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It's always been women in STEM. (mander.xyz)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 15 points 11 months ago (6 children)

It was more of a mosque until very recently, so not really.

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  • [–] 30 points 11 months ago

    That depends on the the view point. It is true that it was founded as a mosque, and became a teaching centre later. Since universities are considered a European invention by some, it is argued that it was a madrassa op until the 1960's. However, madrassa is basically Arabic for place of study, which this mosque was since the eleventh century or earlier. It was in any case a place of study before the foundation of the university of Bologna.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    This Wikipedia page agrees with this comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation. It lists University of Bologna as the oldest one in continuous operation from 1180–1190.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago

    I mean…. It does and it doesn’t. Yes, al-Qarawiyyin was founded as a mosque. Yes, it became a “university” within the last 100 years. But there was a looong span of time between where it was an institution of higher learning not formally classified as a “university”

    Paragraph 4 of the article you linked specifically notes that such institutions with mixed provenance were omitted from the list.

    Ancient higher-learning institutions, such as those of … the Islamic world, are not included in this list owing to their cultural, historical, structural and legal differences from the medieval European university… These include the University of al-Qarawiyyin… founded as mosques in 859… These developed associated madrasas… by 1129 for al-Qarawiyyin…

    Basically it is the oldest educational institution that is currently a university, as opposed to the institution having operated under the university model for the longest time.

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