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Certified_Bruh_2007 t1_iuft9ox wrote

My university has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R.

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worstregards t1_iugbqds wrote

Al-Azhar in Egypt was founded in 972 and is still going. Wouldn’t that qualify?

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scottydc91 t1_iugx6of wrote

According to the wiki page it didn't aquire University status until the 1960s, until then it was just public education. Still incredibly old but technically no it wouldn't.

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Jorge5934 t1_iugh8en wrote

Oh, this debate feels as old as the universities themselves.

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HugoChavezEraUnSanto t1_iuh49gq wrote

Because its university status was only established in 1961 when they added secular studies. Before that was solely a religious studies institution. I believe Christian universities in most countries also have to teach secular subjects like math to be considered an actual university rather than a place of religious learning.

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SteO153 t1_iugyxjp wrote

From your link "it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university", so only the oldest in Egypt.

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cranp t1_iuhuu61 wrote

Does time work differently there than in other countries?

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NoMadX00 t1_iuilerj wrote

no, history only considers stuff in europe, if it didn’t happen in europe then it didn’t happed

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Mongladoid t1_iujigwd wrote

Yeah that’s also why literally no one’s ever heard of the pyramids or Cleopatra.

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aurthurallan t1_iufm9yp wrote

Sounds like a bunch of bologna to me.

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Hattix t1_iuh0u5g wrote

Similarly old universities are:

University of Sankore - 989

Oxford University - 1096 (or 1231, when it was chartered)

University of Salamanca - 1134

Also, the University of Bologna has only been continuously operating since 1945. There was a big argument among European cartographers and it had to suspend operations until they had their maps sorted out.

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wjglenn t1_iuhrrff wrote

It’s just wild knowing that the universities began centuries before the Aztec empire and long outlasted it.

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selune07 t1_iuge15m wrote

University of al-Qarawiyyin founded in 857 by a Muslim woman, commonly not counted because it was a madrasa (not a true university by European standards) until it was "modernized" in 1963. UNESCO even describes it as the oldest university in the world, while Bologna is given the title of oldest university in the "Western world." The argument seems to be that the term "university" is only applicable to the educational institutions of medieval Christian Europe, but I see no reason that institutions from outside of Europe shouldn't count if they served (and still serve) the same purpose and operated in similar manners. Seems a little Euro-centric to me.

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jhalh t1_iuh6lt5 wrote

The University of Bologna would not have met the standards for something to be called a university until around 1200 CE either because of what was being taught there, just as the University of Al-Qarawiyyin did not meet the standards of what would be called a university until the 1960’s due to what was being taught there. University of Bologna taught a diverse enough range of topics before any others and that is why it is considered to be the oldest university, not because of when the school started. It isn’t about Eurocentric views, rather using words as precisely as they are meant to be.

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selune07 t1_iuhp6fd wrote

While not much is known about the early curriculum, Islamic scholars led the world in many subjects at the time, including maths and science. So it's not a stretch to say that Al-Qarawiyyin also taught a diverse range of topics alongside the Quran and Islamic Law. Italy was unique among European states at the time as most of Europe was largely isolated from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, so it makes sense that Europe's first university was founded there. Again, UNESCO states that Al-Qarawiyyin is the oldest university in the world, and Bologna is the oldest in the Western world. Considering that Morocco is at the same longitude as several European countries, we can pretty easily conclude that "western" in this sense is not a description of location, but a synonym for European.

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jhalh t1_iuhuin7 wrote

Yes, Western world is synonymous with Europe and North America not Africa regardless of the distance west of any location therewithin. I am Arab, Iraqi by lineage, and I have always found it very interesting how advanced we were in the past, long ago. I would be more than happy for the Arab world to take the title, but if I’m being honest with myself I also know that the schools of that time were centered around religion first, and everything else second. While we did at the time make great strides in mathematics and other sciences to a lesser degree, the teachings were not at the forefront, or even near equal, to the purpose of said schools. I happen to have been taught a good deal about the era during my time in university, and I was brought up learning that Al-Qarawiyyin was the oldest university, but after learning the nuances I absolutely agree that Bologna takes that title. It turned into what meets the standards to be called a university hundreds of years before Al-Qaraqiyyin shifted from being a religious school with some mathematics and science sprinkled in here and there.

I, an Arab who was brought up believing that the Arab world brought forth the worlds first university, put any genealogical pride aside in the face of evidence that showed that things are more nuanced than what I had been taught growing up, and because words should be used precisely. It’s not about Eurocentric views, it’s about nuance and definitions.

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selune07 t1_iuihlki wrote

I definitely understand your point about schools in the Islamic world teaching religion first, but European schools also taught religion as the primary means by which we could understand the world. It was not until the 1700s that Europeans and Arab scholars alike started taking religion out of science. European universities were run by religious scholars and were just as much influenced by religion as Islamic schools at the time. Both Christians and Muslims used holy texts to understand the natural world until Enlightenment thought started moving education in a more secular direction. Even today, many western universities are still influenced by and even run by religious groups, just look at the many Christian universities in the US that require classes on Christianity as part of their curriculum. I just feel it's unfair to dismiss Al-Qarawiyyin on the basis of it focusing on religion when most European universities did the same for centuries. I teach AP world history and even as the curriculum has changed over the years to be more inclusive of non-western civilizations, it's still very much biased in favor of Western civilizations, which have also influenced how history is taught in the places they have colonized.

