Talk:List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll/Archive 12

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Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent

This item must be removed from the list, because there is no neutral and famous resources talked that there was more than 60 million people were killed due to Muslim conquest! Also the existing reference says clearly that "This estimate along with the higher estimate is based on studies of demographic changes between the 11th and 16th centuries", and it not a scientific way to calculate how many people there were between two centuries, and if there is a decreasing in the population they make it due to Muslims!! What if there was an Epidemic, or volcanos, or any other reason.

Additional thing is that it is mentioned in the reference that "Historians such as Simon Digby have suggested that the estimate lacks accurate data in pre-census times." Due to that we should not mention this information in article talks about numbers!!!!

Hope to delete this item.--بلال الدويك (talk) 04:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

All of these concerns are addressed in the article - you just quoted them. Rmhermen (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, per WP:DUE each point of view should be represented "in proportion to the prominence in the published, reliable sources". It doesn't seems to make much sense that the deadliest war in human history is only known from a book by historian David Wallechinsky. Since the claim is already debated, it would be more reasonable to put it in a side note than occupying the head of the list --aad_Dira (talk) 10:01, 6 May 2014 (UTC).
I'm curious as to where all this international outrage from single purpose IP accounts (five Arab-speaking nations and counting) is coming from. A blog? A discussion group? Many of these estimates stem from pre-census times and are just that, estimates. Numbers for the total of the people killed in the five centuries of Islamic incursion into the Indian subcontinent are extremely hard to find in Anglophone scholarship; they're about a common as English Wikipedia editors who speak any of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages which the majority of such scholarship is conducted. I spent a couple months trying to find other, citable, statistics occurring in the English language and available either online or in my local libraries and I haven't had any success. If others, especially those who speak languages other than English, could find citable sources with lower estimates that would be wonderful, a request I made here months ago. What's not constructive is just removing the entry because you don't like what it says. Lal is an internationally recognized scholar of the time period and the methodoloy he used in the book is the standard methodology for most large scale human demographic events in areas and times without accurate census data. It's the basis for scholarship on everything from The Cultural Revolution to the Mongol Conquests to the Crusades. GraniteSand (talk) 16:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the addition of the "Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent", all the following points need to be explained before justifying its inclusion:
  1. WP:DUE: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources... Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources... What we have here is just one source. For WWI, we have various high quality reliable sources to support the claim.
  2. WP:EXCEPTIONAL: Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. Red flags that should prompt extra caution include:
    • surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources
    • claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people...
    Now this source mentions (by calculating 28% of 350m) that the population of India in 1400 CE was 98 million. The number of people who lived between 1000 and 1500 will be much higher, though. A summary wiping off of 80 million solely due to wartime violence over 500 years is an extraordinary claim, and we need multiple extraordinary sources to back it up, not just because some historian mentions it in his book.
  3. Disputable source: The only source claims that the population of the followers of Hindu religion dropped by 80 million. Should we conclude that it was solely a result of war? There are various factors behind the fall of populations: migration, fertility, religious conversion to some other religion than Hinduism, famine, natural calamities, and of course, war. If the source explicitly mentions that 60-80 millions were killed as a result of wartime violence, please provide excerpts.
  4. 500 years and 10 or so dynasties: What is the rationale behind claiming that these 500 years was a single event, and conquerors comprising a wide geographic region from Turkey, Persia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, et cetera need to be bundled up into one wide ranging entry under "Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent". The existence of Crusades and European colonialism is on different grounds. Crusades were sanctioned by the Latin Roman catholic church and the European colonization of the Americas was initiated by European countries. The so called "Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent" was not carried out by a single entity.
To editor GraniteSand: can you be more clear about what you mean by "international outrage" and "five Arab-speaking nations and counting"? Regardless of demographics, everyone should have their concerns looked after. -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 09:13, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
This is interesting, the content is removed again by an editor at 3:10, and an anon posts a new section at 13:25, after the removal. Might be a case of sock or meat. -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 15:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
