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Requested move 30 May 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Qibli Mosque. After a long debate demonstrating ambiguity in the article title, this option that sidesteps the entire problem emerged. Whether the definite article should also be included in the title can be resolved in a separate discussion. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 06:40, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Al-Aqsa Mosque → Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque) – Disambiguation of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the term refers to both the congregational mosque ("Jami'a" in Arabic) or the entire mosque compound ("Masjid" in Arabic, cognate with Temple Mount). For sources see the "Definition" section of this article. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:35, 30 May 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:56, 13 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 00:35, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

  • Are you proposing to create a disambiguation page? What will become of Al-Aqsa Mosque? Is the hatnote really insufficient? I oppose because it seems to me that the primary topic is the building and not the complex. Al-Aqsa Mosque is frequently distinguished from the Dome of the Rock, for instance. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., knows only the building as the masjid al-aqsa in its article. Srnec (talk) 00:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Just for the record, this because it seems to me that the primary topic is the building and not the complex is not consistent with our primary topic policy. Our PTOPIC policy doesn’t work in the same way as COMMONNAME, where we make a relative judgement. Our PTOPIC policy requires us to decide whether it is highly likely — much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined — to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Noone has attempted to challenge this so far - for one, you would need to believe it was highly likely that a reader typing this name was not looking to learn about the third holiest site in Islam (which is confirmed as the compound in all the scholarly sources below). Onceinawhile (talk) 17:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Two issues are being conflated by Onceinawhile here. The comment by Srnec is about the name Al-Aqsa Mosque, not about the name Al-Aqsa. It seems unlikely to me that someone typing Al-Aqsa Mosque wants an article on the Temple Mount, and highly likely that they want instead the Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque) (by whatever name). Not to you? Andrewa (talk) 17:41, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
I most certainly agree that someone typing Al-Aqsa mosque does not want an article on the Temple Mount. As for someone typing Al-Aqsa, that's a different question. Otherwise, I have no idea what two issues are being conflated. Selfstudier (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Al Aqsa is Arabic for "The Farthest". It is simply an abbreviation of "The Farthest Mosque", Masjid Al Aqsa, itself a synonym of Temple Mount. And Masjid is Arabic for Mosque.
To add some context to this, see a detailed explanation here: Reiter, Yitzhak (2008). Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 21–23. ISBN 978-0-230-61271-6. During the Middle Ages, when the issue of Jerusalem's status was a point of controversy, the supporters of Jerusalem's importance (apparently after its liberation from Crusader control) succeeded in attributing to al-Quds or to Bayt-al-Maqdis (the Arabic names for Jerusalem) the status of haram that had been accorded to the sacred compound. The site was thus called al-Haram al-Sharif, or al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif. Haram, from an Arabic root meaning "prohibition," is a place characterized by a particularly high level of sanctity-a protected place in which blood may not be shed, trees may not be felled, and animals may not be hunted. The status of haram was given in the past to the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and to the Mosque of the Prophet in al-Madina (and some also accorded this status to the Valley of Wajj in Ta'if on the Arabian Peninsula?). Thus, al-Masjid al-Aqsa became al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) in order to emphasize its exalted status alongside the two other Muslim sanctuaries. Although, as noted before, Ibn-Taymiyya refuted the haram status of the Jerusalem mosque, al-Aqsa's upgrading to haram status was successful and has prevailed. It became a commonly accepted idea and one referred to in international forums and documents. It was, therefore, surprising that during the 1980s the Palestinians gradually abandoned the name that had been given to the Haram/Temple Mount compound in apparent honor of Jerusalem's status as third in sanctity - al-Haram al-Sharif - in favor of its more traditional name-al-Aqsa. An examination of relevant religious texts clarifies the situation: since the name al-Aqsa appears in the Quran, all Muslims around the world should be familiar with it; thus it is easier to market the al-Aqsa brand-name. An additional factor leading to a return to the Qur'anic name is an Israeli demand to establish a Jewish prayer space inside the open court of the compound. The increased use of the name al-Aqsa is particularly striking against the background of what is written on the Web site of the Jerusalem Waqf, under the leadership of (former) Palestinian mufti Sheikh Ikrima Sabri. There it is asserted that "al Masjid al-Aqsa was erroneously called by the name al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif," and that the site's correct name is al-Aqsa. This statement was written in the context of a fatwa in response to a question addressed to the Web site's scholars regarding the correct interpretation of the Isra' verse in the Quran (17:1), which tells of the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey from the "Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque"-al-Aqsa. In proof of this, Sabri quotes Ibn-Taymiyya, who denied the existence of haram in Jerusalem, a claim that actually serves those seeking to undermine the city's sacred status. Sabri also states that Arab historians such as Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali, author of the famed fifteenth-century work on Jerusalem, do not make use of the term "haram" in connection with the al-Aqsa site. Both Ibn-Taymiyya and Mujir al-Din were affiliated with the Hanbali School of law-the relatively more puritan stream in Islam that prevailed in Saudi Arabia. The Hanbalies rejected innovations, such as the idea of a third haram. One cannot exclude the possibility that the Saudis, who during the 1980s and 1990s donated significant funds to Islamic institutions in Jerusalem, exerted pressure on Palestinian-Muslim figures to abandon the term "haram" in favor of "al-Aqsa". The "al-Aqsa" brand-name has thus become popular and prevalent. Al-Haram al-Sharif is still used by official bodies (the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC], the Arab League), in contrast to religious entities. The public currently uses the two names interchangeably. During the last generation, increasing use has been made of the term "al-Aqsa" as a symbol and as the name of various institutions and organizations. Thus, for example, the Jordanian military periodical that has been published since the early 1970s is called al-Aqsa; the Palestinian police unit established by the PA in Jericho is called the Al-Aqsa Division; the Fatah's armed organization is called the Al-Aqsa Brigades; the Palestinian Police camp in Jericho is called the Al-Aqsa Camp; the Web sites of the southern and northern branches of the Islamic movement in Israel and the associations that they have established are called al-Aqsa; the Intifada that broke out in September 2000 is called the al-Aqsa Intifada and the Arab summit that was held in the wake of the Intifada's outbreak was called the al-Aqsa Summit. These are only a few examples of a growing phenomenon.
Onceinawhile (talk) 18:29, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Those are the two. The meaning of Al-Aqsa Mosque raises different issues to those concerning the name Al-Aqsa. Exactly! Andrewa (talk) 00:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • @Srnec: here is the article on Masjid Al-Aqsa from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. It clearly explains both uses. Grabar, who wrote the article for the EoI, was wrong to not even mention Mujir ad-Din, Robinson, Palmer, Le Strange etc., who each explain the difference between Jami’a Al Aqsa and Masjid Al Aqsa – poor scholarship in a tertiary source.
My belief is that the confusion in English stems from a back-translation of Mosque of Al Aqsa. Both Jami’a and Masjid are translated as Mosque, whilst the word Mosque is derived from Masjid, so the back-translation process would have been Jami’a -> Mosque -> Masjid.
Yes disambiguation. For the ubiquitous term "al-Aqsa" the primary usage is very clearly the Temple Mount, as 100% of the events (see where they occurred) and organizations (see Dome of the Rock in most logos) are named for it. The term "al-Aqsa" in all these places is literally just a shortening of Masjid Al-Aqsa, i.e. "Al Aqsa Mosque".
Onceinawhile (talk) 06:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
From the Encyclopedia of Islam source above, "The most common use of the words is for the large building located on the south side of the Haram platform and, next to the Dome of the Rock" Drsmoo (talk) 12:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
It also notes that the term was used for centuries for the Haram al-Sharif, and occasionally for the whole of Jerusalem. A versatile name indeed. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:44, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
And, per above, the "most common use of the words" is not the right policy-based test here. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:03, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Another important reason for disambiguation is the widely known phrase "The Al Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam". That refers to the Temple Mount, not this article. See for example: Lassner, J. (2017). Medieval Jerusalem: Forging an Islamic City in Spaces Sacred to Christians and Jews. University of Michigan Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-472-13036-8. [Quoting Thawr ibn Yazid]: "The holiest part of the earth is al-Sham; the holiest part of al-Sham is [the subdistrict] Filastin; the holiest part of Filastin is Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis), the holiest part of Jerusalem is the [temple] mount (al-jabal); the holiest part of the mount is the temple [rendered in Arabic as al-masjid], and the holiest part of the temple is the dome (qubbah)." Quite obviously, "the dome" refers to the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sahkrah), the magnificent Islamic structure said by Muslims to surmount the primeval rock. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Honestly, you could even argue that there are three layers of meaning here: the prayer hall, the mosque compound at large, and the broader space. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:08, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Onceinawhile, I am not convinced of the distinctions you are making. It seems to me that the name of the mosque is applied to the area by synechdoche. A search of masjid al-aqsa in GScholar reveals plenty of results that can only refer to the building. Srnec (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi @Srnec: thanks for engaging here. The synechdoche is the other way round - the name of the mosque (the compound) is applied to the building by synechdoche. This is stated and explained by Mujir ad-Din, Robinson, Palmer, Le Strange etc.[1][2][3][4]
As for GScholar "al aqsa mosque" search, I went through the first ten and counted six about the compound, three about the building (one on its dome and two on its beams) and a third about a separate building altogether (the library). That is at least 60% about the compound. GScholar for "masjid al-aqsa" gives 8 out of the first 10 for the compound. To hit our PTOPIC "highly likely" guidance, we would need to be down at about 25% : 75% (compound : building). Onceinawhile (talk) 13:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
That is misleading, Robinson uses “mosk el-Aksa” for al-Aqsa Mosque. Le Strange writes that “the native authorities use the technical terms in an extraordinarily inexact manner, often confounding the whole, and its part, under the single denomination of "Masjid." Further, the usage of various writers differs considerably on these points.” Throughout the book he quotes authors who use Aksa mosque specifically for the building. For example: “This stone is to be seen built into the north wall of (the Haram Area that surrounds) the Aksa Mosque." and “it is related how 'Abd al Malik built the Dome of the Rock and the Aksa Mosque...and on the Mosque-roof there were seven thousand seven hundred sheets of lead, each sheet weighing 70 ratls, Syrian measure (420 lbs.)” His own anecdote: “the Latins considered the Aksa Mosque to hold a very secondary place (while the Dome of the Rock was in their eyes the true Templum Domini). Drsmoo (talk) 06:42, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Robinson clearly says that Mesjid el-Aksa = Temple Mount. Our article mosque states clearly in the first sentence that Masjid = Mosque.
Le Strange's work includes an essay specifically on the ambiguity we are grappling with here: "Masjid al Aksâ (the Further Mosque) at Jerusalem "—the term “Mosque" being here taken to denote the whole area of the Noble Sanctuary, and not the Main-building of the Akså only, which, in the Prophet's days, did not exist… [it is] necessary to enter into some explanations of the Arab and technical usage of the word “mosque.”… Masjid in Arabic means " a place of prostration (in prayer);" and therefore to revert once again to Ibn Tûlûn's Mosque, (1) the Mainbuilding, A; (2) the Court, and (3) the Colonnades at the back, B; with those (4) to the right, C; to the left, D; as also (5) the Dome E in the Court-one and all form essential parts of the mosque, and are all comprehended by the term “Al Masjid.' Bearing these points in mind, and coming to the Noble Sanctuary at Jerusalem, we find that the term “Masjid," as already stated, is commonly applied not only to the Aksâ Mosque (more properly the Jâmi', or “place of assembly," for prayer), but to the whole enclosure of the great Court, with the Dome of the Rock in the middle, and all the other minor domes, and chapels, and colonnades…. Mukaddasi invariably speaks of the whole Haram Area as Al Masjid, or as Al Masjid al Aksî, “the Akså Mosque,” or “the mosque," while the Main-building of the mosque, at the south end of the Haram Area, which we generally term the Aksa, he refers to as Al Mughattâ, “the Covered-part.” Thus he writes "the mosque is entered by thirteen gates," meaning the gates of the Haram Area. So also "on the right of the court,” means along the west wall of the Haram Area; "on the left side” means the east wall; and “at the back” denotes the northern boundary wall of the Haram Area. Nasir-i-Khusrau, who wrote in Persian, uses for the Main-building of the Aksâ Mosque the Persian word Pushish, that is, “Covered part,” which exactly translates the Arabic Al Mughatta. On some occasions, however, the Akså Mosque (as we call it) is spoken of by Näsir as the Maksurah, a term used especially to denote the railed-off oratory of the Sultan, facing the Mihrâb, and hence in an extended sense applied to the building which includes the same. The great Court of the Haram Area, Nâsir always speaks of as the Masjid, or the Masjid al Akså, or again as the Friday Mosque (Masjid-i-Jum'ah). In the presence of this ambiguity of terms, I have thought it better to translate Al Masjid and the various other phrases by " the Haram Area,” or “the Noble Sanctuary,” in the one case, and by “the Akså Mosque" in the other, as circumstances demanded, and in accordance with the context; in order thus to render the translation perfectly clear to European readers."
Onceinawhile (talk) 09:35, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
"Robinson clearly says that Mesjid el-Aksa = Temple Mount. Our article mosque states clearly in the first sentence that Masjid = Mosque." Except that he uses "Mosk el-Aksa" for the same subject as this (Certified Good) article's title "Al-Aqsa Mosque", which is the English common name and has been for over a hundred years it seems. Per Le Strange: "the Akså Mosque (as we call it)". The whole impetus for this move discussion is whether the title Al-Aqsa Mosque leads to confusion among English readers. Both of these sources attest to Aksa Mosque/Mosk el-Aksa being the English term for the subject. Multiple editors have come in to say the same. Along with New York Times, Oxford Islamic Studies, and the Encyclopedia of Islam, et al. At this point, the argument supporting the move is essentially that the name currently used in English is itself confused and based on a mistranslation. But that is not how article titles are determined. Drsmoo (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
We are talking about whether the title needs disambiguation. You appear to be agreeing that it does. Selfstudier (talk) 13:10, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
The current article, which uses the common English name for the subject, and which is ranked as a Good Article by Wikipedia, does not need to be moved. I'm in agreement with other commenters that hat notes are sufficient. Drsmoo (talk) 13:37, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As indicated by the above source (and many others), the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" commonly refers to the mosque itself, rather than the entire Temple Mount: The most common use of the words is for the large building located on the south side of the Haram platform and, next in the Dome of the Rock, the most celebrated Islamic building in Jerusalem. This usage of the term is well noted as the dominant one in academic research. Tombah (talk) 06:19, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
    Selectively cherrypicking of sources is not the correct way of considering anything. You have at this point been shown plenty of sources on this talk and others by multiple editors showing you an entirely different picture. As well you know, your 'one source (and many others)' is only one side of the story, and you cannot consider one without the other. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:06, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support: Given that the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Al-Aqsa Mosque is ambiguous, as the recent news coverage has made abundantly clear, and many readers could be potentially wanting to know about the wider compound, not specifically the Qibli Mosque, I believe some title-level disambiguation is appropriate. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:51, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The mosque itself is what is usually understood, certainly in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment There are definitely issues around mosque, compound, the naming and whatnot, that need sorting out. I am not certain that this piecemeal approach to the problem is the best way of dealing with that. My sense is that the root of the problem is that there is an article called Temple Mount referring to the compound and no such article for the "other side" which I would class as a NPOV problem in addition. Selfstudier (talk) 13:28, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
If the article is moved, what will happen to the Temple Mount? Do you want to move that article too, to "al-Aqsa" (more common in English)? Khestwol (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
@Khestwol: no. Personally I am a fan the alternatives described at Temple Mount#Jerusalem's sacred esplanade. Our policy WP:NPOVTITLE does not account for a situation where there are multiple non-neutral common names. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Temple Mount is the only common name in English. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=har+habayit%2Cmasjid+al-aqsa%2Charam+al-sharif%2Csacred+esplanade%2Ctemple+mount%2Cnoble+sanctuary%2Cal-aqsa+mosque%2Cmount+moriah&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&case_insensitive=on&corpus=26&smoothing=0& Drsmoo (talk) 12:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this Ngram result is incorrect, because Ngram always automatically inserts spaces around the hyphens which makes the results incorrect when the names include hyphens. However, "al-Aqsa" is more common according to Google search, where "al-Aqsa" + Jerusalem is getting 4.7 million results but "Temple Mount" + Jerusalem is getting 3.8 million results. Furthermore on Google News, "al-Aqsa" + Jerusalem gets 126,000 results but "Temple Mount" + Jerusalem get 72,700 results. Khestwol (talk) 13:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
That is wrong, the n-gram processes hyphens normally, it parses the search to add spaces between the hyphens, as that is the ngram syntax for hyphens (otherwise, the dash is a minus), the books are then searched normally (without the spaces around the hyphens). https://books.google.com/ngrams/info Google results are not a reliable source on Wikipedia, and even then, Temple Mount gets significantly more results than any other alternate name. Drsmoo (talk) 13:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
This is the correct ngram [3] It shows Aqsa or Aksa ahead of Temple Mount. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:05, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
LOL, no. That includes all uses, including as a personal name, etc. And even then, Temple Mount is ahead. Drsmoo (talk) 15:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes, just like there's all sorts of other stuff that gets swept up in a "temple mount" google search - things like a movie, mentions of "temple, mount" with a comma in the middle, etc. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
If you actually go through the google results, when you get to page 11, you'll see that there are actually only 104 unique results of your search. That's why google results (and ngrams) aren't reliable on Wikipedia. Drsmoo (talk) 17:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Which was exactly me point here - the sum of it all is nevertheless an indicator that very little can be taken for granted. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Umm, Ngrams isn't a reliable source either. All of these things are purely indicative. It is only source quality and usage that truly matters. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Temple Mount is the only common name in English, ok come on now, you know that is not true. You know it is called, commonly, al-Aqsa, al-Aqsa Mosque, al-Aqsa mosque compound, Sacred Esplanade, Holy Esplanade. That has been demonstrated over and over again. nableezy - 13:53, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Not compared to Temple Mount, see ngram above. There are also reliable sources that explicitly state the common English term is Temple Mount. Drsmoo (talk) 13:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
You might have a point if somebody said that the most common English name but they did not. You said it is the only common English name, and you know that to be false and misleading. I dont know why you are taking these maximalist positions when they are the easiest to show to be completely made up. nableezy - 14:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I guess it depends on your definition of "common". "Sacred Esplanade" is less common than academic terms like "Southern Levant" Drsmoo (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I actually wouldn't be so hasty to write off esplanade: the term actually has some academic pedigree, see Jerusalem+esplanade Iskandar323 (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
"Esplanade" is not a name for the Temple Mount. You are searching for esplanade as a noun. Drsmoo (talk) 17:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
But there is only one esplanade of any notability in Jerusalem, just like there is only one 'temple mount'. Name another. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:23, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational) (don't need mosque twice) in order to make progress on the issues, the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" commonly refers to the mosque itself simply is not the case (if even the BBC understands this, you can be sure of it).[5]

