Talk:Congregational mosque/Archive 1

Archive 1

Creating a new list page?

There is some inconsistency in the use of terminology here, which is not unusual given the inconsistency even in published academic sources, but it's created a bit of a disjointed set of pages. Grand mosque and Great mosque both lead to different disambiguation lists that are essentially the same thing (simply reflecting this minor variation in names), while "Congregational mosque" and "Friday mosque" (plus "Jama Masjid", "Jameh mosque" etc, of course) lead here. This page in turn has its own huge list of "Jameh Mosque" and "Jama Masjid" pages, which again are just variations in terminology from the others.

I'm suggesting that "Grand mosque" and "Great mosque" and any other such terms all redirect to this page, which explains the use of the terms, and I'm proposing that all these lists be moved to a single new page named either "List of Friday mosques" or "List of congregational mosques" (both seem like the most neutral terms). Unless someone else beats me to it, I'll try to make this happen in the near future, but if anyone has further suggestions on this or on how the list page should look like, feedback is very welcome. R Prazeres (talk) 15:10, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: I'm in the process of making the list page now, before converting the Grand mosque and Great mosque DABs (disambiguation pages) into redirects to this page. For the sake of having a full explanation in one place to which I can refer to in edit summaries, I'll further justify turning those two pages into redirects:

1. Currently, both Grand mosque and Great mosque have turned into lists of any articles with the name "Grand mosque" or "Great mosque" in them, rather than a list of topics/meanings which the term "great/grand mosque" can refer to. Of the latter, there is only topic it can reasonably refer to and it's this one, as per the ways these labels are used in reliable sources (e.g. look for various occurrences of those terms in Petersen's "Dictionary of Islamic Architecture" or in the "Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture", both currently cited in the lead of this page). The two lists currently even overlap partially in a non-transparent way (some "great mosques" are listed at Grand mosque and vice-versa). Having each DAB be a list of "great mosques" and "grand mosques" would be a bit like if the Cathedral (disambiguation) page include a list of all cathedrals on Wikipedia simply because the word "cathedral" appears in their names; in other words, an unintentional mess that makes it harder to understand the scope of the topic and to find what you're looking for.
2. In case some want to argue that "Great mosque" should at least be a DAB listing this page and Masjid al-Haram: in common English usage "Great Mosque" does not particularly refer to the Great Mosque of Mecca. A simple google search of "great mosque" shows that the mosque of Mecca doesn't even show up on the first page, and in a search of "the Great Mosque" it appears as only one among many, and still not the first. It may be the most important mosque, but that does not mean the name "Great Mosque" has a primary meaning of "Great Mosque of Mecca". In general usage, anyone referring to it would specify "Mecca" (I've never heard anyone do otherwise); Arabic speakers and Muslims might also use the name Masjid al-Haram instead (which is not a translation of "great mosque"). If necessary, a hatnote can be included at the top of this page to redirect some readers (e.g.: {{Redirect|Great Mosque|the Great Mosque of Mecca|Masjid al-Haram}}) and/or by simply making use of Great mosque (disambiguation) as a separate DAB.
3. On a last and minor related point: a "List of congregational mosques" has the potential to also balloon into a huge list too. If this becomes a problem in the long-term, then the solution is to turn that page into a list of lists, similar to Lists of cathedrals.

