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m AbdulRehman sattar moved page Talk:Masjid al-Haram to Talk:Al Masjid al-Haram: wrong pronunciation
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Revision as of 19:43, 9 November 2020

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not enough r.s ref

there is a serious lack of ref and this article will need them. Who is writing most of these sections is not necessarily inaccurate but we need sources for those statements, esp when people need to verify info by themselves. I cannot trust things without ref. --Inayity (talk) 12:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Inayity, I hope you are well. You are right. I'm trying to clean up the prose, but it's also clear to me that the article needs reliable neutral sources. I'll search for some as time permits. Please free to add some too. Regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

use the edit summary to explain your edits

By doing that it communicates the issue so other editors know. Saying "un constructive" does not inspire much collaboration. b/c I was very confused at the reversion. WP:ES--Inayity (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

what was the first thing built?

I'm a bit confused by this: "the very first construction of the Kaaba, the heart of the Masjid al-Haram, was undertaken by Abraham. The Qur'an said that this was the first house built for humanity to worship Allah.[Quran 3:96] With the order of the God [Quran 22:26], Abraham and his son Ishmael found the original foundation and rebuild the Kaaba [Quran 2:125] [Quran 2:127] in 2130 BCE." What was the "original foundation" found by Abraham, if he build the first construction? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 04:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to Islamic tradition, the original foundations were the foundations of the first Ka'bah, built by Adam. I have found a good online reference for this (Story of Holy Kabah and its People by S.R.M Shaabar | First Chapter; Ka’aba - The House Of Allah)--Speeditor (talk) 17:33, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

There is no such thing as "Masjid al-Haram," it's "Al-Masjid Al-Haram"

Yes it means exactly what one thinks it means. There is no such thing as a mosque, anywhere in the world, called "Masjid Al-Haram." The reason is because the meaning of that would be "the mosque of prohibited things" rather than the real name for the grand mosque, "AL-Masjid Al-Haram," which actually means "the sacred mosque." Writing an Arabic ism (not exactly the same as a noun but close) without the definite article followed by another ism which actually does have the definite article causes the first word to become a possessor and the second to be a possession. That is not the case with this mosque; it is "THE masjid" and "haram" is functioning as a na't or adjective describing it as holy or sacred. If we even look at the Arabic Wikipedia version, "المسجد الحرام," we will see that the definite article is attached to both words; not doing so is a really blatant grammatical error.

Thus, I would like to propose two possibilities...we either change the article's name to "Al-Masjid Al-Haram" or just change it to English per WP:ENGLISH. Either way, this current title does not refer to an actual place because no mosque on Earth, including the subject of this article, is called that. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to quote two policies: WP:VERIFY which says that material "must clearly support the material as presented in the article". And WP:WEIGHT which says that content is featured "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." So essentially, it does not matter if it grammatically wrong - what matters is whats in the sources. The fact remains is that the current phrasing IS found in reliable sources hence i'm gonna vote to keep it as it is. Pass a Method talk 07:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I recommend the page name is changed to Al-Masjid al-Haram. Regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 07:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose a name change. Pass a Method talk 09:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Pass a Method, you are an outstanding editor and I seldom find myself disagreeing with you. I just know, as an Arabic speaker, than one needs the first direct article. My regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 14:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I did a google books search [1]. I currently support the move. Pass a Method talk 15:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, how does this work? Do we need to put a template on the article or notify project Islam first, or are comments from the three of us enough? Should we maybe wait a little longer? MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:06, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also support the "move". I am convinced by the claim and thank for pointing this out. regards Yakamoz51 (talk) 13:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok so what happens now? MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:51, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Transliterated words

Unfortunately, most of the Arabic names doesn't have a standard transliteration in English. So I suggest, if a word doesn't have a standard transliteration in English then we should use Wikipedia article name on that subject, if exist. For example if Wikipedia article names the cuboid building as Kaaba, then all words refer to thaere should be Kaaba in the Article. Not Qaaba, Qabah, Kabah, Kaabah etc.. Similarly, Wikipedia transliterates the city where Kaaba is in as Mecca. So we should stick on this name. If you believe that "i.e. Mecca" is a wrong transliteration then go ahead and discuss that issue on that page before making a change on this page. Thank you. Yakamoz51 (talk) 11:12, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Yakamoz51, you make perfect sense to me. Regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 11:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone transliterate the Arabic at the beginning of the article? Thanks (I don't know Arabic). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.96.26.237 (talk) 00:20, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I did not see anyone disagree with the move, it is a very clear cut argument per every book on the subject. --Inayity (talk) 07:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Inayity "moved" the article by copy-pasting, so its history was incorrect. I posted on Wikipedia:Cut-and-paste-move_repair_holding_pen about it. I just wanted the article's history restored after the move, but my request seems to have been misinterpreted as a request to move the article back to Masjid al-Haram. I don't disagree with the move; there was a consensus for it. —rybec 23:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you for your efforts. I should have said "misinterpreted as a request to also move the article back." —rybec 15:16, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, or move to Grand Mosque. 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.)
However, it might just be better to avoid this issue altogether by using "Grand Mosque", which, apparently, is the more common name in English, especially outside texts aimed at Muslims. Compare 15,600 Google Books results for "Grand Mosque" mecca -wikipedia vs. 1,980 Google Books results for "al-Masjid al-Haram" mecca -wikipedia (the latter of which is largely serious Islamic texts by Muslim authors). I'm indifferent between the two options, but I oppose moving this to "al-Masjid al-Haram", which, as suggested by the nature of the Google Books results, is just not English. -- tariqabjotu 06:21, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is about Al-Masjid Al Haram per RS (not what sounds cool in English), Grand mosque has many claiming that title. So why are you comparing a disambig to a specific unique name.? The above logic you have conjured up makes no sense per WP:TITLE. It is like doing a google search and saying Mosque is more popular than Masjid al-Aqsa, so let us rename it to Mosque b/c it is more common or worse because it is in English. The only argument would be if we were debating spelling (Haraam vs Haram), and we are not.--Inayity (talk) 07:53, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That Google search was specifically "Grand Mosque" mecca -wikipedia -- with "mecca" included -- in an effort to narrow down the results to just ones about the mosque in Mecca. Sure, there might be a few false positives, but browsing through at least the first few pages of those results, I see that all of the references are to the mosque in Mecca. There is certainly no basis for the insinuation that 90 percent of those results are references to other mosques or the straw-man argument that accompanies that.

