Talk:Barhebraeus

Unattributed sentence

Modern scholars are so impressed by his genius that they call him "The Encyclopedia of the 13th century".

This statement may be true, but without attribution (i.e., exactly who said this?) it is inserting one POV into this article. And at the time of this comment, there are many more unreferenced assertions in this article. -- llywrch 02:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Biases

Perhaps a word on his anti-Muslim biases, which colors some of his histories with inaccuracies? -- Barryap 04:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Not without specific references, I suggest. Roger Pearse 09:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger Pearse (talk • contribs)

Name change

The article should be renamed to "Barhebraeus" from the current "Bar Hebraeus". This is in line with scholarship, taking into account the frequency of Barhebraeus vs. Bar Hebraeus and the recency & prominence of these sources.

Sources that use "Barhebraeus":

• Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (2013) – Hidemi Takahashi [arguably the most important one]
• Barhebraeus’ Metrical Grammar and Ms. BML Or. 298: Codicological and Linguistic Remarks (2016) – Margherita Farina
• Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume IV (1200–1350) (2012) – David Thomas, ed. David Thomas; Barbara Roggema
• Comparing the Syriac and Arabic Chronicles of Barhebraeus: The Question of Intended Audiences (2018) – Dibo Habbabé
• East and West in the Crusader States: Context, Contacts, Confrontations (2003) – Krijna Nelly Ciggaar; Herman G. B. Teule [books I and II]
• Gregory Barhebraeus’ Mystical Hermeneutics of the Love of God in Dialogue with Islamic Tradition (2022) – Jennifer Griggs
• Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 3
• Reflections on Identity: The Suryoye of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Bar Salibi, Bar Shakko, and Barhebraeus (2009) – Herman Teule
• The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (2014) – Virginia Trimble; Thomas R. Williams; Katherine Bracher
• A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (2011) – Sebastian P. Brock
• Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology (1992) – Sebastian P. Brock
• Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation (2009) – Muriel Debié
• The Syriac World (2019) – Daniel King

Sources that use "Bar Hebraeus":

• A Short History of Syriac Literature (1894) – William Wright
• On the Arabic Chronicle of Bar Hebraeus: His Aims and Audience (1994) – Lawrence I. Conrad
• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus (2003) – E. A. W. Budge
• The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature (2004) – Ephrem Barsoum; translated by Matti Moosa
• Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period (2017) – Khalid S. Dinno

Certainly, others exist, but this is all I could find from my wide research. It appears mainly archaic sources use the double‑worded name, and thus the page should be moved.   Edit: about 3 more sources use the transliteration "Bar Ebroyo", but I don't believe that's an appropriate name anyway. Hogshine (talk) 06:45, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Barhebraeus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Hogshine (talk · contribs) 06:42, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Reverosie (talk · contribs) 21:29, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello! As discussed, I will be your GA reviewer. The review will almost certainly begin tomorrow (but may begin tonight if I have the time) ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:29, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

An important update: I'm so sorry for the delay!! Something came up, and I wasn't able to do anything on Wikipedia for a while. I'll get this review done TODAY! ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 16:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Please take all the time you need :) Hogshine (talk) 08:02, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

@Reverosie Nudge. Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 05:17, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

@Hogshine @Tarlby I have been meaning to do this review, but I have only grown busier and busier. For this reason, I would like to transfer my open reviews to a new reviewer, but I am not sure how. If you could help, I would appreciate it. ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 19:28, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I've given Hogshine instructions on how to do this on their talk page. Don't worry. Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 19:29, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Please refer them to @Surtsicna as well. ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 19:30, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

👍 Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 19:31, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

An update from Reverosie

Hello. I am aware that it has been a while, and I'd like to explain everything. I opened this GA review believing that I would be able to do it despite my busy schedule outside of Wikipedia, but this was unfortunately not the case. I irresponsibly refused to drop the review over a few weeks, telling myself that I would eventually be able to do it, but never did I have the chance. On top of this, my busy schedule distracted me from the topic of medieval history as a whole, and I gradually started to lose interest. Eventually, my incompetence was no longer able to go unnoticed, and with the help of other editors, I requested for my articles to move to another reviewer. However, this was clearly to no avail. You are still waiting as a consequence of my irresponsibility. This is no longer acceptable.

When I requested for my articles to move to another reviewer, I did not know that this would occur instead. I did not know that this review would remain sitting in limbo without an editor to notice the situation. I was gone from all of Wikipedia for an extended amount of time, oblivious to this predicament. Now that I have time on my hands again, I am shocked to see that nothing has been done about this.

