Talk:Masjid al-Haram/Archive 18

History section?

The Pre-Mohamed part of the "History" section is very much centred on Islamic beliefs, so is subjective. This information is important to the completeness of the article, however Wikipedia articles should be written from an objective point of view. The history section should be in subjective terms. The Quran says the Kabaa was built by Abraham, but what have scientific investigations revealed about when it was built? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.35.235 (talk) 15:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Seems difficult as architectural research into Islamic historical places, even such a famous one, is very lacking. Only thin like this i can think of is analysis of the Black Stone showing tht the black Stone was most likely a meteorite. --Speeditor (talk) 16:01, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Still though it is certainly possible to provide some historical perspective. The Wikipedia page on the Kaaba at least gives an independent views on it's origin. I suggest changing the name of the subsection from "Era of Abraham and Ishmael" to "Pre-Muhammad era", giving a brief overview of both the religious and independent stances and linking to the history section of the Wikipedia page on the Kaaba for more detail. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.74.131 (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Noting that the "History" mixes religious belief and recorded history in a way that is very confusing to a reader. Including a decent summary of the religious traditions relating to the topic is very appropriate, but not in a general "History" section.

Please clean this section up and make clear distinctions between what is established historical research and religious traditions. For example, don't attempt to set up a periodization "scheme" that contains both Abraham and the Ottomans.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 1 May 2015

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. There is no clear consensus to move this page from its current title; the discussion is somewhat confused by the number of options being floated, including translation to an English title and addition of Al-, but there is generally an absence of consensus to move this subject to any other title. bd2412 T 15:08, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

• Masjid al-Haram → Al-Masjid al-Haram (my original request was to move "Masjid al-Haram" to Sacred Mosque, but changed it to instead move it to "Al-Masjid al-Haram", per suggestions by Fauzan in comments below) (withdrew request, "Masjid al-Haram" seems the optimal title. See discussions below)
• Al-Masjid an-Nabawi → Prophet's Mosque (withdrew request for now, per suggestions below)
• Masjid al-Qiblatain → Mosque of the Two Qiblas (withdrew request for now, per suggestions below) Note: A separate move request is now open for this page at Talk:Masjid al-Qiblatain#Requested move 4 May 2015

– Per WP:ENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME. "Sacred Mosque", "Prophet's Mosque", and "Mosque of the Two Qiblas" are all more recognizable to English-speakers. The current titles "Masjid al-Haram", "Al-Masjid an-Nabawi", and "Masjid al-Qiblatain" are merely approximate transliterations from Arabic, but not so accurate ones and there is even a controversy over their correct English transliterated forms (e.g. Masjid al-Haram or Al-Masjid al-Haram? See above discussions). Hence, I think, they all must be changed to uncontroversial and common names. "Sacred Mosque", "Prophet's Mosque", and "Mosque of the Two Qiblas" all occur in WP:RS (Google Books results: [1], [2], [3]), and refer to their WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (i.e. al-Masjid al-Ḥarām in Mecca, and al-Masjid an-Nabawi and Masjid al-Qiblatayn in Medina) in RS, and are therefore naturally unambiguous. Khestwol (talk) 12:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, The common name is Masjid al-Haram not Sacred Mosque. Sacred Mosque is not a very good term, and not a distinguishing one either. English translations should not be preferred because there is a disagreement in the transliteration. Sacred Mosque returns 776k hits (including the general meaning) while Masjid al-Haram returns 1.3 million hits on Google. We may better have a discussion on moving "Masjid al-Haram" → "Al-Masjid al-Haram". While the translations are used, they appear in sources as "Al-Qiblatayn Mosque, meaning the mosque of the two qiblas", "Mosque of the Two Qiblas (Masjid al-Qiblatayn)", "Masjid al-Qiblatayn (the Mosque of the Two Qiblas)", etc. which does not indicate the superiority of the translations, it is just used to give an insight into the etymology of the word.

Per WP:EN, The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, not necessarily an English translation. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 14:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for suggestions. I agree with you on "Al-Masjid al-Haram", I had requested to move this article to it before and it still seems to me the best option. Khestwol (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Support the new proposal, it is a better transliteration. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 18:23, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• STRONG OPPOSE This is a ridiculous POV title and flagrantly against WP:UCRN. As a parallel, when we present "Mohammed" we wouldn't make an unqualified presentation of the "prophet Mohammed" which would present POV although it would be fine to present the "Islamic prophet Mohammed" or the "Muslim prophet Mohammed". By far the most common uses on this are the "Great Mosque" with "Grand Mosque" also performing highly. A presentation of "Prophet's Mosque". If there was an eastern church that had a different language name translated "God's House" I would go anywhere near this before it had come into common English usage. GregKaye 14:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Al-Masjid al-Haram is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Grand Mosque" or "Great Mosque", these titles can refer to any of the 100s of mosques in difference regions of the world known by that name. The first 20 Google Books results for "Grand Mosque" for example ([4]) returned only 7 or 8 results that refer to al-Masjid al-Haram. The other 12 or 13 results refer to other Grand Mosques (about one result, I was confused if it is referring to al-Masjid al-Haram or the Grand Mosque in Riyadh). "Grand Mosque" seems to be used rather rarely for al-Masjid al-Haram, and I am afraid "Great Mosque" is used for it even more rarely. Khestwol (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Oppose as per the close of last RM and in opposition to further unnecessary presentation as a WP:POVTITLE. This also comes in the context of other WP:ENGLISH concerns including various grammatical difficulties presented above and general WP:UCRN concerns.