This might have been overexplaining, but I wanted to cover all issues in one place to make it easier to discuss concerns if they arise. Judging by how the rest of Wikipedia is organized and how reliable sources treat these topics, I don't think any of this is objectionable. R Prazeres (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I support all of the above initiatives, including the likely ultimate necessity of having a list of lists. This is where the firming up of the notion of great/grand could become particularly important, as a list of lists of all the grand/great mosques (if we assume this designation to be cathedral-esque) might be manageable. But a list of all the congregational/Friday mosques in the world could potentially become a true monstrosity with time. This is presumably why there is no list of lists for churches - because it would be an exercise in extreme WP:DIRECTORY insanity. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, at the time I saw this almost as a stop-gap measure to avoid losing the list that previously existed on this page. Rather than trying to subjectively define "great mosque" (again, there are no sources I know of that define this term independently from congregational mosque), one suggestion is to simply make the list more restrictive, e.g. "List of historic congregational[/Friday] mosques", since in earlier history congregational mosques were not the norm, were fewer in number, and were thus more distinctive to some extent from other regular mosques. There are some new "grand" mosques obviously, but that would be a minor omission to make the list clearer. Or another option is to just make it explicitly into a set index for all mosques that go by the name "great/grand mosque", which is ultimately similar but would indicate that the criteria for inclusion is dependent on the common name of the mosque, rather than on abstract criteria. R Prazeres (talk) 20:14, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I was leaning more in the direction of the common name, because yes, I imagine strict criteria are elusive, and one should probably give the benefit of the doubt to the idea that if a mosque has at some point been called great or grand, there is likely to have been at least some sort of reasonable rationale or justification behind the title. There is no particularly compelling reason to assume the titles of great or grand mosque are handed out any more arbitrarily than the term "cathedral". Likewise, while it might be convenient, or even aesthetically more palatable, to exclude the many of the hideous modern renditions of the grand mosque genre, aside from being a bit simpler, I can't see a good argument for excluding them. There is also the point that, particularly in the more archaeological irreverent countries, historic mosques may be entirely rebuilt to pave the way for modernised ones - so if we get into debates about historical vs modern it might actually turn into quite the pickle. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 18 March 2021

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. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vaticidalprophet 16:12, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

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Jama masjid → Congregational mosque – First, it's a simple case of WP:ENGLISH. As explained on the page and in the sources cited, "congregational mosque" is both the English translation and the English technical term for this concept, which is in general use across scholarly literature. There are other English terms like "Friday mosque" and "great mosque" which are also used a lot, but "congregational mosque" seems like the most precise and the one least likely to be misunderstood by non-familiar readers (who might think something like "Friday mosque" is a mosque for Fridays only, or "great mosque" is a mosque that's just very important, etc). Secondly, "Jama masjid" is the transliteration of the originally Persian term and is not universally used for all regions and all contexts, even if it does appear in some English sources. In Arabic the order of words is reversed and other terms are used in at least some regions (such as jama' al-kabir, masjid al-a'adham, etc), while in Turkish it's ulu cami, and these versions of the term do appear in the names and leads of some existing Wikipedia articles. Switching to the English term avoids this issue and is thus a little more neutral, covering all contexts. R Prazeres (talk) 23:18, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Per WP:USEENGLISH, to start with with, and the neutrality argument as well (which is just another very good reason to prefer common English terms). While I prefer "congregational mosque", I think "Friday mosque" would be fine as well. Wikipedia's usage of "great mosque"/"grand mosque" is quite inconsistent and is chiefly applied to mosques that are "just very important" in the nominator's words; I don't support moving the page to that term since it would add confusion. 50.248.234.77 (talk) 21:10, 20 March 2021 (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-move cleanup

I've just moved this article from Jama masjid to Congregational mosque per the RM, but the normal post-move cleanup looks somewhat more complex than usual, so I'd rather leave a note for someone with subject matter expertise to see what to do here. A big chunk of the article is the etymology and translations of jama masjid, and I'd rather not stub something outside my field of knowledge. Vaticidalprophet 16:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm going to do some adjustments to the existing text. Thanks for completing the move. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No merge. No consensus on original proposal, and the article that was proposed to be merged (Ulucami) has since been moved to List of Turkish Grand Mosques and modified. R Prazeres (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

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Propose merging Ulucami into Congregational mosque. These are exactly the same topics, Ulu Cami is merely a Turkish term. That article (Ulucami) is also unsourced. If the table listing Ulu Camis is really needed, the list can integrated into List of congregational mosques, which exists for this kind of purpose. R Prazeres (talk) 17:56, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Addendums:

• Please note that while this discussion was happening, Ulucami was turned (not by me) into an explicit list page and moved to List of Turkish Grand Mosques. "Ulucami" itself is now a blank redirect. So long as this move isn't reverted, this merger request is now for "Ulucami" to redirect here.
• I didn't expect significant confusion over the meaning of "Ulucami". I've expanded my arguments and offered direct evidence from reliable sources below: look for "Comment (again)" in bold (particularly see "Explicit definitions of "Ulu Cami" in reliable sources", also in bold.)

Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 18:51, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Actually the terms are similar but distinct. There may be more than one congregational mosque in a large city, but there is never more than one ulucami. This appears to be a set index page specifically for Ottoman "grand mosques" not "congregational mosques" in general. It is a subset of Ottoman Architecture. I have expanded the introduction at Ulucami with citations to make this clearer. --Bejnar (talk) 14:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Are you saying it should be moved to something like "List of mosques named Ulu Cami"? If so, I can agree. But otherwise, as is, it duplicates the scope of this article (which previously also had a long list of mosques).

Also, respectfully, I'm afraid the lead you've expanded is inaccurate in parts (the previous lead was also inaccurate) and not supported by the sources you cited there. A few clarifications:

• As discussed above, "grand mosque" and "congregational mosque" (and "Friday mosque" etc) are the same thing. Institutionally, there are not three or more types of mosques: there are just mosques, and some of them are congregational mosques because they host, or traditionally hosted, Friday prayers. The term "congregational mosque" is an English translation used by scholars.
• The term "Grand/great mosque" is used in many countries, not just Turkey, to mean the main congregational mosque (e.g. Great Mosque of Kairouan, Great Mosque of Samarra, Great Mosque of Fes el-Jdid, etc). "Ulu Cami", as mentioned, is the Turkish translation. This is an issue of names, not types (and therefore not distinct topics for an encyclopedia, in my argument).
• The fact that some congregational mosques in Turkey are called "Ulu Cami" (which is the Turkish translation and not also used in Arabic) and others aren't is merely a historical detail, as the first congregational mosque of the city typically has this name as far as I can tell, even when it's smaller than some later mosques (e.g. in Kayseri). This is easy enough to check from a wide reading of sources (see those cited at Seljuk architecture for a start). In many Turkish cities the Ulu Cami is actually a Seljuk-era mosque, not an Ottoman mosque; see sourced examples at Seljuk architecture. So "Ulu Cami" is a subset of congregational mosque at best, but not of Ottoman architecture. So "Ulu Cami" is a subset of congregational mosques in Turkey generally and not only of Ottoman mosques. (Clarifying my previous comment.)
• "Ulu Camis" also vary significantly in their architecture, which is dependent on the period and region. The two or so Ottoman "Ulu Cami"s (Grand Mosque of Bursa and Old Mosque of Edirne) share a similar form because they were built around in the same period. So there is no way to define it as an architectural type without resorting to some WP:OR or to less reliable sources that make assumptions not shared by the wider scholarly literature, or without narrowly restricting yourself to the context of Ottoman architecture rather than a wider view of the subject (as would be needed on Wikipedia).

Please consider these points if arguing for the page to remain as is. R Prazeres (talk) 17:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

It is not WP:OR when the source says "the resulting building type was known as ulucami". Nor is it WP:OR when the source says "This kind of conservative floorplan is called "Ulucami"." --Bejnar (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The term "ulucami" does seem to be restricted to the context of Ottoman architecture. Grand mosque and other similar terms may be synonyms for congregational mosques, but that does not mean that we should conflate them. --Bejnar (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bejnar, you didn't answer my question: are you proposing renaming Ulucami to become a list page? Your responses make this unclear. Otherwise, in response to your comments:

• It is WP:OR, or at any rate unsupported, because none of the sources say that "Ulu Cami" is a type of mosque distinct from other congregational mosques, and that's what is at issue here. Just because an author uses the term "Ulu Cami" in one context does not mean that the term is used exclusively for this context or that it is distinct from other equivalents that cover this same concept. Implying otherwise is the interpretation of Wikipedia editors, not of scholarly sources. Moreover, of the sources you cited, only one (Hasan 1989) is a reliable source and its focus is on Bengali mosques, not Turkish mosques. Even if you could interpret his one brief statement as supporting your point that would still inappropriately ignore the wider usage of the term in other sources and contexts, which ignores the spirit of the verifiability policy and the details of WP:NPOV. The other sources cited are not reliable sources published by scholars. (One of them, this one, is not viewable to me but I can find no record of its publication anywhere else, so it's unlikely to be a reliable source by a scholar.)
• It is not restricted to Ottoman architecture, as I've already indicated. Even at the Ulucami article the majority of mosques listed there are not Ottoman mosques. In fact I've just noticed that some of the ones listed, like Alaeddin Mosque and Eşrefoğlu Mosque etc, are congregational mosques that don't even go by the name "Ulu Cami"; which means the article is clearly just listing congregational mosques in Turkey, regardless of whether they are Ottoman, regardless of what architectural form they have, and regardless of whether they're primarily known as "Ulu Cami". Therefore, it is literally a subset of the congregational mosque topic. Unless we convert it to a list page, there is no justification for having an article about congregational mosques restricted to the borders of modern Turkey only.

• If you actually want to make an article about Ottoman "Ulu Cami"s only, the article would need to be completely reworked and would only concern a handful of mosques, and it would need a different name to disambiguate it from the wider topic. Seeing as this information is already covered at Ottoman architecture with better sources and with more appropriate context, I don't see what would justify the existence of such a narrow article.

This kind of confusion is exactly what happens when an unsourced article is created (with good intentions) and then taken seriously afterwards instead of re-evaluating it according to core Wikipedia policies. It's also the kind of problem that arises from articles created and named after foreign language terms that are already reasonably covered by an English language equivalent, which is why WP:ENGLISH is important; without it, we will end up with a confusing array of overlapping articles and unintended content forks with systemic biases. R Prazeres (talk) 20:55, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not proposing creating a list. --Bejnar (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The issue of being distinct from other congregational mosques does not come up when discussing a building style. Because that would be apples and oranges, since a congregational mosque is a classification by usage, and ulumani in the sense being used by these authors is a classification in terms of building style. --Bejnar (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

• In fact a would be in favor of delisting those mosques that are not in the ulumani style. --Bejnar (talk) 21:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bejnar, thanks. That means two things:

1. I am still proposing that "Ulucami" be moved here, since such a list page would have its own name starting with "List of", and the name "Ulu Cami" is still just a name for some congregational mosques well beyond that narrow definition. So the merge discussion can continue regardless.
2. Note that by that criteria, the proposed list page would only list two mosques (or maybe a couple more lesser-known ones I'm forgetting, if any). Honestly, I don't see why readers would need such a page.

I will let other editors weigh in on this discussion in any case. R Prazeres (talk) 22:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Correction/clarification: I just realized I misread Bejnar's last response above as "I am proposing" instead of "am not", so my last response here may have seemed incongruous. Apologies for the confusion. R Prazeres (talk) 21:43, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Support, the cause is shaky at best for the Ulucami article remaining on its own as is-- I definitely oppose making it a list (especially as @R Prazeres said it would have little more than two mosques under the current understanding of the scope of the term Ulucami).

The two options here, in my view, are either A) Merging with Congregational mosque (possibly including a section about the unique definition of Ulucami if that is indeed verifiable), or B) Refocusing the article on the Ottoman architectural aspect present in @Bejnar's revision seen here (although I know @R Prazeres had concerns regarding credibility of some statements).

I'll sign off by saying I am by no means versed in any of these subjects, but I just wanted to give my two cents as a passerby because I know how frustrating it can get when just two people are trying to reach a consensus without any outside perspective.