"What sounds cool in English" is actually relevant here, because this is the English Wikipedia. There are a number of sources that use the allegedly grammatically incorrect "the Masjid al-Haram", including publications based in the Arab world. Among these sources are The Diplomat, a publication by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UAE-based The National, al-Jazeera (which never uses "al-Masjid al-Haram") the BBC (which never says "al-Masjid al-Haram"), and The New York Times (which also never uses "al-Masjid al-Haram"). There is ample evidence to suggest that "the Masjid al-Haram" is acceptable in English and that "al-Masjid al-Haram" is just Arabic transliterated. And that doesn't even say anything about "Grand Mosque", which al-Jazeera, the BBC, the New York Times, the AP, etc, seem to much more strongly prefer, being, of course, English. -- tariqabjotu 09:47, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

Premature move

Sorry. I was checking how to move the page if and when an editorial consensus emerged. I accidentally did it. I have reverted my move. I apologize. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 05:47, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like the Move debate was poorly advertised in the correct communities and hence got a low turn out. Most of the people who supported the move did not even use the above vote. Total opinions only 3 Including me.--Inayity (talk) 03:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Abraham/Ibrahim?

The article switches between the two names for the same person. I suggest only "Ibrahim" be used as his relation to the Kaaba is only in the Islamic tradition. Wkharrisjr (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this, and it's why I opened up this talk page to look at it in the first place. Paragraph 1 below the TOC uses Abraham and Ibrahim. To clarify for non-Muslims etc. perhaps the paragraph should be restructured to use "Abraham" at first, and then changed to Ibrahim throughout. I dunno. I ain't that smart. :)

Administration section

Can we get some sort of definitive listing, some sourced official source, so that the list of who is Imam when and all that isn't a source of constant disruption? I don't know enough to fix this and it's frustrating the hell out of me. Peter Deer (talk) 22:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do we need this long section ?

Imams and Muadhins section is more than a quarter of the article. And also it is merely list of current and former imams/muadhins. Imagine, we put all the names of former imams/muadhins than it would be a list of thousands of people throughout the history. Several of them even doesn't have a WP page. So I propose to summarize (if not remove at all) this section and keep only very notable imams and muadhins. Yakamoz51 (talk) 15:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinate error

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for


—87.109.95.234 (talk) 07:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done. You haven't said what you think is in error, and the coordinates in the article appear to be correct. If you still think that the coordinates are erroneous, please explain the nature of the error below. Deor (talk) 11:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 31 March 2015

