Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abadir dynasty

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Happy to restore for the purpose of merging or drafitying, if desired. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 02:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Abadir dynasty

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Abadir dynasty (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Harar, a city in eastern Ethiopia, was purportedly founded by the semi-legendary medieval figure Abadir, who is also said to have united the Harari tribes and instated a central rule from Harar (see, e.g., here). A few centuries later (in 1520), Harar became the capital of the Adal Sultanate (ruled by the Walashma dynasty), flourishing for some time after that as the Sultanate of Harar. After the decline of Harar in the late 16th century, it was ruled by a number of disparate successor states such as the Imamate of Aussa and the Emirate of Harar until it was annexed by Egypt in 1875 and, passing by the hands of the British, finally became part of the Ethiopian Empire.

Now we have an article here that imagines that from the time of Abadir on (c. 1000-1300), and until the annexation by Egypt in 1875, Harar was ruled by something called the "Abadir dynasty" (a dynasty being a "a sequence of rulers from the same family", this would presumably refer to descendants of Abadir ruling in succession over Harar).

The article cites a plethora of sources, but as far as I can see, none that actually refer to this purported "Abadir dynasty" (some mention Abadir, and also mention some rulers over Harar, but these rulers are never said to be the descendants of Abadir, and the connection of a 'dynasty' is never made). Google scholar [1] only comes up with a Wikipedia mirror of an article to which the mention of an "Abadir dynasty" was added by the same editor who created this article. Google Books [2] comes up with sources presumably mentioning "Abadir" (the semi-legendary figure) and/or "dynasty" but gives no direct hits for "Abadir dynasty" (compare, e.g., "Walashma dynasty"). Google Ngrams also finds nothing. It appears to me that this "Abadir dynasty" simply never existed.

Although some may perhaps argue that the article should be merged into the 'History' section of Harar, I would strongly recommend against that, since the article is written from the very specific point of view that there was a (dynastic) continuity in the rule of Harar from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, which just appears not to be the case. It in fact approaches being a hoax, and should be deleted accordingly. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethiopia-related deletion discussions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Somalia-related deletion discussions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Royalty and nobility-related deletion discussions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• Keep and repurpose to Harar (historical region). Abadir dynasty is actually mentioned in the article verbatim by reference 23, relying on only google keywords is not going to cut it. Abadir founded the state followed by the succession of Harari clan rulers is what defines a "dynasty". Abadir was the religious ruler who first used the title Imam, his later successor Imam was Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, as this source explains the secular Walasma dynasty invaded Harar/Adal and used the title Sultan instead. see p.13 [3]. The article is a historical overview of rulers on the Harar plateau known as Adal hence an alternative title is a good idea [4] [5]. The ancient semitic speaking state continued into the 19th century in the form of Emirate of Harar as Enrico Cerulli and others have said but was weakened, see p.386-387 [6] or [7]. Magherbin (talk) 21:53, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment - Note that ref 23, which does indeed passingly mention an "Abadir dynasty" on p. 48, was published in Harar by the Harari People Regional State, Culture, Heritage and Tourism Bureau. Not quite a reliable source. Moreover, it uses the word only to refer to the pre-15th century semi-legendary 'saints' who are supposed to have succeeded Abadir in Harar before the 15th-century arrival of the Walasma dynasty (Hecht 1987, p. 13 calls the narrative about these saints a "legend"), not quite in the same sense that our article here envisions it (as historically continuing through the 16th-century golden age and even to the 19th). To call these semi-legendary saints "clan rulers" and identifying them with the modern Harari people is, of course, utterly misleading (though the fact that the Harari people themselves regard Abadir as their common ancestor may reveal something of where the pseudohistory is coming from here). Continually referring to the historical Adal Sultanate (which from 1520 on had its capital in Harar, but was ruled by the Walasma dynasty) as if it somehow proved the existence of a legendary "Abadir dynasty", which would then somehow be identical to a "Adal dynasty" (also just a few results on Gscholar) functions as a red herring. Apart from the pointer to ref 23, this keep !vote just takes the ref-bombing from the article to this Afd: we don't need all those refs not mentioning any Abadir dynasty at all, we just need a few reliable sources that do provide significant coverage of this purported Abadir dynasty. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:07, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

