Talk:List of royal families on the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century

Untitled

Don't have time to now, but the house link should disabiguate some other way

Title and scope

The AfD resulted in a Keep, but Further discussion of how to rename the article can proceed on the talk page and/or with a move request. Before we can determine a better title, we need to determine the scope.

• Allies: There was agreement at the AfD that allies should be removed from the opening sentence. I have just done that.
• Houses: There was a common understanding that "Houses" meant "royal houses" (Vyvagaba) or "royal families" (Alexandermcnabb, SportingFlyer, me), and that either option could or should be used in the title instead of "Houses" (with Clarityfiend saying also no capital H if the title is kept). So the current preference seems to be royal families.
• Major: My question was whether the word major (not in title) needs to be included in the opening sentence, or not? If so, why? When does a "royal family" qualify for "major" and when not? This question has not been addressed so far. I think it should be removed (just like "allies"), because it is arbitrary. As long as the historical scope is limited to the 20th century, there is probably enough room to include all royal families, no matter how "minor" they might have been.

Edit: Well, one reason we might want to exclude "minor' royal families is that there were lots of small ones in short-lived states such as the Federation of South Arabia (1962–1967)...

• 20th century: The opening sentence defines in the 20th century as the list's historical scope. Clarityfiend said it is "purely arbitrary", which has some merit, but without a time-limiting scope, this could become a rapidly complex and exhaustive list with even more contestable inclusion criteria. I think in the 20th century is an important time-limiting scope, at least for now. Nobody else has commented on this issue yet; please share your thoughts if you have any ideas.
• Geographical scope: This was the most important issue which the AfD was unfortunately unable to resolve. The conversation showed that there is no consensus on what "Arabia(n)", "Arabian Peninsula" and "Arab" mean.

I said: If the opening sentence should be maintained as the scope, it should be List of royal families in/from the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century, and we need at least 3 WP:RS to agree on the geographical scope of Arabian Peninsula. Otherwise, it will still be WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, ambiguous, subjective, arbitrary, and unsupported, and thus continue to fail WP:LISTCRIT.

I also rejected the word "Arab" for the title: Arab is way too vague and ambiguous. It can mean anything from geography to language to ethnicity. I know for a fact that people will start including royal families in North Africa from Mauretania down to Sudan and perhaps even Somalia and further south to East Africa if we rename it Arab. And I think it's very likely they will eventually include parts of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus etc. if we included the Middle Ages, which I strongly recommend against.

Aside from that, we also simply need to add WP:RS for WP:V and to meet the WP:CSC. Hopefully, these sources may help us find an answer to these questions. Thanks for your feedback already. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

@Alexandermcnabb, SportingFlyer, Clarityfiend, and Vyvagaba: For your information, because each of you participated in the AfD, and might (or might not) like to continue participating in the process of improving the article now that it has been kept. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi there, I pretty much agree with most of your notes except for the geographical scope part.

I honestly don't see how "Arab" is an ambigious. Not all Arabic speakers identify as Arabs, like the Kurds and Assyrians of Iraq for example; and not all Arabs live in Arab countries, like Iranian Arabs. But the common theme "Arab" is not ambigious.

We can add a part to explain what falls under the scope of the article, but I really don't feel thats necessary. I dont think we should remove the word Arab from the title, I suggest we change the title to "Arab royal houses" or "Arab royal families".

Current Arab royal houses, as far as I know, are the Moroccan and Jordanian royal houses, and all the Gulf countries, including the royal families of the emirates of the UAE. Vyvagaba (talk) 15:47, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

That's a completely different scope. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:49, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Jordan and Morocco are obviously Arab, that's why changing it to the Arabian Peninsula is not useful. Vyvagaba (talk) 15:58, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The scope was already major royal families and their allies in the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century. before the AfD. If you want to make it "Arab", you are the one changing the scope, not me. Morocco is obviously outside the Arabian Peninsula. There is no consensus on whether Jordan is in or out. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The scope should be expanded to "Arab", I don't see the use of limiting the scope to the Arabian Peninsula when there are other Arab royal families outside the Arabian Peninsula. Vyvagaba (talk) 16:15, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I will change the scope to Arab, and I'll work on it in the next few days, unless someone works on it before me. Vyvagaba (talk) 16:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