• The last RM was closes on 8 April 2015 saying. "The result of the move request was: Not moved to al-Masjid al-Haram, however an RM to further discuss a specific move to an anglicized version such as Great Mosque (Mecca) seems warranted if someone will take the initiative to start one. Discussion in the new RM should be limited to an anglicized version of this title and not dredge up issues surrounding al-Masjid al-Haram."
• WP:POVTITLE: I think the title contains enough religious POV as it is. It currently presents a disjointed Arabic rendition of ~"*Mosque (the) Sacred". I don't think that we can use Wikipedia's voice to present "The Sacred Mosque" even in transliterated Arabic. Within the article we can present the religious belief but we can't do so in our voice.

Grammatical concerns are expressed in the thread above while concerns related to commonname are, I think, evident below:

• "great mosque of Mecca" gets "About 8,260 results" "About 8,970 results" in books while
• "grand mosque of Mecca" only gets "About 3,410 results" "About 3,430 results" in books

"sacred mosque of Mecca" only "About 2,430 results" in books

• "great mosque" AND "Mecca" gets "About 21,900 results" in books
• "Al-Masjid al-Haram" AND "Mecca" gets "About 927 results" in books.

• "Al-Masjid ul-Haram" AND "Mecca" gets "About 25 results"

"Al-Masjid ul-Ḥaram" search added: GregKaye 05:27, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

despite the fact that some of the references to great mosque in the first search may be associated with other great mosques around the world while still referencing Mecca, I think that the usage is still strikingly clear. GregKaye 07:49, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment: please also include search for "Al-Masjid al-Haram", as the title proposed is this one and not other forms of it that include diacritics. You seemed to have supported "Al-Masjid al-Haram" in previous move request at first. Then unfortunately you changed your mind for anglicised titles which have geographic disambiguation with them and are not WP:CONCISE. Khestwol (talk) 08:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Plus for your third search the geographic disambiguation is not needed, because "Sacred Mosque" is exclusively used for al-Masjid al-Haram since its a direct translation from its original name. "Sacred Mosque", as a proper noun, is not used for other mosques. That's an advantage that the unambiguous "Sacred Mosque" has over the other non-concise anglicisations. Khestwol (talk) 08:40, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment: Haven't seen "Sacred Mosque" used very much. In the US the New York Times and Washington Post seem to prefer Grand Mosque or Great Mosque. In the UK the guardian often uses "Holy Mosque". If we are using close to the exact untranslated title (Masjid al-Haram) why not go all the way and add the beginning alif lam (Al-Masjid al-Haram).--BoogaLouie (talk) 14:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment: GregKaye, Google Books Ngram Viewer's results are not in favor of "Grand Mosque of Mecca" or "Great Mosque of Mecca". The current title "Masjid al-Haram" seems to be by far more common and seems to be growing further in popularity as of the 21st century. Khestwol (talk) 07:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

*Oppose - There was a recent RM for this article and a counterproposal which had significant editor input. I would support this proposal but the consensus was not to move and it is too soon to be having another one. Mbcap (talk) 15:00, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment there was no clear consensus in that requested move. But in earlier sections above, I can see a clear consensus among editors for "Al-Masjid Al-Haram" (except for their capitalization, their choice was same as this, but normally "al-" is not capitalized, hence my request for "Al-Masjid al-Haram" / "al-Masjid al-Haram"). I was not there, but supporters of the move included: MezzoMezzo, Pass a Method, GorgeCustersSabre, and Yakamoz51. We could not move only because none of those editors chose to write their !votes when the admin Anthony Appleyard asked for it in #Move? above. Khestwol (talk) 15:28, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

My apologies, I meant to say there was no consensus to move. Mbcap (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap, it is ok no worries. We still have to agree on the optimal title. Thanks for input. You were last month supporting the title al-Masjid al-Haram (see above). Khestwol (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Ping more users for input: Mar4d, Xtremedood, FreeatlastChitchat, CallAng222. Khestwol (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol The selective pinging of particular editor's, none of whom have edits in this talk page or its archive and none of whom are found mentioned in the last 500 edits of the main main page seems like a clear example of WP:CANVASS. This seems to me to be especially pronounced as you have not pinged previous contributors to the last recently closed discussion.

