The purpose of this category is to call out and hopefully correct, deceptive articles in publications like Encyclopedias, dictionaries and others, that we otherwise should be able at least to a small extent, presume are authoritative sources of factual information. Tragically in this day and age, there is apparently little vetting of what individual Encyclopedia authors write, and perhaps even less editing since articles regarding
matters of historical record about Mecca, mix in elements of Islamic so-called "tradition" that suggest that Mecca had a history prior to the 4th century AD. However Islamic "tradition" was in fact all created and put to the pen in the 7th to 10th centuries AD, without reference to any actual historical record that preceded the 5th century AD. Obviously whether intended or not, what articles that intertwine Islamic fables with historical record accomplish, is to add an air of legitimacy to a counter-scriptural, unhistorical, archaeologically devoid anti-history - that is also a demographic and physically immovable geographical impossibility.
While Wikipedia has the excuse that it can be vandalized by any sorely deluded soul that creates a login, if encyclopedias or textbooks have any interest in being perceived as authoritative sources of factual information, they need to separately categorize - that is, make a clear distinction between - created fiction and fact.
While publications generally couch Islamic fables with qualifiers like "According to Islamic tradition....." or "According to legend....", because they include those Islamic fables in "History" sections, young students, or people with limited capacity for critical thinking, or folks that are simply predisposed to believe the created "history", do not recognize the qualifier
as a disclaimer. Instead they are led to believe that encyclopedias actually report Islamic "tradition" as history, specifically because it is intertwined with history, in "History" sections. Our experience even with web authors, whose writing skills indicate that on other matters they may otherwise possess fairly normal cognitive function, present links to encyclopedias and such while proclaiming that they confirm as historical fact that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba.
I believe it is incumbent upon all forum members to call out the articles of these publications and websites that effectively masquerade fiction as fact. If
we don't correct the errors now, then who else will our heirs be able to blame for a future of fact-yielding-to-fiction and truth-yielding-to-lies, with perhaps that anti-history becoming the only information available in our children's futures as is the case in Islamic slave states that even impose the death penalty for "blasphemy", or what we in the west would characterize as open and honest discussion of Muhammad and Islam as revealed through Islam's own books.
http://www.falseprophetmuhammad.com/blasphemy_laws.htmAs publications recognize their unscholarly and juvenile error, of intertwining Islamic "tradition" with fact - rather than eliminating the fables or at least categorizing them separately, and
adjust their articles accordingly - we will move publication-specific criticism out of the view of the general public.
Forum members, please measure each word you write to these publications or put in this forum section very carefully, to assure that your points remain inarguable.