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: 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. Mike Cline (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Masjid al-Haram → al-Masjid al-Haram – The title al-Masjid al-Haram is more recognizable and preferable to use in English. In addition, it is also a correct transliteration from the Arabic name, because Arabic uses the definite article al- (المسجد الحرام, al-Masjid al-Ḥarām). Masjid al-Haram, on the other hand, is grammatically incorrect to use for this mosque, and in addition, also not recognizable. So per WP:RECOGNIZABLE, I request to move this page to al-Masjid al-Haram. Previous discussions at this talk page show that most users (including MezzoMezzo (talk · contribs), GorgeCustersSabre (talk · contribs), Yakamoz51 (talk · contribs), and Inayity (talk · contribs)) supported the move to the proposed title which uses al- at the start, and also a fifth one (rybec (talk · contribs)) has agreed there is a consensus for the move. Only 2 users have opposed the move, though it seems even one of the two opposers (Pass a Method (talk · contribs)) at one point made up their mind to support the move in a discussion above. That leaves only Tariqabjotu (talk · contribs) who opposed the move. I agree with Rybec there was a consensus for the move. Khestwol (talk) 13:17, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Masjid al-Haram is not so commonly used in English sources either. But to those familiar with the mosque and the usage of its name, it is not as recognizable as the proposed name. Khestwol (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure anyone that recognizes al-Masjid al-Haram as this site in Mecca can recognize Masjid al-Haram as the same place. The idea that the Arabic grammar issue prevents that is, frankly, far-fetched; they're pretty much the same thing. At the end of the day, the argument for the move boils down to the idea that "al-Masjid al-Haram" makes more sense in Arabic.
Unfortunately, though, as I said, what makes more sense in Arabic is irrelevant. What's important is what makes more sense in English. Do realize that WP:RECOGNIZABLE, which you linked in your request, states this multiple times, including as follows:
  • 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.
  • Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources.
I have shown that there are reliable English-language sources, including English-language sources written in the Arab world, that use "Masjid al-Haram" -- and I'm sure the authors of those Saudi and Emirati publications are fluent in Arabic too. Previously I also showed that al-Jazeera, the BBC, and the New York Times all don't use "al-Masjid al-Haram" at all. So far, you have not countered that with sources. -- tariqabjotu 16:08, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Google books also have thousands of results for al-Masjid al-Haram (2,020 results), which is just less than half than that of Masjid al-Haram (5,620 results), but none of the 2 names are too popular so as to beat the other in terms of popularity. However, again, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY applies:
  • The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
Al-Masjid al-Haram is more recognizable. In addition, the proposed name also has another advantage in terms of consistency:
  • The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) in the box of Topic-specific conventions on article titles.
Other similar articles also use -al at the start of their titles, most importantly al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the second-holiest mosque after al-Masjid al-Haram. Khestwol (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion that al-Masjid al-Haram is more "recognizable" to someone familiar with the subject is purely anecdotal, and, to me, it doesn't make sense. There's no way someone who recognizes what al-Masjid al-Haram is can't recognize what Masjid al-Haram is. So we're left with considering other criteria.
And consistency sure isn't one of them. Dude, the only reason al-Masjid an-Nabawi is where it is is because you moved that article from its long-standing location two weeks ago. I can move that back too if consistency is the issue. -- tariqabjotu 17:57, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
False assertions. The previous title of al-Masjid an-Nabawi also used the definite article al- at the start. The existence of that article offers an advantage for the proposed title. Khestwol (talk) 20:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes, I see that now. My apologies. -- tariqabjotu 22:22, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Tariqabjotu, all of your citations make reference to "the Masjid al-Haram". In this case and similar cases I think that WP:THE is difficult to apply as the second (I believe) confirmatory "al-" remains in the text. I could support either Great Mosque of Mecca, al-Masjid al-Haram (which would require in page code to produce the initial "a") or Al-Masjid al-Haram but, on basis understandings of Semitic languages and on the basis of George Custer's Sabre's comment below, I think it would be against Wikipedia's role as a WP:encyclopedia to present a potentially incoherent content. GregKaye 10:45, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@GregKaye: I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying, but let me take a stab at a response. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're meaning.
My best guess at what you're saying is that those [many] sources that say "the Masjid al-Haram" are basically writing "al-Masjid al-Haram", but just translating the first al. Assuming this were true, this doesn't make sense anyway. Per WP:THE, when the is not capitalized, it's not part of the title. It's not capitalized when "Masjid al-Haram" is mentioned in English -- and there's nothing stopping those sources from capitalizing it (unlike in Arabic, where capitalization doesn't exist). Therefore, the shouldn't be part of the title, in English or in Arabic.
Second, there's really no way to reconcile the with Masjid al-Haram in this instance. As stated a number of times, the definite article completely changes the meaning of the phrase in Arabic. Appending ال to مسجد changes the meaning of the phrase from "Mosque of the Forbidden Things" [or however you choose to translate حرام] to "the Sacred Mosque". Appending the to Masjid al-Haram in English does nothing of that sort. Except in designated instances where The is capitalized (i.e. not here), the [noun] and [noun] are understood to mean the same thing. And they are here.
Now, I know some will say yes, but that's why the current title is a problem. But, it's not. Yes, مسجد الحرام (transliterated as Masjid al-Haram) doesn't 'make sense' in Arabic. But as sources show, in English (including English-language sources based in the Arab world), Masjid al-Haram makes sense in English; it means the site we're talking about here, المسجد الحرام. Once again, let me caution you, and other commenters, to not give heed to simple comments like "I know Arabic, and this makes sense in Arabic, so that should be the title on the English Wikipedia". Our policies suggest that line of thinking is not appropriate. -- tariqabjotu 12:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That is an ambiguous title, because many mosques are known by that name in English. See Grand Mosque. So we will have to resort to using a qualifying disambiguation in parenthesis, which the proposed title doesn't need as it is not ambiguous. Khestwol (talk) 06:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But this mosque is commonly called the Grand Mosque in English - I realize that a few mosques get referred to as "grand mosque of such-and-such" as well, but this one is just the Grand Mosque, and it is clearly the primary topic. And the existence of a title which follows Wikipedia's naming conventions most certainly is a reason to propose moving to the title that follows Wikipedia's naming conventions - rather than moving from one title that doesn't follow naming conventions to another that also doesn't follow them, and especially when the forseeable consequence is twenty more move requests initiated by people who want to add or remove three characters from the title instead of simply using English. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 13:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
209.211.131.181, interesting. I have provided some stats on usages in the thread below and to these I can add that "Great Mosque" "Mecca" gets "About 20,500 results". Great Mosque (Mecca) might be a suitable title but perhaps Great Mosque of Mecca can still be considered. Perhaps you can counter propose one or both of them for consideration. GregKaye 13:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • change as Oppose, 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. GregKaye 14:31, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure what point you're going with here. Yes, there are many articles on Wikipedia that begin with al. The only relevant comparison here, though, is Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. But that's just a single data point. Your remaining examples are irrelevant. The constructions of both the original Arabic names and the selected article titles are completely different. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah aren't mosques and don't modify any other words.
al-Aqsa Mosque actually hurts your point. The direct transliteration from Arabic is al-Masjid al-Aqsa. The article does not reside at that location. There isn't even a redirect, because, well, that's not English. There also isn't a redirect from The al-Aqsa Mosque. (Your laugh at the use of the before al-Aqsa suggests you misunderstand the construction -- "al-Aqsa" does not add the definite article to the mosque, but reordering in English leaves us with the weirdness.) Al-Aqsa Mosque, the way I see it, is just a reordering of Masjid al-Aqsa (the transliteration that is at the top of the article). Like here, مسجد الاقصى doesn't quite mean the same thing as the actual name. But, again, it doesn't matter because al-Aqsa Mosque, and Masjid al-Aqsa, predominate over al-Masjid al-Aqsa. Same goes for Haram al-Sharif (bolded and written many times as such in the Temple Mount article) rather than al-Haram al-Sharif [not widely used in English]. The proposed name would be the odd one out, and I have yet to see any reason why it would be justified in being such. -- tariqabjotu 12:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
User:Tariqabjotu, I have also presented other supportive arguments above but the main issue that I presented here was to present, as you picked up, Wikipedia has a president for presenting titles beginning "al-" or "Al-". I then regard there to be a relevance in presenting content that makes coherent sense. I suspect that our presentation may, to Arabic proficient readers, be akin to speaking like Yoda from Star Wars. I am reasonably familiar with the "Al-Aqsa Mosque" and, as an arguably irrelevant comment, lived for a year in private accommodation within 700m of the site - so, for me, this certainly wasn't literally "the farthest mosque", "(lol)".
Most importantly though I do not think, just because there is "weirdness" in the presentation of a topic such as "al-Masjid al-Aqṣā" in many texts, that this in anyway justifies presenting weirdness within another title.
Al-Aqsa Mosque, more correctly, is a reordering of al-Masjid al-Aqsa. That this is a red-link, however, may provide an indication of support for your argument. GregKaye 13:27, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The weirdness I was referring to was saying "The al-Aqsa Mosque" despite al- and the both meaning the same thing.
And, again, we gain nothing by stating here are five other titles that begin with al- so let's add al- to the beginning of this article. That's a drastic misuse of WP:CONSISTENCY. There is no attempt to consider how those titles may be similar or dissimilar to the situation here. This is like saying The Game starts with the, so The Mona Lisa, The Super Bowl, and The Beatles should all start with The. There are many merits to consider. If this discussion is going to come down to simple comparisons like that, and repetitions of what makes sense in Arabic rather than in English, all I can hope is the closing admin gives due weight to policy-based arguments. -- tariqabjotu 13:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is quite established in English to write "The al-aqsa mosque". There are also a significant amount of usage of "The al-Masjid". I can definitely see that the whole thing is problematic and this is also shown in my "Grand mosque" quote below. The article text reads: "The Grand Mosque is another name for Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, ..." and here usage of neither "the" or "al-" has been included. Perhaps this provides a good argument for an application of WP:USEENGLISH. GregKaye 15:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Per reasoning by Khestwol. Also Encyclopedia of Islam uses "al-Masd̲j̲id al- Ḥarām". News, books and academic journals commonly use the word al-Masd̲j̲id al- Ḥarām to refer to this. Mbcap (talk) 19:37, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Then that would be a reason to support al-Masd̲j̲id al- Ḥarām as the title of the article. But, of course, that's clearly not English, which runs afoul out our policies to use English-language names. And, further, I'd contend that your point isn't true. It's 5,360 vs. 2,030 in favor of Masjid al-Haram (or 3,330 vs. 2,030 if the former includes "Al-Masjid al-Haram") on Google Books, and 1,110 vs. 364 (or 746 vs. 364) on Google Scholar. I'm not sure what sources you're looking at that show al-Masd̲j̲id al-Ḥarām, but again we're looking for mainstream English-language sources, not highly specific sources aimed at Arab and Muslim audiences that would be used to seeing direct Arabic transliterations. -- tariqabjotu 01:52, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Counter propose: Great Mosque (Mecca)