Eggventura (talk) 02:59, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I would rather see the Ulucami article deleted rather than accomplish an incorrect merger. R Prazeres has rejected and reverted my sourced changes to the Ulucami article, leaving it entirely unsourced. I believe that the list there is not correct in identifying most of those mosques as "ulucami", although it is correct in calling most of them "grand mosques". I have initiated an AfD for the Ulucami article, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ulucami. --Bejnar (talk) 22:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I've added a comment supporting the deletion. I don't know if there's a policy against having merger and deletion discussions for the same article simultaneously, but as far as I'm concerned either solution would address the problem. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 01:40, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

• It seems that some sources[1] use the term ulucami to refer to a type of mosque architecture. I wonder if what happened was that someone made a big mosque, called it Ulu Cami, then other mosques started copying its design and also called themselves Ulu Cami. Over time, scholars started using the common noun ulu cami to refer this particular design of a mosque.VR _talk 21:21, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment (again):

Folks, I understand the confusion with unfamiliar terms, but we are way overcomplicating this for ourselves because we are going out on a limb to avoid the term's actual general and literal meaning. If I had known, I would have made my original proposal more detailed, so let me try to recap this here and point more directly to what the sources say:

Explicit definitions of "Ulu Cami" in reliable sources: "Ulu Cami" means "Great Mosque". That's the literal translation. In other words: a congregational mosque. It's not a greater mystery than that. For example, the Dictionary of Islamic Architecture by Andrew Petersen defines "Ulu cami" as: "Turkish term for a congregational or Friday mosque" (p. 131). That's a reliable source with a wide scope and an explicit, unambiguous definition. Another is The Art and Architecture of Turkey by Ekrem Akurgal: "Ulu Cami means Great Mosque: it is the congregational mosque where the Friday's Khutbah address (containing an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the reigning prince) is given." Or the glossaries in these references: "Congregational mosque where the male Muslim community performs the Friday prayer, during which the khutba is pronounced; also known as a Great Mosque or a Friday Mosque" and simply "Great Mosque" (equivalent to Jami). It's also why the Ulu Cami of Bursa is just as commonly known as the "Great Mosque of Bursa" in English.

Please avoid personal interpretations: This is precisely the kind of problem that the Notability policy warns against when it states that notability requires "Significant coverage" by reliable sources that address "the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content". None of the tentative sources cited so far in favour of an independent Ulu cami article do that, and we're trying to plug that gap with personal speculation and interpretation about what the word could mean instead of looking at what other reliable references have to say.

Other notes:

• Not an Ottoman-specific term: The name "Ulu Cami" in Turkish, as I pointed out previously, is applied to numerous major historic Turkish mosques, of varying types (often but not exclusively hypostyle) and periods, including those far older than the Ottoman multi-domed mosques referred to in this discussion so far ([2]), as is easy to verify any relevant source (e.g.:).
• Ottoman "ulu cami" type: Even to the extent that some authors use "Ulu cami" as a shorthand label for the Ottoman multi-dome mosques (as cited in [3]), this does not change the fact that it is not the general meaning of that term on its own. No source cited so far shows the contrary. Writers may need labels to help refer to certain sub-topics or sub-types, but that does not negate the general meaning of the words used for such labels. E.g. the fact that there are "hypostyle mosques" does not mean the term "hypostyle" is specific to the context of mosques on its own. Since this is a universal encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia of Ottoman architecture specifically, it is absolutely out of line to bypass the general meaning of "Ulu cami" as congregational mosque that is explicitly laid out in reliable sources.
  • Not just one label for this type of Ottoman mosque: Moreover, for the type of mosque in question here, other authors use different labels for the same thing, e.g.: "multi-unit", "hypostyle", "hypostyle building of equal domed bays", "hypostyle-with-dome", "multiple dome" or "duplication dome layout", "mosques of equal-size multiple bays", "multi-columned, multi-domed mosque tradition" etc. Even some major references on Ottoman architecture, which sometimes use the term "ulu cami" in a more typological way, do not do so clearly, precisely, or consistently, e.g.: Goodwin 1971 (a standard textbook on the subject, see p.51 and 55) or Kuban 2010 (see chapters 11 and 12). Therefore this is far from any kind of standard terminology that would clearly satisfy WP:COMMONNAME.

