Talk:University of al-Qarawiyyin/Archive 2

Stable version
After a heavy-handed edit by Eraserhead which basically was done without prior discussion, I have done my best to accept his changes wherever I can, in order to arrive at a stable version. After all, the recent changes of the past month or so have greatly improved the article, so this is a positive thing. Still, some issues have now crept in the article which quickly need to be addressed.


 * First, there is an air of misunderstanding permeating some parts of the article. The issue is not whether Al-Karaouine can be considered either a madrasa or a university at the time of its founding and until the 20th century. It was a madrasa. The real issue rather is whether madrasas can also be considered universities and whether this particular madrasa of Al-Karaouine can be considered a university. This is quite a different thing with a lot of implications.
 * Therefore, I reinstate the history section titles "madrasa" and "university", which supported by numerous citations each, do not predetermine the status discussion.
 * Remove any talk of a "state" university as original research. The cited authors (Lulat, Park, Belhachmi) don't even use the term, they rather all speak of the transformation from "madrasa" to a "university".
 * "Before World War II al-Karaouine's status was disputed with most sources considering it to be a madrasah or mosque school but with some sources considering it to be a university." I don't know where this suddenly comes from, this too is original research and quite probably a misunderstanding. There is no marked break in the way scholarship has been discussing to Al-Karaouine before and after WW II. Rather, the question is whether AK itself can be considered a university before around WW II. I phrased the intro to the statussection accordingls: "Al-Karaouine's institutional status during the medieval period is subject to some dispute with most sources considering it to be a madrasah or mosque school but with some sources considering it to be a university." Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Additionally, I propose to remove any tagged sources and sentences within the next couple of days, whatever point of view they support. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Gun you do realise that your set of editing you did today is also heavy handed editing without prior discussion.
 * You removed all sorts of stuff like p tags from inside references which merely made the page easier to edit which is actually just irritating - having normal paragraph breaks in the middle of references just makes it harder to work out where the end of the reference is and makes no difference to the article's rendering. You also made edits with very large diffs which makes it really rather difficult to understand what was actually changed.
 * I think also that you added more detail to the status section, I think based on what N-HH has said that there is probably enough already, and that adding more that isn't directly relevant to this institution isn't a good thing.
 * With regards to State university, that certainly is required as that is what it became and describing it otherwise strongly implies that it wasn't a University beforehand. The only way it wouldn't be appropriate is if you have sources claiming it became a private university.
 * With regards to the dispute tag I think it needs to stay until someone else has a chance to take a look at the references. I think there is a serious credibility issue from the "pro-Madrasa" camp with regards to not bringing up the blatant religious nature of European Universities until the 19th century, you can probably argue that it isn't directly relevant to this page, but it is relevant to List of oldest universities in continuous operation. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:23, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There are other wording changes I also didn't understand, e.g. why was 859 mentioned as the starting date in two successive sentences in the lead, and why was the first paragraph of the status section changed to only talk about its status in the medieval period, rather than up to WW2 as you yourself mention here on the talk page. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 20:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The "before WW II" thing is still OR. Until sources are provided, we can't keep this. The "state university" claim is a misrepresentation of the cited sources (Lulat, Park, Belhachmi). None of these make any mention of a state university, their emphasis is instead on the transformation from madrasa to university (see below). What is clear and what we can all agree to is that Al-Karaouine was founded in 859 as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri. Therefore, we need to say this explicitly in the lead and the infobox. Our issue only relates to the question whether the adjacent center of higher learning can be called a madrasa or a university or both. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you not misreading the "before WW2" point? It's not saying experts thought a certain way prior to c.1945, but that experts (supposedly) viewed the institution as being of a certain sort up until then. Also, more generally, because of this dispute the page has been left with disfiguring and OTT footnoting. Is there any way to cut that down, especially in the lead? I'd also stress again my view that the decription of oldest university is quite common and needs some recognition - albeit not necessarily endorsement - and also that the statement "became a university in 19xx" should not be included as a statement of unqualified fact. I'll add some detail on that point below, in response to the quotes being cited.  N-HH   talk / edits  15:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"al-qarawiyin is the oldest university in Morocco. It was founded as a mosque in Fès in the middle of the ninth century. It has been a destination for students and scholars of Islamic sciences and Arabic studies throughout the history of Morocco. There were also other religious schools like the madras of ibn yusuf and other schools in the sus. This system of basic education called al-ta'lim al-aSil was funded by the sultans of Morocco and many famous traditional families. After independence, al-qarawiyin maintained its reputation, but it seemed important to transform it into a university that would prepare graduates for a modern country while maintaining an emphasis on Islamic studies. Hence, al-qarawiyin university was founded in February 1963 and, while the dean's residence was kept in Fès, the new university initially had four colleges located in major regions of the country known for their religious influences and madrasas. These colleges were kuliyat al-shari's in Fès, kuliyat uSul al-din in Tétouan, kuliyat al-lugha al-'arabiya in Marrakech (all founded in 1963), and kuliyat al-shari'a in Ait Melloul near Agadir, which was founded in 1979. (Park, Thomas K.; Boum, Aomar: Historical Dictionary of Morocco, 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8108-5341-6, p. 348)"

"The Adjustments of Original Institutions of the Higher Learning: the Madrasah. Significantly, the institutional adjustments of the madrasahs affected both the structure and the content of these institutions. In terms of structure, the adjustments were twofold: the reorganization of the available original madaris, and the creation of new institutions. This resulted in two different types of Islamic teaching institutions in al-Maghrib. The first type was derived from the fusion of old madaris with new universities. For example, Morocco transformed Al-Qarawiyin (859 A.D.) into a university under the supervision of the ministry of education in 1963. (Belhachmi, Zakia: "Gender, Education, and Feminist Knowledge in al-Maghrib (North Africa) – 1950–70", Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Intellectual and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2–3, 2003, pp. 55–82 (65)"


