Talk:Madrasa

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 18 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Eagle38RTO, Dcoop7665, Bronned778.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Colgate University Editing Project

Hi fellow editors, our usernames our dcunningham, rdlibutti, and killernibbles. We are students at Colgate University in a class entitled Women and Religious Traditions:Islam. We are working on a project to edit the female education section of this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcunningham14 (talk • contribs) 16:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, that sounds great. Please tell your professor that medrasa means school in the Arabic language and also applies and is used by Christian Arab women, secular Arab women, atheist Arab women, agnostic Arab women, Shia Arab women, Sunni Arab women, and so on. LebaneseBebe (talk) 11:08, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

"Misuse of the word"

This section seems to be denying the very strong religious flavor of madrasah teaching. That flavor is presented in detail in the rest of the article. Certainly it can be said that the word just means "school." Certainly not all madrasahs teach radical Islam. But even more certainly, there is a very heavy connotation of religious education in the word, and most madrasahs have Islamic teaching as the foundation of their curriculum. This section, for some reason, seems to paper that over. Lou Sander (talk) 15:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC) Incorrect. Madrassa is the term for school. ALL schools, religious (a minority) or not (the vast majority), in many countries.--Ff11 (talk) 15:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Millions of Arab Christians use this same word for school. It simply means school. Wikileb123 (talk) 21:50, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Why are we using the word Medrasa?

Medrasa, etc simply means school. Madaris means schools. Why are we referring to them in Arabic while discussing the various schools that exist? Is this not a promotion of the misuse of a foreign language word? School in English = school. Madrasah in Arabic equals Madrasah. Madrasah= school. School =madrasah.

Why not just start substituting a lot of English words with Arabic equivalents? The entire article is a bit discriminatory. Religious schools are translated into religious schools in Arabic. And school is translated into equivalent “school”. LebaneseBebe (talk) 10:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• @LebaneseBebe: This article isn't about what the word "madrasa" means in Arabic, it's about what the word refers to when used in English, where it almost always refers to Islamic religious schools (while all other schools, including schools in Arabic-speaking countries, are called "schools"...). And having a different meaning in English than in the original language isn't unique, but a fate "madrasa" shares with many other loan words, from a number of different languages. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:16, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Let’s be clear, loanwords are often reflective of the true meaning of the word. They are not usually appropriated in order to promote discrimination and bigotry.

Secondly,Thomas.W, what you stated about schools in Arabic speaking countries simply isn’t true. Most schools in the Arabic speaking world are titled as “madrasa” and that includes catholic schools in Lebanon, in their Arabic titles, so don’t make ridiculous statement like that, it’s not objective and it’s silly. Furthermore, most Arabic speakers refer to school as “madraseh”, so please don’t try to argue against this fact. Whether you like it or not the word means school in Arabic, simply school. And if this is an English language article on what the word means to English language speakers, I can say this, that Arabic to English dictionaries define it correctly as simply “school”, while a number of bigoted and misinformed people define the Arabic word for school as Islamist or Islamic school.

Additionally, just because you’re mistranslations a word, doesn’t make it right. There are dictionaries that don’t agree with you. And you’re just blatantly promoting racism and discrimination. But look, I don’t go around wiki editing Spanish words, or Italian words, etc. I don’t go around wiki telling other people what the words in their languages mean, and use their words against them to denote something discriminatory and negative.

And you can stop deleting sourced information because you would like to promote your bigotry. LebaneseBebe (talk) 12:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• @LebaneseBebe: This is the English language Wikipedia, and we don't care what the word "madrasa" means in Arabic, only what it means in English. And the meaning of "madrasa" in English is crystal clear, see Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, they all say that in the English language the word "madrasa" refers to an "Islamic religious school". And that's what we go by, since this, after all, is the English language Wikipedia. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:15, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Thomas.W Listen you harasssatoru bigot, English is my first language so you can get off of your white English language pride ha. 2. You’re still mistranslating a foreign word. 3. Do not address anymore or I will be forced to report your bigotry and behavior. I don’t care what you think the word means, that is not what it means, and you are promoting racism and discrimination. Do not contact me anymore, you’re a creep. LebaneseBebe (talk) 16:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• @LebaneseBebe: "White English pride", sheeesh. Well, you're free to think I'm a bigot, and I'm equally free to feel that you're ignorant (anyone who knows anything about European languages would know that there's been a lot of borrowing of words back and forth, very often with a changed, or narrowed down, meaning, and that you cannot automatically assume that a borrowed word has the same meaning as in the original language). The more narrow meaning of the word "madrasa" when used in English, compared to in Arabic, is not in any way bigotted or derogatory, it's just a word to describe a specific type of school, as opposed to schools in general, for which the English word "school" has existed for a very long time, and no borrowing was needed. I very strongly suggest you pipe down a bit, BTW, because if you continue to call other editors "harassatory bigots" and "creeps" you will, with all probability, lose your editing privileges here pretty soon... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 17:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Thomas.W: Give me an example of a foreign language word (from a non Romance language) that has been borrowed and completely changed in the English language due to political reasons, and bigotry.