• "Great Mosque" versus other terms: In case it's not already clear from the sources above: a "great mosque", "congregational mosque", "Friday mosque", "Jami masjid", etc are variable terms for the same thing. This is already explained in this article. So "great mosque" is not a separate topic from "congregational mosque", and neither are Ulu Cami in Turkish or Jami' al-Kabir in Arabic, which have literally the same meaning.
  • Tangential note: That some individual congregational mosques are traditionally known as the "Great Mosque (of...)" and some are known by other names is not something you'll see explained clearly anywhere I expect; it seems to be merely due to local historical circumstances in each city. In the early Islamic period there was only one congregational mosque per city, which was thus more important than all the others, but their numbers multiplied in later periods (if you want a long discussion on this you can see "Masd̲j̲id" in EI2). The oldest (often but not necessarily the largest) mosque in a city is still often (but again not necessarily) known as the Great Mosque/Ulu Cami (e.g. the Ulu Cami of Kayseri is not the largest historic mosque in the city but is the oldest congregational mosque). This is common all over the Islamic world, not just Turkey. But that is my own personal understanding, and the pattern probably doesn't hold everywhere.

As I've pointed out already, if we're actually determined to have a page devoted to the architecture of essentially just two Ottoman mosques (the Ulu Cami of Bursa and the Eski Cami of Edirne), that page would need a different name to comply with WP:PRECISION and preferably WP:USEENGLISH. If we want this, it should be a different discussion (on which I've already expressed my view here). And, in general, please remember that Wikipedia is not a dictionary; we make article for a single topic, not for every word/term. R Prazeres (talk) 03:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - for the reason that there is nothing worth merging, and the real solution would be to turn the page Ulucami into: List of Turkish Grand Mosques. However, this merger argument is right on principle, in that this is an article about "great mosques" and "ulucami" is just Turkish for a great mosque. However, more broadly, I see issues with all the pages involved. First, the alignment of the concept of a "congregational mosque" with the title "great mosque" is more than a little problematic. A mosque does not need to be "great" to be congregational. Most mosques are congregational, and the common term for mosque is "جامع" ("jami'a") - the word taken here to mean "congregational". A great mosque isn't a "masjed jami'a", but a "جامع الأكبر", a "jami'a al-akbar", so the terms are clearly distinct. "Great" is just a title for a particularly big congregational mosque. The arguments in opposition are equally just plain wrong, stating things like: a city can have many mosques but only have one ulucami - needless to say there are literally half a dozen ulucami in Istanbul alone. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment: I don't disagree with your proposal necessarily but to correct you on the meaning of "great mosque":

The sources I just cited above, with included quotes (repeated here), explicitly state that "great mosque" is another term for congregational mosque in English. And the other sources I cited for definition of "Ulu Cami" also make this clear. So unless you've got reliable sources clearly saying the opposite, that's WP:OR. There is no particular criteria expressed anywhere in reliable sources about what counts as a "great mosque" versus other mosques; but all of those mosques are congregational mosques regardless. Incidentally, you'll find that some authors (like Jonathan Bloom, at least in his recent works) even choose to use "congregational mosque" consistently for all such mosques, including those commonly known as "Great Mosque (of...)".

And just a reminder that there is a list page for congregational mosques, with a section on Turkey, that was meant precisely for this kind of function. R Prazeres (talk) 09:26, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

The second source you have there says that jami' can be described as a Friday mosque, a great mosque or a congregational mosque, i.e.: it is not at all precise. A "Friday mosque" can be just any mosque where people gather on Fridays, and there is no implication in that source that this automatically makes them great, or that those three alternative translations are somehow obligatorily one and the same thing. List of congregational mosques may be suitable destination for this content, but that should really be its own, separate discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:32, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that this discussion is overdue to be closed I think, especially with how complicated it has become, but as there was no obvious consensus I believe a non-involved editor should close it (see WP:MERGECLOSE; let me know if I'm wrong). I'll look into requesting help if I have time, unless someone beats me to it. Also for what it's worth, now that the proposed "movee" (Ulucami) has been converted into a proper list article, the merge is no longer very relevant, and all the mosques named "Ulu Cami" in English sources would be in that list so it's not a major issue to redirect that one name here either. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 18:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

References

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.