Selfstudier (talk) 15:06, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

  • Request for RM to remain open pending more fulsome discussion, since none of five oppose comments have met the requirements of WP:RMCOMMENT. Each of @Tombah, Necrothesp, and Seggallion: have claimed that references in scholarly literature to Al Aqsa Mosque are "dominant" / "usually understood" / "almost always" relating to the main building rather than the wider mosque, but did not provide evidence, and did not comment on the counterclaim that 60% of the first ten GoogleScholar uses relate to the compound. Each of @Khestwol and Number 57: referred to a policy (commonname) which is unrelated to a discussion about disambiguation when the common name is not being changed (e.g. Orange (colour) and Orange (fruit)). Additional time will hopefully allow more editors to engage with the sources. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
"Al Aqsa Mosque" (the large compound) vs "Al Aqsa Mosque" (the small southern building, from where prayers are led)
300,000 worshippers at the "Al Aqsa Mosque" (the large compound), facing the "Al Aqsa Mosque" (the small southern building, from where prayers are led) The worshippers would reasonably be described as "at al-Aqsa mosque" even if the area were never called that.

Background to the discussion for new editors (see images, right) Our "Al-Aqsa Mosque" article describes the small southern building. The large compound, also known as "Al-Aqsa Mosque", is described at our article Temple Mount. Scholarly literature using the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" usually relates to one of these three main topics:

  • Quran / Islam as a whole (the term Al Aqsa Mosque in literature on these topics almost always relates to the whole Temple Mount compound):
    • Al Aqsa Mosque as the third holiest site in Islam
    • Al Aqsa Mosque as the first qibla in Islam
  • Palestinian-Israeli politics (the term Al Aqsa Mosque in literature on these topics almost always relates to the whole Temple Mount compound):
  • Architecture or more practical / focused description (the term Al Aqsa Mosque in literature on these topics is weighted towards the small building, with the compound being given one of its alternate names, often pointing out that the name relates to the compound as well)
    • Al Aqsa Mosque (Temple Mount compound) as a large mosque holding over 300,000 people (note: the small building can hold only 5,000)
    • Al Aqsa Mosque (small building) as an important monument of early Islamic architecture
    • Al Aqsa Mosque (small building) housing the Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque
    • Al Aqsa Mosque (small building) being where the Islamic prayers are led from