Mar4d, Xtremedood, FreeatlastChitchat, and CallAng222 seem to be active currently in articles related to Muslims, it was to notify them of this discussion. I had pinged MezzoMezzo, Pass a Method, GorgeCustersSabre, and Yakamoz51 also, just above. These last 4 are the ones who discussed about "Masjid al-Haram" vs "al-Masjid al-Haram" in sections above. Khestwol (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Firstly the instruction in the close of that RM had said, "Discussion in the new RM should be limited to an anglicized version of this title and not dredge up issues surrounding al-Masjid al-Haram." Following my objection to the proposal above and your notification of Move request changed on my talk page, in context of the close, I asked you to "to consider just withdrawing the RM or keeping it as is?" The only reason that an RM had not been submitted proposing a move to: Great Mosque (Mecca) was that another move had been proposed at Talk:Mecca#Requested move 26 April 2015 with short lived discussion on the proposal of: Mecca → Makkah. That discussion ended on 30 April 2015 and you started this discussion on 1 May 2015. Again, a typically common form of the English language designation of the mosque is the "Grand Mosque of Mecca" and it is most commonly indicated to be the Grand Mosque in that locale. I personally arrived to these conclusions via my personal deliberations as the last RM progressed. Ping also closer of last thread: Mike Cline. GregKaye 05:16, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I had opposed Mecca → Makkah per WP:COMMONNAME, but that is not relevant to this discussion. Again, "Grand Mosque of Mecca" is also, yet another example of titles that do not follow Wikipedia guidelines about WP:CONCISE. It also seems to be less common than "Masjid al-Haram", per Ngram Viewer results ([5]). So in my opinion, even the current "Masjid al-Haram" is a better title than something like "Grand Mosque of Mecca". Khestwol (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol in what way is "Masjid al-Haram" ... a better title than something like "Grand Mosque of Mecca". Wikipedia editing practice is based on policy-guidelines such as WP:ENGLISH, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and WP:NATURALNESS. GregKaye 08:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, by WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE I am more inclined to favor "Masjid al-Haram" over something like "Grand Mosque of Mecca". Khestwol (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol As I am just writing below

"Masjid al-Haram" gets "About 5,700 results" in books while

"Al-Masjid al-Haram" only gets "About 1,980 results"

The first search also indicates the specifically titled book: Masjid Al-Haram

GregKaye 09:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• STRONG Support for rename to 'Al Masjid ul Haram' and 'Strong Oppose' renaming it to any translation of Arabic like sacred mosque or prophets mosque etc(gives the impression that it is the only sacred mosque and a plethora of other reasons). I am in 100% agreement to all above reasons, and I respect all the editors who have taken time to give their opinions regarding wikipedia policies. I ,being new here, have not that much knowledge about wikipedia's nomenclature policies, so therefore, I defer to my esteemed colleagues who have given their opinions above. What I do have knowledge about is Arabic grammar and the transliteration rules coined by the royal asiatic society. So please allow me to explain.

Words in Arabic usually start with the Arabic letter Alif(consider at "A" of English) and Laam(consider it "L" of English). Which gives 'Al' when transliterated into English. The Masjid is agreed upon. Now the second 'ul'. Well according to rules of arabic grammar every word should end with the 'u' sound. Therefore the first part of this name is 'Al-Masjidu'. The second part is , according to the same rules, Al Haramu. Now we come to the rules for combining two words. According to rules of qualification, i.e when two words are such that one is the quality of the other, the words should be combined without change and the second word should be pronounced with a 'stopping sound'. Therefore when these two are combined they will be transliterated as 'Al-Masjid ul-Haram'. I would like to apologize for the relatively dry grammar lesson, my students also tend to snore and nod off to narnia when I am teaching grammar. I do hope that this has cleared up the confusion. I did not provide any links to the rules which I mentioned as they are simple facts just a mouseclick away. If someone wishes that I should edit my comment to include the said links, please mention it in a reply and I will provide them. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment Great Mosque (Mecca) is no translation but represents the common name description of the subject in English. GregKaye 05:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

"Great Mosque (Mecca)" contains 3 proper nouns, and uses parentheses, because it has to use a geographic disambiguation. It is not WP:CONCISE, hence not preferable, per the Wikipedia guidelines of using concise titles when available. "Al-Masjid al-Haram" has 2 nouns, is unambiguous, and doesn't use parentheses or geographic disambiguation. Hence al-Masjid al-Haram is preferable per the Wikipedia guidelines in WP:CONCISE. Khestwol (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• SUPPORT move to "Al-Masjid al-Haram", per Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Shuaibiyah Mosque, Al-Sahibiyah Mosque, Al-Rahma Mosque, Liverpool, Ar-Rahma Mosque, Kiev, Al-Saffahiyah Mosque, Al-Qaiqan Mosque, and many others. Per other similar transliterated article titles about mosques, which start with "al-" when the Arabic version of the title has al-. Oppose anglicized titles such as "Grand Mosque of Mecca" or "Great Mosque of Mecca", because it is more common to use an Arabic transliteration to refer to al-Masjid al-Haram rather than these titles, as Ngram confirms ([6]). The graphs show "Masjid al-Haram" is by far more common and seems to be growing in popularity further. If we do use an Arabic transliteration rather than an anglicization for the title, however, then we should go for the best option for transliteration. "Al-Masjid al-Haram" is the best option in my opinion. Khestwol (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

edit conflict)

Khestwol You raise some useful parallels and, on the basis of these references, I think that a potentially more valid option might be Al-Haram Mosque

• "Al-Haram Mosque" gets "About 1,730 results" in books.

At present, as well as being weak on recognizability amongst English speaking people's, Al-Masjid al-Haram also fail WP:NATURALNESS and this relates to the grammatical objections raised in the last RM. This policy/guideline presents:

"Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English."