Counter propose: Great Mosque (Mecca) as per:

  • the opening text of Grand Mosque: "The Grand Mosque is another name for Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, the holiest mosque in Islam";
  • the format of all the similar titles in that article,
  • all the search results I have previously provided and
  • the confusion of presenting an Arabic "al-Foo" when a writer also wants to indicate an English "the".

While I would support the above change I think that this move would be more valid thus:

Comment: Greg: I think the title al-Masjid al-Haram is our best option especially as per WP:NATURAL. Why use a parenthetical disambiguation when the Arabic-derived proposed title offers us a natural disambiguation? Khestwol (talk) 20:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Khestwol I have really tried with the al-Masjid al-Haram but, either way, I see problems in regard to the al-/the issue. Many people will not experience a great deal of recognisability with "al-Masjid al-Haram" but will experience an extremely high level of recognisability with the words "Great", "Mosque" and "Mecca" and, putting them together, the whole message would be extremely clear. I honestly don't understand all the fuss about the provision of topic clarifications in parenthesis but, if there is thought to be a problem, an alternative usage of Great Mosque of Mecca. This wording gets higher hits than "al-Masjid al-Haram" which I think is of important note because Great Mosque of Mecca is in English. "al-Masjid al-Haram" could be used in relation to texts in any language that makes use of Latin scripts and perhaps some others. I really like the use of bits of other languages in Wikipedia and, for instance, I will often argue for the inclusion of diacritics. However, in this case, for me the WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH in the context of the "the" issue were just too great. Sorry. GregKaye 21:02, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There's a possibility data may still support this proposal, but I should point out the Google research you did (searching for "Great Mosque" Mecca on Google Books) turns up many results where "Great Mosque" is used in reference to a different mosque and Mecca is just on the same page. In the first ten results, I see references to Great Mosques in Tunisia, Cordoba, and Mali. Another turns up an index, where several different Great Mosques (not the one in Mecca) are mentioned. Also, I'm confused about your first bullet point; wouldn't that support Grand Mosque instead of Great Mosque? -- tariqabjotu 14:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
TY tariqabjotu, good points both. I mentioned the Grand Mosque as an illustration that other names are used for the site. However a use of more specific Google results indicates:
The former is also the title used in Britannica. I did think of the Great / Grand difference when reading through but forgot it when writing down. I am also open to changing this sub thread into a discussion regarding best alternate title. What do you think? GregKaye 14:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support any variation of the English-language name over the proposal above. I don't suppose I have to repeat my above comments here; they still apply. For clarity: I prefer "Grand Mosque", but would support any move away from the disputed Arabic title to English as an improvement. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 15:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that readers would experience any great dilemmas in recognisability between "Great .." and "Grand ..". I think that Great Mosque is more supported externally but, if I'm understanding what you are saying, Grand Mosque would fit with other Wikipedia content. GregKaye 21:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am interested to know what other reliable secondary sources predominantly call the mosque then? I for one almost always see it as al-Masjid al-Haram normally but it maybe because I mostly hear it in religious settings, not scholarly settings. One user mentioned Britannica but that's clearly a nonreliable tertiary source on the topic. Khestwol (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose - Masjid al-Haram is the common name. Brill online uses that name and so do the vast majority of other news, book and academic sources. Mbcap (talk) 19:33, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral I don't agree that there's anything wrong with "using Wikipedia's voice" to call this the Sacred Mosque if that's what it's called, in Arabic or otherwise. I'm neutral about this name though because I feel there are better arguments for this name than al-Masjid al-Haram, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the current name. The optimal name, according to Wikipedia policies, appears to be the one we currently have. -- tariqabjotu 01:58, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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.