It is time for me to finish what I started. This review will be done today

On top of this, I owe you a deep apology for all of this trouble. None of it should have happened, and I take the responsibility that comes with such a colossal failure on my part as a reviewer. I entirely understand if you do not wish to work with me again, but if you do, I will be happy to open any GA review you'd like so long as I have the time to do it, and I will get it done within three days. While I was not anticipating that no new reviewer would be assigned to this article, I should have never let this situation occur in the first place. I deeply apologize to you.

Please disregard any plans of picking up a new reviewer for this article (though, it does not appear that one would ever show up). The review will commence shortly. ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:36, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Courtesy ping: @Hogshine ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:36, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

I will hear none of that stuff about being incompetent, we all understandably get busy with real-life stuff. I hope that whatever it was has worked out well for you and that you're doing great. I myself did not request a new reviewer due to being busy as well. Barhebraeus is still yours if you want it, and as always, please take all the time you need. ~ Hogshine (talk) 06:05, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Update: I'm saddened to say that, once again, something has come up (I'm dismayed as well!) I will be able to do this review in a week from now, but if you'd like a new reviewer, you should certainly get one ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 02:49, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

November 2025

@777network Note that your latest reverts () were not in good faith, one of which was undoing MOS improvements. You have been thoroughly warned about this a total of six times . Once again, you need to establish consensus before you push in your edit once it's contested. Hogshine (talk) 07:28, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Hogshine, the issue here is POV. You're not objecting to the content based on Wikipedia guidelines but rather personal bias, as was seen on Asilvering's talk page, when both Asilvering and a non-involved editor (copyright checker) noticed that the reason you objected to the content was to get a "opponent" out of the topic area, as well as POV.

If you're objecting to my additions to the article, I might as well object to your version which does not lift up the additions I added. Do you see in what kind of endless circle we end up in?

You first objected to my additions because of copyvio reasons, now that it's been fixed, you're referring to WP:BRD, which in fact, also has a WP:BRD-NOT section clearly outlining the issue here. 777network (talk) 21:43, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

For the same reason as on Michael the Syrian's talk page, Wilmshurst 2016 represents a niche, WP:UNDUE opinion mentioned in passing, contrary to the established scholarly consensus, and thus it is inappropriate to include. Moreover, you've removed well-cited content from established historians as Richard N. Frye. Hogshine (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Barhebraeus/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Hogshine (talk · contribs) 06:42, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: A.Cython (talk · contribs) 00:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

I read the article. It is a biography of an intriguing personality who produced an impactful series of works that echoed over centuries. There is definitely genuinοus effort to improve this article. Unfortunately, I have to quick fail this one based on WP:GAFAIL#3, which states: It has, '''or needs,''' cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}}) (emphasis added).

• There are at least 5 cases (a few too many) where citation needed tag can be placed.
• There are a couple of whole paragraphs without any inline citations.

The latter is a serious omission, because one of the criteria for Good Article, i.e., WP:GACR6#2, is about verifiable content. No citations means no way for us to verify, which leads to automatic failure. Advice for the future: make sure to have a relevant citation at the end of each paragraph in the main body (lede excluded). To make clear where citations are needed, I placed citation needed tags in the text.
Also from a quick read, I would suggest to avoid repeating information in the article. There are several other minor issues that need to be addressed. For example, you mentioned twice how he died, repeating the quote "Nestorians, Armenians, and Greeks". I suggest for you to familiarize with the WP:MOS and to find a mentor to help you with the WP policies and manual style (check the Wikipedia:Teahouse for advice and finding a mentor). A.Cython(talk) 00:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@A.Cython Almost all of the uncited bits were summaries of the preceding or following paragraphs. Other issues are minor ones that could have easily been fixed during the review. This did not need to be quickfailed imo. ~ Hogshine (talk) 07:53, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

They do not appear to me as summaries, which is why I recommended to you finding a mentor. Extensive use of summaries in the main body should be avoided. IMO, the article has other issues in terms of prose, which are not easy to fix and I have not even tried to look the interpretation of sources. An article to be considered for GA must overall address these issues before hand. Happy editing! A.Cython(talk) 13:51, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Barhebraeus/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Hogshine (talk · contribs) 08:05, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 19:19, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Initial comments

I'll do this in small batches, as I'm pushed for time this week.

