Talk:List of the oldest madrasa in continuous operation

Claim of continuity
The claim of continuity of three mosque schools (Nizamiyya, Al-Mustansiriya University, Sankore Madrasah) is unreferenced and not really discernible in the respective articles, either. If there were indeed not-continuous, as it appears, instead of removing them, the article can alternatively be renamed List of madrasahs, since otherwise only two entries would be left. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed the unsourced claims of continuously operating madrasahs. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

al-azhar university and al-kraween university they are not schools, madrasa means school in arabic they are universities and they are currently in operation for more than 1000 years — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammamWiki (talk • contribs) 00:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

university not school (madrasa)
al-azhar university and al-kraween university they are not schools, madrasa means school in arabic they are universities and they are currently in operation for more than 1000 years — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammamWiki (talk • contribs) 00:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Move to List of oldest madrasahs in continuous operation in the Muslim world
Main article is madrasah. Unassailable WP consensus is that madrasah and university are different things, that is why we have two separate WP articles, covering two different subjects. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:43, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus yet, much less "unassailable consensus".VR talk  22:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If this article is to retain its current title then it is in effect a subpage of university and should use the word in the way it is defined there. If you want to question the consensus definition then discussion should be held at Talk:University, not here. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:59, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Moved the article back to its old name. This list cannot treat madrasahs as if there were universities when the main article does not so in the least way. This would amount to appropriation of the term and the institution it designates.Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see the proposals in the section below.VR talk  02:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Where, I don't see them. In any case, your attempt to restyle this list to an article by totally reinventing its name and its contents is very much against WP practices. Can you show us based on what guidelines you do this? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Rename and redefine
This article should be renamed "medieval Muslim universities" and should more thoroughly discuss whether the institutions constituted universities or not.

But, waaaaaaay more importantly it should discuss what these madrasahs/universities looked and felt like, what they taught and how they operated. Because, while scholars may debate their status as universities, it is generally agreed that these played a significant role in the cultural and educational development of the Muslim world. I feel that the latter discussion is being ignored due to debates on which university was the oldest.VR talk  05:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * A proper article of this kind would certainly be useful. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Then I'll be bold and try to do so.VR talk  03:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There is a controversy over naming this, with reverts back and forth. (It also appears that the reverters only show up to push a POV and then disappear). So I say why not settle the issue? The term universities is problematic to some because there are sources saying Muslim universities weren't like European ones. The term madrasa is problematic because it is overly broad (see lead of madrasa). How about calling it "Medieval Islamic higher learning"? Would this be satisfactory?VR talk  03:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no issue. The main article for this list is madrasah, not university, because it lists madrasahs, not universities. This has been pointed out to you many times by now that you cannot change secondary lists and articles without having consensus to change the main article and its definition of the subject. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Nizamiyya
Removed the Nizamiyya for a lack of reference demonstrating that this mosque school has been indeed in continuous operation since its founding. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * See above discussion. Unless you oppose the proposal, continuity should be irrelevant.VR talk  03:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see below, you cannot simply change a List to an Article, basically creating an entire new scope and subject by deleting the article name and its contents. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a LIST
I would appreciate if VR could stop totally redesigning this List to an Article, fundamentally changing its scope and subject in the process. Such practices are really out of line with Wikipedia practices and may therefore be met with strong disapproval by other users without you haveng reached a consensus beforehand. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Reversed the revamp per WP:List. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

POV name change
Adding "...in the Muslim world" is entirely unneccesary & clearly part of GunPowder Ma's POV programme. Where else would they be? The move should be reversed. Johnbod (talk) 15:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I propose using the name "List of oldest Islamic institutions of higher learning". This is because the term madrasa is overly broad and can refer to children's schools too (which was never the intent of this page).VR talk  17:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ok, but I don't know about "higher learning" - is this a common term? Johnbod (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to be. Check out Ancient higher-learning institutions. The discussion at Talk:Ancient_higher-learning_institutions shows that no one really objects to the "higher-learning institutions" part (although they want to play around with the word order).VR talk  21:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "List of oldest Islamic institutions of higher learning" seems best. How come the title is still as it is? Malick78 (talk) 19:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

POV template added...
For two reasons: --Omar-toons (talk) 17:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * First, the title (as noticed above)
 * Second, this article is a clear WP:POVFORK of List of oldest universities in continuous operation, as it is mentioned in the three discussions on the NPOVN concerning this subject.

This is a ridiculous POV fork
Both schools were removed for nonsensical, catholic centric understandings of the medieval west. It's very clear, when reading the blurbs on both these schools, that what they taught is the same thing taught in catholic universities (theology, law, rhetoric, philosophy, etc) but in a muslim context. The argument that they shouldn't be considered universities because there were multiple academic centers in a city like Baghdad is specious, but completely ignores that Baghdad was four times the size of the catholic world's largest cities, Venice and Paris. It also ignores the fact that some cities did have multiple universities: the modern university of Aberdeen results from the fusion of no less than three ancient universities (15th and 16th century foundations), for a city of maybe 5000 to 10000 souls at most at the end of the middle ages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.252.76.143 (talk) 23:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Blanking
I'm wondering why this article was blanked. It was initially redirected to List of oldest schools with the reason of "the word madrasa is literally arabic for school, so this belongs on a different language pedia". That's not a great reason as madrasa is an actual concept with an actual article. There seems to have been no discussion to blank this article and I think it should be restored.VR talk 23:21, 1 September 2020 (UTC)