Friday 19 January 2018

Chronicles of Conquest



The Victor Rewrites History - Wikipedia edition.


Kiwi sportsman Sonny Bill Williams is reported to have made a pilgrimage to Mecca.  This was later defined as an ‘umrah’, a tourist version of the mandated ‘hajj’ which has to take place at a certain time of the lunar year. 

I was unfamiliar with umrah so looked it up in Wikipedia.  For the most part it annotates the bizarre – to the non-Muslim – rituals that make up the pilgrimage.

What was noticeable was the language used in the History section of the entry.  It had none of Wikipedia’s usual scholarly and detached stance, using positive and favourable terms for Islamic actions. 

Its first capture by Wayback Machine in October 2005 shows it derived from the entry on ‘hajj’.  From this it carries the phrase “The pilgrim preforms [sic] a series of ritual acts symbolic…of solidarity with Muslims worldwide.” Logically this should apply to the hajj since every Muslim has the obligation, but not to the more casual umrah where no such obligation exists.  In February 2006, the definition of umrah is given as “Nigh [sic] of the black cock” but this has gone by September of that year. Googling the phrase brings up no references.

“Scholarly opinions on the Umrah” appear in October 2006 with reasonable references but invents the word ‘legists’.  This paragraph disappears by November 2009.  By March 2010 the phrase “the prophet Abraham and his wife Hagar” has been changed to “the prophet Abraham and his handmaiden Hagar”.  By November 2014 she becomes his second wife.

The paragraph “Military campaigns during Muhammad's era to establish the right to perform Umrah” appears in November 2014.  It describes how “the Muslims fought against the Arab pagans to eventually establish the right to perform Umrah and Hajj. During that time Mecca was occupied by Arab Pagans who used to worship idols inside Mecca.”  Occupied?  This implies that Muhammad had to impose his will on an unwilling population who had no right to live there, by force of arms.  It was Muhammad who conquered – ‘opened’, in Islamic sophistry – Mecca.  The section’s tone begins indirectly to soften Muhammad’s bellicose image.  “Muhammad then revealed the verse 4:94…[interpreted] as God asking Muslims to be more careful when fighting "in the way of Allah", as to reduce the chance of killing Muslims accidentally.”  The seeds of Islamic hagiography have been planted.

By January 2015 objectivity decays.  The Military campaigns paragraph is relabelled “History of umrah”, and later just ‘History’.  Language is further softened, with, for example, the earlier “Muslims fought against the Arab pagans to eventually establish the right to perform Umrah…” changing to “Throughout Muhammad's era the Muslims wanted to establish the right to perform Umrah…”  “Finally Muhammad ordered and took part in the Conquest of Mecca…” becomes “Finally Muhammad ordered and took part in the almost entirely peaceful Conquest of Mecca…” The paragraph adds “Muhammad forgave even the most ardent of enemies of Islam to establish safe sanctuary in their homes. This was a significant moment where Muhammad showed mercy as opposed to revenge…”

The currently fashionable right to victim status was granted in October 2017.  From “Muslims fought…” through “Muslims wanted”, changing to “the right to practice…pilgrimages have not always been granted to Muslims.”  Supremacist terms such as ‘right’ become ‘wish’.  Combative terms used earlier – military, campaign, raid, attack and attacking, killed, fought and fighting, are all gone. All that remains is ‘conquest’, which is, after all, Islam’s heritage.

The changes outlined here are not the words of a detached and professional encyclopaedist.  They are a fulsome encomium of a fanatic bent on rewriting history, and ill-suited to Wikipedia.


References:
Wayback Machine - https://archive.org/web/

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