I haven't checked found all the references but the articles at Special:WhatLinksHere/Masjid al-Haram that actually contain a link to the article begin in the listing with:

• "... [[Imam (Sunni Islam)|imam]] of the [[Masjid al-Haram|Grand mosque]] ..." in Antisemitism
• "the imam of the [[Masjid al-Haram|Grand mosque in Mecca]]" in Antisemitism in the Arab world
• "In 1979 the [[Masjid al-Haram|Grand Mosque]] ... was seized" in Islamism
• "in reference to the two holiest places in Islam: [[Masjid al-Haram]] in [[Mecca]], and [[Masjid al-Nabawi]] in [[Medina]]." in Monarch
• "The [[Masjid al-Haram]] was the first mosque, ..." in Mosque
• "the [[Masjid al-Haram]]", "the [[Masjid al-Haram]]", "[[Masjid al-Haram]] panorama." and "the [[Masjid al-Haram]]" in Mecca

emphasis added. The change creates grammatical difficulties. We can say "the Grand Mosque of Mecca" or "the al-Haram Mosque" and it will make sense in English. The same does not work with, "the Al-Masjid al-Haram" which does not make sense. GregKaye 08:24, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, "Al-Haram Mosque" also seems a good title. I would have favored it if was common. But it is not nearly as common as "Masjid al-Haram" according to Ngram ([7]). Khestwol (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• STRONGLY SUPPORT move to "Al-Masjid al-Haram", because it is correct in Arabic and other Arabic-titled mosques are titled like this on Wikipedia. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 08:21, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GorgeCustersSabre I missed your edit fractionally . As mentioned "Al-Haram Mosque" would at least fit in with English grammar. It also has common use as demonstrated above though not nearly the same level of common use as "Grand Mosque of Mecca".

The examples presented are cherry picked. Just in Asia we also have: Grand Mosque (Kuwait), Grand Mosque (Dubai), Great Mosque of al-Nuri (Mosul), Great Mosque of Samarra, Great Mosque of Kufa, Great Mosque of Aleppo, Great Mosque of Hama, Great Mosque of Raqqah, Great Mosque of Sana'a, Great Mosque of Salé, Great Mosque of Gaza, Great Mosque of Nablus, Grand Mosque of Bursa, Grand Mosque of Mersin, Grand Mosque of Tarsus, Great Mosque of Diyarbakır, Grand Mosque of Ganting, Grand Mosque of Colombo, Grand Jamia Mosque, Lahore, Grand Jamia Mosque, Karachi, Great Mosque of Xi'an and Grand Mosque of Taipei. There are nine further examples in Europe and 12 in Africa.

"Great mosque of Mecca", as demonstrated by "8,970 results" in books, is the English language common name for this subject. GregKaye 08:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Dear Greg, I hope you are well. I would prefer al-Masjid al-Haram, but, yes ok, I can live with your proposed title. Regards and thanks, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 09:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

If we go by WP:COMMONNAME, then as demonstrated in Ngrams above ([8]), the current title "Masjid al-Haram" is the most common and is getting more and more common. The only issue is with its correct English form to be used as title ("Masjid al-Haram" vs "Al-Masjid al-Haram"). Khestwol (talk) 09:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol Thank you for those results which were genuinely interesting. Applying the Ngrams search to the current issue of Masjid al-Haram,al-Masjid al-Haram, no results for "al-Masjid al-Haram" in any variant form, even appear on the scale. I predict a glitch but even so similar findings are presented in my books search results. Did you try a search on these parameters yourself? GregKaye 09:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes I noticed this also. "Al-Masjid al-Haram" does not appear in Ngram graphs ([9]). Perhaps some technical problem with the 2 dashes in the phrase. Khestwol (talk) 10:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose

as per WP:COMMONNAME

"Masjid al-Haram" gets "About 5,700 results" in books while

"Al-Masjid al-Haram" gets "About 1,980 results"

See also specifically titled book: Masjid Al-Haram. There is no parallel content titled "Al-Masjid al-Haram".

as per WP:THE on similar evidence as above and as presented by Tariqabjotu previously on this page:

"The use of the Arabic title, as shown with this issue, is problematic. Because al-Masjid al-Haram means The Sacred Mosque, we can't write "structures in the al-Masjid al-Haram"; we'd have to write "structures in al-Masjid al-Haram", which sounds completely unnatural in English. In some ways, it seems plausible that "the Masjid al-Haram", with the Arabic al replaced by the English the should actually be acceptable. This is much in the same way we're okay with the and mosque replacing their Arabic equivalents in "the al-Aqsa Mosque" and omitting the second the in the article name al-Aqsa Mosque. (And many sources don't even use the article the before al-Aqsa Mosque, even though it introduces a grammatical issue.) ....."

In this case the problems with the are compounded. See: WP:NATURALNESS and example texts above. GregKaye 10:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so current title "Masjid al-Haram"? Khestwol (talk) 10:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

In English it is most commonly known as the "Grand Mosque". The words "Grand", "Mosque" and "Mecca" are all instantly and readily recognisable and the policy / guideline at WP:ENGLISH and WP:UCRN are quite clear:

• "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals and major news sources). This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources."
• "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural."