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jhalh t1_iuilj7a wrote

I agree with almost everything you just said, but there is an important distinction here - Islam and Christianity have very different views on how to approach other knowledge to be adopted. Islam by its nature has no distinction between personal and public belief, it has only been within the last century that some Muslim majority countries have allowed their governments to function secularly and separate from the personal religious belief. While Europe at the time suffered from religious dogmatism, there is ample proof that there where institutions that delved deeply into many different subjects and even if the Catholic Church always found ways to make any accepted knowledge fit within its canon Islamic nations where and have since been far more rigid in keeping all studies under a more narrow umbrella that could not deviate from the established Islamic teachings of the Quran. One of the things that Muslims claim as proof that Islam must be more true than Christianity is the fact that Christianity has always adapted and changed the meaning further and further from the more literal interpretations while the Muslim world has remained steadfast in the rejection to any schools of thought which challenge the established meaning and teachings. The Muslim world has had little choice to adapt more within the last century given the advancements that the world has seen, and some Muslims will now accept things like evolution. The Catholic Church time and time again did push back against teachings that went contrary to what the church said before giving in, but the teaching still actually took place, that was simply not the case in the Muslim world because they would have been called apostates and killed; while there are plenty of examples of that happening in Europe, it was not even close to the same way that took, and in some places, still takes places in the Muslim world. While schools around a millennium ago in Muslim nations did dabble in mathematics and slightly the sciences, they did not have the same variety of subjects and varied schools of thought as those in Europe.

Western academia has certainly put a western twist on much of history, and that obviously bothers someone like me (an Arab born into a family made up of mostly Muslims), but I accept when there are clear differences that should be acknowledged. Our history is just as Dark as that of white Europeans, we pioneered the African slave trade and left the shambled continent ripe for Europeans to exploit, we colonized areas of Asia and Africa, we waged war and conquest of vast swathes of land. Like you being bothered by the Western academia putting their western twist on things, which also bugs me, I also acknowledge that that is something all cultures do as if you were to have a discussion about history with many Arabs they would put their twist on it as well. My goal is to avoid that as much as possible and look at timelines and facts in order to be as objective as possible, and part of that is accepting the importance of using specific words for specific things and learning the nuances involved in so many of these issues.

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jah05r t1_iuib0x9 wrote

Founded by those four famous legal scholars: Gryffendor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.

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Infinite-Storage-638 t1_iufv38i wrote

I always thought the first universities were founded in the Muslim world. Maybe the use of the qualifier continuous makes your point valid. Maybe I'm just ignorant. Either way I'm refusing to Google.

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MarkRevan t1_iug6br1 wrote

There were "universities" in acient Egypt and acient Persia. But we don't really know what was going on there. We know people went there to be schooled. Scribes. Priests. Medics. Astronomers. Philosophers. But we don't actually know how. There were math schools in Babylon where a teacher taught a class of kids how to do basic equations on clay tablets. So organized schooling institutions were a thing for a very long time. Also the naming convention is all over the place. The Hekademia of Plato became the Academy. Aristotle' Lykeion became the high school.

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mankls3 OP t1_iugcxwz wrote

library of alexandria prob had some of that info but it was burnt

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xWormZx t1_iuhcjac wrote

Just so you know OP, I think people are downvoting you because while the library did burn, most of the information within it (especially the more important documents) were copied many times and likely survived. You can research more about it, but I think the gist is that basically anything that made it into the library was copied at least once.

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cannot_care t1_iufyylp wrote

Continuous, not first.

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Infinite-Storage-638 t1_iugzo8r wrote

The reasons for these institutions being seen as "continuous" appear contentious to me. It may boil down to a simple matter of semantics.

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leese216 t1_iuiloe7 wrote

My high school Italian Teacher went there for college and would always say things like, "When you go to the University of Bologna for school...".

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SenseisSifu t1_iui6xqd wrote

A friend got married in Bologna. V pretty place but there you learn the importance of city planning. Circular roads do not make for easy directions

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BoKnows8 t1_iuhsql7 wrote

I thought Oxford was slightly older than this

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MiXiaoMi t1_iuh37ht wrote

Sounds delicious but I hear the University contains beaks, chicken rectums and donkey meat

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xwing_n_it t1_iufpcrf wrote

Awesome that the university of baloney is the first one ever and also a school for lawyers.

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lostitagainasshole t1_iufwcbp wrote

That's why that stuff lasts so long in the fridge 🤔

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Jackcooper t1_iugtt5d wrote

That degree is balogna

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RealJonathanBronco t1_iugjd18 wrote

So is the phrase "I call bologna" really saying that you'll fact check with a storied university?

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monkale98 t1_iugldu5 wrote

mmmm, universal boloney 🤤

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