 * Lulat is too long to be quoted, but you can look up on Google Books that he says effectively the same. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * These quotes do not read quite as definitively to me. At the risk of splitting hairs, the first says it was transformed into "a university that would prepare graduates for a modern country" and that there was a "new university". That doesn't mean it wasn't a university before, it just means it was modernised or reformed. The second says it was transformed "into a university under the supervision of the ministry of education in 1963" - again this is open to the same interpretation, that we are talking about changes in structure and control as much as of classification. The one book I can dig off my shelves that covers this area, Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples, talks about this being a general trend in the post-war Arab world, of modernising states incorporating traditional Islamic institutions, including al-Karaouine, into the state education system. Having said that, he does avoid the term university prior to that when talking about al-Karaouine, simply referring to "the mosque" and its "attached madrassas". We need some recognition of the fuzziness of such classifications and the common description that is found of it as the world's "oldest university", without going into too much semantic detail and also without the apparently contradictory opening sentences that we have now - "The mosque of Al-Karaouine was founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 with an associated mosque school, a madrasa, which has also been referred to as a university. Al-Karaouine became a university in 1963."  N-HH   talk / edits  15:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Gun, can you please stop making ridiculously large undiffable changes such as this it is basically impossible to do anything but a straight revert if you disagree with any of the changes made. And if you don't just do a straight revert and challenge the points only on talk then you seem to just ignore the discussion. These behavioural issues make coming to a sensible solution much more difficult than it needs to be.
 * I also really don't understand why on earth all the content that was imperfectly sourced was removed. Why on earth it could not be given due time is beyond me. We aren't taking this article to FA anytime soon - and even then some effort should be made to source the points rather than removing them. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 16:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * @N-HH I would have thought we could avoid contradictions by using terms such as "state university" which meet NPOV and stop us POV pushing. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 16:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * @N-HH the quotes and your source do back up some fuzziness in definition for before the reforms, but it seems more accurate to say that experts view al-Karaouine ambiguously before 1963 rather than them viewing it explicitly as not a University.
 * That fits much better with the fact that at least some European Universities were religious schools until the 19th century. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I broadly agree. As I think I may have said previously, I don't see why we can't end the lead with something along the lines of -
 * "The University of al-Karaouine or al-Qarawiyyin (Arabic: جامعة القرويين‎) is a university located in Fes, Morocco. The al-Karaouine mosque was founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, and its associated madrasas became among the most noted centres of learning in the Islamic world. It is often described as the oldest university in the world, although for some authorities the term is historically inappropriate when applied to anything other than a specific form of institution usually found originally only in Europe. It was brought into Morocco's modern state university system in 19xx".
 * It could be expanded further, and would need fact-checking against the broad sweep of references, but to me that seems to cover the issues - including the "university or not?" succinctly, neutrally and without self-contradiction.  N-HH   talk / edits  17:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that sounds sensible, and we can then remove the references from the lead, which as per WP:LEAD should only be included if the points are contentious. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I see Gun Powder Ma is still editing the page without bothering to respond to any of the points raised here, and that quite apart from the substantive debate, we still have a lead littered with footnote tags and oddly contradictory phrasing, eg: "an associated mosque school or madrasa,[4][3][5][6][7][8] which has also been referred to as a university ... Al-Karaouine became a university in 1963".  N-HH   talk / edits  09:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have announced these changes already two weeks ago here en detail. These three sources which date the transformation of the madrasa to the university to 1963 have to be cited properly—and none speak of a "state" university. I have to agree that your interpretation above largely amounts to subjective reading. If the phrases "transform it into a university" or "al-qarawiyin university was founded in February 1963" are somehow ambiguous to you, then we have reached an impasse. We cite the terminology of all reliable sources, regardless of their view, faithfully. If they use "state university" we write state university, if they use "university" we write university. So it is done in my version.
 * There is no point in trying to make all sources fit one narrative as you seem to be advocating, because this way out has already been rendered virtually impossible by the careless terminology of those cited sources which speak of a "university" in connection with the madrasa, but in reality only mean this term simply as a general synonym for institution of higher education, not in the strict encyclopedic sense of university. So we have to go all the way and cite all sources faithfully according to WP:Reliable. This creates contradictions which, I agree, should be minimized as far as possible, but they cannot be eradicated completely unless we want to misrepresent sources and start all over the discussion again. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:59, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your first link refers to a post on another user's talk page, not to this thread. I am not offering a "subjective" interpretation, I am suggesting that the issue is not as clear-cut as your interpretation suggests; and did so with a clear explanation that you have not responded to until now, while still basing your own interpretation on selective quotation (see your quote "transform into a university", which not so subtly misses out the qualification that follows).
 * I also proposed a wording for the lead, which another editor gave broad backing to, which in my view incorporates all notable and sourced viewpoints while avoiding the problems of contradiction, and does so succinctly without entering into an exhaustive footnoted debate in the lead. It is possible to do such things without creating contradictions or misrepresenting sources. You meanwhile continued editing the page, including the lead, without even commenting on that and while pushing your interpretation onto the lead. Finally, as a point of general principle, the idea that there is only one, definitive and rigid, "encyclopedic" meaning of the word university is obviously not true, as plenty of people here have pointed out - and as noted, we can work around that anyway.  N-HH   talk / edits  16:30, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't even bother to reply here, N-HH. Your attitude is clear enough. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's my talk page. You arrived to pompously berate me about nothing and I responded as I saw fit. Given that you failed to discuss things here previously anyway, I don't see what actual difference your now justifying that refusal by suddenly claiming the moral high ground over a swear word makes.  N-HH   talk / edits  08:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Firstly still making undiffable edits and refusing to use edit summaries is becoming a behavioural issue that will need to be escalated if it doesn't stop. Gun, I really don't understand why you find it so hard to follow the basic standards of behaviour required to edit in a collaborative environment.

