Talk:Fakir

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Lard Saahib, why drop Iran from the mix? Or Pakistan, for that matter? The tradition that produced faqeers has strong links/roots in Persia, the country/region, and in Farsi, the language.

I am also considering adding a note that the word is also used, very non-sarcasticly, by speakers of Urdu as their common word for "beggar".--iFaqeer 09:51, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Priyuh Faqeer, 1) Pakistan is a 50 year-old nationalist creation and the history of the fakir, solidified over many centuries well before Partition, is associated with a greater India. Saying the fakir originated in Pakistan would be ludicrously anachronostic. 2) On the other hand, the Persian/Iranian roots are clear and important, especially since the word is non-Indian, and those traditions may be duly explicated if you know anything about them. --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:12, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

oh, also, the use of the word fakir as a term for pan-handler is on the page; how could you miss that? It's not language-specific to Urdu because people speaking Hindi, Gujarati, Sindhi and Punjabi also use it and the word's as much a part of those languages as Urdu (being Arabic in origin it's a loanword for any Indian language, including Urdu/Hindvi/Hindustani) --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:14, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Too India-centric?

Isn't starting this entry:

Fakir is etymologically an Arabic term first used widely in India in reference to holy men...

a little too India-centric? This is a universal encyclopedia; not and Indian one. I am okay with this being the first sentence of a subsequent para--it is useful information. I am not making the change right now. Don't want to things in a hurry.--iFaqeer 20:25, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Just looked at older versions. Would folks be against adding back the original sentence at the top? It rain:

"Fakir is a term used in Pakistan, India and Persia to describe a person who is poor but "spiritually elevated". It is also used to refer to the common street beggar, but one who chants holy names, scriptures or verses"

--iFaqeer 20:27, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Fakir is a term used in many countries now. It's stupid to isolate countries of usage and simply serves a nationalist chauvinism. Origins of the word and its usage, however, are not merely superfluous: the meaning of the word 'fakir' in Persia and the subsequent ideas associated with it in India later on are very different. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:46, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. But doesn't that make the first sentence even more inappropriate as a start?--iFaqeer 20:53, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, please take an objective look at what I have now.

BTW, from feedback given me on other entries by adminitrators, this should be in the Wiktionary, rather than here. Especially in the shape it is in right now, it's a dicdef.--iFaqeer 21:03, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. I'll expand it. It's got a great history and would make for an interesting and varicolored article. (Churchill called Gandhi a fakir once.)--LordSuryaofShropshire 21:16, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

In Bangladesh and India

I noticed that the section "In Bangladesh and India" had some serious grammatical issues and wanted to dive in and improve it, but then I realized I couldn't even understand what the author was trying to say. It's not really possible to rephrase something if you don't understand it. Would someone please help? Hoot (talk) 13:48, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

In fact, it appears the entire article needs a grammatical makeover. Where's an English-speaking Orientalist when you need one? :-) - Hoot (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as someone with professional editorial experience, I entirely agree with you: you can't rephrase something if you don't understand what the author is trying to say. This is not helped in the case of the 'Bangladesh and India' section by the fact that everything there is unreferenced! It could all be original research. Simon Kidd (talk) 03:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Not a Fakir

Why do we have a lede picture with a caption that says "However, it is far more likely this depicts a Hindu sannyasi [...]"? I.e., why do we have as the lede picture an image of someone who is probably not a fakir? MrDemeanour (talk) 17:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Fakir/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Need citations and works cited. Badbilltucker 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 14:55, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

This article should be linked to a new main article--Practices and Ways

The Intuitive experience of Monks, Fakirs, Yogis, others--toward Involution; A non-philosophical experience..Arnlodg (talk) 20:31, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Bad english

Bad grammar, spelling and and punctuation have rendered some of the claims in this article incomprehensible. I will see if I can work out what is meant from the references; but if that fails, I will be deleting what appears to me be incorrigible nonsense. MrDemeanour (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

What do you means: Erroneously?