Britannica presents the Great Mosque of Mecca and I think it would help readers locate the article information with most ease if we used a similar title. GregKaye 11:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, as said above "Grand Mosque" is ambiguous and not clear. Most of the time it refers to other Grand Mosques. And "Grand Mosque of Mecca" fails per WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME because ngram results showed it is not as common as "Masjid al-Haram". Britannica is a poor tertiary source. Like you wrote before, there is a WP:RS book with the title "Masjid al-Haram". Most reliable sources use "Masjid al-Haram", hence recognizability of the transliterated form of the title is not an issue for those with some familiarity with the subject. Khestwol (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Within either the context or either being in Mecca or of any type of disambiguation, natural, comma-separated or parenthetical. If people in Mecca were to talk about the "Grand Mosque", other people, as long as their English was good, would know exactly what they were talking about. Similarly, if we speak of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, the Grand Mosque, Mecca or the Grand Mosque (Mecca), the subject of the topic remains crystal clear. Searches on the terms "Grand Mosque" and "Mecca" get several times more results than either "Al-Masjid al-Haram" or "Masjid al-Haram" because, in English, the common name for that beautiful structure is "Grand Mosque". The only difference is that, in using this, we would be using words that readers will instantly recognise. GregKaye 16:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, locally in the Hejaz, the mosque is almost exclusively known as al-Masjid al-Haram also in English. Speakers of English and other non-Arabic languages travel to the mosque for religious reasons and are well-aware of important Arabic terminologies. Other than Ngram, our other tool is Google Books right. And even Google Books have only "About 3,430 results" results for "Grand Mosque of Mecca". It is more than 2000 hits lower than the results for "Masjid al-Haram". Also, can you find a reliable source which is titled "Grand Mosque of Mecca"? We do have such an example for "Masjid al-Haram". Khestwol (talk) 17:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol true and this means that the total number of hits in which the phrase the "Grand Mosque" as it is used in specifically relation to the "Grand Mosque of Mecca" will be somewhere between a large upper limit 10,500 results as represented by a search on "Grand Mosque" AND "Mecca" and 3,430 results as represented by a search on "Grand Mosque of Mecca". The ".. of Mecca" part of the text is just the disambiguator. "Grand Mosque" is the commonly applied description of the subject in English. GregKaye 17:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok GregKaye so no reliable secondary source is titled "Grand Mosque of Mecca"? I can find some reliable secondary sources in Google Books containing the phrase "Grand Mosque" in title, but they are about other Grand Mosques mostly. It is another corroboration that WP:RS does not favor "Grand Mosque of Mecca". Khestwol (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye there seems to be 3 simultaneous opposes from yourself on this RM. Please could you rectify this. Mbcap (talk) 11:13, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Move to the English-language name Great Mosque or Grand Mosque, whichever is preferred (I have a slight preference for "Grand Mosque", but others think "Great Mosque" is slightly more common in sources). There's no reason at all to repeat the last RM that closed a month ago with no consensus, because it's based on the premise that we should decide what's correct in Arabic. In fact, we should use the name that is most common in English. That would be one of the two alternatives mentioned here. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Ambiguous titles, and not so popular, as Google Books search and Ngram graphs have demonstrated. Adding geographic locations make them non-concise. Reliable secondary sources do not seem to prefer "Great Mosque" or "Grand Mosque" either -- see evidences above. Khestwol (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Khestwol It worked out in the end. From the other results I knew there had to be something missing. The Ngram results for the "Grand Mosque in Mecca", on its own, by far outstrips "Masjid al-Haram" in terms of common use and this is before we consider the "Great Mosque in Mecca", the "Grand Mosque of Mecca", the "Great Mosque of Mecca" and any other mention of "Great Mosque" that is in any direct way described as pertaining to "Mecca" or perhaps "Makkah". There is nothing ambiguous here. GregKaye 19:00, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, thank you for the new Ngram now that is an interesting new evidence. Still though we have to be careful picking the optimal title. Khestwol (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

An optimal title is one which is not only common but also concise and recognizable. I have begun to think that the current, "Masjid al-Haram" fulfills the Wikipedia criteria better. The only rationale to change it to "al-Masjid al-Haram" was because of Arabic grammar rules. But this article is in English, and we can always add "the" to the title in usage in a sentence, hence nothing that can't be fixed.

After this issue resolves, users who !voted here are also welcome to discuss optimal titles for Al-Masjid an-Nabawi and Masjid al-Qiblatain. Khestwol (talk) 20:21, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

One editor here, in support of your 8 April 2015 move request of Masjid al-Haram → al-Masjid al-Haram, said: "I'm fluent in Arabic and agree it only makes sense as "al-Masjid al-Haram"." There are clearly problems with the current title. We can easily avoid such issues by moving to the subject's commonname in English. GregKaye 08:38, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Strong Support - This is the common name and is also used by the encyclopedia of Islam. There was also a previous discussion here[10] on this page with MezzoMezzo and GeorgeClusterSabre where the agreement was on this name. The aforementioned two editors have contributed significantly to Islam related topics so I trust that they have knowledge of this subject area. Their insight was agreeable in regards to this name.Mbcap (talk) 11:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap This is honestly not how its done. Please feel free to conduct your own research and present findings. For me the research root I took started with a search on:

• ("Masjid al-Haram" OR "al-Masjid al-Haram") AND "holy sites" and -Wikipedia AND -demolishes AND -demolosh AND -demolishing

The reason I did this was to check the content of the lead of Arabic definite article which claims.