Secondly, "announcing" changes on someone's talk page doesn't really count as discussing them collaboratively, rather it means you discussed it with me.

Furthermore I told you to go to the NPOV noticeboard to raise the State University vs University issue if you wanted to discuss the issue, which you a) failed to do, b) you removed the disputed tag from the article without a result (as I suggested waiting until later), c) you made yet another diff which contained a large number of other unknown, unknowable and undiscussed changes to the article. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 15:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Furthermore Gun, while N-HH made a personal attack on his talk page "Don't even bother to reply here, N-HH. Your attitude is clear enough" is also a personal attack and one that is also unacceptable as per WP:CIVIL. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 16:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:BOMBARD regarding "university"
This is futile. The question isn't going to be decided by citing Rough Guide, nor apologist literature. There is a certain debate as to whether Christian medieval universities were partly inspired by Islamic madrasas. The proper article to discuss this is, unsurprisingly, medieval university. This 9th-century madrasa was just that, a madrasa, and it's futile to cloud the issue by claiming it (as it were, in particular) deserves to be called a "university".

Madrasas in the 9th century did have certain aspects we today associate with universities rather than with (current-day) madrasas. The reason for this is the decline of Ilm al-Kalam (the pursuit of rational discourse) in the Muslim world after the 10th century. Yes, in the 9th century, there was promise of a development of "academia" in the Muslim world, but it didn't really go anywhere, which is why today we associate rational discourse with the term "university" rather than with the term "madrasa". Of course, the very urbild of academia is Platonic Academy, so if 9th-century "madrasas" can be dubbed "university", so can the Academy. In that case, the question of "world's oldest" would recede by at least a millennium. But these are semantic games. (Latin) Universitas is the word for Christian centers of learning, (Arabic) Madrasa for Muslim centers of learning. We don't see people wiki-bombarding the Bologna University article claiming that it would be semantically possible to call it a "madrasa" too. --dab (𒁳) 08:29, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

my take
This encyclopedia article might be instructive and worth a read. Jami'at and kollayat are not the same as a Madrassa. Madrassas did not exist at the time Al-Karaouine was established. Eurocentric scholarship has historically been a prominent feature of western academia, especially on the topic of Islamic contributions to civilization. The arguments against listing this as a university are categorically Eurocentric and in some part racist. Gastroking (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
 * One part of Wikipedia should not be contradicting another on matters of substantial fact. Either the list of oldest universities should be changed to reflect the nomenclature as "oldest," or this article should be changed to reflect the fact that it is not the oldest. I just tried and was reverted. Note that is isn't even the oldest madrassah. List of the oldest madrasahs in continuous operation in the Muslim world. If editors are happy with creative fiction, they may be better off editing .com media sites and not an encyclopedia. This is not the place for absurd claims with no basis in fact. Student7 (talk) 15:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There are sources cited and all you cite is links to other articles plus your original thoughts unsupported by WP:RS. Hence they are reverted. Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research. Khestwol (talk) 17:51, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

University V/s Madrasa
To establish some foundation for understanding of the terms University and Madrasa, Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a university as ... : an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees; specifically : one made up of an undergraduate division which confers bachelor's degrees and a graduate division which comprises a graduate school and professional schools each of which may confer master's degrees and doctorates. Oxford Dictionary defines a university as ... an educational institution designed for instruction, examination, or both, of students in many branches of advanced learning, conferring degrees in various faculties, and often embodying colleges and similar institutions: while the Cambridge Dictionary defines a Madrasa as ... a school where people go to learn about the religion of Islam while the Macmillan Dictionary defines a Madrasa as a college where students are taught about Islam. I can see that the article mentions nothing apart from religeos studies but I did find a secondary source | here and | here that show that this University does offer Bachelor Degrees and a source | here that says it offers Master's Degrees, undergraduate degrees and even Doctoral Degrees. I assume that all of these courses include the requisite examinations. I also found a reference here which says that the Guiness Book calls this University as the oldest university which I verified | here. If the Guiness Book choses to call it a University then technically its a University. Getting down to the debate about European and Middle East versions of University. Lets understand that even Arabic numerals were introduced in europe from the Arab world, although arabic and european numbers look different. So a difference in understanding of what a University is supposed and not supposed to do is as natural as a difference in perceptions about marital practices or about  LGBT. Yes, the Wikilinks do point to islamic articles but that's to highlight the differences of opinion. Nowhere in the dictionary deffinitions is it mentioned that only European institutions can be referred to as universities. The courses offered by a University reflect more the expectations of the soceity about scholarship and awareness and are never meant to get hammered down by the archaic deffinitions of scholars -Wikishagnik (talk) 06:46, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "Nowhere in the dictionary deffinitions is it mentioned that only European institutions can be referred to as universities." You are new to the discussion, right? This is plainly wrong. Please see below for definitions of a madrasas of universities in dictionaries and encyclopedias. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * HEHEHE it is hard to admit that dark ages of Christian Europe borrowed (not to say plagued, and claimed as its own) the achievements of Muslims who gave light to Europe :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.31.13.81 (talk) 04:37, 22 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Gave light to Europe? By invading it? I am surprised that you have not been banned from Wikipedia for your comment. al-Qarawiyyin is not the "first degree awarding educational institution in the world". It did not grant degrees until the twentieth century. It was simply a madrassa for most of its existence.115.188.155.200 (talk) 21:14, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Oxford and Cambridge as Religious schools as well
Apparently according to our article on Issac Newton even in the 17th century the fellows at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge had to be ordained priests.

To my mind that makes them religious schools as well, and I really don't see how they weren't religious schools at that time. I am also rather puzzled as to why this obviously important point in the debate wasn't bought up before.