First batch, down to the end of Legacy section

• No complaints about the lead this time. It is full but not to excess. Just right, in my view.
• "serving … as a physician and deacon" – perhaps link "deacon" here?
• "personal physician to Hulagu Khan, which was remarkable achievement" – lacks a definite article before "remarkable".
• "Barhebraeus briefly resided with his father Aaron in Aleppo" – you've already told us his father's name.
• "Nineveh (where he likely stayed at Mor Mattai Monastery)" – if we're in BrE, the normal usage is "probably", rather than "likely"
• "died on the night of Tuesday, July 30, 1286" – it is true that The Times and The Guardian use the mm-dd-yyyy format, but it is otherwise rare in BrE: dd-mm-yyyy is the usual form.
• "he consecrated twelve bishops, including his biographer Dioscorus of Gozarto and his disciple Philoxenus I Nemrud" – I'm guessing "his disciple" means Barhebraeus's disciple, but it could equally well be Dioscorus's disciple. Might be as well to avoid the ambiguity.
• "spent most of his life, including all of his later years – do we need the second "of"?

More shortly. Tim riley talk 19:19, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Second batch: Writings to Relations

• "J.S. Assemani called them … and J.P.P. Martin described him" – the Wikipedia manual of style specifies gaps after initials: J. S. Assemani and J. P. P. Martin.
• "contain up to 10 percent of its manuscripts" – according to the current edition of Fowler, per cent is traditionally written as two words in BrE but as one word (percent) in AmE.
• "Previously castigated as a skilful but unoriginal compiler of earlier works, that judgement is misplaced" – the syntax has gone off the rails: there is a dangling modifier here: the judgement is not what is castigated, but that is what the sentence says. You want something on the lines of "Barhebraeus was previously castigated as a skilful but unoriginal compiler of earlier works, but that judgement is misplaced".
• "it would reach a wide readership, so he supplemented the work" – I am a septuagenarian and I daresay younger editors would think my view on this point old-fashioned, but I do not regard "so" as a conjunction in good formal prose – fine in speech but for an encyclopaedia article I would write "and so" or just "and".
• "then continues only as Antioch" – much the same goes for "then", which in my view needs "and" in front of it.
• "Justin forcefully deposed Severus of Antioch" – can one depose someone gently? Not sure you need the adverb.
• "with further addenda by anonymous authors" – these are the only addenda mentioned here, and "further" is not needed.
• "he views that the maphrianate of the Syriac Orthodox in the East is the rightful continuation of the ancient See" – the prose is a bit contorted here: I suggest trimming to something like "he views the maphrianate of the Syriac Orthodox in the East as the rightful continuation of the ancient See".
• "He refutes and discusses the Dyophysite doctrine" – two points here: first, surely discussion would come before refutation and secondly I'd be careful with "refute", which properly means to disprove something and not merely to deny it.
• "sees it as partially pragmatic" – "partially" is another word to be treated with caution: it can mean just "partly", but it can also mean favouring one party or side in a biased or prejudiced way
• "during Mongol rule — though not devoid of genuine elements" – another manual of style point: you can have em-dashes but they must not have a space on each side: they are unspaced—like that; alternatively if you want spaced dashes they have to be n-dashes – like this.
• "later worked with physician Jamal al-Din" – bruising false title that can be remedied with a definite article before "physician".
• "working within Mongol military camps alongside other physicians, a great feat." – it isn't clear – well not to me anyway – why this was a great feat.
• "Eight works on medicine and pharmacology are known to be authored by him" – you could lose "authored", which is a rather pompous way of saying "written" and the sentence is just as clear without either here.
• "descriptive titles in contrast to many of his other works" – the current (2015) edition of Fowler says that "contrast to" and "contrast between" are acceptable, but I cling to the old boy's original 1926 prescription that the preposition should be the customary "with".
• "had a significant influence on his primary scientific work" – This is Plain Words on "significant": This is a good and useful word, but it has a special flavour of its own and it should not be thoughtlessly used as a mere variant of important, considerable, appreciable, or quite large … it ought to be used only where there is a ready answer to the reader's unspoken question 'Significant, is it? And what does it signify?'
• "largely in contrast to the Greek and Arab populations" – as above.
• "mere recordkeeping" – the Oxford English Dictionary hyphenates "record-keeping".
• " He likely encountered the Latins" – as we are in BrE it would be as well to replace the AmE "likely" with the BrE "probably".
• "envisioned the restoration of a unified Syriac Church" – what a frightful verb! I take it to mean contemplated, foresaw, predicted or visualised, in which case it would be a very good idea to say so.

