Talk:Mardaites

A Difficult Article

This article suffers from one key factor, and that is the lack of proper sourcing on claimed Maronite ancestry AND the opposing views on it. Through research online, one only finds so much. I have done my best to aid this article in conforming to Wikipedia's neutrality standards, however it is still problematic. All items are sourced as best as possible, but further research is required to ensure this article is thorough enough to be definitive. If anyone has more information (that can be sourced) then by all means add to it, however refrain from entering unsourced "opinion" based material — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.66.40 (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality

Made changes until better sources are available. This article should remain neutral, the opinion of some does not over rule that of others in this context as there are many sources claiming Maronites are the Mardaite (though I personally do not think they are). Removed the suspiciously opinionated piece of text until better sources can definitely prove one side over the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.66.40 (talk) 09:02, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Mardistan

Regardless of if Mardistan = Mardiates or not, Mardistan does not mean Armenian. Mards/Mardistani were a non-Armenian people who inhabited much of eastern Anatolia, and established several dynasties ruling the area. Moreover, Mard was the classical Armenian term for Kurds (See for example). Roboskiye (talk) 20:34, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Neither the Dictionary of Byzantium nor the Encyclopaedia of Islam mention anything about Kurds in their lengthy dedicated entries, the "falsification" would be referencing that claim to them. The Dictionary of Byzantium speculates that they were either Armenians of Persians, the EOI on the other hand cites contemporary Arabic histories mentioning their peasants as Nabaț (i.e. Aramaeans) or Syrians. The brief Blackwell entry looks very awkward imo, first of all nowhere I can find credentials of the writer "Crane Russak", secondly "Kurd" as a 7th century Cilician ethnonym seems very anachronous, back then this term was used as a catch-all for any nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples of any religious or linguistic group.

Salvatore Cosentino's claim is also very unlikely, he first states that he is "not competent" to deal with the problem of their identity then he hypothises they were Kurds since he finds that some of them originate from Germanicia which he mistakenly locate in Marda in eastern Anatolia.--Kathovo talk 14:15, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I, at the very begining, wrote: regardless of if Mardaite = Mardians or not. I don't care if these two are the one and the same. But what I say is that Mardian is not Armenian. Mardian, as in Greek sources, was an Iranic/Persian tribal group in Zagros/Taurus mountains. In Armenian sources it meant Kurds. In Arabic/Islamic sources it was ancestor of the Kurds. My argument in short again: Mardistan/Mards/Mardoi/Mardians were not Armenians. Roboskiye (talk) 18:20, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Good discussions about the Mardaites can be found in Matti Moosa's The Maronites in History, The Relation of the Maronites of Lebanon to the Mardaites and Al-Jarājima and David Woods' The Common Syriac Source on the Origin of the Mardaites. I will expand the article after I collect enough sources.--Kathovo talk 12:46, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Good. I've read already Moosa's work. According to it, Mardaites were non-Semitic and identical with Iranic mards. Roboskiye (talk) 13:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Dear Kathovo, read the book A history of Armenia which is written by armenian Vahan M. Kurkjian in 1958 or other sources. So, dont replace iranic instead of Kurdish. Thanks.--Gomada (talk) 09:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

How is this related to the Mardaites/Jarajima? We have several specialised references that make no such connection. Bringing a circumstantial mention of "Mard" and "Kurd" and use this to support the claim that Mardaites were Kurds follows under WP:SYNTH.

The fact is there was no clear meaning of the term Kurd back in the 7th century, Persians called Arabs Kurds, Arabs called Armenians Kurds, etc.--Kathovo talk 11:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

So what? This changes nothing. Mard was a pre-islamic name for Iranic-speaking Kurds. Roboskiye (talk) 10:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)