I think this means we probably need to make further changes to the lead and other text - I don't believe stating that the view that al-Karaouine isn't a University as the majority view is appropriate given there are European Universities that were religious schools as well as late as the time of Isaac Newton, if not significantly later. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 21:27, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Is anyone questioning that? All universities were religious institutions down to the mid/late-19th C. and many technically still are. On a side-note, Oxbridge fellows were not required to be priests, they were required to be ordained priests within seven years. Some were, some weren't and had to leave.  Religious requirements remained until 1853. Walrasiad (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't that the entire argument for claiming that al-Karaouine isn't a University? If they were both religious I fail to see any difference between one kind of religious school and another. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:56, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You'll have to ask Gun Powder Ma. To be frank, I don't understand his arguments.  But somehow he seems to have absconded with the role of defining what is and what is not a university. So maybe he can enlighten you. Walrasiad (talk) 09:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As long as he accepts the current content of this article, with appropriate balance changes once the sources have been checked more throughly, I don't think it is worth worrying about too much. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Gun, if you aren't going to leave this article alone you need to reply to this. You can't just ignore relevant points you don't want to discuss if you are actually engaging properly. This is certainly directly relevant to the overall dispute even if it isn't directly relevant to this article. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the purported distinction is about a bit more than merely the religious aspect; plus it's not really open to us to start saying that this distinction - which is found in reliable and serious sources - can be ignored on that basis or by our own logic. That said, as I noted previously, several of those sources that insist "university" can only apply in those times to European institutions do come from the Council of Europe and the European University Association (ie those at current footnoes 33, 34 & 35). The point is, as noted by most of us, we cannot say we have a definitive answer either way, because no such thing exists. The issue is how that is expressed.  N-HH   talk / edits  17:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My questioning is because the debate hasn't merely been expressed as a matter of WP:V, which doesn't really explain all the edit warring and other nonsense to back up a certain viewpoint and to remove content reflecting another equally - if not more - reasonable viewpoint.
 * If there was a clear logical difference that behaviour would be much more understandable than it is where the difference is essentially trivial given the religious nature of Universities. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Go back to basics here. University implies teaching a range of topics. Which Oxford and Cambridge did from the beginning. al-Qarawiyyin was primarily a madrassa for most of its life. It did not typically teach anything other than Islamic studies. It was a theological school (at best) not a university.115.188.155.200 (talk) 21:17, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Alhambra
I removed the second part of the lead photo caption - "note the similarity of the architecture to the Alhambra (الحمراء)" - as I couldn't see any source or justification for it. They are both examples of Muslim architecture, but I can't see a major connection, and none seems to be mentioned in the article. Also the Alhambra consists of dozens of buildings built over seven centuries - which bit is it meant to resemble? TSP (talk) 11:23, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Library
Apparently, the library at this university is the oldest existing library in the world, and it recently underwent major renovation. There should probably be at least a section in this article about the library, if not an independent article on it. Here are a couple articles detailing the work and the collection: That said, our article on Saint Catherine's Monastery indicates that it contains the world's oldest continually operating library. ~  ONUnicorn (Talk&#124;Contribs) problem solving 20:19, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Misrepresented and unreliable sources
Under the 'madrasa' section, the page reads;

"In some sources, the medieval madrasa is described as a "university"[11][12][13][14][15][page needed] in one Rough Guide book even as vying with Al-Azhar (c. 970) in Cairo "for the title of world's oldest university".[16]"

Ref 15, which is already suspicious since it has no page number, is simply being misrepresented. The ref is Niall Ferguson's book Civilization: The West and the Rest, and only mentions the madrasa one time throughout the length of the book on pg. 68 (which can be checked out on Google Books). This is it;

"Under clerical influence, the study of ancient philosophy was curtailed, books burned and so-called freethinkers persecuted; increasingly, the madrasas became focused exclusively on theology at a time when European universities were broadening the scope of their scholarship."

Not only does Ferguson not call a madrasa a university, but he clearly distinguishes between the madrasa and university as different institutions. In other words, the reference is being misrepresented and should therefore be deleted.