    The saints such as Abadir were leaders of nations/clans as Gibbs quotes the tradition on p.95-96 "the murid of Aw Abadir, among the 44 founding saints, individuals were adopted by populations as their representatives. Once 'chosen' as representatives of qabila, (nationality) these saints were adopted as part of these respective groups." [8] This is the timeline of Harar which is why several references cite Abadir as a founder and then discuss Adal/Ahmed wars including this one [9]. Abadir was an Arab (according to most references) I didnt identify him with Harari, i'm not sure where you're getting that. Not even the article states Abadir was Harari. Some scholars suspect he was Harari especially Enrico Cerulli though. If we are going to strictly go by dynastic bloodline and not successors, it should be renamed Harar (historical region) as opposed to the modern city of Harar since the content refers to events on the Harar plateau. Magherbin (talk) 01:57, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

    Not sure where I'm getting that? You stated above: Abadir founded the state followed by the succession of Harari clan rulers is what defines a "dynasty". Of course Abadir, like all legendary founders of northern Somali and eastern Ethiopian clans, is supposed to have been Arab (compare Ishaaq bin Ahmed, Darod, Samaale, etc.). But your statement imagines that his equally legendary saintly successors were "Harari clan rulers" and somehow formed a "dynasty", that went on the rule the Adal Sultanate, etc. It's the essence of the hoax here, and no RS will speak of such a 'dynasty'. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

That's what is generally assumed by a researcher in this field. Tradition states the neighboring Hadiya Sultanate was founded by an offspring of Abadir and a local Sidama. Hadiya is one of the reasons for conflicts escalating between Adal and Ethiopia hence not farfetched if infact Abadir's descendants were in rule at the time of Adal Sultanate. Hadiya was therefore linked to Harari through Abadir's offspring, was the conclusion. He states on p.70 "How close the original solidarity was felt, can be concluded from the fact that Hadiyya was claimed to be a son of Abādir, the founding father of the Harari ethnos, and a local woman. This tradition can provide an indication that the foundation of the Hadiyya as a political and to some extent also ethnic entity took place in the Harär Plateau, where the ancestors of this people had been resident for an obviously considerable time" [10]. Magherbin (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Delete - if there were such a dynasty, there would be reliable sources and peer reviewed articles. Don't rename, although I know of the city Harar, where is a historical region discussed? If there is one, start a new article. Doug Weller talk 13:09, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

  User:Doug Weller, Yes historically there seems to be a Harar region where the Adal Sultanate established a base in the 1300s [11] covering pretty much the area of Hararghe a former province of Ethiopia in the imperial era. This old map also indicates "Hurrur" in large text and also hurrur the cities location respectively [12]. Magherbin (talk) 08:00, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

• Merge or repurpose This overlaps with the history section of Harar. I think the best solution would be to repurpose this article as History of Harar, merging in content from Harar and then making this a "main" article for its history section. The alternative is just to merge to Harar. We should not be too strict in the interpretation of RS when discussing things that are semi-legendary. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  Wow, Peterkingiron, there's a perspective that is novel to me: when things that are semi-legendary are represented as facts on Wikipedia, we should be less strict about reliable sources? So when some other editor one day writes a Arthur dynasty article based on medieval Arthur legends and claiming that the British Empire was still ruled by Arthurians, are you also going to argue that rather than delete it, we should repurpose it as History of England, or merge it into England? Surely there must be something that you've missed here? This comment of mine may sound somewhat hyperbolic (which I'll admit it is), but I will ask you to think twice before supporting the repurposed but continued use of a pseudohistoric essay. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:43, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  @Apaugasma: I'm a bit confused. Some of the sources used in the article look reliable to me as they are published by academic publishers. They may not corroborate the existence of an Abadir dynasty, but (assuming they weren't misquoted) couldn't that content be moved to Harar (or a new article called History of Harar)? Maybe I'm missing something? VR _talk 01:46, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  Hi Vice regent! Yes, you are missing something. Most of the sources cited in the article are indeed reliable, some eminently so. However, these reliable sources do not actually support the contents of the article: they were, as you say, misquoted. I invite you to spot-check some of the sources cited: you'll soon find that they are consistently saying something entirely different than what they're cited for.