You shouldn't single-handedly change the scope without consensus. Let's discuss this first. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Encarta Winkler Prins (2002) says: The Arabian Peninsula currently includes the states of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait; under a strict delimitation, Jordan and Iraq are excluded from the peninsula. Well, there we have our scope. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Some sources

Drawing a northern line from Suez/Eilat to Umm Qasr/Basra to demarcate the Arabian Peninsula

• Although with no very clear limits towards the north, Arabia is on the whole one of the best-defined regions in Asia. In the north it falls, on the one hand, gradually towards the Mesopotamian plains, while on the other merging almost inperceptibly in the uplands of East Palestine and Syria. (...) Hence many geographers look upon it as merely a northern extension of the peninsula wedged in between the Euphrates and the Syrian highlands, and only in a conventional sense separated from Arabia proper. A convenient line, however, may be drawn from El-Arish or the Suez Canal to the Euphrates delta at the head of the Persian Gulf, leaving the vilayets of Damascus and Bagdad on the north, and including on the south all that has at all times and indisputably formed part of Arabia in the strictest sense. Elsewhere the peninsula is surrounded by water — the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the south, the Eed Sea and Suez Canal on the west. Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), Asia (1909), pages 405 and 406. Quite an old source, but I include it here because it says something about ...all that has at all times and indisputably formed part of Arabia in the strictest sense, which indicates a long-established geographical consensus. the Euphrates delta at the head of the Persian Gulf is probably meant as the river mouth of the Shatt al-Arab at Umm Qasr near Basra. Drawing a line from Suez or Eilat to Basra/Umm Qasr is also done in File:Arabian Peninsula.PNG.
• These three royal families – Al Sabah of Kuwait, Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and Al Khalifah of Bahrain – consider themselves the most important lineages on the Arabian Peninsula. Richard F. Nyrop, Area Handbook for the Persian Gulf States (1977), p. 230.

...the several small amirates, shaykhdoms, and sultanates on the Arabian Peninsula side of the Persian Gulf...Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the seven shaykdoms of what was the known as Trucial Oman or the Trucial Coast... ...Kuwait... [In 1971], the State of Bahrain, the State of Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)–the former Trucial Coast states–became independent. In 1970 Oman... Idem, p. 1.

PS: The monarchies mentioned by Nyrop 1977 are: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE (Trucial Coast), Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen (pre-1970). 'Jordan' is never mentioned as being 'on the Arabian Peninsula', but instead usually alongside Syria and especially Egypt (as "confrontation states" vis-à-vis Israel). Page 332 identifies Jordan as 'a compatible Arab monarchy also having a background of British tutelage' in comparison with the UAE; so 'Arab', not 'Arabian'. Page 191 says 'in Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan'. Evidently, Egypt is not on the Arabian Peninsula, but together with Jordan and other countries in a separate set of states which Nyrop calls 'Arab countries'. Page 179 gives more examples, also showing that North Yemen (Sanaa) and Jordan should be considered part of this larger grouping of 'Arab states', rather than that Jordan is part of the smaller group of 'Arabian states'. Page 367 again mentions Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq as 'Arab countries', not 'Arabian' ones. The same applies to Iraq.

• Kinship also plays an important role in the political process. In the skeikhdoms of the Gulf, the core of the political elite consists of members of the ruling family. Sultan Qaboos [=Qaboos bin Said] is a member of of the Al Bu Said family, [=House of Busaid] which has ruled the country since the second half of the eighteenth century. However, due to the small size of the the Sultan's family and the absence of a male heir, his relatives do not have the same political influence or power of many royal families on the Arabian Peninsula. The mother of Sultan Qaboos may have exercised considerable informal authority, given the great loss felt throughought the entire country at her death in August 1992. Carol J. Riphenburg, "Changing Gender Relations and the Development Process in Oman". In: Islam, Gender, & Social Change (1998), p. 147.
• Encarta Winkler Prins (2002) says: The Arabian Peninsula currently includes the states of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait; under a strict delimitation, Jordan and Iraq are excluded from the peninsula. Well, there we have our scope. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Nyrop and Encarta align in their geographical scope of 'Arabia' and 'Arabian Peninsula'. It is also exactly the same scope as used by List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula. A 2019 RM by Marcocapelle proposed to rename it to 'Arabian Peninsula' and exclude Iraq, which was agreed on. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:14, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