Ref 14 goes to te Illustrated Dictionary of the Muslim World, published by Marshall Cavendish, a big publisher and all -- but clearly no an academic publisher of any sort, and so unreliable as a source. Something else that needs to be removed is the reference to the Rough Guides (both of them), an obviously unreliable and non-academic source. Finally, the trickiest one, ref 13 -- Encountering the World of Islam published by InterVarsity. InterVarsity publishes general books (InterVarsity Press) and academic books (IVP Academic). This one is not one of IVP's academically published monographs, as far as I'm concerned, and so would also qualify as unreliable -- in fact, it appears to me to be a Christian missionary book teaching others how to convert Muslims. This appears to be confirmed by the fact that the author, Keith Swartly, has no relevant academic credentials (or none at all that I can find). So this should also be removed. Ref's 11 and 12 are fine -- they're both academic and quantify what they're being cited for.64.229.115.87 (talk) 00:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Guiness Book of Records
The Guiness Book of Records is a reliable source because it fact-checks everything it publishes. I can say I ate the most bananas in one hour but unless the researchers have witnessed this (ie. recorded it somehow), it doesn't go in the book. The book says that Al Quaraouiyine is the oldest university, it doesn't say Bologna. --YILMAZ AHMAD (talk) 15:35, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The Guinness Book of World Records is a reliable source for its own opinion. It is not a reliable source for the history of universities. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Everyone please keep in mind that User:YILMAZ AHMAD is a now banned sockpuppet account. Guinness World Records is obviously not a reliable source on the history of universities, and responding "but it fact checks everything!" is a laughable escape hatchet.Editshmedt (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Since this comes up now and again I think some clarification is worthwhile. The claim of the Qarawiyyin being the "oldest university" is one that is highly present in mainstream discussions of this particular institution/building, and the point of citing UNESCO and Guinness is not because these are final authorities on the question but to illustrate why this perspective is present and where it's coming from. Travel guides, news stories, and other sources often cite either UNESCO and Guinness (or both) to back up this claim; e.g. BBC, CNN, Morocco World News, and travel sources like this or this, etc. As it stands, the article does not present the Guinness World Records as a scholarly source, it presents it simply as "Guinness World Records", which is a published source many people consult, for better or worse. The "oldest university" question has its own section further down the page where more scholarly opinions are presented on the matter; and the information there has been stable for some time now. The short paragraph about this in the lead section is only a brief summary of that section to introduce readers to the issue. I think the lead section has been usefully revised thanks to Editshmedt's recent edits which made this summary more balanced.
 * With the above in mind though, respectfully, I'm reverting the last edit that deleted mention of Guinness. I haven't seen a convincing reason to leave it out, since it is relevant and since it barely takes up any space (so it's not coming at the expense of something else). If there is still disagreement, I invite other editors to discuss this again if needed but I recommend leaving the content essentially as is unless it is to add or elaborate on the multiple perspectives already presented in the article (and I would also recommend making those additions to the relevant main dedicated section). Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 02:19, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That seems sensible to me, . Bondegezou (talk) 13:07, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a usefu way of thinking about the question. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree as well. Well put, . إيان (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Robert, I think you've offered a convincing argument for leaving in Guinness, so I decided to simply rearrange the lead to place priority on the scholarly opinion. Guinness and UNESCO are now only mentioned after the scholarly discussion in the lead, which is valid given the weight of the sources when it comes to the matter of the fact.Editshmedt (talk) 17:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah that looks good, I think it reads nicely and clearly now. Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 17:37, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Being clearer about use of term "madrasa" in early history discussions
In the history sections the article frequently refers to an "associated madrasa" and says that the madrasa was "added" to the mosque. I'm wondering if this could be confusing to some extent because it may sound like the madrasa was separate from the mosque, whereas this wasn't the case and the sources should be referring to teaching taking place in the mosque itself (the halaqat, etc, as already mentioned).Plus, the word "madrasa" more typically refers to a separate space or building devoted to teaching anyways, so the term lends itself to that interpretation. (Separate "madrasa" buildings didn't appear in Morocco until the Marinid era; see brief explanation in this section of the Bou Inania page for example.) And lastly, there are many actual madrasas that surround the Qarawiyyin Mosque (e.g. Al-Attarine Madrasa, Mesbahiyya Madrasa, etc), which is not what we're talking about here but which might cause some readers to think the text is talking about those ones instead. Hopefully I'm making sense here, so I'm wondering if editors would agree to maybe adjust the wording to something like the mosque's "teaching function" or the "addition of teaching to the mosque's function" etc. This is useful mainly for discussion of the mosque's early history I think; the use of "madrasa" still seems reasonable and appropriate for existing section titles or the discussion of the mosque's "university" status, etc, where it's clear enough that the text is referring to the Qarawiyyin itself and its general history as a place of learning. has added some useful details to these sections recently, so I also want to notify them of this suggestion if they disagree. Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 15:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I've made the relevant edits and clarifications after reviewing what was said in the cited sources and others. (Note that one source, the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, was being cited for seemingly contradictory information; I had to consult the online version rather than the print version, but I removed/added citations of this source according to what I found there.) Robert Prazeres (talk) 05:29, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with these modifications. It is indeed a tricky subject since it seems that it was a mosque were teaching took place, and no distinct teaching institutions until many centuries later. I think the term madrasa works well after the 12the century, during its apogee. Thank you Robert Prazeres. I also think that "According to UNESCO,[13] and a number of other scholars, al-Qarawiyyin is considered to have been a university since its founding and therefore that it is the oldest university in the world." is very misleading, would love to hear your thoughts. UNESCO< which also claims Bologna as the oldest, just calls it the oldest university. And so do the other sources. None of these sources explicitly state it was a university from the beginning in 859. Additionally, I see you are a french speaker. There is a simialr discussion going on on the French wiki if you want.--Eccekevin (talk) 20:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I actually kind of avoided contributing to this discussion until recently because I feel like it goes in circles a bit, hehe. I agree UNESCO and other sources aren't specifically saying it was a university since it's foundation; they're just saying it's the "oldest university" which implies that they're counting from the year of foundation (or similar) but it doesn't elaborate any further. It's also not unlikely that the term "university" here is being used loosely; as one of the authors already cited on this page notes, "university" is sometimes used for convenience as stand-in for "place of higher education". At the same time, it might be notable that on another page (here), UNESCO says "The oldest university of the Western world, founded in 1088, is located in Bologna." (my emphasis) So it seems that they are making a deliberate distinction at least in some places. It might also be relevant though that the page you cited (here) is an entry on the tentative list of WHS, and UNESCO includes a disclaimer there: "The sole responsibility for the content of each Tentative List lies with the State Party concerned. The publication of the Tentative Lists does not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever of the World Heritage Committee or of the World Heritage Centre or of the Secretariat of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its boundaries." (my emphasis) That seems to be primarily a political disclaimer, but my understanding of this is that the information is also essentially dependent on the state party (in this case Italy), and not necessarily be a reflection of a particular position by UNESCO. That's not to undermine the point necessarily, but it may be that the UNESCO entry on Fez is more authoritative as an expression of UNESCO's position, if there is indeed a clear position. Part of the problem might also be that UNESCO is just a big organization with lots of branches, and material might not be reviewed in universal coordination with other published materials, so conflicting claims can appear in different areas.