I'll be brief, not because the first constructive attempt at engagement on the talk page is not worthy of a greater investment in a response but because I'm working against the clock in real life and won't be able to address the issue again today. Please forgive my brevity. On your first point, there is no undue coverage of this event. Considering its size and scope if anything its under represented. Your second point, it can be surprising to many people in the English speaking world. For a variety of reasons there isn't a substantial body of Anglophone scholarship on the topic of actual deaths but this does not inherently make the claim exceptional. In general it's a subject well documented by many historians such as Will Durant. On your third point, that is a misrepresentation of Lal's work. The number of Hindus in the region dropped much more than that, his ceiling of 80 million is an attribution to deaths as a result of invasions, suffered by all parties involved. His methodology is frequently used by scholars for all sorts of pre-census meta and specific events listed here such as the European colonization of the Americas, the Hundred Years War and the Cultural Revolution. The sourced used for the Muslim invasions of the Indian subcontinent does not occupy a special place on this list. On your fourth topic, you'll forgive me if I point out the inherently subjective and even unfair characterization of those other meta events. Very little about the European colonization fo the Americas or the Crusades could be described as having a single impetus. Even the events and the participants themselves are widley divergent. What they are is overarching and interrelated historical events that are treated by reliable sources as as a single composite subjects in history. Just as are the Muslim invasions of the Indian subcontinent.
As for my comments on "international outrage" and "Arab speaking countries" this was a tongue-in-cheek tip off to the fact that these single purpose IP edits are a canvassed event from outside wikipedia, probably an Arab blog or website ginning up outrage over this "insult to Islam" as it's been variously described. That was the full extent of the meaning. I hope that helps. Thank you for engaging here and helping out with this. GraniteSand (talk) 23:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Anyway, there is no deadline, a fruitful discussion is always better than one concluded in a hurry. As you get time, please explain a little more, as it is difficult to understand some of your points. And yeah, I too am busy in real life, so wont be able to engage often. Cheers! -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 12:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm glad to know you feel that way as well. Let me know which points I should expound on and I'll do what I can. GraniteSand (talk) 03:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Reading through the below section, I understood what you had to say. As to point number 4 (and probably 1 and 2 too), lets continue the discussion in the below section. As to point 3, if you or someone you know has access to the book, check what is stated. As I have said below, more sources exist that consider the entity as individual conflicts. Lal's book assesses it as a single entity, and does not say that it is single event. It is like saying that the European conquest of the world (India, Americas, Indonesia, etc.) has taken such and such lives, so we should include a "European colonization of the world" because we have reliable sources. -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 13:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm really surprised that we're able to extrapolate with such level of precision (within 20 million range) a "conquest" that took 5 centuries before there were even any level of valid population statistics, the science wasn't even invented yet. When We can't agree on the estimate of people killed in the 20th century due to World war II with the same level. If anything this is a huge sign of horrible statistics and an unworthy source that has not passed any level or peer review. The question here, do we consider this single source?
The second issue is that there are items in the same table that has the very same information. What good is it for anyone to specify Timor Lank twice, once under his own name and once under "Islamic conquests"!
Then again, how are the Indian x Indian wars part of any "Islamic conquest"? So the medieval Indian kings who shoved hundreds of thousands of warriors into the battlefield (and won!) aren't part of any of this? They shoulder no part of this blame?
If this count is to stay, it should be broken down to specific dynasties and incidents, and at least a worthy source is used with a little bit of more humble and reasonable statistics is used.
I have no idea how anyone specifically GraniteSand and TheTimesAreAChanging can claim we have reached "consensus"! Qwaider (talk) 23:59, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd encourage you to join the conversation in the more active sub-section below. Breifly, on your first point, "we" don't extrapolate anything. We cite reliable sources. On our second point, Timur's conquests were not confined to just the subcontinent. Third, you're throwing around words like "blame" and insisting on treating labels such as "Indian" and "Muslim" as mutually exclusive, all of which is disturbing and inaccurate. Fourth, I'd love if you could provide those sources, as I've asked before. Lastly, we haven't reached a consensus. Please contribute to the unfolding consensus below. GraniteSand (talk) 16:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Come on, it's clear that the source is not reliable, and on such a controversial topic you need at least 3 or 4 sources to validate such a claim. The source is not reliable in addition of lump-summing the content which is invalid. With the same logic we should automatically say the British colonization of half the world had at least 100 million in casualties. Second Timur is one of the largest sources contributing to this number. The book doesn't make the distinction and you add it also to the same issue. Third, How did I say this is mutually exclusive? And how is this disturbing? It is you who is insisting on making it Muslim and Indian exclusively I am all for breaking these down to what they really are. And it's none of your business to be disturbed, stick to the issue and the facts here. I will continue to discuss this in the meantime this needs to be fixed, and only valid data needs to be in that table.
Qwaider (talk) 04:43, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Qwaider, the reliability of sources is another thing. You may be right we need multiple sources for such claims. For now, we are discussing whether to include these events, and if yes how. For this please participate below. The consensus is yet to be reached, so if such events are decided to be excluded, there would be no point in discussing here. Lets see how the consensus unfolds, and then discuss about individual entries. -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 10:54, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

This page shouldn't exist, there was no such conquest and the death number is ridiculously high ! Just exposing that this is a lie... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.65.122.59 (talk) 15:41, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

This item refers to over 5 centuries of history and is not a comparable event to any other in the list. It is therefore misleading and devalues the list as a comparison document. It ought to be removed. (This unsigned new comment by User:JustinRoux45 was moved here to the end of the section by Wikimedes.)

