from the Banu Nadir article, some of it is even in this article. My one point is that is impossible to call her "marriage" a choice anything other than an attempt to save her life, her captor killed her husband, her whole family, tribe, not only did she accept his version of Godly events she as his slave no doubt did anything he wished, from cooking or cleaning to fellatio. Looking back from a very different more civilised world we can acknowledge that her so called 'conversion' and 'marriage' does not rob her of her title concubine.

Battle of Khaybar: 627-629

After their expulsion from Medina, Banu Nadir, along with the other Jews living in Khaybar, understood that Muhammad might attack them again. The Nadir chief Huyayy ibn Akhtab together with his son joined the Meccans and Bedouins besieging Medina during the Battle of the Trench. Huyayy ibn Akhtab attempted to recruit Banu Qurayza within Medina to fight against the Muslims. Both of them were killed by order of Muhammad alongside the men of the Banu Qurayza.

Muhammad and his followers attacked Khaybar in May 629. Although the Jews put up fierce resistance, the lack of central command and their unpreparedness for an extended siege sealed the outcome of the battle in favor of the Muslims. When all but two fortresses were captured, the Jews managed to negotiate their surrender. The terms required them to hand over one-half of the annual produce to the Muslims, while the land itself became the collective property of the Muslim state.

The agreement, however, did not cover the Banu Nadir tribe. Muslims killed all the men of Banu Nadir and divided the women among themselves. Safiyya bint Huyayy was the daughter of the killed Banu Nadir chief Huyayy ibn Akhtab and widow of Kinana ibn al-Rabi, the treasurer of Banu Nadir, whom Muhammad's followers first tortured, demanding that he reveal the location of the tribe’s hidden treasures, and then killed. Muhammad took for wife Safiyya bint Huyayy.

I made these last words bold just to show how ambiguous it is to say 'took for wife'... Might I also say... in the middle ages too, women in Europe were abducted and held as concubines, and yes it was considered normal then and yes they had the word concubine then too but didnt use it, so what?! Therefore in the case of an article about a european women abducted in the middle ages, whether she apparently subscribed to her captor's religion or not, the term concubine should be mentioned.

Chavatshimshon 04:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, its not over yet. Jossi is a sensible person and will realise, as you will too, the idea he presented was that it is sources that are required to simply rephrase wife with concubine or vis virsa, or to add it ...is a stark mistake. Sources are not requisite... for adapting/improving rephrasing, titles, status or names on an encyclopedic standard. Titles of this sort in this case quite simply require reading the excising content of the article... and from this article one is easily afforded to conclude she was a concubine of Mohammad as well later wife of sorts. If I would have a wider knowledge of WP Guidelines I'm sure I could furnish links to these rules. Also, it may be she got on with life and didn't try to poison him, unlike a certain other Jewish concubine of his, but then that's called Stockholm syndrome, not tell me was Natascha Kampusch her captor's concubine or wife? She thinks she was. I hope this extends your view at this point. FrummerThanThou 07:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)