Onceinawhile (talk) 16:43, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

However, the WP:hatnote at the top of this article serves our disambiguation function very efficiently. It can easily redirect our readers, for example if they are an Arabic-speaking Muslim, toward the Temple Mount if that is what they wanted to read about. Khestwol (talk) 21:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Per WP:COMMONNAME. Per Srnec and Khestwol, the hatnotes are sufficient. Vpab15 (talk) 22:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
    The common name is not in dispute. This is about disambiguation, given the dual meaning of the common name. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support, because it is widely known that "Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam" (because Mohammed supposedly rose to the heavens from there) and, as has been pointed out by many before me, it obviously doesn't refer to the black-domed structure that was built decades after Mohammed's death, but to the entire area, known to Muslims in its entirety as the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Dan Palraz (talk) 17:40, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support - I dont actually understand the opposition here. Its almost as if one wishes that al-Aqsa Mosque did not refer to the entire compound, but per the sources offered above it clearly does. If we are to have an article on the mosque specifically, and we should, the title should be about the mosque specifically and not the entire compound. nableezy - 18:07, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
  • The opposition is to using a long title where a short one will do. The article on the compound is Temple Mount. It has an Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif. I still maintain that modern English usage of "al-Aqsa Mosque" to refer to the entire area is synechdoche from the Friday mosque and not a reflection of either (a) the wider meaning of Arabic masjid or (b) early Islamic history, before the construction of a dedicated building. I base this on the fact that al-Aqsa mosque is habitually distinguished from the Dome of the Rock in English. Also, constructions like "al-Aqsa mosque compound" suggest that the "al-Aqsa mosque" proper is a part of the compound (as here). In other words, our current setup with hatnotes is fine. Srnec (talk) 03:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Srnec: you write I still maintain that modern English usage of "al-Aqsa Mosque" to refer to the entire area is synechdoche from the Friday mosque. Can you explain what you mean? I think there is an important nuance you are trying to communicate by writing "modern English usage" that I don't understand. Perhaps you could help me understand in the context of the following established facts (which I don't believe you are disputing): (1) the name Masjid Al Aqsa derives from the Quran and at that point referred to the whole Temple Mount; (2) the name Masjid Al Aqsa was the primary Arabic name for the Temple Mount compound for more than 1,000 years until the Ottoman times when the term Haram Al Sharif began to gain currency; (3) the English term "Mosque" is a direct transliteration of Masjid.
    And just to make sure we are not talking past each other, I believe "route 2" is what you are advocating, whereas "route 1" was stated by English-speaking scholars such as Guy Le Strange and Edward Henry Palmer in the 19th century:
    • Route 1: Quran[compound]->Masjid Al-Aqsa[compound]->Al Aqsa Mosque[compound]
    • Route 2: Quran[compound]->Masjid Al-Aqsa[compound]->Jamia Al-Aqsa[building]->Al Aqsa Mosque[building]->Al Aqsa Mosque[compound]
    Onceinawhile (talk) 08:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
@Onceinawhile: What I mean is that the English word 'mosque' normally denotes a building. Referring to a wider area as a mosque is not natural in English among native speakers of English. This is why the broader meaning has to be explained and the term "al-Aqsa Mosque" qualified by the addition of "compound" for clarity. It isn't a question of how we got here, but where we are. That question is not easily answered. Srnec (talk) 02:23, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
@Srnec: Most major mosques in the Middle East actually typically include a large courtyard, all of which is considered part of the mosque, and all of which becomes a space for prayer during times of high traffic, such as during Eid. The Umayyad Mosque for instance, see here. Adding 'compound' is simply descriptive disambiguation. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
@Srnec: Iskandar323 is right. See "Ch. 14: The Mosque". Studies in Arab Architecture, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, p. 434: "To the beginning of the eleventh century ce in the Near East, mosque typology is dominated by the plan of the hypostyle (many-columned) courtyard, which in this context is sometimes also referred to as the ‘Arab’ plan." In other words, almost all the major early mosques in the Middle East have exactly this courtyard setup, with a sahn surrounded by riwaq (just like the Temple Mount). See other examples such as Great Mosque of Kairouan or Mosque of Ibn Tulun.
Then see how this is explained at ArchNet. They call the building "Jami' al-Aqsa" for the purposes of disambiguation (which I think could be a very good solution here; as shown below, policy allows us to move away from commonname if it gives a better disambiguation). They describe Jami' al-Aqsa as follows: The term the "farthest mosque" is considered in Islamic tradition as the general name for the precinct of Haram al-Sharif ("The Noble Sacred Enclosure") in Jerusalem, as well as the specific name for the congregational mosque located at its southern edge. The contemporary congregational mosque of al-Aqsa is a result of different stages of construction and renovations... The mosque consists today of a seven bay hypostyle hall with several additional small halls to the west and east of the southern section of the building. Unlike most hypostyle-style mosques the building does not have a clearly delineated courtyard unless one considers the whole Haram as its court.
I am not claiming we should give an answer one way or the other. But this discussion, and ArchNet's description, shows again that this whole thing is ambiguous.
Onceinawhile (talk) 07:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Srnec, a couple of further thoughts here:
  • Our encyclopedia is not only for “native” English speakers, it is for all English speakers
  • This discussion is not trying to assess whether or not the wider space should be called a mosque, with or without clarifying adjectives
  • This discussion must assess only whether or not it is "highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined" that our English-speaking readers are looking for the southern prayer building when they type the words “Al Aqsa Mosque”. I believe it is likely that a significant proportion of our readers are in fact looking to understand the Quranic Al Aqsa (which is the compound) or the modern political Al Aqsa (which is the compound).
Please could you provide your thoughts on this? Onceinawhile (talk) 15:43, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment (1) At which point? The actual location of the Quranic Al-Aqsa Mosque has been debated among scholars since the earliest days of Islam. Muhammad never visited Jerusalem. His biographer Al-Waqidi wrote a century later that Muhammad frequented an Al-Aqsa Mosque in a village near Mecca, while other scholars believe that the Quranic Al-Aqsa Mosque is a spiritual destination, rather than a geographical location. The connection with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is probably of a later Umayyad origin. (2) There was no primary name for the Temple Mount before the Ottoman period. In fact, two other names were very popular: Bayt al-Maqdis, and Al-Jabal. And let me add a (4), according to some scholars, the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" as to refer to the entire mount has regained currency starting in the 1990s, when it assumed a symbolic national significance for Palestinians. Tombah (talk) 08:51, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
These WP:FRINGE claims that Al Aqsa Mosque is not in Jerusalem have no place in this discussion. In a similar vein, per my comment at Talk:Al-Juʽranah your edits there need proper contextualization. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:33, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I never said there is no Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. But claiming that the Quran originally referred to Jerusalem is indeed problematic. Islamic scholars debated the meaning behind Quranic Al-Aqsa since the earliest days of Islam. Tombah (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Re your statement "...claiming that the Quran originally referred to Jerusalem is indeed problematic", please read Wikipedia:Fringe theories - your statement "departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views". Plus it has nothing to do with the discussion in this thread, so I will not respond further. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
In any case, as I said many times before - the usage of "Al-Aqsa Mosque" for the entire Temple Mount - regardless of how common it is in Arabic-speaking media and sources - is not common in English. When the term Al-Aqsa is used in English for the entire site, its usually part of "Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound" or simply "Al-Aqsa". Most sources do not use the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" for the entire mount, as it most usually refers to the silver-domed mosque only. Tombah (talk) 08:51, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
There really should be a moratorium on the word 'most' when not accompanied by any actual sources or usage analysis. Provide some sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:01, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Relister comment So far, the supporters managed to demonstrate that ambiguity does exist for the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" with evidence. Meanwhile, the opponents keep citing "COMMONNAME" (which I don't find relevant as the supporters are not trying to move to anything other than "Al-Aqsa Mosque" + disambiguator) and stating that the mosque itself is the primary topic of the term (citing one published statement, but without verifying the primary topic status with an actual usage examination). Some further data analysis may be helpful. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose Common usage is for the name to refer to the mosque specifically, though sometimes "compound" is appended to refer to a wider area. Haram al-Sharif is the common name for the wider area in Arabic.
  • “The Aqsa Mosque is one of the holiest structures in the Islamic faith. The mosque sits inside a 35-acre site known by Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and by Jews as the Temple Mount.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/world/middleeast/aqsa-mosque-jerusalem.html
  • "Aqṣā, al - The third holiest mosque in Islam, al-Aqṣā is part of the sacred site in Jerusalem (along with the Dome of the Rock 492 feet, or 150 meters, to its north) referred to in Arabic as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (The Noble Sanctuary) and in Hebrew as Har ha-Bayit (The Temple Mount)." http://oxfordislamicstudies.com/print/opr/t236/e1011
  • "Haram al-Sharif - The Noble Enclosure. Muslim sacred precinct on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and the site of two Islamic holy places, the al-Aqsa mosque and the Qubbat al-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock)." http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/print/opr/t125/e809
  • “The rock es-Sukrah at Jerusalem is one of the rocks of Paradise. The mosk el-Aksa is perhaps even more respected. Indeed the two are regarded as forming together one great temple; which, with their precincts, is now commonly called el-Haram esh-Sherif ; but which in earlier Arabian writers bears the general name of Mesjid el-Aksa, ” - Biblical researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea. A journal of travels in the year 1838 Robinson, Edward, 1794-1863
  • References already provided on this talk page have describes "al-Aqsa Compound" as a colloquial phrase: "The site is known in Arabic as Haram al-Sharif – the Noble Sanctuary – and colloquially as the Haram or the al-Aqsa compound;" https://books.google.com/books?id=YrztCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA243
  • References in the lead paragraph of the article state that usage of Haram al-Sharif "superseded" usage of a wider context for al-Aqsa during Ottoman rule ""Al-Masjid al-Aqsa" was the standard designation for the whole sanctuary until the Ottoman period, when it was superseded by "al-Haram al-Sharif”;" https://web.archive.org/web/20170111130058/https://books.google.com/books?id=FG6ZlkRjD2IC&pg=PA71
  • Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Aqṣā Mosque - “An early mosque located in Jerusalem on what is called in Islam “The Noble Sanctuary (al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf)”[[4]]
  • Encyclopaedia of Islam “Al-Aqṣā mosque (al-masjid al-Aqṣā) refers specifically to the large mosque on the southwestern corner of al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem, but the name is also used for the entire religious compound, including the Dome of the Rock.” [[5]]
Consensus will determine how to navigate between “refers specifically” and “is also used”.
Drsmoo (talk) 04:10, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Per my comment below at 07:15, 19 June 2022, the quoted excerpts from the last two bullets above (Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān and Encyclopaedia of Islam, both added to this list at 02:21, 19 June 2022) provide a partial picture. A full reading of these encyclopedia articles, just like the Britannica article on Al Aqsa Mosque, support disambiguation. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:41, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The ambiguity is very small to nonexistent, present in a small minority of biased claims. This is Al Jazeera's explanation: "Al-Aqsa is the name of the silver-domed mosque inside a 35-acre compound referred to as al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, by Muslims, and as the Temple Mount by Jews.". Most sources that use mosque refer to the silver domed mosque, the wider area is referred to by other names. --StellarNerd (talk) 04:04, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
    An ambiguity either exists or it doesn't, and if it does, it needs disambiguation. Where do 'a small minority of biased claims' and 'most sources' come from? Iskandar323 (talk) 04:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
    @StellarNerd: This Al Jazeera video tour of Al Aqsa Mosque with 13 million views (see index page here) calls the southern building the Qibli Mosque and says it is also known as the Al Aqsa Mosque, "although that title more accurately describes the entire compound". They then provide a little diagram to make it clear. Start from 4:40 to see it. Using the term "Qibli" for the southern building (the topic of this article) and "Al Aqsa" for the compound is Al Jazeera's standard way of disambiguating here (see e.g. [6]). Onceinawhile (talk) 08:07, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
  • A plea for a focus on our policies: Per the above "Relister comment" two days ago, the outcome of this discussion should be based upon our WP:DAB policy, specifically WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That is the only thing we should be discussing. Yet not a single one of the oppose voters has directly addressed this policy, or attempted to prove that the current topic at this title "is highly likely — much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined — to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Support voters have provided evidence for ambiguity, bringing all five of the scholarly references below as well as providing Gscholar/Gbooks usage examinations, whereas the oppose votes have brought individual use examples but no attempts to evidence relative frequency and the "highly likely" test. That is presumably because counting the frequency of different use examples of homographs can only be done manually.
Another interesting point from the same policy is WP:NCDAB, which says: When there is another term (such as Apartment instead of Flat) or more complete name (such as English language instead of English) that is unambiguous, commonly used in English (even without being the most common term), and equally clear, that term is typically the best to use. So for those averse to a long title, this "even without being the most common term" would allow us to follow the outcome of a similar discussion at Commons:Special:Permalink/510293901#Al-Aqsa Mosque ambiguity from two years ago.
Onceinawhile (talk) 16:31, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
That is incorrect, and the above is simply WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, multiple reliable sources, including NYTimes and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, show the primary topic for this name is the mosque specifically, that al-Aqsa compound is a colloquial phrase, and that Haram al-Sharif superseded usage of Al-Aqsa Mosque for the entire space in Ottoman times. Which is confirmed by multiple references included below as well, which also attest to the fact that the space is "usually supposed"/"many people believe" to be the mosque building alone. It's also worth noting that the Commons:Village Pump response correctly observes that the common English term for the whole area is "Temple Mount". Is it your intention to "follow the outcome" of that discussion, which suggested "Temple Mount and Al-Qibli Chapel"? Because that is not what was proposed in the move discussion.Drsmoo (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
No. Cherrypicked use example sources do not have any bearing on the "highly likely" primary topic requirement in our policy. As I wrote above, I ran a GScholar "al aqsa mosque" search: I went through the first ten and counted six about the compound, three about the building (one on its dome and two on its beams) and a third about a separate building altogether (the library). That is at least 60% about the compound.. This type of analysis is the way to assess the "highly likely" test required under WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:17, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Ah, so the New York Times and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and Encyclopaedia of Islam, are "cherry-picked", as opposed to the sources you prefer, of course (even though many of the sources you added also attest to the fact that commonly the phrase is assigned the mosque building specifically). Drsmoo (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
It is irrelevant. That there are source saying two different things means that there is ambiguity in the meaning. Hence it requires disambiguation. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:26, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
So then create a link at the top of the article that says "For Haram al-Sharif or the al-Aqsa Mosque Compound" and directs to Temple Mount. Drsmoo (talk) 18:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
That would only be the correct approach if the Al-Aqsa building was the clear primary topic for Al-Aqsa Mosque, which no one has shown it is. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Is it not likely that a significant number of readers searching for "Al Aqsa Mosque" could be Muslim? We have multiple sources stating that "Al Aqsa Mosque" is the Muslim name for the compound (not the prayer hall building which is the subject of this article). The table below shows that there are approximately 300 million English-speaking Muslims in the world. In other words, Muslims represent one-quarter of all English speakers in the world. The topic of the mosque compound is very important to all Muslims... Onceinawhile (talk) 19:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Table of the world's c.300 million English-speaking Muslims
Country Total English speakers (from List of countries by English-speaking population) Muslim population (from Islam by country) English speaking Muslims
%
United States 96% 3,450,000 3,294,750
Nigeria 86% 99000000 85,555,800
India 11% 200,000,000 21,240,000
Philippines 58% 8725000 5,077,950
United Kingdom 98% 4,130,000 4,059,790
Germany 56% 5450000 3,052,000
Uganda 90% 5,435,234 4,886,275
Canada 83% 1,148,213 953,706
Egypt 35% 87500000 30,625,000
France 39% 5,720,000 2,230,800
Australia 93% 666,000 618,048
Bangladesh 12% 153,700,000 18,444,000
Pakistan 9% 212,300,000 19,319,300
Japan 15% 185,000 27,750
Ghana 67% 6,442,205 4,295,018
Russia 12% 18000000 2,133,000
Thailand 27% 3,640,000 988,624
Italy 34% 2,987,840 1,015,866
South Africa 31% 1,050,000 325,500
Mexico 13% 5,500 710
Malaysia 63% 20,063,500 12,553,732
Netherlands 91% 887,000 806,283
Poland 37% 6,796 2,515
Sri Lanka 62% 2,105,000 1,305,100
Turkey 17% 74,423,725 12,652,033
Zimbabwe 82% 100,000 82,070
Iraq 35% 38,465,864 13,463,052
Brazil 5% 767583.5 38,379
Spain 22% 1,180,000 259,600
China 1% 28127500 253,148
Sweden 89% 800,000 712,000
Kenya 19% 5,500,000 1,035,650
Cameroon 38% 7,692,289 2,923,070
Ukraine 18% 695000 125,100
Belgium 60% 879,377 527,626
Israel 85% 1,516,482 1,288,555
Austria 73% 720,000 525,600
Romania 31% 136500 42,315
Greece 51% 414318 211,302
Sierra Leone 84% 6,067,706 5,068,355
Denmark 86% 313,713 269,793
Switzerland 61% 100,000 61,280
Morocco 14% 37,930,989 5,310,338
Norway 90% 175,507 157,956
Republic of Ireland 98% 1,566,786 1,541,247
Singapore 83% 915,118 760,463
New Zealand 98% 41,000 40,106
Madagascar 18% 2,568,361 462,305
Tanzania 10% 19,426,814 1,921,312
Finland 75% 102,000 76,500
Cambodia 22% 311,044 69,052
Papua New Guinea 50% 2,000 995
Hong Kong 46% 295,746 136,250
Portugal 27% 65,000 17,550
Liberia 83% 961,953 795,247
Jordan 45% 10,165,577 4,574,510
Czechia 27% 15000 4,050
Argentina 7% 400,000 26,080
Jamaica 98% 5,624 5,491
Croatia 60% 64,057 38,434
Algeria 7% 41,240,913 2,886,864
Myanmar 4% 5,837,839 259,784
Yemen 9% 27,784,498 2,500,605
Colombia 4% 96,337 4,065
Hungary 20% 50000 10,000
Puerto Rico 49% 1,000 486
Zambia 16% 168,877 27,054
Bulgaria 25% 861,015 215,254
Kazakhstan 15% 13,158,672 2,026,435
Lebanon 40% 3,567,211 1,426,884
Chile 10% 4,000 381
Rwanda 15% 576,054 86,408
Slovakia 26% 10,866 2,825
Slovenia 59% 73,568 43,405
Trinidad and Tobago 88% 78,000 68,437
Lithuania 38% 3,000 1,140
Latvia 46% 2,000 920
Nepal 3% 1,292,909 38,787
Subtotal 287,888,067
Total English speakers 1,179,874,130
Percent of subtotal English-speaking Muslims / all English speakers 24.4%
"We have multiple sources stating that "Al Aqsa Mosque" is the Muslim name for the compound" - That is not correct, at least not in the sources provided, none of which state that the term is "the Muslim name for the compound", though some state that the term applying to a wider area is a colloquialism/superseded by Haram al-Sharif. However, there are many sources which do in fact state that Muslims refer to the site as Haram al-Sharif, and that the site is commonly referred to in English as the Temple Mount. I'm not sure why the Village Pump discussion was linked to, but the move request doesn't conform to it? Just have a redirect to Temple Mount, which is the common english term. This article is also certified good, was that designation wrong? Or did something change since then? Drsmoo (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Some examples below:
Onceinawhile (talk) 19:58, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
All three of those sources call the space Haram al-Sharif, the third is referring directly to the quote immediately above it by Raed Salah, and states that “all others” call it the Temple Mount (and has Temple Mount in the title). Are these cherry picked sources as well? Drsmoo (talk) 20:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Exactly. And when you look at the news today, it is "Al Aqsa", "Al Aqsa", "Al Aqsa". Either way, "Al Aqsa Mosque" is understood by Muslims to relate to the whole compound, because anyone familiar with the Quran knows that it couldn't possibly relate to the southern building which was built much later.
I will admit that my interest in this topic was sparked a number of years ago on a visit to the compound. Being a regular Wikipedia editor in this area I thought I knew what I was talking about and when I got into a conversation - in English - with someone there I asked him to tell me about the Al Aqsa Mosque, pointing to the southern building. You should have seen the reaction. He thought I was completely insane, lectured me for ten minutes, and then on my way out of the compound later repeated the same thing again. As I said, all of this was in English. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
That is a lovely personal anecdote, perhaps he should tell The New York Times, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Encyclopedia of Islam, etc. Drsmoo (talk) 20:42, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Those sources make no reference to this specific sub-discussion, which is how Muslims use the term "Al Aqsa Mosque". There are multiple reliably sourced quotes above stating clearly in English that Muslims call the compound Al Aqsa Mosque. They match with anecdotal evidence. And as to "what are our readers searching for", which is the ultimate question here, see below some "reader comments" (i.e. comments on the talk page from non-regular editors) from the last few years (there are many more in the archives if helpful):
  • 28 May 2021 160.39.58.140: "Within the definition: After the vandalism in El aqtza in 1969, Muslims in Israel refers El eqtza as the whole mountain."
  • 22 August 2020 Ahmad Massalha: "I second that the naming is wrong and misinformed. The Aqsa mosque is all of the area which includes the Dome of the Rock, the Qibli Chapel, and other chapels and rooms. This misinformation must be corrected applying Wiki rules and guides."
  • 23 January 2020 BosnianWikiS: "Al-Aqsa is not silver but golden-domed mosque."
  • 22 August 2018 Mohammed77779: "We should know that Muslims believe that Al-Aqsa consists of The Dome of the rock and Al-Qibli Chapel, so they are two parts of the same thing, every thing inside the siege is considered as a part of Al-Aqsa; which is around 144,000 square meters. what I want to say is that If anyone try to write about this topic, s/he should keep in mind this difference between the two things; because I have observed that pictures of Al-Qibli Chapel are used to refer to the whole place and Al-Qibli Chapel is used as a redirect to Al-Aqsa, which made the topic to be confused."
Onceinawhile (talk) 20:47, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
"Those sources make no reference to this specific sub-discussion, which is how Muslims use the term "Al Aqsa Mosque"." ...yes, they do. Users can just scroll up and read them. "known by Muslims as Haram al-Sharif"/"referred to in Arabic as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf", among all the other sources. And scholarly descriptions saying the whole area is referred to in Arabic/by Muslims as Haram al-Sharif are ubiquitous. I'm not sure why you're posting talk-page comments, but ok. Drsmoo (talk) 21:08, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Nonsense argument from silence. The same source (you actually provided only one which specifically comments on Muslim terminology) says it is known to Jews as the Temple Mount; that says nothing about whether Jews also know it as “Har haBayīt (Mount of the House [of God])”, which you yourself claimed just two weeks ago. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:19, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
And the response was that the relevant detail was not the Hebrew name, but what names were commonly used in English.Drsmoo (talk) 23:11, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
The reader comments are there because policy requires us to assess what are our readers searching for. The fact that we have received so many consistent reader complaints must be taken into account in that assessment. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Might have been this fellow bending your ear, Once :)
Dr Yousef: [00:25:55] Al Aqsa mosque, which sometimes is named or called al Haram al Sharif, the Nobel Sanctuary, or the Jerusalem holiest mosque, al Haram al Qudsia Sharif. All of them it means the whole compound, which is located in the south Eastern part of the old city of Jerusalem