suggest change to opening text

It is currently written:

Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar, The Sacred Mosque or The Grand Mosque)

'''Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām''' ({{lang-ar|المسجد الحرام}}, ''The Sacred Mosque'' or ''The [[Grand Mosque]]'')<ref name =GME>[http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE77J0W520110820?sp=true Saudi Arabia starts major expansion of Grand Masjid in Mecca]</ref>

I suggest:

Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar, The Sacred Mosque), also known as the Great Mosque of Mecca,

'''Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām''' ({{lang-ar|المسجد الحرام}}, ''The Sacred Mosque''), also known as the '''Great Mosque of Mecca''',<ref>{{cite web|title=Great Mosque of Mecca - Mosque, Mecca, Saudi Arabia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/254837/Great-Mosque-of-Mecca|publisher=Britannica}}</ref>

GregKaye 11:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest change of from picture: File:Masjid al-Haram.jpg

File:Masjid al-Haram.jpg
Consensus rejected image
Alternate suggestion
Masjidul-HaramAerealView

The picture has a curious file name considering the topics of other discussion in operation at the moment. I would like to question the use of this image. It uses a photographic technique so as to present an unreal depiction of its subject. I also think it presents a POV of the mosque as being a geographically dominant presence in the world. Various people may believe this religiously but I don't think that it is appropriate to push such a view pictorially through the use of image manipulation or distortion. Is there another appropriate image that can be used? GregKaye 15:46, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with these arguments. If there is an appropriate picture which gives a real depiction of the mosque then that picture needs to be used in this article. Khestwol (talk) 20:43, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Some better images can be found on C:Category:Masjid al-Haram. Khestwol (talk) 20:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we shouldn't use the manipulated image, or any manipulated image. There's no way to avoid POV problems when doing such things. I've added an alternate suggestion here , which I found to be the best one on the Commons page. How do other editors feel about switching to that one? 209.211.131.181 (talk) 12:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's better, but, goodness, is it ever daytime in Mecca? -- tariqabjotu 15:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There are daytime pictures on Commons, but almost all of them have shadows from one of the minarets obscuring part of the interior. I chose a nighttime picture because the even lighting actually makes it clearer. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 01:59, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I for one would like to 'Oppose' such a replacement. Not because of any overt "concerns" but because the rationale given is kinda absurd. The rationale presented is that the picture shows the mosque to be a dominant feature of the landscape and that such a depiction is POV. This rationale is inherently flawed, as the mosque building 'IS' the most dominant feature of that landscape , so the only POV here is of the person wishing to remove it. If there is any other reason for replacement please be kind enough to list it. If we started replacing pictures just because "they look dominant" we will be doing pov editing. As proof you can view the file I have linked below the original.FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 12:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the manipulated image doesn't portray the Grand Mosque as a dominant feature of the local landscape (which of course it is), but falsely presents it as taking up a large portion of the Earth's surface. That is a serious problem, both because it is false, and because the motivation for the false image is to represent "importance" as a feature of the mosque's architecture. I don't think such a manipulated image can be acceptable. For the record, however, when I said "feel free to revert", I meant it - I made a bold change, and disagreeing with it is certainly allowed. It ought to be changed back nonetheless. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 18:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In an encyclopaedia our duty is to display clear unfiltered information. The manipulated image fails to do this. We can't deal with manipulations. Our only duty is to present straight forward information with as much clarity as possible, GregKaye 18:40, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If editors here have views in regard to the general theme of this thread, comment would also be welcome at Talk:Church of the Holy Sepulchre#Unencyclopedic pic. Ping Fauzan, FreeatlastChitchat, GregKaye 08:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The first image is a better representation as it gives a complete picture. Now regarding the "manipulation", it is obvious to the reader that it is a fisheye projection. The objection that the image "falsely presents it as taking up a large portion of the Earth's surface" is absurd in the same way as saying that a gray scale image "falsely depicts the landscape of being devoid of color" and is a "POV". It's a photography technique, and the image is the best available one represent the structure. We may as well mention it in the caption about the fisheye. For now I have replaced the image with a cropped one that I hope resolves the issues. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 15:17, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It looks much clearer Fauzan now that it is zoomed in. Khestwol (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

– 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: [2], [3], [4]), 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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Support the new proposal, it is a better transliteration. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 18:23, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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 ([5]) 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)[reply]
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:
"sacred mosque of Mecca" only "About 2,430 results" in books
"Al-Masjid ul-Ḥaram" search added: GregKaye 05:27, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

*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)[reply]

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)[reply]
My apologies, I meant to say there was no consensus to move. Mbcap (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Ping more users for input: Mar4d, Xtremedood, FreeatlastChitchat, CallAng222. Khestwol (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 ([6]). 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
"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)[reply]
  • 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 ([7]). 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)[reply]
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
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)[reply]
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 ([8]). Khestwol (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
If we go by WP:COMMONNAME, then as demonstrated in Ngrams above ([9]), 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Yes I noticed this also. "Al-Masjid al-Haram" does not appear in Ngram graphs ([10]). Perhaps some technical problem with the 2 dashes in the phrase. Khestwol (talk) 10:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
Ok, so current title "Masjid al-Haram"? Khestwol (talk) 10:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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:
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • Strong Support - This is the common name and is also used by the encyclopedia of Islam. There was also a previous discussion here[11] 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)[reply]

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:

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:

gives: Masjid Al Haram workers start training to improve skills ...
gives: Masjid Al Haram - navedz.com
Masjid al-Haram | The Counter Jihad Report
gives listings in page text: "Masjid al-Jinn ...Masjid al-Aisha (Ta'neem) ... Masjid al-Bay'ah ... Masjid al-Haram ... Masjid al-Bay'ah"
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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:
GregKaye 17:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
Shouldn't an uninvoled user/admin close this? They would be better at determining consensus. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 12:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Fauzan: yes I agree. An uninvolved admin would be at a better position to close this. Khestwol (talk) 14:29, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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.