There are currently 13 Arab royal families are the Hashemites of Jordan, 'Alawi of Morocco, Al Sabah of Kuwait, Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and Al Khalifah of Bahrain, Al Thani of Qatar, Al Busaid of Oman, Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, Al Maktoum of Dubai, Al Qasimi of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, Al Nuaimi of Ajman, Al Sharqi of Fujairah and Al Mualla of Umm Al Quwain. Vyvagaba (talk) 15:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The scope is "Arabian" royal families, not "Arab" royal families. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:07, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I would like to change the title to "List of Arab royal families", as I think its clearer and helps include Arab royal outside "Arabia". What do you think about that @Nederlandse Leeuw. Vyvagaba (talk) 16:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that is a bad idea for the reasons I have given: Arab is way too vague and ambiguous. It can mean anything from geography to language to ethnicity. I know for a fact that people will start including royal families in North Africa from Mauretania down to Sudan and perhaps even Somalia and further south to East Africa if we rename it Arab. And I think it's very likely they will eventually include parts of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus etc. if we included the Middle Ages, which I strongly recommend against. It's already difficult enough to define in/on the Arabian Peninsula, let's not make it even harder by changing the scope to something even more vague and ambiguous. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

My problem with "Arabian" is that the term is arbitrary, we can limit the scope of time to avoid including parts of Iberia in the middle ages for now. I honestly think that even if someone is interested in expanding the scope of the article down the line to include pre-19th century Arab royal houses, that would not really be a bad idea. List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula already exists can be be easily expanded to include "Arabian" royal houses, so this article would not really that helpful if the scope is not expanded to "Arab". Vyvagaba (talk) 12:17, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula already exists WHAT?!! I didn't know that! Did you?

In any case, there is so much WP:OVERLAP between them that I'm considering a Merge. If not, these article should refer to each other, and have distinct scopes (the main difference right now is current versus in the 20th century). I'll See also them to each other right now. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:44, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Not really, I just looked it up because the title of this article was too weird compared to standard WP list titles. I suggest we expand the scope of this article to include "Arab" royal families, and expand list of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula to include the royal families of "Arabia". This article has better potential to expand in timespan if an editor feels like expanding it. Vyvagaba (talk) 15:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

If anything, List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula means this article should indeed be renamed List of royal families of/on/in/from the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century. (And I hope some English linguist can tell us which of those 4 prepositions to use, lol).

Why expand the scope? You keep saying expand, expand, expand, but why? All I see is that you would like to add stuff that doesn't belong here. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the scope should be expanded to include all Arabs, limiting the article to "Arabian" is not really the way to go in my opinion.

1. It would confuse the majority of people who are not familiar with the difference between "Arabian" and "Arab".

2. There are only two other current Arab royal families outside the Arabian Peninsula, so a seperate article is not that useful, at the end of the day, the current monarchs head the same families listed in list of Arabian Houses.

My suggestions

List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula should be renamed "List of current monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula". The list should include current monarchies on the "Arabian" Peninsula and the current monarchs. This article should link to Gulf Cooperation Council, since all the members countries are monarchies, that are led by the same monarchs listed in "List of current monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula".

List of Arabian Houses should be renamed "List of Arab royal families" and should include all the current Arab monarchies (All of the ones listed in "List of monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula", Moroccan and Jordanian royal families), the article should be diveded into current and past Arab royal families (limited to the 20th century for now). Vyvagaba (talk) 09:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment: I moved the entries in List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula to a table, which I feel made it much more readable.

Using the current layout, we can easily add a part under the table to include the other monarchies listed in "List of Arabian Houses". This can give way to add the other Arab monarchies (non "Arabian") to "List of Arabian Houses" and change it's title to "List of Arab royal families".