Selfstudier (talk) 22:17, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Throw this source in as well, I can't see it anywhere [6] Selfstudier (talk) 18:16, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: You have been shown plenty of sources that clearly demonstrate 'Al-Aqsa Mosque' has been used on many occasions to refer to the entire site (alongside the name Haram al-Sharif), which is all that anybody needs to show here to justify a move towards disambiguating the title, which is the entire point of this discussion. What exactly are you trying to demonstrate? Iskandar323 (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
I think the best summary can be found in two scholarly encyclopedias. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān
Aqṣā Mosque - “An early mosque located in Jerusalem on what is called in Islam “The Noble Sanctuary (al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf” [[7]]
and Encyclopaedia of Islam “Al-Aqṣā mosque (al-masjid al-Aqṣā) refers specifically to the large mosque on the southwestern corner of al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem, but the name is also used for the entire religious compound, including the Dome of the Rock.” [[8]] Consensus will determine how to navigate between “refers specifically” and “is also used”. As for me, I’ve already given my opinion and don’t feel the need to re-state it. Drsmoo (talk) 02:21, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
The EQ article was published by an Islamic Art student - Nola Jeanette Johnson - in 2001, the same year she published her PhD.[9] She doesn't seem to have published any other articles in her entire scholarly career. As described above, when the term is used in the context of Islamic Art or Islamic Architecture, it means the building, so this person would have been expected to use the term in this way. Having said which, her entire first paragraph is about Quranic usage, ending with the words "In the earliest associations of al-masjid al-aqsā with Jerusalem, it is likely that the whole of the Haram was thought to be a place of prayer" - a complicated way of saying that the Quranic usage refers to the compound. The EI article, written by Prof Uri Kupferschmidt, explains the different uses of the term Al-Aqsa [Mosque]: "1. Al-Aqṣā in the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, sīra, and tafsīr", "2. Al-Aqṣā from the twentieth century onwards" and "3. Al-Aqṣā in collective memory and political discourse". This is all consistent with what we know from above:
  • If your primary interest is Islamic Art or Architecture, when using the term you will mean the building
  • If your primary interest is Quranic usage, when using the term you will mean the compound
  • If your primary interest is modern political usage, when using the term you will mean the compound
So, returning to the policy, PRIMARYTOPIC asks us to judge what which topic "highly likely" - more likely than all the others combined - to be in a reader's mind. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Just for added emphasis on all the above, here is The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. 2008. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-85109-842-2. Al-Aqsa Mosque The al-Aqsa Mosque (literally, "farthest mosque") is both a building and a complex of religious buildings in Jerusalem. It is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews and Christians as the Har ha-Bayit or Temple Mount. The whole area of the Noble Sanctuary is considered by Muslims to be the al-Aqsa Mosque, and the entire precinct is inviolable according to Islamic law. It is considered specifically part of the waqf (endowment) land that had included the Western Wall (Wailing Wall), property of an Algerian family, and more generally a waqf of all of Islam. When viewed as a complex of buildings, the al-Aqsa Mosque is dominated and bounded by two major structures: the al-Aqsa Mosque building on the east and the Dome of the Rock (or the Mosque of Omar) on the west. The Dome of the Rock is the oldest holy building in Islam.
  • Comment. This is a case of pars pro toto, where the whole compound is sometimes referred to as just Al-Aqsa Mosque, which strictly speaking refers to just the building in the southern end. The most famous example of this is Holland, which is commonly used to refer to the whole country of the Netherlands, even though it is just one part of it. In this case, we have various unambiguous terms to refer to the whole compound. In my opinion, that makes the case for disambiguation weaker than in the case of Holland, which is also not disambiguated. Vpab15 (talk) 10:26, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    Apples and oranges, the Netherlands article says "informally Holland", are you suggesting we write, informally Al-Aqsa mosque at the Temple Mount article? Selfstudier (talk) 10:39, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    At Netherlands#Holland, it says even the Dutch government was using Holland to refer to the whole country, up until 2019. I wouldn't consider that informal use. Vpab15 (talk) 11:02, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    I am merely pointing out what the Netherlands article says, it says "The Netherlands...informally Holland" right there in the opening sentence of the lead.Selfstudier (talk) 11:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    No, strictly speaking Al Aqsa Mosque is a fluid term, while everything it can refer to has other names: the compound as Haram al-Sharif; the prayer hall as Qibli Mosque. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Vpab15: it's the other way round – all of the sources that describe the genesis of the dual-usage (see collapsed reference box below) explain that it is a case of Totum pro parte. Like the way in the 80s and 90s the Twin Towers were always referred to as the World Trade Center, despite that term correctly referring to a wider complex of seven buildings and the spaces in between. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:02, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Vpab15: one major difference is that the usage of "Holland" for Netherlands is unofficial. By contrast, the official name for the Temple Mount in Islamic literature is "Al-Aqsa mosque" (see for example Arabic wikipedia), and the official name for the current article is "Qibli mosque". In fact, the use of the term "Masjid Al-Aqsa" predates the construction of the building.VR talk 21:03, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I did a google of "Al-Aqsa Mosque" -Wikipedia and it was half-way down the second page before any of the ghits even mentioned that the name could refer to the wider area, the others all just used the name in the narrower sense. There is no ambiguity in terms of WP:AT. Andrewa (talk) 21:59, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Andrewa: I just did the same search and got the opposite results. My first two hits are: Britannica and Al Jazeera. The Britannica article uses the term first for the compound, then for the building and finally for the compound again. The Al Jazeera article uses the term only for the compound, and never for the building. If you are getting different links, please could you post them here - perhaps just the first 5 or 10? Onceinawhile (talk) 22:52, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
    Google has an interesting algorithm! I confess I haven't repeated the search.
    But I see no need to do it... Just look at the Britannica source you cite which reads The term Al-Aqṣā Mosque is often extended to denote the entirety of the plaza on which the mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand, although the plaza is known formally as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“the Noble Sanctuary”). (My emphasis.) It doesn't use the phrase in the wider sense, although it does note that others do. Then look at the Al Jazeera site... it refers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound (my emphasis) rather than using the phrase Al-Aqsa Mosque to refer to the larger area. So again, there seems no ambiguity... Al-Aqsa Mosque refers to the mosque, not the whole plaza.
    Reading those two articles again, I think I am perhaps beginning to understand the POV here. It is obviously offensive for Jewish prayers to be offered inside a mosque. So extending the title Al-Aqsa Mosque to cover the whole of the Temple Mount has an obvious political consequence. And we should avoid taking sides. Andrewa (talk) 05:19, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Hi @Andrewa: 80% of that Britannica article is talking explicitly and only about the compound (blue text below) rather than the southern building, and the remaining sentences are about both. It shows perfectly why the title of this article needs disambiguating:
Al-Aqṣā Mosque, mosque in Jerusalem, located in the Old City at the terminal point of the Prophet Muhammad’s Isrāʾ journey. According to Islamic sources, the Qurʾān (17:1) indicates that Muhammad was miraculously transported one night from Mecca (al-masjid al-ḥaram, or “the sacred place of worship”) to this site in Jerusalem (al-masjid al-aqṣā, “the farther place of worship”). On that spot he led Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other messengers (rusul) of God in ritual prayer (ṣalāt). That same night he was taken up to heaven from the site of the Dome of the Rock for an encounter with God (see Miʿrāj). The term Al-Aqṣā Mosque is often extended to denote the entirety of the plaza on which the mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand, although the plaza is known formally as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“the Noble Sanctuary”). In modern times the mosque and the plaza have become a particular point of tension in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Apart from its importance to Muslims, the plaza holds significance for Jews as the site of the Temple of Jerusalem, whose Herodian incarnation was destroyed in 70 CE. The Temple Mount, as Jews refer to the plaza, and the adjacent Western Wall have since served as a site of pilgrimage. During the Six-Day War, in 1967, Israel (state established 1948) captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan. Israel later annexed East Jerusalem, but the plaza was left under the custodianship of an Islamic trust (waqf) maintained by the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan. In the following decades, however, restrictions on Palestinian Muslims’ access to the site, as well as Israeli excavation projects in the vicinity and evictions of Palestinian residents in nearby neighbourhoods, contributed to Muslims’ concerns over the holy site’s fate. For more information on Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf and its significance, see Dome of the Rock.
That they have one of their facts wrong ("often extended to denote" should say "borrowed from"), as shown by high quality secondary sources (both recent and historical, well pre-dating the conflict), is an interesting aside and shows why we are a much better encyclopedia than they are... Onceinawhile (talk) 07:08, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
I just looked into this further. Al Aqsa doesn’t feature in historical Britannica editions. It turns out that the above is a new Britannica online article written in April 2022 by an associate editor called Adam Zeidan, who had just finished a PhD in Semitic languages. I don’t think Britannica has any form of editorial vetting process any more – they fix mistakes as they find them. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:07, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Qualify my !vote above: It was rather naive, the right !vote but for the wrong reasons. This RM follows edits by nom with the apparent intention of having Al-Aqsa_Mosque (whether an article title or a redirect) refer to the whole Temple Mount. This is wrong, the title is at best ambiguous and the P T if there is one is indeed the congregational mosque. The unilateral rescoping of the article by nom should be reversed, so that the article once again covers both meanings. Alternatively, a two-way DAB could be at Al-Aqsa_Mosque. Andrewa (talk) 23:09, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Request for further extension / relist I sense some traction building in the discussion. This discussion requires uninvolved editors to do quite a lot of reading in order to be comfortable supporting a change, and I would prefer that we don’t rush them. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Comment: There is indeed ongoing discussion here and at User talk:Andrewa/Aqsa. But much of it and most of the above is irrelevant to the issue here. The RM reads Al-Aqsa Mosque → Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque) – Disambiguation of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the term refers to both the congregational mosque ("Jami'a" in Arabic) or the entire mosque compound ("Masjid" in Arabic, cognate with Temple Mount). So the question here is, is Al-Aqsa Mosque sufficiently ambiguous in terms of WP:AT to require disambiguation? One motivation for this seems to be highly POV... if the term Al-Aqsa Mosque applies to the whole Temple Mount then that supports allowing Islamic prayers and only those to be permitted there, and this agenda is to be expected in some sources. That isn't a problem so far as article content goes, we simply report what the various sources say, and cite them, and thus avoid using the voice of Wikipedia either way. But the article title is far trickier. Andrewa (talk) 17:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
      By highly POV do you mean not NPOV or something else? Selfstudier (talk) 13:57, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
    • The discussion is just going around in circles. In my opinion, there is no consensus to move the page and I don't think there will be anytime soon. One reason is that Al-Aqsa Mosque cannot refer to both the congregational mosque and the whole compound. At least not at the same time. Otherwise one could write "Al-Aqsa Mosque is situated in the southern end of Al-Aqsa Mosque", which makes no sense. The compound has many names of which Al-Aqsa Mosque is just one and not the main one. A good number of the sources that use that name add "compound" or "plaza", as in "Al-Aqsa Mosque compound". To sum up, there is some ambiguity by a a few sources, but most sources use different names for the compound and the congregational mosque. The hatnotes are sufficient to redirect readers from one article to the other. Vpab15 (talk) 18:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
      The discussion is going round in circles because too many editors have refused to ground their opinions in policy. The issue here is primary topic. A review of google scholar will show that the compound is the primary topic, because apart from the physical topic, usage relating to the compound also includes the Quranic usage and the political usage. I believe that editors are inching closer to engaging with this central point. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:35, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
      Agree that primary topic is part of this. The current situation reflects the belief that the primary topic of Al-Aqsa Mosque is the mosque building. Many sources express the opposite belief, that Al-Aqsa Mosque refers instead or as well to the entire temple mount. In the article itself these differing opinions can be sourced and reported in an NPOV fashion. But in the title we do not have this option. I confess to being a little surprised that this is so controversial. Obviously there are strong political reasons for wanting to regard the whole Temple Mount as a mosque, but they are fairly transparent, or so it seems to me, and we should be very wary of supporting them. I cannot see that it improves Wikipedia to do so. Andrewa (talk) 02:50, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
      What is this space if not a a masjid (mosque) or 'place of prostration'?
      That's one side of it. It could be framed just as easily from the other direction. There are strong political reasons for not wanting to regard the whole Temple Mount as a mosque, despite the historical and present reality (see image). The political dimension to this has obviously bubbled up since 1948; the question is, does Wikipedia currently reflect all of this information neutrally at present, or is its core principle of neutrality being undermined with respect to this content? Coming back to the primary topic question, there seems to be little compelling evidence that one usage of Al-Aqsa Mosque holds sway over the other. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:18, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
      Exactly. The sources state that the Temple Mount has consistently been regarded as Masjid Al Aqsa for more than 1,000 years. Amongst some observers it was upgraded for a period above Masjid to "Haram", but was still always Masjid Al Aqsa. The POV question is not about whether or not the Temple Mount has been or is regarded as a Masjid - that is an incontrovertible fact. The debate is about whether Masjid Al Aqsa is a true synonym of "Al Aqsa Mosque" in English, which given how obvious the mosque = masjid equation is, is presumably only a debate because there are strong political reasons for not wanting to regard the whole Temple Mount as a mosque. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:59, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
      Observation This article used to cover both uses of the term. Roughly 2000 words related to the broader usage of the term al-Aqsa Mosque were removed from this article here by the user who proposed the move, the day after he proposed it. Drsmoo (talk) 12:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
      And does any conclusion follow from this observation? Selfstudier (talk) 12:41, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
That it's odd to make an argument that the scope of the Al-Aqsa Mosque article should cover the wider usage, while being the one who limited the scope of the article and proposed to rename it to that narrower scope. Not to mention redirecting pages that are literal translations of the term Al-Aqsa Mosque to Temple Mount, with the argument that the Al-Aqsa Mosque page doesn't contain that scope, when they were the one who limited it. Obviously there is no problem with an Al-Aqsa Mosque article that covers the common usage of the term while explaining the broader usage as well, which this article did, and was rated "Good". What conclusion do you draw? What is the rationale for removing massive amounts of content from a "Good Article" to change its scope, while proposing a name change to reflect the reduced scope you created, while arguing that the scope of the subject reflects the wider context that you just removed? Drsmoo (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
The rationale is at WP:CONTENTFORK and WP:V. The correct place for primary information about the compound is at Temple Mount. And this article was previously wrong, implying incorrectly that the "third holiest" and "first qibla" titles belonged to the prayer hall (irrespective of its name). Onceinawhile (talk) 14:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
So, you're saying that you personally decided, based on a misunderstanding of Content Fork, that this article's scope should be reduced, and the content related to wider usage moved to the Temple Mount article. This despite this article being rated good while explaining the wider usage, and clearly existing alongside the Temple Mount article with no issues. Your understanding of Content Fork is incorrect. "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork." This is also self evident based on the fact that this article existed and was rated "Good" while covering the wider scope alongside Temple Mount. Along with numerous other examples, such as New York City/Big Apple and Violin/Fiddle, etc. Drsmoo (talk) 15:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
This article should be limited to the congregational mosque, just as the other Islamic edifices on the Temple Mount, including the other 'main' Islamic edifice, the Dome of the Rock, have their own articles. The shared name of 'al-Aqsa Mosque' between the congregational mosque and the wider site should be explained in this article, but we should not have the two subjects totally overlapped as it only causes confusion. At the time when I was editing and nominating this article for GA status, I was not paying much attention to the fact that a lot of the information about al-Aqsa Mosque in the sources, especially regarding the religious significance and administration aspects, applied to the whole compound (the Temple Mount). So you have a situation whereby the History section almost exclusively deals with the construction aspects of the congregational mosque, while most of the other sections deal with the wider site and concept. My lack of understanding only contributed to the current mess, which needs to be addressed. Also, the GA status, which was last granted to this article over 10 years ago, should not preclude serious efforts to sort this mess, which is one of several reasons why, imo, the article no longer meets the GA standards. The other reasons could be detailed in a different discussion. Al Ameer (talk) 18:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Very well said. Andrewa (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm led to believe that the editor primarily responsible for twice bringing the article to GA status no longer believes that it is GA "with failure to address the confusion of the mosque/compound being one of several reasons it should be reassessed/demoted". Selfstudier (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support I was invited to offer my thoughts by the nominator due to my previous involvement here. There were a couple of past proposals to rename this article 'Qibli Mosque', reserving 'al-Aqsa Mosque' for the compound, which I opposed, as the former is not as common as our current title for the congregational mosque building. The congregational mosque, which is (or should be) the specific subject of this article, and the wider compound are both commonly referred to as 'al-Aqsa Mosque'. This is not really disputed by reliable sources and is a separate matter from the Muslim–Jewish religious dispute over the site (the proposal is not calling for the Temple Mount to be renamed 'al-Aqsa Mosque (compound)'). I believe the nominator and others have demonstrated this. Historical and technical accuracies are important, but the current proposal mainly makes sense if we accept that a substantial portion or majority of interested readers searching for 'al-Aqsa Mosque' are intending to read about the wider compound and will be led/misled to the congregational mosque article instead. It would be nice to have actual numbers, but short of that, I believe it is very reasonable that many readers will be seeking the article about the compound (Temple Mount) and many will be seeking this article about the congregational mosque, hence the need for a disambiguation page called 'al-Aqsa Mosque' (where we could go as far as including pictures clarifying the difference). The current solution of using a hatnote to point readers who have the compound in mind to the Temple Mount, while still helpful, is a half-measure. Al Ameer (talk) 18:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
But I disagree. I think a move to a controversial longer title will make the article even more confusing for readers, and reduce the quality, which is why I think the hatnotes are sufficient. Khestwol (talk) 20:55, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
But I agree. Shouldn't argue with sources, our job is to explain not suppress them. If the article is already confusing we should set about lessening that and I fail to see how explanation would reduce quality. Imagine that there were an article for the Sanctuary and imagine how you would explain it there, would you still be using hatnotes? Selfstudier (talk) 21:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I think it is more than sufficiently confusing. I myself was confused a month ago, before I read multiple sources on the subject in depth, and here you have the editor who brought the article twice to good article status stating that they also got tangled up in the confusion. This isn't a small, minor or otherwise cursory confusion. This is a very fundamental and important one. Did the hatnote help? Not really. Will it helps others? Probably not. At the moment, it is not even worded well. 'Main mosque building' is not a proper or useful term; instead, 'congregational mosque prayer hall' would be more or less the bare minimum for precisely disambiguating this terminology. @Khestwol: Since you recently revised it without addressing this, it would appear that you are also either unattuned to the detail here or also confused. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:42, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
There are sufficient reliable sources to explain both the common english usage of the word, as well as the wider usage of the compound within one article. Additionally, the article can explain how how the terminology has developed over time. There are sources that do just that and have been provided here. This article was rated "Good" with a configuration based on explaining all uses, and this article had content related to the wider usage before it was removed immediately following this move request being opened. Though I think the article can be improved not only beyond the state it was in prior to the move request, but beyond its prior "Good" article designation as well. Per Selfstudier above "My sense is that the root of the problem is that there is an article called Temple Mount referring to the compound and no such article for the "other side" which I would class as a NPOV". The solution to this is to improve the article back to its good state. Drsmoo (talk) 13:38, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree. After this RM, we can open a peer review, to coordinate views on what is needed to ensure it returns to the WP:GA requirements. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Strong support. I think the opposes are not understanding the issue here. When literature says "Al-Aqsa mosque" is the "third holiest in Islam", they are almost always referring to the entire Temple Mount complex (certainly including Dome of the Rock). In fact, the top results of a google image search of the term show either pictures of Dome of the Rock or the entire Temple Mount - the south building doesn't even come up in the top search results. Consider also that we currently have Masjid al-Aqsa redirecting to Temple Mount. This is silly. "Al-Aqsa mosque" is the English translation of "Masjid al-Aqsa" and they shouldn't be redirecting to different pages. The technical name for the current article topic is "Qibli" (see the Arabic encyclopedia article), but I grant that Al-Aqsa is more commonly used. This is why we need a disambiguation. Also, I prefer either Al Aqsa Mosque (building) or Al Aqsa Mosque (Qibli), but I'm ok with what is proposed too.VR talk 20:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Consider also that the usage of the term "Masjid Al-Aqsa" in Islamic literature (for example the Quran) predates any Islamic structure or even any Muslim presence at the site.VR talk 21:03, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
If most sources refer to the whole compound as Al-Aqsa Mosque, then they must refer to the congregational mosque by a different name (maybe Qibli?). In that case, a new move request should be created for that name. Vpab15 (talk) 21:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
No, as shown above, the sources are split. The sources I quoted refer to the whole compound as Al-Aqsa mosque, but others (eg Srnec) have quoted sources that use "Al Aqsa mosque" to refer to just the building. Thus a disambiguator is required.VR talk 21:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Per WP:TITLEDAB, Qibli could be the natural disambiguation in this case, assuming it is relatively common and not an obscure name. That would be preferable to using an ambiguous name. Vpab15 (talk) 13:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
@Vpab15: you seemed to have contradicted yourself here by opposing the proposal for "Qibli mosque".VR talk 04:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Consider also this source that explains the ambiguity:

The al-Aqsa Mosque (literally, “farthest mosque”) is both a building and a complex of religious buildings in Jerusalem. Source:Richard Edwards, The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History, ABC_CLIO, p. 70

VR talk 21:03, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Redirects

I think that the target Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque), currently a redlink, should be created as a redirect, pointing to this article. Does anyone object to me doing this immediately?

We should also clean up Al-Qibli Chapel which once redirected to a now non-existent section, and is now incorrectly flagged as R to section. We seem to have lost this content, or can anyone find it for me?

And, are Al-Qibli and Qibli Mosque both other names for this? Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

In that nobody speaks and in that it's good to have an explicit name (at least as a redirect) for the building that is the narrower term, I have created the redirect at Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque).

Looking at the (long!) discussion above, it seems to me that the controversial issue is not so much whether we should have an article scoped to the building or even what it is to be called, but what to do with the name Al-Aqsa Mosque.

If it is to be the name of an article or even a redirect to an article, that article needs to cover both meanings. The other acceptable solution would be a two-way (at least) DAB. But a redirect to an article scoped to just one meaning (which seems to be the agenda of the nom) is not a good solution. Comments? Andrewa (talk) 18:20, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

@Andrewa: Al-Muṣallā al-Qiblī (the Qibli prayer hall, Qibli mosque, Qibli chapel (I suppose? Odd though.)) is the original name for the building, which was built built at a time when Masjid Al-aqsa or "Al-Aqsa Mosque" was so indisputably a name for the entire site that the modern contentions and confusions did not exist. As to my intent, I stated the need to disambiguate the modern, blurred meanings of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the immediately preceding talk page discussion. For now, I see the "Al-Aqsa Mosque" becoming a DAB page to the two competing meanings of the term: one in relation to the whole compound, which is the historic sense, still dominant sense in Arabic and subject-matter expert usage; the other being the sense on this page, which is a name for the Qibli prayer hall - a usage largely borne out by the news cycle, possibly due to unfortunate journalistic confusion, and replicated in pop literature. Some now see this as the clear primary topic, but no one has actually made a compelling case for that in this talk page thread. There is not a single piece of detailed source analysis even attempting to establish the Qibli prayer hall as the primary topic for "Al-Aqsa Mosque". Hence the motive to disambiguate. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:27, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Thank you! I was not questioning your motives... although nom has seriously questioned mine and that is an ongoing discussion! But nom is Onceinawhile and I'm very confidently assuming that it is not you!
My thinking on this has changed (see my modified !vote above) as I have done more research and I agree that the term Al-Aqsa Mosque needs disambiguation if it is used for an article on just the building. Either we restore the article to cover both meanings, which has the advantage of allowing a section on the history of the name, with references, or we have a DAB at the base name in which case a section on the name would then be appropriate in the article on the building IMO, with a very brief section linking to it from the Temple Mount article. Messy but it can work.
You suggest other historical names for the building... Al-Muṣallā al-Qiblī, Qibli prayer hall, Qibli mosque, Qibli chapel, one of these differs from my suggestion Qibli Mosque only in capitalisation, and Al-Muṣallā al-Qiblī seems to be a less concise version of Al-Qibli, or is the latter ambiguous too? All are currently redlinks... are redirects from any of them justified, do you think? I will not create them anyway for the moment, better to see how this RM ends up and save the bot and database some work. Andrewa (talk) 05:55, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
True, I'm not the nom, though from the previous discussion you can see that the proposed move target was suggested by me. You're right that there is a bit of a pickle in terms of picking the best path forward. I supported the nom here because any notable building is an object of obvious and discrete encyclopedic value, and so, if this were a page devoted to both the wider usage of the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" and an architectural assessment of the Qibli prayer hall, there would still be a strong argument for then splitting the latter off as building/architectural article anyway. Since the current article is largely the latter already, I support this article being formally scoped as such. As for the disambiguation of "Al-Aqsa Mosque" as a wider term, I see three basic options: 1) to have a simple DAB page showing "Al-Aqsa Mosque (compound)" and "Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque)" with the former being a redirect to one of the sections on Temple mount, where the information on the historic naming is expounded, or 2) to have "Al-Aqsa Mosque" as an article purely devoted to the term itself, the history of the name (amply justifiable given the religious context and symbolism), with hatnotes and links to the relevant related articles on the compound and building. OR 3), do both 1) and 2), taking these options as a two-step disambiguation process. This third option accounts for the fact that a page fully explaining and expounding the term, its history and religious context may be best, but that editors resources are limited, and doing this may take time. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Al-Muṣallā al-Qiblī is simply the Arabic transliteration (not an English name), which I provided for context, because musalla is a simple term for "prayer hall" and denotes the humble origins of the structure as a part of the wider mosque complex, in contrast to the somewhat aggrandized modern misconstrued labelling of the building (a part) as the whole. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:24, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@Andrewa: The purpose of this move discussion is to ultimately try to force a rename of the Temple Mount article away from its common name towards a nondescript term like “Sacred Esplanade”. Discussed in this move discussion here. You can also see on the Temple Mount article the same group of users pushing for this rename are pushing for a rename to Sacred Esplanade there. The user who started this move discussion was trying to enter language there calling Temple Mount an exclusively Jewish term, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Temple_Mount#Naming Iskandar called the Temple Mount title NPOV, but is proposing to redirect all of this article’s references to the wider area to the Temple Mount article. I think you can see where this is going. Wiki policy allows for multiple articles that cover different aspects of the same place. So what is happening is a moving of all aspects of the wider sense of Haram Al-Sharif/Al-Aqsa Mosque to the Temple Mount article/renaming the Al-Aqsa Mosque article, to then claim that it’s not neutral to have it all under the “Jewish” term of Temple Mount and push for a rename to a non-common, generic title. That’s why the user who made this move request is simultaneously A. claiming the term “Al-Aqsa Mosque” refers to a wider area. B. taking references to that wider area out of the Al-Aqsa Mosque article and moving them to the Temple Mount article, while also redirecting English translations of Al-Aqsa Mosque to Temple Mount. C. claiming that that the term Temple Mount is non neutral and should be changed to “Sacred Esplanade”. To make sense of the strange behavior at this article, you have to see what’s going on at the Temple Mount article (including multiple users repeatedly trying to insert a “terminology image” that uses “Sacred Esplanade” as the main name and “Temple Mount” as an AKA.
The easy solution is to keep the Al-Aqsa Mosque article in the configuration it had when it was certified good, restore the deleted material that conforms with the wider usage of the term, and have both Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque articles coexisting. Drsmoo (talk) 10:35, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@Andrewa: The best way to understand this move discussion is to read the discussion that preceded it on the Temple Mount page. There was a prolonged discussion there regarding naming. My assessment is that following this move discussion, there will likely be a requested move of the Temple Mount article away from its common name towards a nondescript term like “Sacred Esplanade”. That proposal is also discussed in this move discussion here. You can also see on the Temple Mount article the same group of users pushing for this rename are pushing for a rename to Sacred Esplanade there. The user who started this move discussion was trying to enter language there calling Temple Mount an exclusively Jewish term, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Temple_Mount#Naming Iskandar called the Temple Mount title NPOV, but is proposing to redirect all of this article’s references to the wider area to the Temple Mount article. I think you can see where this is going. However, wiki policy allows for multiple articles that cover different aspects of the same place "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork." So what is happening is a moving of all aspects of the wider sense of Haram Al-Sharif/Al-Aqsa Mosque to the Temple Mount article/renaming the Al-Aqsa Mosque article to prevent the wider usage content being restored, and if users maintain the opinions they've expressed here, there will be a claim that it’s not neutral to have it all under the “Jewish” term of Temple Mount with a push for a rename to a non-common, generic title. Then, if successful, the Al-Aqsa Mosque article will remain, and references to the Temple Mount throughout Wikipedia will be removed, despite it being the common name in English . To make sense of the strange behavior at this article, you have to see what’s going on at the Temple Mount article (including multiple users repeatedly trying to insert a “terminology image” that uses “Sacred Esplanade” as the main name and “Temple Mount” as an AKA).
The easy solution is to keep the Al-Aqsa Mosque article in the configuration it had when it was certified good, restore the deleted material that conforms with the wider usage of the term, and have both Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque articles coexisting. edited 17:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
The easy solution is to be neutral as in WP:NPOV. Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
A few weeks ago, you wrote "the root of the problem is that there is an article called Temple Mount referring to the compound and no such article for the "other side". My proposal is to have an article for the "other side". Do you no longer agree with that? Drsmoo (talk) 12:35, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I refer you to the comment you are (non sequitur) replying to (before your strikethrough/rearrange) and to the comments I have made at the TM article. This discussion is not about TM. (and please stop dicking around with the indentation, I had to redo this). Selfstudier (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't aware I had changed the indentation at all. Could you elaborate on what you mean by "neutral as in WP:NPOV"?Drsmoo (talk) 18:58, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Go by the sources. Selfstudier (talk) 21:22, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Drsmoo, please note that correlation does not imply causation. Your incorrect assessment of others' "purpose" is inappropriate and bizarre, given that these are separate topics. I began my interest in fixing the confusing usage of Al Aqsa back in 2018 (Talk:Al-Aqsa Mosque/Archive 4#Name of article, and etymology & definitions sections), catalyzed by the personal experience I told in what you described as a "lovely personal anecdote".[10] I have been reading and learning ever since. The question of the name of the Temple Mount article is a new one, raised by other editors. Please can we keep to the topic at hand. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:55, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: You are correct that the Temple Mount is not neutral and an astonishing violation of NPOV, but that really has very little indeed to do with the discussion at hand here, and you would do better to consider Wikipedia discussions on their merit with respect to Wikipedia policy and guidelines, rather than with respect to the motives you attribute within your own mind to the actions of other editors. Though even your aspersions are off-key: organizations such as the UN that attempt to apply neutral terminology to the site tend towards Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount as the operative terminology, since the term Haram Al-Sharif unambiguously covers the entire area, so how “Al-Aqsa Mosque” is defined is of little import. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
How is the name Temple Mount not neutral for describing the Temple Mount? It is the commonly used term in English. The only way an argument could be made that it's not-neutral would be if the content ONLY lived under the umbrella of Temple Mount, and if there was no article for Islamic usage. However, that was not the case until this move discussion, and the best course of action is to have articles for both, in keeping with Wiki policy. I can't understand claiming that Temple Mount is non neutral, while moving content from here to there. There is no wikipolicy that necessitates moving that content. Drsmoo (talk) 12:52, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
See: Carman, John; Turek, Jan (2016). "Looking Back and Forward". Archaeologies. 12 (3). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 231–239. doi:10.1007/s11759-017-9304-z. ISSN 1555-8622. In part, the issue is one of the technical interpretations of WAC Statutes which require WAC to adhere to UN and UNESCO principles of Human Rights and official languages: whether the latter extends to adoption of UNESCO names for things and places is less clear. But it goes further than this: the names applied to places are also indications of claims of ownership and stakeholder status. Since WAC is also bound to defy the forcible occupation of territory and the oppression of peoples, to recognise 'Temple Mount' as a legitimate title is potentially to recognise Israeli claims and therefore implicitly offer support for Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in defiance of international condemnation.
Also note Ngrams which shows that the term did not become widely used until after Israel's 1967 occupation. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
That doesn't answer my question at all. As I replied to Iskandar, that reasoning could only possibly make sense if all Islamic related content were only discussed in the Temple Mount article, and the Temple Mount article was a catch all. There is nothing biased about having an article for the Temple Mount, which is both highly notable and highly common. It goes without saying that archaeological journal articles are written constantly that use the term Temple Mount. In fact, as Iskandar linked above, the terminology used by the UN now includes Temple Mount. Previously, there were articles that covered both the wider usage of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as Temple Mount. You have been removing long-standing Islamic-related content from the Al-Aqsa Mosque article, to put in the Temple Mount article, actions which you seem to believe are creating a non NPOV situation. Why would you deliberately create a situation you believe is non neutral, when there is no wiki policy that necessitates it? Regarding Ngrams, Al-Aqsa Mosque usage ramps up at the same time, just with less usage. Drsmoo (talk) 14:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Well, the UN is actually a little ambiguous on the subject, alternating between Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount and just Haram al-Sharif, as per General Assembly votes in both 2019 and 2021. But your point is moot, because the temple mount page is currently also the only one for Haram al-Sharif, unless you are arguing that this page, Al-Aqsa Mosque, is for the entire site, which runs counter to your usual position on the subject, which is that "Al-Aqsa Mosque" is not a term for the entire site. However, if you are now arguing the opposite, then you would seem to be arguing for a fairly exemplary POVFORK, with two parallel histories, one Jewish and one Islamic. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:29, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Only because the content for Haram Al-Sharif was removed from here and moved to there. Previously, this article covered both usages, which is when it was rated Good. My position is the factual statement that the term Al-Aqsa Mosque is commonly used to describe the mosque building specifically, with compound appended for wider usage, and that if this article is to cover only the building, it does not need a name change. However, that was before I observed that the scope of this article was massively changed, away from its good state. My position continues to be that the article title should not change, but also that the relevant content explaining the wider usage should be restored to the article. And if not that, an article for Al-Aqsa Mosque (Compound) or Haram al-Sharif should be created. What definitely should not happen, is to remove Islamic content from pages focused on that content, move it to Temple Mount, creating a situation that you then deem NPOV, then allege that this newly created situation you deem POV necessitates renaming (essentially removing) Temple Mount, all while Wiki policy supports having multiple articles. Drsmoo (talk) 14:40, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Please see my comment below (11:13, 30 June 2022) with green text quotation confirming that Al Ameer, the primary author of the article and the editor who brought it twice to GA status, stated clearly his view that this article is and has always been about the prayer hall building not the wider compound. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
The "Religious Significance in Islam" section included the wider area, curiously, that was the section that was removed in the midst of this move discussion, and put into the Temple Mount article, with the claim that this made the Temple Mount article POV. Drsmoo (talk) 16:30, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
If you think that an article called Al-Aqsa Mosque (Compound) is sound, you should not be opposing disambiguation. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm opposing moving content into Temple Mount and then claiming the moved content makes Temple Mount POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drsmoo (talk • contribs)
@Drsmoo: Here is the version of the Temple Mount in mid-May, before some content was moved from here. My prior edit to that article was more than a year earlier. It says clearly that the Temple Mount is also known as Al Aqsa Mosque. The moving of content simply fixed an error here. It had nothing to do with the other debate. Your constant accusations are growing tiring and I will need to report you if this does not stop. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I actually didn't intent to respond to Iskandar there, hence it being unsigned/unfinished. Now it is struck. I will phrase things more gently going forward. Do you consider the Temple Mount article name non neutral because it's the only article for information on Haram al-Sharif, or is there a different reason? Drsmoo (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: thanks. I consider Temple Mount article name non-neutral because it has the word Temple in it. If it had the word Mosque in it, I would consider it non-neutral as well, even though it is actively used as a mosque today.
Another reason is because the name Temple Mount is derived from Rabbinic sources. A name derived from the Quran would be non-neutral too.
The site is important to all Abrahamic religions. We are a neutral encyclopedia. All neutral sources either give multiple names for the site, or use a neutral name. So should we. As I have said elsewhere, I have a strong aversion to creating duplicate articles because editors cannot agree on an article name. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:07, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
The name "Har Habayit", often translated as Temple Mount, is not from "Rabbinic sources", it's biblical. You also didn't respond regarding which error you were "fixing" by removing longstanding content from this page and moving it to the Temple Mount page. Drsmoo (talk) 01:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Per my comment on 24 June: “this article was previously wrong, implying incorrectly that the "third holiest" and "first qibla" titles belonged to the prayer hall (irrespective of its name).” See the text removed on 31 May here: there is an uncertain statement at the top about the whole compound, but then the Isra+Miraj, First Qibla, and Third Holiest statements are all written to refer to “Al Aqsa Mosque” without being clear whether they mean the compound or the southern building. Written this way in this article strongly implied the statements applied to the southern building, which we have established is incorrect. Onceinawhile (talk) 05:50, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
As to Har Habayit being biblical or rabbinic, Yaron Eliav seems clear that it was used independently only once in the Bible (in the Book of Micah) with the single usage in Jeremiah and Maccabees being effectively quotations. The flourishing of the term was in rabbinic literature. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:04, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
So your remedy was not to fix ormimprove this article, but to remove the text applying to a wider situation, and place it in a contextwhich you then considered non NPOV? That doesn't make sense. This article pertained to both uses, in accordance with contemporary usage. The term Har HaBayit is biblical, it appears twice in the bible, and three times if Maccabees is included. The term Har Bayit Yahweh appears three times. The term Masjid al-Aqsa is Quranic, it appears a single time in the Quran. Drsmoo (talk) 13:23, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
You repeat again your claim that "This article pertained to both uses", despite the clear to the contrary from its primary author, who brought the article twice to GA, through his comments in 2015 and 2022. Have you reviewed that evidence? Onceinawhile (talk) 13:42, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
This article is about the Qibli prayer hall: that's why it has a "religious building" infobox. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:07, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
The article is about whatever content is in the article. Previously, the article had vastly more content regarding the wider scope. If content about the wider scope is removed, then yes it is about the building, infoboxes are editable as well. Drsmoo (talk) 14:33, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Have you reviewed Al Ameer’s comments from 2015 and 2022? Onceinawhile (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I actually haven't and have little interest honestly. I'm more interested in the actual composition of the article when it was most recently appraised as having Good status. In that state, the article explored and explained both uses of the word, while using the term mosque for the building, per common English usage. Drsmoo (talk) 15:30, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Great stuff, 'little interest' in absorbing information pertinent to the discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Unless they're a reliable source it's just one user's opinion. More interested in the Good article assessment itself and a holistic sense of the article. Drsmoo (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Uh huh, except the Good Article assessment are what Al Ameer's comments about - I don't think you are interested in that at all. I think you are only interested in holding up the article's GA status as a form of totem in order to vindicate the various positions that you can't actually justify through discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:00, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
When the article explained both usages while also attributing the Al-Aqsa Mosque name to its common name in English, it was certified Good. That supports usage of that configuration. That doesn't mean that it couldn't potentially be certified Good in another configuration, but it does support that we know the combined configuration is "Good". What I continue to find curious, and still have not seen a satisfactory answer to, is why longstanding, stable content was removed from this article (during a move discussion no less), away from the "good configuration", towards a new context which the users making the move have described in various terms as being POV. It is not good practice to put content into a context that one considers POV, or that violates Wikipedia guidelines. I'm also not saying that the new context is in fact POV. Just that its curious that any user would state a concern over an article title/configuration, while simultaneously reinforcing that configuration. Drsmoo (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Read the GA nominator's comments, and maybe we'll talk. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:47, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Oh that I've read. It's fine to have that opinion. But if you look at the actual 2011 version that was ranked good, which he's referring to, it specifically says "In Islam, the term "al-Aqsa Mosque" is not restricted to the mosque only, but to the entire Noble Sanctuary.". As of recently, that was changed to "Some Muslims use the term", but that would justify either re-adding the original content or having a discussion over it. As opposed to removing content and placing it under an article you believe has a POV title when there are other options available (like changing the scope of this article or creating one for Haram al-Sharif). There's no wikipolicy that necessitates only one article for tangentially related subjects, and many notable subjects have multiple articles discussing different usages. Drsmoo (talk) 18:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm still not sure what you want. As I mentioned here, before the strike comment debacle, were an architectural article on the Qibli Mosque not to exist, it would be justified to create one, so even if you believe that there should be a Haram al-Sharif article distinct from the Temple Mount article, a Qibli Mosque article under the title Al-Aqsa Mosque (insert disambiguating phrase) would still be required. Since the article under discussion here is largely about the single building's history and architecture (it was still 70% about the specific building even back in the 2011 version that attained GA status), whether you think broader term 'Al-Aqsa Mosque' should be a redirect to Temple Mount or a standalone article, this discrete article on architecture should be moved aside to a location discretely disambiguated it as such - to allow for the broader meaning of the term Al-Aqsa Mosque to be disambiguated, expounded, elaborated into its own article, or whatever other purpose people might have in mind for it. That's about it. I'm not sure what you think is happening here. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:31, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
That is a reasonable view. Drsmoo (talk) 20:15, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Drsmoo, in replying to Iskandar here, please refrain from talking about the past. It is not constructive, is unnecessarily combative, and we are just going round in circles. Please simply explain what you think all these articles should look like in future. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Talking about the past is not combative, and it is constructive as it informs us how this article was better than it is now, and ways to improve (restore) the article to good standing. I (and most of the respondents on this page) have already stated what I/they think this article, singular, should look like in the future. Drsmoo (talk) 20:02, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Iskandar beat me to it. This is the fourth (fifth?) time I have read this. To what end? What is the point? If the idea is that something is supposed to be in the article then edit that and see what occurs.Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
TM is obviously not a neutral name, look what happens when the UN puts out a resolution referring only to the Sanctuary, pro Israeli sources going on about not being neutral. TM only here is the reverse situation. I said what I would personally prefer at the TM page, which is where this discussion belongs, not here. Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Also, which error on here was your edit fixing? Drsmoo (talk) 19:24, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
TM was tagged for non neutrality for a bunch of reasons that can be seen on the talk page, very little to do with anything done by Once in the dim and distant.Selfstudier (talk) 18:35, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Here is the talk post where the POV tag was added. Drsmoo (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Since you have deleted the comment I was replying to I will now delete my reply so that there is no misunderstanding. Selfstudier (talk) 19:00, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Agree. Andrewa (talk) 11:41, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
What a mess! I note that Drsmoo has modified their post after replies had been posted, and has (perhaps unintentionally) concealed this by neither changing the timestamp on the post nor adding a new one.
I do not think any of that can be fixed now, except perhaps for them to belatedly add a new timestamp to their modified post. See the guideline at WP:TALK#REPLIED for how to do this.
Done Drsmoo (talk) 16:24, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
This violation of WP:TALK#REPLIED has been complicated by their use of the default edit summary reply, I am guessing by using the (newish and very useful) [reply] link. I confess I have been guilty of this too! I have only recently begun using this link, and even more recently noted that it allows you to override the edit summary. Both recommended! Andrewa (talk) 16:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: This seems to be becoming a habit, and you have been warned against it. If you want to strike old posts that have been replied to by other editors, you can, but rewriting comments that have been responded to is very inappropriate. Take @Andrewa: they may now be seen to be agreeing to things they don't agree to. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Was just toning down accusatory language, no substance was changed. Drsmoo (talk) 16:24, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
No, you also added a policy link and quote, and that is the first of just two changes to the same comment, the other being this. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:31, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Which was removing an accusatory summary that did not add any information to the post. I will use strikethrough next time. Drsmoo (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Exactly. Andrewa (talk) 17:00, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree with everything stated by both Iskandar and Andrew above (with the sole exception of Andrew's suggestion that I have sought to question his motives - I can assure you that I think your motives are entirely aligned with mine, i.e. ensuring that this ends up being correct and clear for our readers). I am also supportive of the points made in Andrew's vote modification comment above. The only thing I am keen to ensure we avoid (which Iskander's comments address well) is a content fork. There are simply too many of these in the Israel-Palestine part of Wikipedia, always due to failure to agree on an article title, and once they are created they are impossible to put back together (Bolter21 and I have tried and failed too many times - see e.g. here, here and here). There should be only one article covering the compound (Temple Mount / Masjid Al Aqsa), and it should not be called Al Aqsa, as I prefer a neutral name for it. An article for the terminology "Al Aqsa Mosque" could be interesting, as would an article for the term "Temple Mount". Obviously an article on the specific Jami'a Al Aqsa building is entirely appropriate. A few years ago this existed - it was merged in here after a very confused discussion between editors here.
As an aside I don't think Andrew's characterization of "restore the article to cover both meanings" is quite right. Al Ameer, who commented above, and is the primary author of the article and the editor who brought it twice to GA status, stated at the Qibli merge discussion: The Jami al-Qibli appears to be another name for the al-Aqsa Mosque building i.e. the subject of this article... The subject material of this article is the same exact subject of the Qibli Chapel. There is a dispute, which is mentioned in the article, regarding the specific definition of the "al-Aqsa Mosque", with the two sides of the argument being that the Aqsa Mosque is the building with the silver dome or that the Aqsa Mosque is the entire compound including the Dome of the Rock. In this case, there should be a discussion about renaming this article the Qibli Chapel or Qibli Mosque. (Al Ameer has subsequently confirmed he would not support a renaming to Qibli Chapel at it is not the commonname). Onceinawhile (talk) 11:13, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
This seems to support having Jami al-Qibli and Qibli Chapel as redirects to whichever article ends up covering the building, does it not? Andrewa (talk) 11:45, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Technically it's Jami al-Aqsa or Al-Musalla al-Qibli; I'm not sure Jami al-Qibli has ever cropped up as a specific combination in the Arabic. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:07, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Suddenly wondering if the title should actually be Al-Aqsa Mosque (prayer hall) - might be a little more concise and less duplicative. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:19, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
OK with that. It would be consistent with what is now known as the El-Marwani Prayer Hall and how it works at other sites such as Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:38, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Interesting suggestion, best yet IMO. But the main point of controversy in my opinion remains the destination of Al-Aqsa Mosque. I don't think I can support any move without that being resolved. And I think we are making progress. Andrewa (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
For interest, a vaguely similar situation occurs with City of David, arguably this should be an article, however the same sort of naming/nationalist issues prevent it and it is functioning as a DAB to various other articles. Selfstudier (talk) 17:19, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Further to Andrew's comment, I have created Al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation) as a potential destination for Al-Aqsa Mosque. Comments and edits appreciated. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:46, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Sources