What would be the best title option to represent common name usage?

Evidence is provided in Ngram results and in search results (in these cases from books) as follows:

Options are (but are not limited to):

Britannica, Inc. presents the titling: Great Mosque of Mecca (mosque, Mecca, Saudi Arabia)

IMO at least accurate optional titles might even include "Spectacular Mosque" which certainly seems to me to be accurate, especially in comparison to some religious buildings in, for instance, Jerusalem. None-the-less, either "Great" and "Grand" could serve as very accurate common name descriptors. Are there any suggestions here that editors either particularly support or particularly oppose. GregKaye 08:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think we could not agree on a WP:CONCISE anglicization for the mosque. Searching for broken phrases and combining them, does not help much in selecting a proper name for the mosque so that we can then use it as article title. "Grand Mosque in Mecca" was one option, but that is so superfluously long. "Grand Mosque in Mecca" is mostly used to describe the mosque within the body of the books, sometimes preceded by "Masjid al-Haram". I have not seen "Grand Mosque in Mecca" used in titles of secondary sources.
"Masjid al-Haram" on the other hand is concise. And so many reliable sources, both secondary and tertiary (some are mentioned above), commonly prefer to use "Masjid al-Haram" even in their titles. So why do you want to anglicize it? I have fixed the grammar problem within the body of the article in this edit. Khestwol (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I however can now agree that "Masjid al-Haram" represents a more common usage than "Al-Masjid al-Haram" and appears more WP:NATURAL. But if we leave this title as is i.e. "Masjid al-Haram", then I also recomment moving Al-Masjid an-Nabawi to Masjid an-Nabawi per WP:CONSISTENCY between the 2 holiest mosques. Is that an agreeable compromise between all parties? Khestwol (talk)

Khestwol Why do you want to present the Arabic title and for what agenda? You know the guidelines on the use of English. In an number of options a clear and remarkably recognisable name is presented. The options presented represent the ways that are by far the most regularly used. Why do you want to use something different? Why? GregKaye 16:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're misrepresenting. "Masjid al-Haram" is a common loanword in English from Arabic and a commonly used English proper name. I only want to use the name that is most suitable per the WP guidelines. Most users have !voted in favor of "Al-Masjid al-Haram". So i think it will be per consensus if the move request results in move. Khestwol (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are an experienced editor and I am surprised at your actions. Your last RM recently closed (as of 8 April 2015) with the statement that "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." Regardless of this and regardless of recommendations to withdraw, you have started the above RM. The guidelines are to use the most commonly recognisable form of title. If I were to ask people to identify the topic of the "Masjid al-Haram" and the "Great Mosque of Mecca" which one do you think would best enable people to identify the subject? The answer here should be blatantly obvious here. We are dealing with commonly recognisable name. Look! Please, just look.
You have just stated, "I however can now agree that "Masjid al-Haram" represents a more common usage than "Al-Masjid al-Haram" and appears more WP:NATURAL" and then you say "i think it will be per consensus if the move request results in move". If you thought that the move is wrong then just withdraw your against recommendation and unsubstantiated request. Notably other editors have withdrawn their arguments but not their !votes. Please be aware that WP:CONSENSUS "is accepted as the best method to achieve our (that's Wikipedia's) goals". No other agenda matters. GregKaye 17:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No wonder only 1 person agreed with your insistence on anglicising this title. I am still wondering what is your proposal for Al-Masjid an-Nabawi? Khestwol (talk) 18:07, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Another wonder is why people have been voting and proposing without basis in policy. My insistence that Wikipedia's policy / guidance be validly followed with regard to the use of commonly recognisable names. Which of the six titles mentioned would you see as most applicable? GregKaye 02:08, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If I were to ask people to identify the topic of the "Masjid al-Haram" and the "Great Mosque of Mecca" which one do you think would best enable people to identify the subject?
While I agree that al-Masjid al-Haram has already, and very recently, been discussed as a proposed option, and should not be discussed again for that reason (and for the policy reasons discussed), I think your understanding of "recognizability" is too extreme. Recognizability is only to the extent that people familiar with the topic would be able to identify that. I imagine some people, like myself, feel the name "Great Mosque of Mecca" is a bit contrived, used to help people who don't know the name of the mosque to know what's being discussed. I don't think recognizability is meant to be used for those types of things, or else 10 Downing Street might be at Home of British Prime Minister. I'm fine with the position regarding sources, but not much regarding the question I highlighted above. -- tariqabjotu 02:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tariqabjotu There is little comparison with regard to the example you give.

"home of the british prime minister" gets "About 1,750 results"
"home of the prime minister" gets "About 830 results"
10 Downing Street is by far most commonly described as 10 Downing Street.
The Great Mosque is by far most commonly described as the Great Mosque.
GregKaye 16:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Ok? Did you get to the last sentence of the comment you responded to? -- tariqabjotu 19:38, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Compare Propionibacterium acnes and bacteria causing acne. Or Mangifera indica with Mango tree. Or Barack Obama with current president of america. You see, a line needs to be drawn between descriptive indicators and proper names. Tariq hits the nail on the head. "Recognizability is only to the extent that people familiar with the topic would be able to identify that." --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 17:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6 Anglicized options in this section

GregKaye, what exactly makes any of your 6 options better than "Masjid al-Haram" or even "Sacred Mosque" (proper noun)? Both "Masjid al-Haram" and "Sacred Mosque" seem more common per Google Ngram. Besides, we have to choose a title as article title, preferably a WP:CONCISE proper noun. We do not have to choose a contrived descriptory phrase as title. Khestwol (talk) 21:12, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