The term has also been erroneously used to refer to Hindu and Buddhist ascetics (e.g., sadhus, gurus, swamis and yogis).[5]  

Why erroneously? A Buddhist Ngagpa practitioner, a Sadhu, a Jain sky clad, these are all Faqeers as they all practice Faqr. Even the British orientalists agreed. It was only after the rise of Pakistani/Indian nationalism that (some) people suddenly objected. But that is like saying: the past (history) is erroneously (full of Errors), and there are people who argue like that. However in Wikipedia, there is no platform for such things. I will therefore remove the term erroneously, since it was/is the opinion of the editor and not part of the reference given.--37.24.146.76 (talk) 09:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 28 September 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 19:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

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Fakir → Faqir – Proper spelling etymologically, based on reliable sources, and per consistency with other Sufi concepts such as Haqiqa. Getsnoopy (talk) 23:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. SITH (talk) 12:49, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 03:58, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• A quick check on Ngrams shows that "fakir" is in far more common usage than "faqir", so this one may need some closer scrutiny. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnadigoodluck (talk • contribs)

@Nnadigoodluck: I think the literature results primarily have to do with Indian sources (since the q is not well maintained in Hindi because people drop the nuqta, for example), but the Arabic sources will all show the q. In the same way that it isn't spelled kuran, hakika, kalam, yakin, al-Kaeda, etc., we should be favouring the etymologically correct faqir. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:33, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

• "Faqeer" is used six times in the lede. At one instance it is linked, suggesting it is a narrower concept than this, but in the others it seems just to be a variant spelling, violating MOS:ARTCON. Transliteration of Arabic is not a settled matter, we do have Kuran and Koran. At least in English, where "Q" is invariably followed by "u" (often in words that were respelled the French way after the Norman Conquest), this use of "Q" to approximate an Arabic-language sound (usually indistinguishable from "K" in English speakers) is a relatively recent development. 85.238.91.38 (talk) 03:19, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

While "Kuran" and "Koran" exist as variants, they're variant spellings as a consequence of history. The transliteration of Arabic to English has more to do with etymology rather than English phonetics, which is why the Arabic ك (kaf) is transliterated as a "k", while the Arabic ق (qaf) is transliterated as a "q". In fact, no Arabic transliteration scheme uses a "k" for the qaf, but all of them use the "q". This is exactly the reason the WP article on the holy book uses the canonical spelling Quran, and not "Kuran" or "Koran"; I'd encourage you to read the discussions on the talk page of that article. Getsnoopy (talk) 05:49, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

But this completely overlooks the fact that most fakirs are Hindus and it is thus inappropriate to apply an Arabic/Islamic spelling. S a g a C i t y (talk) 11:09, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Saga City: The lead sentence of the article goes completely against that claim. The article is primarily about the Islamic Sufi concept, not the common word that has been semantically borrowed into Indic languages to refer to anyone who's poor or some sort of mendicant. This is not to mention the fact that even if it were to be written in Indic languages like Hindi/Urdu, it is written with a nuqta (फ़क़ीर) in the former or the qaf (فقير) in the latter, both of which would be transliterated as a "q". Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as faqir is a minority variant of fakir. S a g a C i t y (talk) 07:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. It's the proper, etymologically correct, and consistent spelling. Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

• Nominator's do not need to !vote separately. Srnec (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) uses the spelling faḳīr. Also, the spelling Koran is very common. I do not understand the claim that one is more etymologically correct. Srnec (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Srnec: That source is clearly using a distinct transliteration scheme where the qaf is transliterated as a "k" with a dot underneath, while the kaf is transliterated as a simple "k". Getsnoopy (talk) 06:30, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but as it is common to drop diacritics (like the underdot), there is nothing unusual about faḳīr becoming fakir (note the loss of the macron as well). Yes, it would result in no distinction in spelling between kaf and qaf (which, I suppose, is one reason most systems prefer to use q-without-u), but consistent scientific transliteration does not seem to be a desideratum at Wikipedia. None of our Abd al-Rahman articles, for example, start with ayin and the vast majority of article titles drop diacritics. Srnec (talk) 18:53, 11 October 2020 (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.