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/
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umrah
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