English names

Within policy and guideline we find:

Suggested titles do "use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language", primarily "Great Mosque" a second most prevalently used option being "Grand Mosque". GregKaye 08:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We have gone through this several times as of now. These names refer to other mosques most of the time. Khestwol (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we have. Even on its own, "Grand Mosque in Mecca" gets more results than "Masjid al-Haram". GregKaye 12:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is that your 7th proposal? Khestwol (talk) 12:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you are taking "Grand Mosque in Mecca" as your new, 7th option, I have to strongly oppose. Firstly it is not WP:CONCISE. The goal of conciseness is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area. "Masjid al-Haram" is 100% familiar to a person familiar with its subject area. The title should be no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects, like "Masjid al-Haram" is. Also, "Grand Mosque in Mecca" is a contrived description for the mosque, not a real title that any secondary source has used as its title. Khestwol (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
UCRN and ENGLISH, refer to the most common name. Now Grand/great mosque is used both as a name and a descriptive indicator, the proper name is (al-)Masjid al-Haram. Directly below Wikipedia:Article_titles#English-language titles is WP:UE states "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet ... must be transliterated" (emphasis as is). --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 17:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fauzan the Ngrams search that I presented was case sensitive. The main content of presentation is either for "Grand Mosque" or "Great Mosque". GregKaye 07:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
GregKaye please see WP:MOSAR. "If there is no primary transcription, a standard transliteration is used..." Here in our case, there is clearly no primary transcription (anglicization) because: "A word has a primary transcription (anglicization) if at least 75% of all references in English use the same transcription, or if a reference shows that the individual self-identified with a particular transcription..." We simply have to standard transliterate the title into Masjid al-Haram and use this title. Cheers, Khestwol (talk) 09:07, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

haram=4bidn ithout

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

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)[reply]


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)[reply]

Other options include:

Google Scholar results:

  • "Great Mosque" Mecca -- 4,580 results[12]
  • "Grand Mosque" Mecca -- 3,170 results[13]
  • "Masjid al-Haram" Mecca -- 1,320 results[14]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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.

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 [15]. It was changed back by reversion by @SpyButeo: in this edit [16]. 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)[reply]

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

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

@Khestwol and Onceinawhile: Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) can mean 'Forbidden'[1] or 'Sacred', so Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) can mean "The Forbidden Mosque" or "The Sacred Mosque".[2]: 471  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 (Template:Lang-ar) in an English manner. Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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 (Template:Lang-ar) or Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) is commonly used for this mosque, that Arabic for 'great' or 'grand' would be Kabīr (Template:Lang-ar) or Akbar (Template:Lang-ar) (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 (Template:Lang-ar, "The Great Mosque in Makkah the Highly Honoured"),[3] 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)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Adamec, Ludwig (2009). Historical Dictionary of Islam, 2nd Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 102. ISBN 9780810861619.
  2. ^ Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi (26 March 2016). The Laws of Islam (PDF) (in English). Enlight Press. ISBN 978-0994240989. Retrieved 22 December 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  3. ^ Sabeena. "المسجد الكبير في مكة المكرمة" (in Arabic). Blog.ksa.co.in. Retrieved 2018-03-27. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

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)[reply]

@Jibran1998: Why not Al-Haram Mosque? Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) can mean 'Forbidden'[1] or 'Sacred', so Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) can mean "The Forbidden Mosque" or "The Sacred Mosque".[2]: 471  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 (Template:Lang-ar) in an English manner. Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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 (Template:Lang-ar) or Ḥarām (Template:Lang-ar) is commonly used for this mosque, that Arabic for 'great' or 'grand' would be Kabīr (Template:Lang-ar) or Akbar (Template:Lang-ar) (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 (Template:Lang-ar, "The Great Mosque in Makkah the Highly Honoured"),[3] 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)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Adamec, Ludwig (2009). Historical Dictionary of Islam, 2nd Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 102. ISBN 9780810861619.
  2. ^ Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi (26 March 2016). The Laws of Islam (PDF) (in English). Enlight Press. ISBN 978-0994240989. Retrieved 22 December 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  3. ^ Sabeena. "المسجد الكبير في مكة المكرمة" (in Arabic). Blog.ksa.co.in. Retrieved 2018-03-27. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Requested move 8 August 2020