Requested move 22 November 2021

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 section.

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Congregational mosque → Friday mosque – This page was renamed in March from Jama masjid to Congregational mosque based mainly on the desire to render the Arabic term into English, but the discussion, which unfortunately drew just two editors, was not exactly a shining example of broad consensus. I would like to re-open this and argue that, of the two principle academic translations for masjid al-jami, Friday mosque and the current Congregational mosque, we we should be favouring the former, based primarily on it being a more natural and concise term. A broad survey of the Google Scholar sources shows: 5,670 results for "Friday mosque" [4] and only 3,020 results for "congregational mosque" [5]. The Google books Ngram viewer also presents substantially more evidence of the use of "Friday mosque" [6] compared to "congregational mosque" [7]. This cursory approach aside, "Friday mosque" is clearly the simpler term, while "congregational" is a complete mouthful and obviously not something anyone ever says out loud outside of the dusty tomes of highly specialised academic literature. (To be honest, there is an equally good argument to be made that this page does not need to exist at all, since most mosques are for Friday prayers or "congregational", just in the same way that most churches are for holding congregations, i.e.: are "congregational, but for the moment this is by the by.) I open the question of the renaming to the floor. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:48, 22 November 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. No such user (talk) 13:01, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Note: WikiProject Islam has been notified of this discussion. VR _talk 15:43, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: I would like to add an alternative suggestion, which is to rename this article as Great Mosque and redefine the scope of this article to focus only on A) those historic Juma/congregational mosques that either held a pre-eminent position as the place of Friday worship for a community in the past, or B) modern mosques specifically titled as the Great or Grand Mosque of a city. The more general etymology and conventions behind the terms "Juma mosque" or masjid al-jami and the religious practices associated with them could then be covered on "Mosque". Iskandar323 (talk) 08:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Well "grand mosque"[8] and "great mosque"[9] have even more google scholar hits (11,000 and 21,000, respectively).VR _talk 15:41, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  @Vice regent: I was sort of beginning to think that those two terms should either have their own page or sub-section on the mosque page or this page about what makes any particular mosque "great" or "grand" - but that is not what this article was originally about, or what it is largely currently about, as an article about masjid al-jami, which is a basic functional descriptor for a mosque for Fridays prayers. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  That said, the article Grand Mosque would probably be more useful than this narrow definition. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  Well what is a grand mosque? What is a Friday mosque? Do we have definitions for these (from RS) to see if they are the same concept or different? VR _talk 20:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Again folks, please read the multiple sources that are already cited on this talk page so far; they are also in the article lead and I've just added (sort of dumped) additional ones there, with the passages quoted. "Great mosque" is indicated as a variant of the term in no less than three of them; incidentally, nearly all the major "Great Mosques" we can think of (e.g. of Kairouan, of Cordoba, of Damascus, of Samarra etc) are frequently (sometimes exclusively) referred to as "(the) congregational mosque" throughout sources like the Grove Encyclopedia (as cited), the Encyclopedia of Islam 3 ("Architecture" entry), the newer A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, etc.. Even if you want to go out of your way to argue that some of the sources aren't clear enough in your opinion, I think this is an unreasonable and self-inflicted confusion. We have ample evidence that the terms are interchangeable for general usage, and no sources offering a clearly different classification. R Prazeres (talk) 23:59, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