  1. ^ Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine. John Murray. The Jámi'a el-Aksa is the mosk alone; the Mesjid el-Aksa is the mosk with all the sacred enclosure and precincts, including the Sükhrah. Thus the words Mesjid and Jāmi'a differ in usage somewhat like the Greek ίερόν and ναός.
  2. ^ Palmer, E. H. (1871). "History of the Haram Es Sherif: Compiled from the Arabic Historians". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 3 (3): 122–132. doi:10.1179/peq.1871.012. ISSN 0031-0328. EXCURSUS ON THE NAME MASJID EL AKSA. In order to understand the native accounts of the sacred area at Jerusalem, it is essentially necessary to keep in mind the proper application of the various names by which it is spoken of. When the Masjid el Aksa is mentioned, that name is usually supposed to refer to the well-known mosque on the south side of the Haram, but such is not really the case. The latter building is called El Jámʻi el Aksa, or simply El Aksa, and the substructures are called El Aksa el Kadímeh (the ancient Aksa), while the title El Masjid el Aksa is applied to the whole sanctuary. The word Jámi is exactly equivalent in sense to the Greek συναγωγή, and is applied to the church or building in which the worshippers congregate. Masjid, on the other hand, is a much more general term; it is derived from the verb sejada "to adore," and is applied to any spot, the sacred character of which would especially incite the visitor to an act of devotion. Our word mosque is a corruption of masjid, but it is usually misapplied, as the building is never so designated, although the whole area on which it stands may be so spoken of. The Cubbet es Sakhrah, El Aksa, Jam'i el Magharibeh, &c., are each called a Jami, but the entire Haram is a masjid. This will explain how it is that 'Omar, after visiting the churches of the Anastasis, Sion, &c., was taken to the "Masjid" of Jerusalem, and will account for the statement of Ibn el 'Asa'kir and others, that the Masjid el Aksa measured over 600 cubits in length-that is, the length of the whole Haram area. The name Masjid el Aksa is borrowed from the passage in the Coran (xvii. 1), when allusion is made to the pretended ascent of Mohammed into heaven from ·the temple of Jerusalem; "Praise be unto Him who transported His servant by night from El Masjid el Haram (i.e., 'the Sacred place of Adoration' at Mecca) to El Masjid el Aksa (i.e., 'the Remote place of Adoration' at Jerusalem), the precincts of which we have blessed," &c. The title El Aksa, "the Remote," according to the Mohammedan doctors, is applied to the temple of Jerusalem "either because of its distance from Mecca, or because it is in the centre of the earth."
  3. ^ Mustafa Abu Sway (Fall 2000). "The Holy Land, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Islamic Sources". Journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR): 60–68. Archived from the original on 29 May 2022. Retrieved 29 May 2022. Quoting Mujir al-Din: "Verily, 'Al-Aqsa' is a name for the whole mosque which is surrounded by the wall, the length and width of which are mentioned here, for the building that exists in the southern part of the Mosque, and the other ones such as the Dome of the Rock and the corridors and other [buildings] are novel"
  4. ^ Le Strange, Guy (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Translated from the Works of the Medieval Arab Geographers. Houghton, Mifflin. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 29 May 2022. THE AKSÀ MOSQUE. The great mosque of Jerusalem, Al Masjid al Aksà, the "Further Mosque," derives its name from the traditional Night Journey of Muhammad, to which allusion is made in the words of the Kuran (xvii. I)... the term "Mosque" being here taken to denote the whole area of the Noble Sanctuary, and not the Main-building of the Aksà only, which, in the Prophet's days, did not exist.
  5. ^ PEF Survey of Palestine, 1883, volume III Jerusalem, p.119: "The Jamia el Aksa, or 'distant mosque' (that is, distant from Mecca), is on the south, reaching to the outer wall. The whole enclosure of the Haram is called by Moslem writers Masjid el Aksa, 'praying-place of the Aksa,' from this mosque." Yitzhak Reiter:

    "This article deals with the employment of religious symbols for national identities and national narratives by using the sacred compound in Jerusalem (The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa) as a case study. The narrative of The Holy Land involves three concentric circles, each encompassing the other, with each side having its own names for each circle. These are: Palestine/Eretz Israel (i.e., the Land of Israel); Jerusalem/al-Quds and finally The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa compound...Within the struggle over public awareness of Jerusalem's importance, one particular site is at the eye of the storm—the Temple Mount and its Western Wall—the Jewish Kotel—or, in Muslim terminology, the al-Aqsa compound (alternatively: al-Haram al-Sharif) including the al-Buraq Wall... "Al-Aqsa" for the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side is not merely a mosque mentioned in the Quran within the context of the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey to al-Aqsa which, according to tradition, concluded with his ascension to heaven (and prayer with all of the prophets and the Jewish and Christian religious figures who preceded him); rather, it also constitutes a unique symbol of identity, one around which various political objectives may be formulated, plans of action drawn up and masses mobilized for their realization", "Narratives of Jerusalem and its Sacred Compound", Israel Studies 18(2):115-132 (July 2013)

    Annika Björkdahl and Susanne Buckley-Zistel: "The site is known in Arabic as Haram al-Sharif – the Noble Sanctuary – and colloquially as the Haram or the al-Aqsa compound; while in Hebrew, it is called Har HaBeit – the Temple Mount." Annika Björkdahl; Susanne Buckley-Zistel (1 May 2016). Spatialising Peace and Conflict: Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 243–. ISBN 978-1-137-55048-4. Mahdi Abdul Hadi:

    "Al-Aqsa Mosque, also referred to as Al-Haram Ash-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), comprises the entire area within the compound walls (a total area of 144,000 m2) - including all the mosques, prayer rooms, buildings, platforms and open courtyards located above or under the grounds - and exceeds 200 historical monuments pertaining to various Islamic eras. According to Islamic creed and jurisprudence, all these buildings and courtyards enjoy the same degree of sacredness since they are built on Al-Aqsa's holy grounds. This sacredness is not exclusive to the physical structures allocated for prayer, like the Dome of the Rock or Al-Qibly Mosque (the mosque with the large silver dome)" Mahdi Abdul Hadi Archived 2020-02-16 at the Wayback Machine

    Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs; Tim Marshall: "Many people believe that the mosque depicted is called the Al-Aqsa; however, a visit to one of Palestine's most eminent intellectuals, Mahdi F. Abdul Hadi, clarified the issue. Hadi is chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, based in East Jerusalem. His offices are a treasure trove of old photographs, documents, and symbols. He was kind enough to spend several hours with me. He spread out maps of Jerusalem's Old City on a huge desk and homed in on the Al-Aqsa compound, which sits above the Western Wall. "The mosque in the Al- Aqsa [Brigades] flag is the Dome of the Rock. Everyone takes it for granted that it is the Al-Aqsa mosque, but no, the whole compound is Al-Aqsa, and on it are two mosques, the Qibla mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and on the flags of both Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Qassam Brigades, it is the Dome of the Rock shown," he said. Tim Marshall (4 July 2017). A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols. Simon and Schuster. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-1-5011-6833-8. USA Today: "A view of the Al-Aqsa compound (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem's Old City" [1] Al Jazeera: "Israeli Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as 'the centre of Israeli sovereignty, the capital of Israel'... In response, Netanyahu's office later that night put out a statement saying that 'non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount [Al-Aqsa compound]' but are not permitted to pray there.'" [2]
  6. ^ Victor Kattan (2020). "The Special Role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim Holy Shrines in Jerusalem". Arab Law Quarterly. But what is Al-Aqṣā? The name Al-Aqṣā (literally the 'farthest mosque' in Sūrah XVII, verse 1, the Holy Qurʾān) is used by Muslims to refer to Al-Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount as a whole.(p.12)

Counterproposal: Al-Qibli Mosque

Al-Aqsa Mosque → Al-Qibli Mosque

I was opposed to the move to the unnecessarily long title [Al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque)], but I think no consensus has been reached here yet. Some editors, including Al Ameer son who had nominated this article for GA status, think that the hatnote is not sufficient to disambiguate the topic of this article. There is also a major dispute on whether the scope of this article should be limited or broader. If the broader meaning of the term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" is covered (as it was, until a month ago), it will cause some overlap with the Temple Mount article. So, for a WP:NATURAL disambiguation, I think that we can move this article to "Al-Qibli Mosque", a translation from the official, and common, Arabic name (ar:المصلى القبلي on Arabic Wikipedia). Afterwards, "Al-Aqsa Mosque" can be made a redirect to Temple Mount, or to Temple Mount#Al-Aqsa Mosque the disambiguation page, Al-Aqsa. Those who supported the original proposal, do you also support move to "Al-Qibli Mosque"? Those who opposed the original proposal, do you support move to "Al-Qibli Mosque"? (Pinging all !voters Onceinawhile, Srnec, Andrewa, Selfstudier, Drsmoo, Iskandar323, Tombah, Necrothesp, Nableezy, Number 57, Vpab15, Dan Palraz, Mellohi!, StellarNerd, Vice regent, Al Ameer son.) Khestwol (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Generally think that is fine, but I think the al-Aqsa Mosque page should be a disambiguation page not a redirect. I think there definitely are people who mean the specific building when they search for al-Aqsa Mosque and they should be given a did you mean this or that option. nableezy - 17:23, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Onceinawhile created Al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation) in response to Andrewa enquiry as to destination for Al-Aqsa mosque and no-one has seriously objected then that plus proposal is OK with me, too. Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Ok, although we already have a relevant disambiguation page at Al-Aqsa, and one solution might be to make Al-Aqsa Mosque a redirect to Al-Aqsa, but I agree with Nableezy and Selfstudier, too. After the move to "Al-Qibli Mosque", we can move the page "Al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation)" to "Al-Aqsa Mosque". Khestwol (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Support this, and I doubt we need two DABS. Al-Aqsa Mosque should redirect to a DAB at Al-Aqsa. The article on the building should be at Al-Qibli Mosque or some other (perhaps more concise) unambiguous name. Andrewa (talk) 18:18, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
I've just had a look at the evidence opposing this. The claims that the term Al-Qibli Mosque is rare in English are possibly true. But Qibli Mosque is not. So that more concise name does look worth a look. See #Counterproposal: Qibli Mosque below. Andrewa (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I've thought about striking or even reversing my !vote, but I'm just not convinced that the end result of the move(s) proposed will be an improvement. I do not think that "al-Qibli" is the common name for the Friday mosque. WP should not proliferate it as if it were. In theory, a dab page is the way to go. But I just don't think it will rectify confusion any better than a hatnote here. If someone were to enter "al-Aqsa mosque" into the search box and wind up at a dab page, how would they know which of the two entries they wanted? The current al-Aqsa doesn't even show how the two main entries are related. What I think we could do is create an article on the term masjid al-aqsa. That I would support. But I still think that the word "mosque" in the term "al-Aqsa mosque" has the common English meaning (i.e., a building) and not the broader meaning of masjid. And here is some evidence:
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, s.v. "Aqṣā, al-": The third holiest mosque in Islam, al-Aqṣā is part of the sacred site in Jerusalem (along with the Dome of the Rock 492 feet, or 150 meters, to its north) referred to in Arabic as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (The Noble Sanctuary) and in Hebrew as Har ha-Bait (The Temple Mount).
  • Oxford Dictionary of Islam, s.v. "Aqsa, al-": Seventh-century mosque in the Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem. Known as the “Farther Mosque” to distinguish it from the “Holy Mosque” of Mecca. Mentioned in connection with the Prophet's Noctural Journey in the Quran (17:1). A first version was founded around 637 after the conquest of Jerusalem, but in 715 Umayyad caliph al-Walid built a much larger structure at the south end of the Haram, later destroyed and again rebuilt. In its present form the building largely dates to the eleventh century. In 1969 an arsonist's fire destroyed the twelfth-century pulpit (minbar) given to the mosque by Salah al-Din (Saladin).
  • The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, s.v. "Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque": The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra) and the al-Aqsa Mosque (al-Masjid al-Aqsa) are situated, along with other religious buildings and structures, in an area that Muslims commonly call the Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif) and that Jews call the Temple Mount (Har Ha-bayit).
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, s.v. "Masjid al-Aqsa, al-": The Muslim mosque built in the 7th cent. ce, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (al-Quds). It is the mosque associated with the Night Journey (isrāʾ) and the Ascent (miʿrāj) of Muḥammad, based on Qurʾān 17. 1. It is a building distinct from the Dome of the Rock.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, s.v. "Jerusalem, Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock": Islamic buildings located on the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif. ... While it is possible that a simple mosque was erected on the site in 638, there is more certainty that one existed by the time of the composition of Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis (On the Holy Places), written before c.692.
That is every entry I could find at Oxford Reference online. To which one may add:
  • Brill's Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, s.v. "al-Aqṣā mosque": Al-Aqṣā mosque (al-masjid al-Aqṣā) refers specifically to the large mosque on the southwestern corner of al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem, but the name is also used for the entire religious compound, including the Dome of the Rock.
What I think this shows is that the building is the #1 topic for this term in English. I would prefer to simply clarify the scope of this article in the first paragraph the way Brill does (in addition to a hatnote) and be done with it. Srnec (talk) 18:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Except we kinda had that discussion already and its nocon, which is why we have the counterproposal. Which you oppose, right? Selfstudier (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
The other challenge re Srnec’s comment above is that our disambiguation policy clear favors natural disambiguation, and states that the term does not need to be the common name if is solves the ambiguity elegantly. For that reason I am open to Khestwol’s proposal. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:42, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Per the examples above, in English, most (but not all) think of the building, and few are familiar with the name "Al-Qibli Mosque". Having both meanings of the word defined and described in detail in a single article under the title "Al-Aqsa Mosque" may be the clearest to the largest number of people. Jami’a Al Aqsa and Masjid Al-Aqsa could redirect to sections within the article. Drsmoo (talk) 19:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
"If someone were to enter "al-Aqsa mosque" into the search box and wind up at a dab page, how would they know which of the two entries they wanted?" ... not sure how to respond to this - that is quite literally the point of DAB pages: just go to any DAB page and see exactly how it works. Or see for real at the now extant Al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation). Iskandar323 (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
I am thinking of the case of a person looking up something that they have heard/read about. I do not think that presenting them with two options that are very similar and forcing them to pick one to figure it out is better than forcing them to read a couple sentences and deciding to click a link to a related article if that is what they want to learn about. Our standard dab page format is bad for distinguishing closely related but subtly distinct terms. I think it is quite frustrating if you come to such a page wanting to learn what something is. We had this problem before when chimpanzee was a dab page asking readers to decide if they were looking for the genus Pan, the common chimp or the bonobo. Srnec (talk) 20:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
@Srnec: Interesting. The chimp example and solution – identifying what is the common reader looking for when they look for the chimp “brand name” – points to redirecting to Temple Mount. And the tertiary sources you list above illustrate the importance of a solution here – we can see from the large number of detailed and high quality secondary sources that those tertiary sources are mistaken and confused re the term / third holiest / Masjid Al Aqsa, and clearing up widespread confusion is an important part of our job. We also know from Reiter, quoted in full above, that the "al-Aqsa" brand-name has become popular and prevalent (chimp is to chimpanzee as Al Aqsa is to Al Aqsa Mosque), and he explains with absolute clarity that this is a synonym for the Temple Mount. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
@Srnec: Per your point, the term "Al-Qibli Mosque" is for all intents and purposes completely unknown and unused in English. It is not charted at all in Google Ngrams, in Google Scholar, the term produces only 11 results total ("Qibli Mosque" produces 26), on JSTOR "Al-Qibli Mosque" produces only a single result, and "Qibli Mosque" produces 5. As a term, it is essentially non-existent in English. As such it fails recognizability and naturalness, two of Wikipedia's five criteria for article titles. Additionally, it is self evident that the reason "Al-Qibli Mosque" is essentially nonexistent in English, despite the notability of the subject, is because the English term for the building is "Al-Aqsa Mosque". This counterproposal, while well intentioned, would only lead to significantly increased confusion. The solution is to build off of the rated "Good" configuration of the page, which explains both usages. Drsmoo (talk) 01:40, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Drsmoo, again here you refer to the Good Article versions of the page, yet you separately admit to having no interest in the views of the editor who brought the article to Good Article status. I will do the work for you:
  • 2022: At the time when I was editing and nominating this article for GA status, I was not paying much attention to the fact that a lot of the information about al-Aqsa Mosque in the sources, especially regarding the religious significance and administration aspects, applied to the whole compound (the Temple Mount)... My lack of understanding only contributed to the current mess, which needs to be addressed.[11]
  • 2015: The Jami al-Qibli appears to be another name for the al-Aqsa Mosque building i.e. the subject of this article.[12]
The primary author of the article, responsible twice for achieving its Good Article status, has been humble enough to admit that the Good Article versions of the article were built on a mistaken understanding of the topic we are discussing, and also clear that the scope of the article has always been the building rather than the compound. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Is it really for all intents and purposes completely unknown and unused in English? I get more than 20,000 ghits. Here is my search. Interested to see yours. Andrewa (talk) 00:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Hi,
That does show that it is less known than some other titles, but it also shows that completely unknown and unused is just not true even with the qualification for all intents and purposes. With thousands of relevant ghits, Qibli Mosque seems to be an acceptable name. If we consider only usage then perhaps (I do say perhaps) it wouldn't be the best one, but there are other considerations. Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
I wrote "for all intents and purposes" and "essentially", which I stand by. We are talking about using a term for an extremely notable site, with 5 results on JSTOR and 26 results on google scholar. Ghits are quirky. Without the "-Wikipedia" there are fewer than 6000, even with the tag, 20,000 is nothing compared to the millions for Al-Aqsa Mosque. So few people are searching the term that google trends doesn't even track it, nor are ngrams tracked.Drsmoo (talk) 20:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC); edited 01:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
See my comment above with the search that gave me 20,000 ghits on "qibli mosque" -Wikipedia. Your evidence that Almost no English-language sources call it the Al-Qibli Mosque? Or perhaps they don't use the Al in English? Andrewa (talk) 00:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The term "Qibli Mosque" almost never appears in English-language literature. There has always been a common English name for this structure: Al-Aqsa Mosque; this is the recognizable WP:COMMONNAME. Tombah (talk) 08:52, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Comment: It is still unclear to me what the disambiguation issue is that some editors here mentioned. When referring to the entire compound, the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif are the two most common names in English sources. Yes, the term Al-Aqsa can be used to the entire compound as well, but it is almost always followed by the word "Compound" to become "Al-Aqsa Compound", or "Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound". The term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" is almost never used in English to describe the entire Temple Mount. Tombah (talk) 08:52, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
See for example my comment above from 13:58, 31 May 2022: As for GScholar "al aqsa mosque" search, I went through the first ten and counted six about the compound, three about the building (one on its dome and two on its beams) and a third about a separate building altogether (the library). That is at least 60% about the compound. Alternatively, see above my "Background to the discussion for new editors" comment from 16:43, 5 June 2022.
On your point about addition of the word "compound" in the press, that is a form of disambiguation. It is not a scholarly, religious or official name, it is just an appendage which certain press outlets use to avoid the confusion we are grappling with here. In the same articles, if they also refer to the building they then use another form of disambiguation, for example this CNN article talks about "Al Aqsa Mosque compound" and "...the mosque building".
Just like the press, we need to disambiguate too. Personally I consider "Al Aqsa Mosque compound" poor disambiguation because it is unclear whether it means "the compound in which the Al Aqsa mosque building sits" or "the mosque-compound called Al Aqsa". Onceinawhile (talk) 17:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
See my comment above with the search that gave me 20,000 ghits on "qibli mosque" -Wikipedia. Your evidence that The term "Qibli Mosque" almost never appears in English-language literature? Andrewa (talk) 00:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
The above page "understands the situation well enough" due to the fact that someone made it a few years ago without any discussion or trying to reach any consensus. It changes nothing about what reliable, English-speaking sources say on the matter. Tombah (talk) 09:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
The UN gets it too "Dozens were reportedly confined to the Al Qibli mosque, also on the compound, and six people were injured by sponge-tipped bullets." Selfstudier (talk) 09:38, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
I would be the one who implemented that change to Commons, and I did ask for input beforehand (see Commons:Special:Permalink/510293901#Al-Aqsa Mosque ambiguity). But indeed, this was merely a practical solution for a multilingual project and not directly relevant to en-wiki. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:38, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @HyperGaruda: Agreed. The directly relevant point is that a disambiguation solution was needed at commons, just as it is here. Onceinawhile (talk) 05:49, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. Per WP:COMMONNAME. Now every time someone makes this objection, a comment pops up below that the common name is not under discussion. That is strong support for the opposition! So make my day... gidonb (talk) 23:36, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Counterproposal: Qibli Mosque

As foreshadowed above, there is a more concise possibility that may be preferable... Qibli Mosque. This appears to be far more common in English sources, and not surprisingly. The Al- is not exactly English. Andrewa (talk) 00:31, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

(Pinging all !voters Onceinawhile, Srnec, Andrewa, Selfstudier, Drsmoo, Iskandar323, Tombah, Necrothesp, Nableezy, Number 57, Vpab15, Dan Palraz, Mellohi!, StellarNerd, Vice regent, Al Ameer son, gidonb, Khestwol) Drsmoo (talk) 12:37, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Survey

Discussion

See WP:COMMONNAME: When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others. So we do not necessarily go with the most common name. With 20,000 ghits there seems no doubt that Qibli Mosque is fairly common.

