Encyclopedia.com - another "authorative" resource that combines fact & fiction

[PeteWaldo]

I wrote to these folks regarding their article on the Kaaba:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kaaba.aspx

I was able to find a link for comments:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/emailus.aspx

To whom it may concern:

Since you are labeled as an "Encyclopedia", I imagine you would agree that folks should expect at least in small part, for you to be an authoritative source of factual information. Yet while not the only example, in the article on the Kaaba in Mecca, you begin by presenting entirely factual information in the first sentence, but then in the next sentence claim:

"The sacred nature of the site predates Islam:....."

Which is true. The "sacred nature" of the site of the Kaaba does indeed predate Islam since the Quraish built the Kaaba in the early 5th century AD as a site for pagan Arabian Star Family worship.
http://www.religionresearchinstitute.org/mecca/construction.htm

Mecca itself was initially settled in about the 4th century AD. Your sentence continues:

"..... tradition says that the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and the descendants of Noah."

Why wouldn't you separate matters of fact like your first sentence - which is what folks expect to find in an encyclopedia - from Islamic so-called "tradition" that was all created and put to the pen in the 7th to 10th centuries AD, without reference to any actual historical record that preceded the 6th century AD?

Why wouldn't you instead separate fact from fiction, and have one article for matters of fact regarding the Kaaba, and then if you wanted (for whatever reason) a separate article titled something more like "The Kaaba According to Islamic 'Tradition'"? Aren't your subjects researched and vetted for factual accuracy before they are included in your "Encyclopedia"?

The actual fact of the matter is that there is no scriptural, historical or archaeological record, that supports the demographic and geographical impossibility (of Islamic so-called "tradition") that Abraham was ever within 1,000 kilometers of where Mecca was eventually settled in the 4th century AD, which is more than a couple thousand years after Abraham is said to have roamed the earth.

If you have any interest in being considered an authoritative source of information, you really need to separate matters of fact from historically and archaeologically unsupportable and particularly geographically impossible content.

Please consider that when a young student or someone with a limited capacity for critical thinking reads an article, in which fables are intertwined with facts, what you are actually accomplishing is to legitimize the fables as fact to weak minded people.

I'll include a link to your article along with this note in a forum while we await your reply. Thanking you in advance for attention to these concerns I remain,

Sincerely,
Pete Waldo

[PeteWaldo]

Sent this later:

Dear Mr. Ms.,

This is an addition to my last note of perhaps an hour ago. I should have complemented you on the rest of the article (except for the references to Abraham and Adam), being fairly "encyclopedic", in regard to simply citing facts. That is until it gets down to the unsupportable claim near the end:

"The actual structure of the Kaaba has been demolished and rebuilt several times in the course of its history."

Outside of Islamic "tradition" that was all created and put to the pen in the 7th to 10th centuries AD, based on what actual historical or archaeological EVIDENCE did you make your unqualified claim?

Thanks very much, and we'll look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Pete Waldo