It's obviously clear that all great mosques are "congregational ones" - the quandary is, as you noted, the divide between historic Juma mosques/Friday mosques that were effectively the only great/congregational mosques, and the modern situation, where congregational mosques are widespread and common, but not all would be considered "great". Iskandar323 (talk) 08:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Neutral (comment): I originally considered "Friday mosque" as an option during the RM. Keep in mind that WP:COMMONNAME states that the common name is determined by its "prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources". The problem with Ngrams, as with other Google-based arguments, is that you can't see what those results are about or what type of source it is; a large number, if not most of, the mentions of "Friday mosque" or "Great mosque" will be about individual mosques, which simply reflects common local names rather than general terminology. "Congregational mosque" may not be common in travel books but it's very common in scholarly sources, as the sources here attest (including several encyclopedias); which is to say reliable sources. Dismissing those as "dusty tomes of highly specialised academic literature" is a problematic argument in light of these policies; the whole point is that readers will find similar terms for the same thing in both Wikipedia and in reliable published sources.

As the Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture ("Mosque", p. 548) suggests, this is the most direct translation of the original non-English term: "(...) a building constructed especially for the purpose is preferred, in particular for congregational prayer at Friday noon, the principal weekly service. Such a building may be called a masjid or a jāmi (Turk. cami), from masjid al-jāmi῾ (Pers. masjid-i jāmi῾; Urdu jāmi῾ masjid), meaning “congregational mosque.” This term is often rendered in English as “great mosque,” or “Friday mosque,” a translation of masjid-i juma῾, a Persian variant." So I suggested that for English readers, "congregational mosque" seemed like the term that was most WP:PRECISE and would lend itself to the least amount of confusion. Still, so long as people agree that "Friday mosque" is equally clear, I don't see a problem. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 18:27, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that Ngrams is only broadly indicative, but Google scholar results are a little harder to shake off, especially when the search involves a compound term or phrase that cannot readily be decontextualised. There is clearly significant academic usage of both terms, and most encyclopedia entries are not particularly helpful on the subject. Take for example, Britannica, which eschews both and comes up with its own term "collective mosques" [10]. However, this, like the Grove example, both serve to illustrate a broader point, which is that most encyclopedias define the terms, masjid, jāmi or masjid al-jāmi῾ all simply under the entry of "Mosque", and one might ultimately just as well ask in response to such sources about where the impetus for a separate "Friday/congregational (/grand/great) mosque" article came from in the first place. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:48, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that last part; I was surprised to find this page in the first place. My instinct at the time was that renaming and revising it seemed less controversial than deleting/merging it. But mosques today are now generally congregational mosques anyways, as you pointed out, so having two different links for "mosque" versus "congregational/friday/great mosque" might not be the best situation for readers (and for editors choosing where to link). I wouldn't oppose merging this page into Mosque and making the content here simply into a section of that page, but it might be best to wait til the dust settle a bit, unless there's wider agreement on that right now. R Prazeres (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@R Prazeres: the least confusing term is "Jami", as all the other terms have ambiguities. "Congregational mosque" is somewhat redundant, as congregation is the exact purpose of a mosque (otherwise you pray at home). As historically there were many mosques in which Friday prayers didn't happen, so "Friday mosque" could simply imply one in which Friday prayers do happen. But in modern times Friday prayers have started to happen in every tiny little mosque. "Grand/Great mosque" could imply a mosque of great historical significance but some Jami mosques could be very recently built. But "jami mosque" is not the WP:COMMONNAME in RS.VR _talk 20:26, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Pardon for the late of the party. as someone who had considerable knowledge regarding Arabic in scope of Islamic, i just want to add that Jami in sense here were used in Arabic. in fact, Friday in Arab language were named Jum'a, singular of Jam'a(gathering). which means, in Arabic, Friday is 'gathering day'. thats all i want to add for this discussion. hope this trivial reference can help for the final decision. the rest of the decision i will leave to you guys. Ahendra (talk) 23:05, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. The main basis for the nomination seems to be that one word is shorter than the other and easier to pronounce! I'm not seeing any real basis for this nomination, I'm afraid. The current article title is commonly used and accepted. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2021 (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.