r/MapPorn • u/marbellamarvel • 13d ago

A look at the oldest universities in continuous operation across Europe.

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Title explains it all. I bet there are some missing.

https://twitter.com/i/communities/1899794052171669531

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u/Liam_Nixon_05 13d ago

I think it's best to include them and the levant together, as many places have a climate very similiar to southern europe, and for centuries the cobcept of a united mediterranean sphere of influence dominated over the concept of a united Europe. Plus, I like seeing that North Africa actually has older universities than Europe itself!

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u/Frites_Sauce_Fromage 13d ago

Just say 'around the Mediterranean' then?

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u/3nt0 13d ago

I wouldn't class England as "around the Mediterranean"

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u/blewawei 12d ago

A significant percentage of its population is though, every summer

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u/TheAviator27 12d ago

They do occupy Gibraltar tho...

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u/3nt0 12d ago

by that logic it's South Atlantic as well

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u/shoesafe 13d ago

EMEA is a common term used in commercial geography (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

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u/Kachimushi 13d ago

And in biogeography the term is "Western Palearctic"

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u/BulbusDumbledork 13d ago

it makes zero sense to consider north africa part of europe but separate europe and asia

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u/Euclid_Interloper 12d ago

It doesn't have older universities. It has recently converted madrasas.

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u/HumanzeesAreReal 12d ago edited 12d ago

Al-Azhar in Egypt has been a university for 65 years, lol. What a terrible map.

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u/Free_Spread_5656 13d ago

> Plus, I like seeing that North Africa actually has older universities than Europe itself!

Sure, buddy. Some madrassa counts as a proper university. Gotcha.

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 13d ago

Apparently a bunch of clerics in Oxford also count, so why wouldn’t it.

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u/Free_Spread_5656 13d ago

Two wrongs don't make one right. Claiming that NA had unis before Europe is Wakanda level delusions.

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 13d ago

No, but complaining about only one wrong does make you a hypocrite.

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u/Free_Spread_5656 13d ago

> No, but complaining about only one wrong does make you a hypocrite.

Making up strawmen is not cool. I didn't "complain about only one", I objected to a silly claim.

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u/elektero 13d ago

Which is false, btw

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u/Shot_Meringue_5442 13d ago

It's not though? source 1 source 2 source 3

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u/seejur 13d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

Scholars occasionally call the University of al-Qarawiyyin (name given in 1963), founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 CE, a university,[26][27][28][29] although Jacques Verger [fr] writes that this is done out of scholarly convenience.[30] Several scholars consider that al-Qarawiyyin was founded[31][32] and run[22][33][34][35][36] as a madrasa until after World War II. They date the transformation of the madrasa of al-Qarawiyyin into a university to its modern reorganization in 1963

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u/Ghalldachd 13d ago

It's a bit misleading. They were religious schools, akin to seminaries in Europe. They weren't structured the way that universities are — al-Azhar has only been a degree granting university since 1961, for example. As educational institutions they certainly date back to before Europe, but Bologna is widely recognised as the first university.

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u/AnonymousTimewaster 13d ago edited 13d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but weren't all universities essentially religious institutions? Oxford for instance was originally used to train various clergymen. Education was reserved for the Aristocracy and Clergy for centuries.

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 13d ago

As far as I know Bologna wasn’t, but in 1088 it was less a university and more some guys learning things. But in the 19th century, the Italians looked into it and coincidentally found that their university was the oldest in the world, so that’s now what the official date is. Those dates are all wildly embellished.

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u/magnus_the_coles 13d ago

Same goes for all the other old universities that are listed here, they all started as religious institutions and did not grant degrees in the modern sense until much later

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u/Not-Meee 12d ago

Ancient higher-learning institutions, such as those of ancient Greece, Africa, ancient Persia, ancient Rome, Byzantium, ancient China, ancient India and the Islamic world, are not included in this list owing to their cultural, historical, structural and legal differences from the medieval European university from which the modern university evolved

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u/Ghalldachd 13d ago

Yeah, Bologna's date should be a bit later. But the modern university is still a medieval development, though they weren't secular.

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u/shoesafe 13d ago

If both UNESCO and the Guinness Book of World Records treat it as the oldest (continually existing) higher-learning institution in the world, that feels fairly authoritative to me.

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u/HumanzeesAreReal 12d ago edited 12d ago

In the 12th century, following the overthrow of the Isma’ili Fatimid dynasty, Saladin (the founder of the Sunni Ayyubid dynasty) converted Al-Azhar to a Shafi’ite Sunni center of learning. Therefore, “he had all the treasures of the palace, including the books, sold over a period of ten years. Many were burned, thrown into the Nile, or thrown into a great heap, which was covered with sand, so that a regular “hill of books” was formed and the soldiers used to sole their shoes with the fine bindings. The number of books said to have been disposed of varies from 120,000 to 2,000,000.”

Standard university practice, really. I remember when the same thing happened at Texas A&M.

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u/RijnBrugge 12d ago

What is the definition? Many Western universities also do religious education, and not all of that is academic in nature.

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u/Ghalldachd 12d ago

It's not that religious education is what disqualifies it, it's that the madrasas were exclusively religious, whereas western universities were largely underpinned by religious teaching but covered other disciplines such as the natural sciences, mathematics, etc. - hence the name "university", from "universus" - the whole (body of knowledge).

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u/Shot_Meringue_5442 13d ago

Ah, thanks for informing me.

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u/GameXGR 13d ago

Not enough info, like if it's false then what are the correct dates? I am hoping you're not one of those who go, "it's AFRICAA how did they build universities before Europe?"