  More specifically, these sources speak about Abadir and his saintly successors as legends which function as a focus of identity formation for Ethiopian ethnic groups. See, for example, Gibb 1999, p. 97 (one of the sources cited in the article): As these ancestors hold a privileged position in relation to God, they are honoured and their actions celebrated. The exemplary and enviable characters of the saints depicted within legendary accounts suggests the morality and worthiness of the ancestors of the group, and provide standards to be emulated by successive generations. These legends, shared throughout the community, carried from individual to individual and transmitted across generations, promote the internalization of ideals the ancestral saints are believed to represent. And on p. 95: In Harar there are Arab saints whose origins are variously traced to Arabia, Iraq, Yemen and Turkey as well as large numbers of Somali and Oromo saints. Heterogeneous populations can thus see their ancestry reflected in the corpus of saints since all refer collectively to the shrines as āwach ['fathers']. This Harari tradition of designating saints as patrons for various ethnic and socio-political groups extends into the 16th century and beyond, and Abadir and his medieval founding saints are only a small subsection of them. But even if some of these later saints likely did exist, they do not in any way constitute a 'dynasty': this is the basic mistaken premise.

  The rest of the article is written from that premise, where every political leader based in Harar is taken to continue the 'Abadir legacy', the ancient Muslim state in the Harar plateau, as the article calls it. This is all hopelessly ahistorical and 'Harar-centric' (for example, until 1520 the Adal Sultanate was centered in Zeila and Dakkar, both in Somaliland). But for the article to maintain that point of view, it needs to keep on misrepresenting its sources: you'll find that also the later sections of the article have only a weak or sometimes nonexistent relation with the sources it cites. It's very clear that this was all written without consulting sources, with a boatload of citations added after the fact in order to make it look legitimate. In other words, a hoax. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 04:12, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  @Apaugasma: I was expecting the content does not match the source example not another "this is not a dynasty assertion", no editor is proposing it be written in the sense of a saint dynasty in this discussion. Zeila was historically a general term for a portion of East Africa inhabited by Muslims not exclusively Somaliland. [13]. Dakkar is not Somaliland either, an editor wrote over that article with their POV. Dakar's true location is unknown but most scholars consider it near Harar city thats why Adal is indicated to have been established on the Harar plateau. [14] [15]. The claim of misrepresenting sources needs proof, I have yet to see that. Magherbin (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  You're right that the medieval Dakkar may not be identical to the modern Dakkar, instead being located on the Harar plateau. That's in the source you cite. But 'the content does not match the source' examples are really not hard to find: in fact they're right here in what you've just written. You cite this source to supposedly show that Zeila was a general term for some undetermined Islamic portion of East Africa, yet the source does not say anything of the sort, and instead speaks about Zeila (Zayla) as a harbour city reached by Ibn Battuta from Aden over sea (very clearly establishing that the Zeila territory was governed from the coastal Somali city of Zeila). Then you cite this source as evidence of the importance of Harar, yet that source states that Dakkar is barely present in medieval written sources and not yet localized. The memory of this city was outshined in favor of Harar, the current oral tradition overvaluing the influence of Harar in Ethiopia's Islamic history. Again, you're right that the Adal Sultanate was established on the Harar plateau, but from the city of Dakkar, not the city of Harar; yet the article you wrote does not even mention Dakkar. Nor does it mention that the rulers who established the Adal Sultanate on the Harar plateau belonged to the Walashma dynasty, who came from Zeila and had no intrinsic relation with with the Harar region, which they merely chose for its military strategic location: in the article this becomes an alliance state between Abadir and Walasma dynasties ensues designated Adal Sultanate. Then you seem to make very light of your misrepresentation of the sources on the legendary medieval saints: Gibb 1999 as quoted above clearly depicts Abadir as a legend, yet it is used in the article to support the sentence The arrival of Abadir transformed the Harar plateau into an Islamic bastion between the ninth and eleventh centuries. You say that you've yet to see misrepresentation of sources, but you're doing it as a matter of course, and indeed you've yet to see that yourself. Mixing historical facts with imagination and repeatedly pointing to the historical facts as a defense against critics are both characteristic of pseudohistory. This back-and-forth could continue without end, but ultimately other editors will have to check the text-source integrity of the article for themselves. It's the fact that this takes up so much energy and time that makes the deception so hard to counter. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:23, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  There's alot of red herring and strawman arguments being made here. An encyclopedia mentions legends especially when historians have accepted some parts of it, for example see Encyclopaedia Aethiopica's entry "Harar history till 1875" (p.1015 onwards [16]. The entry much like this article covers most of the events of Harar region that includes Dakar city which is on the Harar plateau. Magherbin (talk) 02:52, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Delete - For the lack of sources directly supporting this material, and I disagree that this could be merged or made into a history article, considering the original research (WP is not a journal) and presenting legend as history. If there are traditional claims, they can be presented as such, by sources that treat them as such, in a relevant article like Harar. —PaleoNeonate – 20:37, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
• Merge This should be merged into the article on Harar under some sort of section on local mythology or legend - any legitimate history based on adequate sourcing can then be extracted where appropriate and placed in the main body of the history section of the article. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:20, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  The current article is written as if it were history, and it's not possible to make this into a mythology/legend section without rewriting it from scratch. The mythology it describes (the legacy of Abadir, an ancient Muslim state ruled from the city of Harar, originating in the Middle Ages and continuing into the 19th century) is in fact not a traditional, sourceable mythology, but one wholly devised by the article's author, Magherbin. Any continued use of it would perpetuate the novel ideas put forward by a Wikipedia editor in an originally researched essay. It would damage Wikipedia' integrity at its heart. Yes, the Harar article should absolutely have a section on Harar's traditional saint mythology, but did you notice that the essay under discussion here does not contain one letter on that subject? Instead, it's all pseudohistory. As a mixture of fact and legend, pseudohistory is neither reusable as history, nor as legend: it's not just that they're too intertwined, it's that together they form a new fabrication all of its own, which is not only false but also entirely non-notable (in contradistinction to the legends themselves, which are indeed false yet eminently notable as an encyclopedic subject). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:10, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  Apaugasma how exactly does a merge work? From what I thought, merge doesn't mean "copy and paste" this article into another. It means save this article as a draft somewhere, and then integrate portions of it into the other article, one sentence at a time, ensuring consensus for each such move, per WP:ONUS. So "merge", "writing from scratch", "repurpose" all seem like the same thing to me, procedurally.VR _talk 16:18, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

  See WP:MERGE. It's copying in the contents, and then removing/adding/changing things as appropriate. It may perhaps refer to copying in only certain sections if so specified (which !voters in this discussion haven't done), but if every sentence needs checking (which absolutely is the case here), merging would be unrealistically laborious. WP:MERGE notes under Step 5: Perform the merger: The main reason that the merger backlog includes thousands of articles is because the people who support the merger neglect to undertake this final step. Ironic, isn't it? It's one thing for !voters here to say the article should be merged/repurposed, and an entirely other thing to actually do so. I don't believe that anyone here, except of course the article's creator, would be willing to actually undertake this. And even if they would want to try, checking the citations for every sentence, they would soon find that almost none of it is actually verified by the sources cited. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:46, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 10:40, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 19:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Draftify. The article is certainly not good enough for mainspace and possibly just needs to be deleted. The use of sources is highly suspect and I know from experience that this topic area attracts a lot of nonsense. I also know that few Wikipedians (myself not excepted) no much about this area. Since the creator himself says "repurpose", I think it is reasonable to give him or her some time to show us what such a repurposing looks like in light of the criticisms here. If the draft is not improved, then it will be deleted. (I have no objection to deletion now, but I think draftifying it would be acceptable. Merging is not.) Srnec (talk) 23:23, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.