OK, now the following points are against the inclusion. I am writing here to avoid clutter below. Do grab a cup of coffee!

  1. It is a fringe theory. It also is against WP:DUE. The author has considered all the conquerors and the 526 year period as "Muslims" and a single conflict. Now the author is trying to push forward the point that all of them are some "Muslims", a single entity/nationality/ethnicity. The conquests are simply more widely considered independently. A cursory glance in the Indian history school textbooks like Our Pasts II which cover the time period reveals it. Nowhere are we going to find "Muslim conquests" but individual conquests by Khalji dynasties, Tughlaq dynasties, Babur, Akbar, etc. To consider conflicts with different people from different places at different times as one single conflict simply overrides common sense.
  2. It requires exceptional sources. 80 million is a very large number, and for ostensibly being the deadliest encounter in whole of human history needs something more solid than a passing mention. For comparison, the population in India in 1400 CE was 98 million.
  3. There is discrepancy in what the source is trying to say and what is being portrayed. To the best of my knowledge, the source mentions that the population of the followers of Hindu religion dropped by 80 million. It does not explicitly mention that the they all died due to some conflict.
  4. Who are these "Muslims"? The author has singled out religion as a way to discriminate between conquerors from different places and different times. It is worth mentioning here that the colonial British invaders also hold the same point of view.
    • In Our Pasts II, Page 12, "In the middle of the nineteenth century British historians divided the history of India into three periods: “Hindu”, “Muslim” and “British”. This division was based on the idea that the religion of rulers was the only important historical change, and that there were no other significant developments – in the economy, society or culture. Such a division also ignored the rich diversity of the subcontinent."
    • In India and the Contempoarary World II, Page 150-151, "The British did not consider colonial India as a nation. They saw it as a collection of castes and races and religious communities and gave themselves the credit for unifying the sub-continent. In the late nineteenth century, many Indian institutions and movements were organised around the idea of religious community because the colonial state encouraged these divisions and was quick to recognize communal institutions. For example, the Governor of the Bombay Presidency while dealing with an application from the Islam Gymkhana for land on Bombay's seafront wrote: "We can be certain that in a short time we shall get a similar application from some Hindu Gymkhana. I don't see how we are to refuse these applicants; but I will refuse any more grants once a Gymkhana has been established by each nationality." (emphasis added). It is obvious from this letter that colonial officials regarded religious communities as separate nationalities. Applications that used the communal categories favoured by the colonial state were, as this letter shows, more likely to be approved."
    Now, are we trying to use religion as a way of discrimination? If yes; as the then Governor of the Bombay Presidency said; include, some kind of "Christian conquest of South and South east Asia" for the 300-400 year colonial invasion.
    Also, on a side note, Akbar was not a Muslim, but fancied his own "religion", Din-i-Ilahi which died soon after him.
  5. The author has a leftist bias, like here as pointed out by Obiwankenobi. We need more neutral sources. Though, WP:V says sources need not be neutral, here we are presenting a fact, not a point of view.

Regarding due weight, GraniteSand, you said that there is no undue coverage, I fail to see why. For exceptional nature of the entry, if 80 million is not exceptional, then what is? If it is well documented by Durant and others, lets have the sources. For the source, if the number dropped much more, why are the maxima and minima 60m and 80m? Both are cited to the very source. Even if we assume that the 80m is correct, the 60m should go lower, as per Simon Digby. Also, the source has not yet been verified for what it explicitly mentions. I may agree that colonization or crusades may have little impetus, but there is a fundamental difference in the fact that while the colonization or crusades were undertaken by a single nation/institution/motivation that can be used as an argument, the conquests between 1000 and 1500 CE were simply carried out, to reinstate, by different people at different times, and the only supporting argument is that one historian writes so.

Why isn't the presence of one or two statistical sources a criterion for inclusion? But, do we have historians who are providing lists of this sort and saying that the centuries-long metaconflicts ought to be put together with individual wars? To reinstate, Yes (reliable) scholarship does exist. It asseses the Amercian civil war as a single entity, or a longer American and USSR-Russian conflict, or a longer colonization of the Americas, or a longer still colonization of Asian-African states by the western countries, or simply human conflict as a single entity. Not just the span of time but a wide span of geographic locations may be studied as a single entity. And a single entity not a single conflict. Well, then should we put up all of the events as fringe theorists like them to be classifeid? Also we should not forget that we are comparing apples and oranges here. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 11:32, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this should not be included because no war lasted for 550 years. It's like saying the conflict between Muslims and Christians and then adding all deaths between the two groups for 550 years. That's clearly not how the vast majority of people define wars. Also it's only supported by one reference which means that it's almost certainly a fringe theory. It's also slightly suspicious considering the obvious religious tensions in India today and the strong animosity between India and Pakistan (this could be related POV pushing).Monopoly31121993 (talk) 11:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
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