What do you think of that? Vyvagaba (talk) 09:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Vyvagaba First of all, thanks for making List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula a table! I was already thinking of doing that, but you did it.

I don't see a reason to change the title from "monarchs" to "monarchies". The latter changed a lot in the 20th century (as this List of Arabian Houses shows), but the monarchs change every now and then when a monarch on the Arabian Peninsula dies or abdicates and is succeeded by another monarch on the Arabian Peninsula. It's also in Category:Lists of monarchs in Asia, so that is the purpose of this article.

I think the scope should be expanded to include all Arabs, limiting the article to "Arabian" is not really the way to go in my opinion. Again, the article has been defined as being about "Arabian" houses and the "Arabian Peninsula" ever since it was created on 17 March 2004. It was never bigger than "Arabia(n) (Peninsula)" and then suddenly "limited" to "Arabia(n) (Peninsula)"; "Arabia(n) (Peninsula)" has always been the scope, nobody ever "limited" anything. Changing the WP:SCOPE requires proper justification, not just what is the way to go in my opinion because we shouldn't go WP:OFFTOPIC.

This article should link to Gulf Cooperation Council, since all the members countries are monarchies That is a WP:TRIVIAL WP:CROSSCAT. At least 5 monarchies mentioned in this list (Hejaz, Asir, Shammar, South Arabia, and Mutawakkilite Yemen) disappeared before the GCC was even established in 1981. So no, we shouldn't do that. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:41, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

My suggestion is that we change the scope of the article to "Arab". This article lists Arab monarchies in the Arab Spring

"Indeed, Arab monarchies can be categorized according to their political systems and economic conditions. Broadly, there are the poorest kingdoms — Morocco and Jordan — and the relatively wealthier Gulf monarchies. The latter group can be further divided into three categories: super-rentier states with small populations and high reserves of natural resources (Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE), an oil-wealthy kingdom with a significantly larger population (Saudi Arabia), and the economically vulnerable Gulf monarchies (Oman and Bahrain)." Vyvagaba (talk) 10:37, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The Arab Spring happened in the 21st century, in lots of states which were republics, and located outside the Arabian Peninsula. It started with the Tunisian Revolution in 2010-2011, in a republic, located in North Africa. It literally has nothing to do with this article. "Arab" is just a different word than "Arabian". Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The point in the reference is not about the Arab Spring. It's "there are the poorest kingdoms — Morocco and Jordan — and the relatively wealthier Gulf monarchies.". If the scope isn't expanded then I think we should merge List of Arabian Houses into List of current monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula, the articles have so much overlap to justify the merge. Vyvagaba (talk) 11:07, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

How poor or wealthy this or that country was in 2010 and 2011 is quite irrelevant to which royal families reigned on the Arabian Peninsula between 1900 and 2000.

I'm still open to a merger, because the geographical scope is the same, and we're dealing with many (but not all) of the same monarchies / dynasties / royal families. But before we do, we should decide on our historical scope, because "current" means "2023" right now, but in half a year it will mean "2024" etc., while "in the 20th century" will always mean "between 1900 and 2000". The obvious solution would be "since 1900", but I don't think it is wise to be listing all monarchs that have reigned on the Arabian Peninsula since 1900. It would be a WP:REDUNDANTFORK of King of Saudi Arabia#Kings of Saudi Arabia (1932–present), List of rulers of Oman#List of sultans (1749–present), etc. So in that case I do agree changing the title/scope from "monarchs" to "monarchies" as you proposed. The result would then be List of monarchies on the Arabian Peninsula since 1900. Does that seem like a good solution to you? I think it may be exactly or close to what we're looking for. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:26, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

By the way, we could have a division between former monarchies, and name just the last monarch before said monarchy was abolished (e.g. Muhammad al-Badr for Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen), and current monarchies with current monarchs (e.g. Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for Qatar). Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:36, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Zaabi

If this includes early 20th century as well, should we add the al-Zaabi of Jaziral-al-Hamra? --95.24.65.207 (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2023 (UTC)