• "Unlike most other particles in Arabic, al- is always prefixed to another word and it never stands alone. Consequently, most dictionaries will not list it as a separate word, and it is almost invariably ignored in collation."

My purpose was to see how the Mosque was presented at in any listings of holy sites to see how it was presented from the beginning point of any a website title. I found:

• http://islam.ru/en/content/news/masjid-al-haram-workers-start-training-improve-skills

gives: Masjid Al Haram workers start training to improve skills ...

• http://navedz.com/tag/masjid-al-haram/

gives: Masjid Al Haram - navedz.com

• http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/masjid-al-haram/

Masjid al-Haram | The Counter Jihad Report

• http://islaminstalbans.com/holysites_makkah.html

gives listings in page text: "Masjid al-Jinn ...Masjid al-Aisha (Ta'neem) ... Masjid al-Bay'ah ... Masjid al-Haram ... Masjid al-Bay'ah"

• http://freshtraveldestinations.com/masjid-al-haram-mecca-saudi-arabia/

gives: Masjid al-Haram - Mecca - Saudi Arabia | Fresh Travel ...

• I honestly think that what is being proposed is quite simply not how things are done. It goes against commonname to call it the "Al-Masjid al-Haram" and this is not how it appears in listings and, as perhaps has been confirmed, that "al-" "is almost invariably ignored in collation." GregKaye 14:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Greg I have no idea what that google search entails but the links are all either blogs or just websites. They are not reliable sources. The following books use Al-Masjid Al-Haram:

• Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Religion
• Historic Cities of the Islamic World
• Encyclopaedia of Islam
• The Muslim World League Journal
• Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an
• The Mosque and Its Early Development
• Religious New Year's Celebrations
• Wisdom's Journey: Living the Spirit of Islam in the Modern World
• The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives
• The Road East: An International Affair
• Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature
• World Religions in Practice: A Comparative Introduction
• The Dome of the Rock

I am happy with either name with or without the indefinite article. I prefer this one because it is used by Brill publishers and is also a more complete name. Mbcap (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap Where and how do they use it? Who uses it as a title or at the beginning of a title as is being proposed here? 16:05, 4 May 2015

I honestly think that talk of reliable sources is just word games. Wikipedia is just a website and yet many contributors to the net make sincere attempts to present accurate and coherent content and I have presented relevant results. I many cases I would have more faith in the contributors to these "just websites" often with specialist interest, than many other sources. Which of the sites do you consider to be a blog? GregKaye 07:55, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Religion: G-P presents:

Masjid al-Haram : The Grand Masjid on Makkah. The Ka'bah (the Qiblah of the Muslims) is situated within it.

I would like to invite anyone here or any visitor to do their own research into this issue, perhaps by using a search of books such as:

• ("al-Haram" OR (("Great Mosque" OR "Grand Mosque") AND Mecca)) AND (dictionary OR encyclopedia OR encyclopaedia)

GregKaye 17:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This thread will never achieve consensus for anything because it's impossible to tell what the proposal is. The thread needs more organization, and the option of al-Masjid al-Haram needs to be taken out of the question because it was already it was already discussed and rejected last month for valid, policy-based reasons. -- tariqabjotu 02:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment: tariqabjotu, users above i.e. Fauzan, GorgeCustersSabre, BoogaLouie, FreeatlastChitchat, Mbcap, and myself, have all shown clear support for the move to "Al-Masjid al-Haram". Only GregKaye and an IP are the opposers, they want to propose contrived anglicized titles. But there seems to be a clear consensus for "Al-Masjid al-Haram", as of now. Khestwol (talk) 09:56, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, after blatant canvassing from you. But thankfully this is not a vote. The arguments in favor of the move, as they were the month before, are simply that the proposed title makes more sense in Arabic. Never was and never will be a valid argument. Please stop beating the dead horse here. -- tariqabjotu 11:07, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

• Khestwol as you yourself have commented below "I however can now agree that "Masjid al-Haram" represents a more common usage than "Al-Masjid al-Haram" and appears more WP:NATURAL." What more needs to be said. You objection now appear to me to be gaming. I have already explained to you that WP:CONSENSUS should be understood in the context that it "is accepted as the best method to achieve our (that's Wikipedia's) goals" and that no other agenda matters. You have not presented a single policy/guidance based reason to support this move. Your interventions at this stage with no valid argument to present are continuing to be disruptive.