 * That said, it's notable that Guinness World Records actually calls the Qarawiyyin the oldest "continually operating educational institution in the world" rather than "university", and then notes Bologna as the oldest equivalent in Europe. So it sounds like they're actually being more careful and using a broader definition which is more inclusive of models beyond the European university model. This could be one way of sorting out this discussion, something like e.g.: the Qarawiyyin is the oldest continually-operating educational institution according to (...), and some of these sources, including UNESCO, refer to it as a university and as the "oldest university"; however the application of the term "university" to the pre-modern Qarawiyyin is disputed as this term is used by many scholars to refer more specifically to the European model of "university" education. Etc.
 * I'm open to how editors want to proceed, as I'm a little too busy to devote much time to this at the moment, but I think there are reasonable ways of expressing all these nuances clearly without getting bogged down too much. Keeping in mind of course that Wikipedia isn't meant to settle these questions, but just to faithfully summarize what is said by reliable sources. Those sources don't always agree. Robert Prazeres (talk) 23:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * (Robert Prazeres) Ou make very good points, but I want to point out one thing, which you seem to agree with. Both UNESCO and Guinness are questionable sources on this sort of thing. UNESCO tends to incorporate text from the Tentative List and State Party without really questioning it. This is true for the Bologna case, but they will likely copy/paste the text one is it approved, and it is likely what happened with Fez back when they submitted the text. The UNESCO doesn't seem in the business of settling claims on these historical disputes, they just report what the different parties say. Guinness is even less reliable: first of all, it is an entertainment book from a beer company, and they don't seem to link or rely on any academic of serious sources. The fact they quote the 859 (which, as shown here before, has only been proposed as the foundation as the mosque and only merely speculated as to the foundation of education) shows they are taking the claim at face value without investigating it. Additionally, the record in the title is "Oldest higher-learning institution, the oldest university", but the record in the text below is "continually operating educational institution in the world". This is patently false since there are many older (but not higher-education) educational institutions. So it just seems like a sloppy page, and I would not give Guinness any credibility on the topic. I don't think neither UNESCO or Guinness have done the sophisticated work discusses here, and by yourself, or trying to decide between the equivalency of higher-education systems in the middle ages or understanding when education in Qarawiyyin would resemble anything we would call a University (most definitely not in 859 - if one were to go to Fez in the year 859, they would find nothing remotely similar to what the word university describes). My biggest issue with how some of this article was phrased, and especially with the wording of the Fatima al-Fihri article, implied that in the year 859CE, Fatima built a university as we would understand it today. This is obviously unsupported by the sources, and ridiculous. Yet, many blogs and wes article out there say exactly that, and it seems like they took a lot from older and inaccurate versions of these pages on Wikipedia. Also, that is still what is stated on the French wiki, and my efforts to change it in line with sources have been stonewalled by a group of users.--Eccekevin (talk) 01:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * We're agreed on being skeptical of these sources and not attributing them disproportionate credit, but I also would not discount them or discredit them to that extent. Guinness World Records is not a scholarly source, and thus not a stand-in for scholarly sources, but it's also not arbitrary and it's a publishing company that has specialized in these types of facts for a long time. They do require some form of independent verification - I assume in this case probably the testimony of some expert would suffice for them, as presumably must be the case for other historical entries they keep. So it's not insignificant and that's why I argued in another thread above that it needs to be mentioned considering a lot of writers refer to it in turn. Likewise, UNESCO must presumably review world heritage entries when they're approved (otherwise state parties would constantly submit fraudulent entries); it's just that I assume they would be biased towards the state party's perspective overall, and the tentative lists are supposedly (it seems) just a publication of what state parties pitched. As it happens, I have also seen the claim of "oldest university" (or equivalent) for the Qarawiyyin repeated in scholarly articles; usually only mentioned in passing, which is why I haven't bothered to make note of them, but this nonetheless suggests that the claim has currency beyond amateur sources. I also just noticed that Encyclopedia Britannica does also say the Qarawiyyin was a "university" founded in 859 (and is consistent in its other entries on "university" and the Bologna university). (It seems to be only indirectly cited on the main page.) That being said, I think my own take on this now is that there are two main problems in framing this discussion:
 * 1) One reason I was hesitant with this debate for a long time is that it seems to boil down to arguments about the definition of the word "university", and ends up sidelining discussion about what various institutions of learning actually did during their history. It feels easy to get preoccupied with checking that every criteria of the modern definition of "university" has to be met in order for any use of the word to be legitimized in a historical discussion; but while that may seem like an obvious way to proceed, it's not necessarily the only way that people think of the word "university", even in a scholarly discussion, and it's easy to see why people would disagree with narrower definitions. So it may be ridiculous to claim that any medieval institution operated like a modern university, but it's not ridiculous to claim that these institutions were the antecedents of universities and served similar roles in their respective historical and social contexts. Whether the word "university" should be used or not I think becomes a little less informative as a discussion if we're not clearer about what we're willing to accept from a semantic (so to speak) point of view.
 * 2) And I think this leads to the issue of "dating" universities. It's not surprising that, by default, old universities often claim the date of their initial foundation as the beginning of their history as "university", because more often than not there was no clear single transition from one status to another. Even the University of Bologna started out as an institution teaching law and catholic law (making it close to the catholic equivalent of a traditional Islamic madrasa) and then progressively expanded into a role more familiar to that of a modern university (see Britannica entry), yet it nonetheless cites 1088 as the date of its founding and the rationale for its title as oldest university. When it comes to the Qarawiyyin, the problem is fairly similar: there is no formal transition from one status to another; even the official 1963 conversion was preceded by reforms aimed at "modernizing" it, and many sources seem to agree that its curriculum was much broader than that of a regular madrasa in the middle ages. In truth we don't really know much about what teaching and learning at the Qarawiyyin looked like in its early centuries because there's not that many sources about the early history of Fes, period, and the sources that exist may have a lot of legend built into them. What we know is what things looked like by the 12th-14th centuries. My educated guess would be that the institution's prestige in this later period could easily have incited writers/commentators to extrapolate its educational status back to the time of its foundation even if this was factually questionable. But I think we are straying into the territory of original research (WP:ORIGINAL) at this juncture.
 * So I guess if I can summarize my point: the claim of oldest university or oldest higher learning institution here is not unreasonable and it's not clearly discreditable, but it needs to be discussed transparently along with other competing viewpoints. And I think one way in which this becomes easier is if this page as a whole focuses on describing the institution's role and history without being too concerned with making it fit one definition or another. (Though of course it's totally fair that as individual editors we focus on the details and questions we're interested in.) I think we've already improved it quite a bit in some parts and we can keep doing better. I haven't visited the French wiki of it yet, but I imagine/hope that if we can come to a well-sourced description of things here, editors elsewhere should also welcome the added information and nuance. PS: Sorry for the long response, although personally I've actually found this discussion quite helpful! Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 08:25, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There is a big distinction to be made tho, between the claims of oldest university and oldest higher-learning institution. The university as we conceive it today (with degrees, an academic year, professorships and chairs, examinations, etc) is of European Medieval origin. The structure of all modern universities reflects that of the university in the medieval European model. Even Bologna, in 1088, was not a religious school since it was not tied to the church or a given church, but it grew as a lay associations of students (although it sis teach canon law in additional to secular/Roman law, this does not make it a religious institution). Al-Qarawiyyin cannot possibly claim to be a university in such a way in pre-modern times, as it had none of those features. It does not seem from the sources that it went much beyond the halaqat, and did not grant degrees in a European or modern sense (the jizah cannot be considered a proper degree). What Al-Qarawiyyin can claim is to be the oldest institution of higher learning, albeit on a different model that that of the European university. Most scholars seem to settle on the term madrasa (I've seen it used also by academics internal to the Qarawiyyin system too) in medieval times. 'University as a pre-20th century term for Qarawiyyin is and was used out of convenience, but should not be understood as Qarawiyyin being a predecessor of modern universities in any way.Eccekevin (talk) 09:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You probably already know most of this, but that debate rumbled along for years at Talk:List of oldest universities in continuous operation. The broad conclusions were very much in line with those outlined above, though the exact consensus has varied from time to time. In general claims at this page were semi-tolerated when they were being removed from there, allowing this to become a bit of a soft POV fork, though a complete POV fork was never allowed to develop for long. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:58, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Eccekevin I don't think we're disagreeing on much at this point. The only detail I would nitpick with, just for our own considerations, is the idea that the medieval European universities were not religious institutions because they weren't tied to a "Church". This is really a Western-specific distinction. Madrasas and mosques were not tied to any larger institution like a church either because there is no real equivalent or parallel of a "church" organization in Islam. They were established on local or royal initiative and then governed by their own waqfs. But madrasas are considered religious institutions because they teach religious subjects and are staffed by people whose main scholarly backgrounds are religious/legal in nature, etc; likewise, medieval European universities also taught primarily religious subjects, and other subjects from a religious angle, and were staffed by people of mainly religious learning in their early history. So it wouldn't be clear how this aspect differs definitively from a madrasa-type institution. (There's also some back-and-forth on these questions in the main space at Madrasa#Madrasa_and_university too (which I haven't edited for content), which could be useful to mine for sources or copy-editing later if needed, though it's not perfect either.)
 * But back on the main topic: for me the core point has always been that the claim should be discussed alongside counter views, and the article already does that. Thanks Jonathan A Jones for mentioning the example of Talk:List of oldest universities in continuous operation, I haven't checked that out but it makes sense that a clear consensus is needed for that kind of list. I don't think editors need to reach a final answer about the status of the early Qarawiyyin here because it's not needed for the main topic of the page, we just need to work on achieving the best possible WP:NPOV, which means being accountable on what sources are presented and how. I think Eccekevin's earlier point was that the article needs to be clearer in that discussion, which I agree with, and especially the beginning of the "Status as world's oldest university" where I agree the claim is not discussed in a sufficiently accountable way. I might have a crack at improving those few sentences today, based on the discussion above. Robert Prazeres (talk) 17:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree on most of what you said. I think for now, as you said, the wording on this page is pretty good and indeed the goal of the page is to offer facts and clarity/nuance instead of choosing a claim. I do instead disagree on your assessment of Medieval universities as religious institutions. That can definitely be said for institutions born out of Cathedral schools, but not for example for the University of Bologna. It grew out of student associations (the nationes), and while canon law was studied together with civil law, students and professors were not part of the clergy necessarily and it was not tied to religious institutions, not even loosely. There wasn't even a religious corresponded of the waqfs, and they were not tied to the archbishop or any church or monastery. They were indeed lay institutions in the original sense of the word. This is even more true for the Medical School of Salerno, were no primarily religious topics were taught at all. It seems to me that institutions like Qarawiyyin are more in line with Cathedral schools, which taught primarily religious topics but also grammar, astronomy, rhetoric (or speech), logic, arithmetic, geometry and music and were staffed by members from a religious background, rather than a University on the Bologna model, which was primarily driven by students and lay professors and did not take place in places of worship or religious locations.--Eccekevin (talk) 21:16, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Teaching started
A degree in medicine known from Al-Qarawiyyin University in 1207 --Nehaoua (talk) 22:02, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Funny you mention it because I just came across this today too while reviewing sources! I have the sources handy so I'll try to take a minute later to add mention of this in the history section. (It's a very recent discovery though, so there isn't much to cite yet.) Robert Prazeres (talk) 22:12, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Further revisions to "Status as world's oldest university" section
This isn't unrelated to previous discussions but I'm starting a new thread because this is to describe the direct editing I just did in this section, partly in follow-up to discussions that were just had above. First paragraph: This paragraph is now mainly about summarizing the sources that claim the Qarawiyyin as oldest university, or imply it as such by calling the historical Qarawiyyin a university (see wording on main page). I've expanded this part a bit by adding more sources but also by trying to describe the claims as neutrally as possible by just quoting what they say or the terms they use, and then avoiding connecting these to other conclusions that are more arguable. Second paragraph: A few changes: 1) Added a sentence further clarifying that although other historic higher education models are acknowledged to exist, they are not considered the origin of modern Western-style universities. 2) Removed the sentence about madrasas being colleges of Islamic law primarily because the sources cited there are all about madrasas generally rather than about the Qarawiyyin, and the Qarawiyyin, even in its era of narrower curriculums, taught much more than Islamic law (cf. Le Tourneau's description of that curriculum on pages 454-455 in his 1949 book cited on this page). Instead I've left the fact that scholars refer to it as a "madrasa" in a more general sense, rather than further imply the narrower sense of the post-11th-century madrasa that may not be appropriate here (as per my first comments in previous thread; see also the 3 sources cited at the end of the second paragraph on the madrasa page). 3) Made some minor reorganizations after this to make the paragraph flow better. Third paragraph: I moved to this paragraph a couple of sentences from the first paragraph about Pallavicini and Encyclopedia Britannica's views on pre-modern universities outside Europe. This was to keep the first paragraph more neutral and focused on the specific claims about the Qarawiyyin. At the same time, this third paragraph now reads as a small summary of the counterpoints to the claims in the second paragraph (though with counterpoints to the counterpoints also included as they were before). Note: That being said, I think this third paragraph could arguably be left out altogether, because it's for the most part not specifically relating to the Qarawiyyin and many of the points are already discussed in more detail at Madrasa (to which there is now a link at the top of the section). I don't think it's doing any harm here and it reads fine, but if ever we want to shorten the section I think we could do without it. Fourth paragraph: This has been revised for slightly different reasons. In earlier edits today I revised the textual references to al-Jazna'i's Zahrat al-As to be more accurate to what's actually said and not said there (as far as I can see from looking through the source myself). This was in the history section but the fourth paragraph here was copy-edited from there so I just made similar adjustments. (See also the actual edit summaries for these.) Other than that, the other changes I've made should be just stylistic to try to make the revised information consistent both with itself and the rest of the article. Needless to say, feel free to discuss. Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 04:23, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Weird Link
Why does the link for state university link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_university_system_in_the_United_States
 * It shouldn't, thanks for spotting that. It was probably a mistake when the link was made. I'll redirect it to Public university, which is presumably what was intended. R Prazeres (talk) 01:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Pope Sylvester at the University of Al-Qarawiyyin
I think the current wording is confusing: "also visited the al-Qarawiyyin, including [...]Gerbert d'Aurillac who later became Pope Sylvester II. (Although the story of Gerbert's visit to Fes is viewed as a legend by some modern scholars.)