Yes, there are other measures such as ngrams that give different results. As has been said, ghit counts can be quirky. I would say that all such measures can be quirky. But with ghits we can check the quirkiness or otherwise by looking at the first few pages and checking that the individual hits are relevant, and in this case they are.

So we have established I think that the name Qibli Mosque is fairly common. Why other measures do not show this it would be good to know, but at this stage they seem to be false negatives, as we are able to check whether the ghit count is a false positive. And it isn't. Andrewa (talk) 04:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Going in circles but, per GHITS it seems unclear how with 1/100th the usage of the Common Name, completely untracked by google, and with only 5 results on JSTOR, etc, it could be considered "fairly common"? Drsmoo (talk) 13:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
There may be many reasons that Google does not "track" the name, and that scholars tend to avoid it. Explaining away thousands of relevant ghits is a lot more difficult, and in this case I would suggest impossible. That's why.
You might also like to check your figures of 1/100th the usage of the Common Name. I assume by the Common Name you mean some variant of Al-Aqsa. How did you eliminate the occurrences of this name that referred to meanings other than the one we are discussing here? Andrewa (talk) 06:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
That is a fair point, one could do "al-Aqsa mosque" -compound, which gives 1,590,000 GHITS. I also don't think 20,000 is that many. The internet is pretty busy. If you search for random things that you would expect to not get many hits, I think you'll find that many of them get quite a bit more than 20,000. I've been trying to find a term that gets roughly the same amount and it's hard. Certainly not anything that's "commonly used" in my experience. Drsmoo (talk) 13:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to Qibli Mosque as a subheading for a larger article though. I just think that Wikipedia's title for one of the most notable sites in the world needs to be something that is more common. Drsmoo (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The Qibli Mosque is not nearly so notable as the whole Temple Mount, even for many of the Moslems to whom I have spoken. But that isn't particularly relevant here. The question is simply, is Qibli Mosque a good name for the article on the building by that name, and which also has other names? The article name is not the only way of getting to the article of course. Many people will use other names and will be directed there by redirects or hatnotes or disambiguation pages. The question is more, when they are directed there, will they recognise the article as the one they want? Andrewa (talk) 09:28, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
@Andrewa: I actually did not realize that this secondary counterproposal was distinct from the first. Is this actually a separate RM? Or is this the precursor to an RM? I think we’re at the point where editors will have difficulty even seeing this section, particularly on mobile, and I would expect responses to generally mirror the counterproposal with “‘al”. Also, per your point regarding redirects/hatnotes/disambiguation pages, why (though I'm not sure that's your opinion) might all/any of those options be preferable to having this name as a subheading inside a detailed article that explains the complete history of the term and its various permutations? Drsmoo (talk) 13:05, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
This is part of the current RM. The closer has the option, if they judge consensus to favour this title, to move the article to this alternate title. Andrewa (talk) 15:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, that is very problematic. Anyone viewing on Mobile will be unable to see this section unless they scroll for quite a while. For example, even after this alternate was opened, gidonb voted in the above proposal. Unless they happen to respond to the ping, users who already voted for essentially an identical request will have their votes disregarded. For example, Tombah, specified his objection to the title "Qibli Mosque" in his opposition to the "al" proposal, as did I. It would also seem that users who opposed solely based on Common Name would oppose this as well. For such a notable topic, a move should not be judged based on a hard to find section presenting an alternate to an alternate proposal, six weeks and 551 lines into the move discussion. If there is no consensus for the original proposal, then that should be closed, and a new proposal can be opened. Additionally, I have not seen any user even attempt to engage with the idea of simply modifying the content of the article. It's particularly odd, given that the content of the article was modified away from inclusivity DURING the move discussion. What we are currently seeing is factionalism on Wikipedia, where after this move discussion has been pushed way, way down, those who vote with their faction are voting as expected, and few uninvolved editors will see this, let alone be bothered to continue engaging with it.If the proposers are confident that this is a good title to move to, then a new move request should be opened. Drsmoo (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Nice all bold non-!vote about pizzas above (Commend?), looks like bludgeoning to me. Or disruption, maybe. One of those. Or maybe both. Selfstudier (talk) 17:44, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
It was in that state for literally 1 minute before being fixed (and had already been fixed 5 minutes before you posted your comment). Please try to WP:AGF going forward. Drsmoo (talk) 17:52, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Comments go in the discussion section, not in the survey, is that right? Or has it been moved while I was typing? Checks. Nope, still there. Once more...still there but crossed out, isn't this fun? Selfstudier (talk) 18:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
I have never seen an RM without comments interspersed throughout the votes. Drsmoo (talk) 18:12, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
True, people have a tendency to ignore the division. Although we were doing quite well until just now. Selfstudier (talk) 18:14, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
It does happen. Andrewa (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Correct. It makes the closer's job easier, and they may even conclude that people who try to make their job more difficult know that they don't have much of a case. It's not itself a valid reason to discard their comments of course, but it often suggests valid reasons for doing so. Andrewa (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
I do not agree that it is any way problematic. I do not envy the closer that job, but I have closed far worse, and I expect that they will be competent and diligent. And if not there is always move review. But we should all try to make the closer's job as easy as we can, whatever our opinions, so as to reduce the chance of that being necessary or successful. Andrewa (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
I've moved my comment back to to the discussion section so as to avoid visual disruption. Since GHITS are being cited as an example of commonness, the number of GHITS for '"Qibli Mosque" -Wikipedia' is roughly the same number as those for "Juliana's Pizza" in New York, which is not frequently included in the top 20 pizzerias in New York. So far, I've found thirteen NYC pizzerias with more GHITS. Not trying to be disrespectful with this comparison, just pointing out that Al-Aqsa Mosque has millions of GHITS, including when Compound is removed, and it is one of the most famous and notable sites in the world across all categories. 20,000 GHITs is very, VERY few, it is in fact extremely miniscule, which is why the term is below the treshold to be tracked on Google Trends or NGRAMS. Drsmoo (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC) ; edited 23:52, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Please WP:AGF, this move discussion has been quite prolonged and perhaps people are feeling on edge. I have not tried to make anyone's editing more difficult, and I was following the practices I've seen consistently on RMs, including throughout this RM. It's useful to have a reference to put 20,000 GHITS, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't (particularly for this subject), in perspective. Drsmoo (talk) 00:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-closure comments

  • Oppose for the same reasons I mentioned in previous discussions. The term "Qibli Mosque" is too obscure. Honestly, who uses this term to refer to this structure? The primary, common name for this struture has been Al-Aqsa Mosque; that's the common name in early Islamic texts, in academic sources and in most media publifications. And that's the term our readers will use when searching on the site on Wikipedia. In the English language, there is no other Al-Aqsa Mosque: the common terms for the entire compound are Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, and more rarely, Al-Aqsa Compound or Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound. This is the widespread naming, and we should follow it. Tombah (talk) 07:09, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
    @Tombah: You are entitled to your objections, but to totally ignore the ambiguity over the term 'Al-Aqsa Mosque', as made abundantly and explicitly clear over the course of this move discussion, is slightly irresponsible. This page is not the unambiguous primary topic for the term, and its usage in reference to the Haram al-Sharif does not require 'compound'. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
      • While an ambiguity does exist, I believe it is much more minor than some editors here claim it is, for the reasons I described here over and over again. I have read tens or hundreds of scholarly articles on the site, and been to several conferences. The vast majority of sources and scholars refer to the compound as the "Temple Mount, also known to Muslims as the Haram-al Sharif (Noble Sanctuary)". That's the usual naming. The usage of Al-Aqsa Mosque to refer to the entire site was probably most common between the Umayyad and the Mamluk periods (long ago, during the 8th to 13th centuries). Yes, some explorers mentioned it in as another term for the site during the 19th century, but it wasn't adopted in the English speaking literature since then. Even Jordanian tourist maps of the Temple Mount from the 60s refer to the entire site as "Mount Moriah / Haram al-Sharif", while reserving the term Al-Aqsa Mosque for this structure only. Yes, some media outlets have recently referred to the Mount also as Al-Aqsa, but as I said, it is always followed by "Compound" or "Mosque Compound", never "Al-Aqsa Mosque". This is how this minor disambiguation is solved in other places. Tombah (talk) 12:09, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Tombah, we have been discussing this for almost seven weeks, yet much of what you write above has no basis or is proveably incorrect. We have multiple 19th century English sources explaining Al Aqsa Mosque is correctly applied the whole Temple Mount. In the 16th century, Mujir al-Din was crystal clear on it. In modern times, Reiter is very clear that the term Al Aqsa Mosque is now prevalent as a term for the Temple Mount. etc etc etc. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
If you are referring to Robinson and Le Strange, they in fact refer to the building as Al-Aqsa (Aksa) Mosque. Drsmoo (talk) 12:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
False. Both clearly explain that the Temple Mount = Masjid Al Aqsa, and both are clear that Masjid = Mosque as well as Jāmi'a = Mosque, so these illustrious scholars made an effort to disambiguate. Le Strange: "...the term "Mosque" being here taken to denote the whole area of the Noble Sanctuary, and not the Main-building of the Aksà only, which, in the Prophet's days, did not exist", and Robinson "...Mesjid and Jāmi'a differ in usage somewhat like the Greek ίερόν and ναός." Onceinawhile (talk) 13:07, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
You're talking past the issue, it's not correct to state that those authors used Al-Aqsa Mosque for the whole area. They didn't, at least not regularly. Unless you mean they believed it would be correct to do so, and simply didn't themselves, which would be something else. For example: "The mosk el-Aksa is perhaps even more respected. Indeed the two are regarded as forming together one great temple; which, with their precincts, is now commonly called el-Haram esh-Sherif; but which in earlier Arabian writers bears the general name of Mesjid el-Aksa” - Robinson
“the Latins considered the Aksa Mosque to hold a very secondary place (while the Dome of the Rock was in their eyes the true Templum Domini)." - Le Strange Drsmoo (talk) 13:23, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Let's wait to see what Mellohi says when they are back and we can take it to a move review if needed. What I think we shouldn't do is go over the same arguments again and again. Vpab15 (talk) 13:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
+1 Selfstudier (talk) 13:30, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The term Qibli Mosque is extremely rare in the English language. Check the ancient sources - they, too, call the structure "Al-Aqsa Mosque", and that is the term common ever since in English speaking literature. This article should follow the common naming, otherwise, our editors will end up too confused. Eladkarmel (talk) 07:23, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Note: This user has just over 500 edits. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Note: which means? Tombah (talk) 12:09, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment Wow, so after extending multiple times, for weeks, when there was no consensus for disambiguating, this was abruptly closed before even waiting 24 hours for involved editors (who were not initially notified) to respond. Drsmoo (talk) 10:05, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
    • Yes, I'm kinda surprised this is how things go round here. Personally, I was quite involved in recent discussions, but haven't got the chance to respond this until the move was already done. This change should be reverted, let's wait for responses from other editors involved. Tombah (talk) 10:16, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
      The move closure was also made within 30 minutes of being requested on the closers talk page, and I presume much of that time was writing the move closure. Drsmoo (talk) 10:21, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
      The RM is closed so by themselves out of process !votes are not meaningful. There is a procedure for objecting to the outcome of an RM and this isn't it. Selfstudier (talk) 10:57, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. It is well-known as Al-Aqsa, (the compound as Temple Mount or Haram a Sharif). Certainly not as Qibli. Atbannett (talk) 10:38, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Note: This user has just over 500 edits. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Again, just exemplifying the confusion: 'Al-Aqsa' alone is even more likely to be associated with the Haram al-Sharif as a whole than 'Al-Aqsa Mosque' - this response only further justifies the need for a natural disambiguation route that avoids the more obvious pitfalls of the primary terminology, and sidesteps the confusion and politicization that surround it. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:53, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Instances of usage painstakingly gathered != “fairly common”. The term is so rarely used it is not even tracked by ngrams, which tracks usage in books, or by trends, which tracks searches. Per the sources added, Palmer writes “ When the Masjid el Aksa is mentioned, that name is usually supposed to refer to the well-known mosque on the south side of the Haram”. Robinson also calls the building Al Aqsa Mosque(Mosk el-Aksa). Our discussion is about which term is common, which is what Palmer is attesting to. I would have no issue with the term if it were widely used. But it simply isn’t, searches for it and book usage at both below the threshold (ie not common) Drsmoo (talk) 10:10, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
All this has almost nothing to do with commonname, it's how best to resolve ambiguity. An example, when newspapers say that Israeli forces entered the mosque and Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the mosque, what do they mean? Selfstudier (talk) 10:21, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I removed the hatnote, as the current title "Qibli Mosque" does not seem ambiguous. Khestwol (talk) 08:34, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment This move has created two problems. Firstly, it has created a malplaced disambiguation page. Secondly, 353 articles have been left with wikilinks leading (via the malplaced redirect) to a disambiguation page rather than the correct article, even after noble efforts by Onceinawhile and others. Certes (talk) 11:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I'm sorry to say so, but this whole move request was wrongheaded. Per Srnec et al. above, the building is without a doubt the PTOPIC, and this page should be called al-Aqsa Mosque. If this is not admitted, al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque) is acceptable, if rather subpar. But if a discussion on that cannot reach consensus (as it obviously didn't), the 'solution' is not to move to yet another, completely obscure name, Qibli Mosque. That's Wikipedia disaster happening right there.
    I came here by seeing utterly WP:ASTONISHing stuff like [[Qibli Mosque|Jami Al-Aqsa]] [13] [14] It's one thing if a Wikipedia article cannot explain things clearly for its readers (as the lead sentence of our article does not clearly explain the difference between the building and the complex, and how both are named after a concept in the Quran). But it's a different thing entirely if editors are so confused that they are going to make moves like this that almost purposefully make things obscure. Really, when editors don't understand something, it would be much better if they just left it alone. And not name an article after its least common name possible because other names are slightly ambiguous. Disambiguating hatnotes exist for a reason. Disambiguation pages exist for a reason.
    Please move this back to al-Aqsa Mosque, and make a top hatnote {{for multi|the larger complex in which the mosque is located (al-Masjid al-Aqsa)|Temple Mount|other uses|al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation)}}. Also please make sure that al-Aqsa Mosque (disambiguation) conforms to MOS:DABPIPE, and actually lists the names of the article it is linking to. I see that a consensus to overturn to the close of this RM towards 'no consensus' is forming on Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2022 July#Qibli Mosque. I obviously agree. I'm not going to watch this page, but if a new RM or RfC is created, please someone ping me (cite this diff when doing so). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:25, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
Follow up discussion at User_talk:Apaugasma#Aqsa. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
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