Also, Thomas.W because I can prove that older English language dictionaries defined the word madrasa into English as school. We can show the changing of the word meaning within the last decade by different editions so what we are talking about is a definition of a word that is not static, and I cited evidence being currently changed from its actual meaning and obscuring its actual meaning. And that is important that people understand that a word meaning flux, politicized and turned into a degragotory and hate word (which is used to promote stereotyping and disinformation), is evolving. And your denial of this obvious and well documented process is the reason why I used the words harrassatory bigot. That’s just an explanation. Perhaps you’re not used to an American-Arab female standing up for herself. I don’t know.

And FYI your reference to a person as a “psychotic Moroccan” is very telling. LebaneseBebe (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• @LebaneseBebe: And that last comment of yours was, as can apparently be expected from you, not only taken out of context (a long-term abuse case where a person geolocating to Morocco, as can be seen from the IPs they use, for several years now has regularly posted huge incoherent rants against named psychiatric hospitals in Morocco, and doctors there, sometimes in French and sometimes with the French text machine translated into English, on random articles here...) but also rephrased, and not what I wrote... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:47, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Thomas.W: she's blocked, won't be unblocked for about 2 days 13 hours from the time of this post. Doug Weller talk 12:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@LebaneseBebe: Somehow we manage to use "gelato" in English to refer specifically to an Italian style of ice cream, even though in Italian the word simply means "ice cream", without Italians getting hysterical and insisting that a deep hatred for Italians is involved and imagining that this amounts to English speakers telling Italians what the word should mean in Italian. And people from English-speaking countries don't bat an eye over the sort of adaptations Japanese speakers have made of English words. Largoplazo (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Madrasa

That simply not true. Arab schools in Arabic speaking countries have the word “madrassa” in their Arabic titles. If you’re going to make this an article about the appropriation of an Arabic word that is used to discriminate Arabs and Muslims please be more clear. I don’t go around creating Spanish words and their meanings on articles, and I hope you don’t either. LebaneseBebe (talk) 11:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• See section above... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:16, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Thomas.W: You do realize orienatialism is an in-depth topic regarding stereotyping, and that the term “oriental” is considered a derogatory term. This is 2018, Ali Baba isn’t going to rob your caravan. LebaneseBebe (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Please see Edward Said’s book “Orientalism”, if you’re a reader.

Furthermore, this (article, etc) is an active conversation about what the meaning is and I cited that, and the fact that you’re trying to obscure that by claiming the only valid meaning is cherry picked dictionary meanings is contrary to encyclopedic approach. LebaneseBebe (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Request for comments

Greetings to all,

A Request for comment has been initiated regarding RfC about whether to allow use of honorofic 'Allama' with the names or not?

Requesting your comments to formalize the relevant policy @ Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles

Thanks

Bookku (talk) 18:05, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Recommendation to use English plural ("madrasas") in general usage here

I noticed that we use "madaris", the Arabic plural, in many places here where it's not needed. Since this is an English article, and madrasa is used as a loanword in this context, I would strongly recommend that at least in section titles, and preferably also in general usage throughout the article, we use the English plural "madrasas" (which is pretty common in English-language literature where this topic comes up). If the Arabic madaris is used anywhere, it should be in italics in order to make it clearer that it is not an English word (see MOS:FOREIGNITALIC). Otherwise, general readers will be confused and think there is both a word "madrasa" and a word "madaris" (or they might even think the word is "madari" and it's being pluralized to "madaris"). Keep in mind that many readers also come to just skim an article and will look through the section titles for what they're interested in, so having "madaris" in those is especially confusing at first sight.
I'd like to check that other editors would agree? Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 15:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed.VR _talk 15:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Needs a table of contents at or near the top of the article. (As is customary with very long Wikipedia articles like this one.)

Needs a table of contents at or near the top of the article. (As is customary with very long Wikipedia articles like this one.) Ocdcntx (talk) 15:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Arts of the Islamic World

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 12 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Emoakes, Isha.jabbie, Ptcoyle17.

— Assignment last updated by Emily.850 (talk) 00:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)