If anything, this legend is very recent and only appears in the late 19th century with a Russian orientalist, Jousé Ponteleimon  Krestovitich, as mentionned in this article: La ville de Fès et Sylvestre II

This is discussed more in details here: here, but in my opinion the reference to a legend shouldn't be put on the same level that historical information
 * Although I am intuitively skeptical that Gerbert "studied" at the Qarawiyyin, I'm not sure that I understood your point very well as it seemed to be an issue about the wording, not about the claim, which you deleted from the page. As I pointed out in the discussion you linked to, there are multiple sources citing this story, which does indeed originate with a 19th-century orientalist. Wikipedia requires that when there are conflicting viewpoints, both points be presented fairly according to reliable sources. Rather than deleting the information, I would reword it as a separate sentence mentioning the story and the objections to it, with sources. Even if it's just to debunk it, that would be useful to readers since the story clearly comes up a lot and I suspect you'll get editors trying to re-insert it a later date. We could make an abridged version of the very reasonable explanation given about this at the French page for Sylvester II (see the end of that section). R Prazeres (talk) 18:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with RPrazeres. The story is clearly a legend (his biography is very well documented and never is there a mention of visits to Africa) and it seems we have found the culprit in the 19th century, but if we simply remove it, then it’s going to keep being added since this notion is found in many modern sources. I say mention the legend, it’s origin, mention his possible visits to Cordoba and Muslim Spain, and leave it debunked on this page.Eccekevin (talk) 21:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Given the above, I'm going to go ahead and re-insert it and change the wording a bit to reflect what's been said. The simplest way to do this is to revert the deletion and then change the wording afterwards, so that's how I'll proceed. R Prazeres (talk) 05:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * On a secondary thought, I'm wondering if we should just remove Gerbert from the list of Alumni at the bottom of the article? A list like that is most useful as a summary, so I think it might be best to leave out disputed points which are better-explained in the main text above. R Prazeres (talk) 20:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely remove from list of Alumni, since he is not one.Eccekevin (talk) 21:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. R Prazeres (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Organizing sections
Hi all; I originally wrote much of the architecture sections as they are but was never fully satisfied with how they were labelled and organized; for example, having two "architecture" sections is probably unusual, not to mention technically two "history" sections as well (one for the institutional/intellectual history and one for the history of the mosque structure). I'm having a go at hopefully consolidating the two architecture sections into one larger but more intuitively organized "Architecture" section, but I'm posting this message to invite others to have a second look afterwards verify that it's indeed an improvement; if it's not, feel free to comment or even revert it and say it was better before. As a side-note: I've also noticed a copy-edit tag on the page, but no specific issue is mentioned. If there are other suggestions about improving the page, I'm happy to assist with that as well if helpful. R Prazeres (talk) 19:26, 8 July 2021 (UTC)