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. From the evidence provided in the discussion, the Arabic form is the most common name in English language sources. It should be pointed out that WP:RECOGNIZABILITY is not a competition; it says a good article title is recognisable, not that the most recognisable title is the best title. From ngrams and Google Trends searches combined, I personally am satisfied that the COMMONNAME is, indeed, Masjid al-Haram (give or take transliteration quirks). Also, for what it's worth? Just because this is the English Wikipedia does not mean the English translation is the best; for example, nobody calls the most famous street in Paris "Avenue of the Elysian Fields". Sceptre (talk) 22:06, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Great Mosque of Mecca → Masjid al-Haram – These are the multiple reasons why I think the name should be reverted to Masjid al-Haram or similar:
A. The Al-Masjid an-Nabawi article:
The aforementioned article concerning the Prophet’s Mosque uses the Arabic name for its title, as do most other articles about mosques on Wikipedia.
B. Google Ngram Viewer and the popularity of Al-Masjid Al-Haram and other forms
Wikipedia recommends using Google Books Ngram Viewer to support move claims per WP:RM. Given this, Ngram Viewer shows that the name Masjid al-Haram is more than 3.5x more prevalent in usage than both Great Mosque of Mecca and Grand Mosque of Mecca individually, and around 2x more popular than both combined. In addition, Google Trends shows that the names Masjid al-Haram, Masjid Al Haram and Al Masjid Al Haram, combined, are 13x more popular in searches on Google than Great Mosque of Mecca and Grand Mosque of Mecca combined, on average.
C. Concerning the previous name change
I believe the previous name change was made hastily and inconsiderably. The main concern of the person suggesting the previous name change was a violation of WP:CONCISENESS, however, I believe that the current name violates WP:PRECISION, WP:CONSISTENCY and WP:CONCISENESS, and, albeit to a much smaller degree, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY. AccordingClass (talk) 20:04, 8 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 21:40, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - I'm afraid the asserted reasons A, B, and C may be inappropriately employed here.
Regarding A: I'm not sure how linking a single Wikipedia article about Al-Masjid an-Nabawi is grounds for the later claim of "most other articles about mosques on Wikipedia", but if one were to use WP:CONSISTENT, which looks at "the pattern of similar articles", then Category:Mosques in Saudi Arabia would demonstrate that, for mosques specifically in Saudi Arabia, of the approximately 28 that have articles on Wikipedia, only 4 articles have a name containing "Masjid" while 23 have a name containing "Mosque", making a name containing "Mosque" - in fact - the more consistent one by far.
Regarding B: The Ngram link is invalid as the evidence does not match the proposed title. The proposed title is "Al-Masjid al-Haram", but the Ngram link uses "Masjid al-Haram", which is a different form without the "Al-" article. This issue has been debated ad nauseum in multiple previous RM discussions as well - the evidence must match the proposed title. To wit, if the search had been performed correctly and included "Al-", one would find that either "Great Mosque of Mecca" or "Grand Mosque of Mecca" are used more often than "Al-Masjid al-Haram". Also, Google Trends is invalid here because its statistics is based upon all language searches, whereas WP:COMMONNAME requires "reliable English-language sources" - apart from the language issue, note that searches are not sources, let alone reliable sources. The current title is hence more in keeping with WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RECOGNIZABILITY as it uses a form known to be far more familiar to English speakers.
Regarding C: The previous name change was not hastily done; in fact, RMs for this article have been debated nothing short of extensively, to a fault - 90% of this talk page discuss nothing constructive other than proposed name changes to various forms, and this debate crops up almost every two years. It seems like it was finally due this year, and so it has returned. In addition, the proposal claims violations of WP:PRECISION, WP:CONCISE, and WP:CONSISTENT, but it has not been demonstrated how the current title violates any of the three.
In sum, the previous consensus was clear and continues to hold: the current form of name is far more common in English-language sources, and - contrary to the proposal - is supported by WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, and WP:CONSISTENT. There is also no evidence given that WP:PRECISION or WP:CONCISE is at issue. Epistulae ad Familiares (talk) 09:28, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: I see this as a violation of WP:CONSISTENCY as applicable to the three holiest sites of Islam, i.e., the Masjid an-Nabawi, the Masjid al-Haram and the Masjid al-Aqsa. The articles concerning these two mosques use their original names, and as such, I believe this article should do so too. I do not support Al-Masjid al-Haram alone, I am supporting "Al-Masjid al-Haram or similar". This includes both Al-Masjid al-Haram and Masjid al-Haram. As such, even if Masjid al-Haram is selected as the new article, that's perfectly fine with me. In my opinion, the title violates WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and WP:CONCISENESS in the name of WP:PRECISION as anyone even vaguely introduced to the idea would be able to identify the mosque with the name "Masjid al-Haram". I still believe the previous consensus was reached hastily and inconsiderably as the pre-proposal evidence the person brought to suggest names was, verbatim, "Evidence is provided in Ngram results and in search results (in these cases from books)...", responding to which I have brought forth similar evidence. AccordingClass (talk) 10:44, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Interesting case. I'm inclined to believe that even English sources do favour the proposed title. But on the other hand, the current title would be recognisable to every English speaker, while the proposed title (which I assume is Arabic) would be meaningless to many if not most English speakers. Having it at the current title clearly improves Wikipedia in my opinion. Andrewa (talk) 00:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Since sources of all languages prefer the original title, how do you think will the English name be recognisable (not the same as understandable) to English speakers? And wouldn’t you say that places generally have names in all sorts of languages. How is it fair to translate their name to English? And we’re not even translating it in this case, as I said above, I haven’t seen the name "Great Mosque of Mecca" being used anywhere off Wikipedia. Idell (talk) 04:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The common name in most reliable English-language sources is the current one, even if the Ngram picks up lots of mentions of the Arabic name in scholarly sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "Masjid al-Haram" seems to be the more common name (3,115,000 results on Google web search) as opposed to "Great Mosque of Mecca" (511,000). I think the proposal should be (slightly) modified to "Masjid al-Haram" instead of the more proper "al-Masjid al-Haram" (798,000 hits on Google) because it appears far more common. I know the BBC also uses "Masjid al-Haram" frequently if not most frequently, and other major English-language news sites, such as AP and CNN, will use "Masjid al-Haram", or at least reference it in addition to "Great Mosque" or "Grand Mosque". Al Ameer (talk) 14:56, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is the English Wikipedia for english readers and is already the "English" common name. The title "Al-Masjid al-Haram" is Arabic but in latin script because we're typing with latin script keyboards. Al-Masjid al-Haram is common name only to Arabic speakers. The rm initiator is basically moving the english common name to what the pronunciation of what the official Arabic title would sound like. Jerm (talk) 22:40, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply: No, in fact, most, if not all Muslim speakers refer to the mosque as "al-Masjid al-Haram," "Masjid al-Haram," or similar. This is also the reason Google Trends shows these two names to be far more common than the one the article holds now. I tried to use that as evidence, but a user pointed out that it encompasses searches from all languages. --AccordingClass (talk) 10:24, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Claims that "Great Mosque of Mecca" is the common name in English remain unsubstantiated. While this usage may have been common a century ago, times change, and Masjid al-Haram is quite obviously more common in 2020.— Preceding unsigned comment added by M Imtiaz (talk • contribs)
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.
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