As you will know if you have paid any attention to results presented, there is nothing contrived GregKaye 11:16, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@GregKaye: your one-side contribution to this thread and insisting on anglicized names that specialized sources on religion don't use in their titles, is not a constructive contribution. Mbcap has provided a list of some reliable sources above, which all use "Masjid al-Haram". One example was Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Religion: G-P. Your example, Britannica is not a specialized source on religion or on Islam, and its choice for title can be easily ignored. Once again, searching for broken phrases and combining them to form contrived non-proper names, does not help much in selecting a proper name for the mosque that we can use as article title. As it is illustrated with an example in the below section, your way of doing it is like searching for "Home" while picking a title for 10 Downing Street. Google Books search for "Home" gives about 300 million results. But "10 Downing Street" has only about 150,000 results. So do you support to move "10 Downing Street" to "Home (British Prime Minister)", or "Home of the Prime Minister" etc? If so, no one will agree with your proposals. That is why no one but 209.211.131.181 agreed with you on this page. Khestwol (talk) 17:42, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Not "Anglicised" names. English names. Commonly used English names for an English Encyclopedia as are used by most other sources. Just 5 days ago you proposed "Anglicised names". GregKaye 18:16, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@GregKaye: "Masjid al-Haram" is common enough in English per Google Ngram. It does not become a non-English word just because you say so. My earlier proposal to "Sacred Mosque" (proper noun) was purely based per WP:COMMONNAME. But as you can see I had withdrawn it. Khestwol (talk) 20:47, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@Khestwol: Why did you exclude "Great Mosque in Mecca" from your "common enough" Ngrams search? You are making selective comparisons. Here is a more inclusive version of the search. The common name of the subject is either "Great Mosque" or "Grand Mosque" as related to the mosque in Mecca. Please see Ngrams on: "Grand Mosque,Great Mosque,Masjid al-Haram,Sacred Mosque". Many of the publications that use these terms will use them in relation to the "Great Mosque" / the "Grand Mosque" in Mecca while some publications may alternately or additionally use these terms in relation to other Great Mosques or Grand Mosques. GregKaye 07:31, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, again not sure what you are searching for in your Ngrams? "Grand Mosque" and "Great Mosque" returns results for other mosques most of the time. So you are searching for all mosques that have been called "Grand Mosque" or "Great Mosque". "Masjid al-Haram" and "Sacred Mosque" (proper noun) on the other hand only return results for this mosque that this article is about. Searching in case sensitive "Sacred Mosque" returns results for this mosque only. Google Ngram is case-sensitive so returns results for "Masjid al-Haram". That is why I included "Sacred Mosque", in the Ngram. Most of your options are not suitable WP:CONCISE titles, but contrived descriptions. Khestwol (talk) 08:28, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

• WITHDRAW MOVE REQUEST, KEEP THE CURRENT TITLE "Masjid al-Haram". I have reached the conclusion that the "Masjid al-Haram" is the optimal title for this page, and most other !voters who supported the move to "Al-Masjid al-Haram" also seem to have expressed that the current title "Masjid al-Haram" is fine too. So per consensus we can keep the current title "Masjid al-Haram". On Wikipedia, we can from now on use the "Masjid al-Haram" (and for consistency with its other closely associated mosque, we can also maybe use the "Masjid an-Nabawi"). Thanks to all for !voting. Khestwol (talk) 11:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't an uninvoled user/admin close this? They would be better at determining consensus. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 12:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fauzan: yes I agree. An uninvolved admin would be at a better position to close this. Khestwol (talk) 14:29, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

haram=4bidn ithout

. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.49.104.96 (talk) 09:36, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 1 November 2016

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Great Mosque of Mecca  — Amakuru (talk) 13:21, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

---

Masjid al-Haram → Great Mosque of Mecca – WP:COMMONNAME Երևանցի ^talk 19:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Other options include:

• Grand Mosque
• Grand Mosque, Mecca
• Grand Mosque of Mecca
• Great Mosque, Mecca
• Great Mosque of Mecca (e.g. Encyclopedia Britannica )

Google Scholar results:

• "Great Mosque" Mecca -- 4,580 results[11]
• "Grand Mosque" Mecca -- 3,170 results[12]
• "Masjid al-Haram" Mecca -- 1,320 results[13]

• Support either Grand Mosque or Great Mosque of Mecca (in order of preference). There's a move request above, plus subsequent discussion, that should have resulted in this page being moved to an English-language title, but even if the move request above didn't support moving to an English-language title, it still should be moved to an English-language title. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 04:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think "Grand Mosque of Mecca" and "Great Mosque of Mecca" violates WP:CONCISENESS. Khestwol (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support any move to English but preferably Great Mosque of Mecca as nom, per https://www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Mosque-of-Mecca, per WP:COMMONNAME. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:16, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I think "Great Mosque of Mecca" and "Grand Mosque of Mecca" violates WP:CONCISENESS. Khestwol (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as per the Wikipedia policy at WP:MOSAR, which also allows for using the Arabic phonetic transliteration rather than purely translating into English. As the basic transliteration "Masjid al-Haram" is common enough, I think there is no reason to switch over to using the pure English-language translation, especially when it is not clear which one of the possible English translations should be chosen in the first place. On the other hand, as far as the English translations, in my opinion, the most suitable English translation is "Sacred Mosque" rather than any of the two proposals (Grand Mosque of Mecca or Great Mosque of Mecca), because:
  1.) As a proper noun, "Sacred Mosque" refers to only the Masjid al-Haram, and no other mosque in the world.
  2.) "Sacred Mosque" is a direct English translation from the original Arabic name "Masjid al-Haram".
  3.) As "Sacred Mosque" does not have to add the word "Mecca" to its title, it is more WP:CONCISE than any of the proposals, which have to add the word "Mecca" for disambiguation, thereby reducing conciseness. Khestwol (talk) 08:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Note that, also per WP:MOSAR -which by the way is still a proposal-, an English translation is preferred over a transliteration. --HyperGaruda (talk) 08:57, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support - WP:MOSAR is still a proposal and not an "official" policy. Regardless, WP:MOSAR states common English translation is preferred over all other formats and per WP:COMMONNAME, support the proposal. Regards—UY Scuti ^Talk 06:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Different definitions of Ḥarām, and rename this article as "Al-Haram Mosque"?