That's all for this batch of quibbles. Final lot to come shortly. As at the GAN for Cave of Treasures, the minor points I have made here about the prose are purely suggestions – please feel free to accept or reject any of them. Tim riley talk 08:34, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Final batch

• "Aside from his native Syriac" – the usual BrE form is "apart from" rather than "aside from"
• "and Liturgy was already wholly conducted in Arabic " – isn't it usual to have the definite article with "liturgy", and is the noun usually capitalised?
• "(with the notable exception of Jacob of Edessa)" – no doubt, but "notable" is a touch editorial without a source that mentions the notability.
• "He authored numerous books" – as above, a plain "wrote" would be kinder to the reader.
• "30 July, the date of his repose" – his what? You mean his death. See MOS:EUPHEMISM
• "the 700th anniversary of the passing of Maphrian Barhebraeus" – Ditto. I am reminded of a line of Noël Coward's: "She didn’t pass on or pass over or pass out – she died".
• "Sebastian P. Brock … who described him as "a polymath of extraordinary wide learning in virtually every subject that was studied in his time" – this is rather perplexing. You can't describe something as "extraordinary wide" and I don't believe an Oxford don such as Sebastian Brock would be guilty of such an error. But there are two copies of his book in the Internet Archive (here and here) and one calls Barhebraeus "a polymath of extraordinary wide learning" and the other calls him "a polymath of extraordinarily wide learning". The latter is so obviously the correct form that I think you should stick with it. The former is surely a printer's error.
• "organised in Aleppo, Syria by the late Archbishop of Aleppo Yohanna Ibrahim." – "late" as in former or as in dead? Either way do we need it?
• "Sources: I cannot work out your rationale for the ordering of the sources. We are in alphabetical order down to William Wright, and then we lurch into seemingly random order for Barsoum, Tarzi, Rajan, Dinno, Brock, Rompay, Witakowski, Dinno, Weltecke, Frye, Tannous and Takahashi.

That concludes my initial comments. Over to you. I'll put the review on hold for a week. Tim riley talk 10:18, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

As always, impressive attention to detail. I learned a couple things myself. I've went ahead and adjusted the text, though I have a few comments:

"Justin forcefully deposed Severus of Antioch" – can one depose someone gently? Not sure you need the adverb. Ecclesiastically, one can be deposed relatively "peacefully" by a synod with the agreement of the ecumene at large. This is not what happened with Severus of Antioch; military force had to be applied. I rephrased it altogether.

Well, I've learned something today, which is always a good thing. Thank you. Tim riley talk 19:17, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

"and Liturgy was already wholly conducted in Arabic " – isn't it usual to have the definite article with "liturgy", and is the noun usually capitalised? It is capitalised when referring to a specific liturgy, e.g., Liturgy of St. James and Liturgy of John Chrysostom, but not in this case. Corrected.

"(with the notable exception of Jacob of Edessa)" – no doubt, but "notable" is a touch editorial without a source that mentions the notability.‌ Jacob is unique among Syriac writers in assuming Hebrew—not Aramaic—was the first language. This is cited in Jacob's article but not isn't neccessary here, so I removed it.

"the 700th anniversary of the passing of Maphrian Barhebraeus" – Ditto. I am reminded of a line of Noël Coward's: "She didn’t pass on or pass over or pass out – she died". This is apparently a direct quote, so I‌ added " ". Fits the Veneration section a bit more, methinks.

"organised in Aleppo, Syria by the late Archbishop of Aleppo Yohanna Ibrahim." – "late" as in former or as in dead? Either way do we need it? Late as in "the one before the current one". He's technically just missing, not officially dead. I replaced it with "previous", though it doesn't feel right. What do you think it should say?

Oh, Lord! I've just looked at his article and feel ashamed of my flippancy. How awful! You could call him "the then Archbishop", though that's a bit stilted. I might omit any adjective here.

Thanks for the much-helpful comments! ~ Hogshine (talk) 17:42, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm pleased my comments were of use. It was obvious to me from the outset that this is a substantial and considerable article. Now that I had studied it carefully I am satisfied that it meets all the GA criteria, and I think it has ample potential to be taken on to FAC. For now, however:

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Well referenced.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Well referenced.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   Well illustrated.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Well illustrated.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.