Talk:Kasbah

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 05:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

road of 1000 kasbahs
perhaps useful to mention:
 * http://www.visitmorocco.com/index.php/eng/content/view/full/249
 * http://www.rogermimo.com/fr.route.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.242.17.51 (talk) 13:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Merger
JahlilMA (talk) 21:31, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Propose merging Alcazaba into Kasbah. These two topics are the same thing, they're just two different renditions of the original Arabic word (al-)qasaba. Since this is the English Wikipedia, there's no reason to have these two entries separate. Any material we could add at Alcazaba would be equally relevant here, and the material and scholarly sources here (e.g. the Bloom, Barrucand, Zozaya, and Arnold references all cited in this article) would be equally relevant at Alcazaba. As a reminder, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so one topic should generally correspond to one article, and alternate terms/names should be indicated in the lead instead.

There is no significant conceptual difference between a citadel in Spain and a citadel in North Africa; in fact they're very closely related during the Islamic period, which is the main period concerned here. All scholarly sources I've seen that cover Islamic/Moorish fortifications and palaces in the region do not make any distinction between a "kasbah/qasba" and an "alcazaba", none of them suggest any conceptual difference between those in Spain versus those in North Africa, and they all relate the terms back to the Arabic word al-qasaba (for examples, see Bloom, Barrucand, Zozaya, and Arnold references on this page again, among others).

PS: Whether the name of this article (Kasbah) should also be changed to something more geographically/linguistically neutral, like "Qasaba", I leave to a future discussion. My concern is more about deciding whether or not to have it on one page. Likewise, I'm aware that this article (Kasbah) also strays into dictionary territory with its later sections; this is a common problem and could be addressed in the future too if needed. R Prazeres (talk) 05:16, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * There has been no objections so far, so per WP:MERGECLOSE enough time has passed to proceed with the merger. I'll do so in the next few days if there is still no further comment. R Prazeres (talk) 06:10, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

"Rock the Casbah" song
Regarding this addition, I don't think it's appropriate here. I've reverted it for now but I'd be happy to hear from multiple editors. It's a thought that came to my mind too before this, so it's worth bringing up here. The song is famous but it's not relevant to the topic of historical fortresses, and I have a hard time seeing how to integrate this into the article. Pop culture trivia content is a tricky issue (see WP:TRIVIA and WP:HTRIVIA) and I think this could also be seen as a problem of WP:BIAS (towards contemporary anglophone pop culture) and WP:RECENTISM (article has a historical scope going back over a thousand years). If it did merit inclusion, it would only make sense to have it in a separate Trivia/Pop culture section at the bottom, which WP:TRIVIA explicitly discourages anyways.

One way of thinking about it is that an equivalent reliable published source about kasbahs or fortifications would not include a paragraph about this song. The actual lyrics of the song also don't refer to this type of fortress (if anything it sounds inspired by the Casbah of Algiers, an actual city) and in this case the word, like "sharif" and others in that song, is simply a vague allusion to the Middle East. The article about the song does of course link to this page and the pages corresponding to other terms in the lyrics, but the relevance shouldn't go both ways in my view. Since this article is not about the word in general (or at least it should not be about that, per WP:NOTDICT), the song doesn't contribute anything to the topic.

Instead, I think it makes sense to just keep the link to the song article in the "See also" section, as it was, but maybe also had a quick note to it. That section is meant for connections to tangential topics, per MOS:SEEALSO. Anyways, that's my reasoning. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 22:44, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with you: it's very difficult to justify the mention of the song with just its use of the word. --Jotamar (talk) 11:00, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Dictionary-style section
I created the "Other uses of the term" section a while back (here) in order to provisionally organize already existing material in the article which was not part of the main topic. However, in the long term this section is maybe not appropriate for Wikipedia, as it acts like a dictionary-style entry describing various meanings of the word (i.e. qasaba/kasbah), rather than describing different aspects of the topic (i.e. fortresses/citadels). See WP:NOTDICTIONARY. These dictionary-style listings are a recurring issue with articles titled with a non-English origin word. This article should be limited to one topic; other definitions should ideally either be removed if not notable/relevant or moved elsewhere. The "Settlement" subsection is particularly tangential and pure dictionary content (it belongs in Wiktionary, not here); I'm inclined to remove it. The "Old city" subsection could maybe be moved to the Medina quarter article and/or maybe left as a note in a potential "etymology" section here (if one is needed). The "Watchtowers" subsection could potentially be moved elsewhere or become its own article (most likely not title "Kasbah" or "qasaba" though, as there's not enough sources here showing that English sources refer to it as such); a "watchtower" is related in meaning to a "fortress" but it's still not a part of the main topic, which refers to a larger fortified complex or citadel.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome. R Prazeres (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2022 (UTC)