@Khestwol and Onceinawhile: Ḥarām (Arabic: حَـرَام) can mean 'Forbidden' or 'Sacred', so Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Arabic: ٱلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْـحَـرَام) can mean "The Forbidden Mosque" or "The Sacred Mosque". I see that because Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is not in the English language, there is an issue with renaming this article as such, but even though "Al-Haram Mosque" might be less popular, it is WP:neutral between the different definitions of Ḥarâm, especially in the English language, and we do have a mosque that is similarly prominent, albeit to a lesser extent, and named in a similar way to "Al-Haram Mosque", that is Al-Aqsa Mosque, which makes use of the Arabic name (Arabic: ٱلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْاَقْـصَى, romanized: Al-Masjid al-Aqṣā) in an English manner. Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

If Al-Aqsa Mosque does not have to be renamed "The Farthest Mosque," which is what the Arabic name means in the English language, then why should this article have to be named "Great Mosque of Mecca" or "Grand Mosque of Mecca," considering that the word Ḥaram (Arabic: حَـرَم) or Ḥarām (Arabic: حَـرَام) is commonly used for this mosque, that Arabic for 'great' or 'grand' would be Kabīr (Arabic: كَـبِـيـر) or Akbar (Arabic: أَكْـبَـر) (like for the Great Mosque of Kairouan), and that relatively few people, if any, would use Kabīr or Akbar for this mosque? I see that this website used Al-Masjid al-Kabīr fī Makkah al-Mukarramah (Arabic: اَلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْـكَـبِـيـر فِي مَـكَّـة الْـمُـكَـرَّمَـة, "The Great Mosque in Makkah the Highly Honoured"), but this is the first time that I am seeing anything like that, as far as I can remember. Leo1pard (talk) 04:04, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

References

The Black Stone is believed [...]

I edited the phrase "The Black Stone is believed to be the only remnant of the original structure made by Abraham." In this edit [14]. It was changed back by reversion by @SpyButeo: in this edit [15]. SpyButeo did you understand the problem I was faced with? I think I could have also put a Template:Who next to believed, would you be against that? I think I tried to fix a problem I saw - non-NPOV - and you reverted seemingly without addressing the concern.--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 14:35, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree with suggestion. SpyButeo (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Request Move to Grand Mosque of Makkah

When we usually refer to the Mosque in English, we say the Grand Mosque not the Great Mosque. Also in Arabic and Urdu, the city is pronounced as MakkaH, a H is pronounced, so I would suggest moving the page to "Grand Mosque of Makkah" Jibran1998 (talk) 10:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

@Jibran1998: Why not Al-Haram Mosque? Ḥarām (Arabic: حَـرَام) can mean 'Forbidden' or 'Sacred', so Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Arabic: ٱلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْـحَـرَام) can mean "The Forbidden Mosque" or "The Sacred Mosque". I see that because Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is not in the English language, there is an issue with renaming this article as such, but even though "Al-Haram Mosque" might be less popular, it is WP:neutral between the different definitions of Ḥarâm, especially in the English language, and we do have a mosque that is similarly prominent, albeit to a lesser extent, and named in a similar way to "Al-Haram Mosque", that is Al-Aqsa Mosque, which makes use of the Arabic name (Arabic: ٱلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْاَقْـصَى, romanized: Al-Masjid al-Aqṣā) in an English manner. Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

If Al-Aqsa Mosque does not have to be renamed "The Farthest Mosque," which is what the Arabic name means in the English language, then why should this article have to be named "Grand Mosque of Mecca" or "Grand Mosque of Makkah," considering that the word Ḥaram (Arabic: حَـرَم) or Ḥarām (Arabic: حَـرَام) is commonly used for this mosque, that Arabic for 'great' or 'grand' would be Kabīr (Arabic: كَـبِـيـر) or Akbar (Arabic: أَكْـبَـر) (like for the Great Mosque of Kairouan), and that relatively few people, if any, would use Kabīr or Akbar for this mosque? I see that this website used Al-Masjid al-Kabīr fī Makkah al-Mukarramah (Arabic: اَلْـمَـسْـجِـد الْـكَـبِـيـر فِي مَـكَّـة الْـمُـكَـرَّمَـة, "The Great Mosque in Makkah the Highly Honoured"), but this was the first time that I saw anything like that, as far as I can remember. Leo1pard (talk) 05:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

References

"Biggest mosque" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Biggest mosque. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 20:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Is the Kaaba a mosque?

There is a discussion on Talk:Conversion_of_non-Islamic_places_of_worship_into_mosques#The_Ka'aba concerning whether the Kaaba should be included in that article. Everyone is welcome to join the discussion. M.Bitton (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2020 (UTC)