Talk:Minaret

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2018 and 10 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lillycalvert2018.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:12, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Part of a series...

I'm deleting the "Part of a series..." box for Islam, and keeping the one for Mosques. The one for mosques is more suitable, and having two of them in the same article makes it look shoddy and causes formatting conflicts. Debate this edit as you like. - Cyborg Ninja 14:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Gallery

I added a gallery to make the article more pleasing to the eye, though frankly the gallery serves little purpose at the moment except to not upset the editors who added the images originally. It would be good if someone could incorporate it with the examples of minarets between different countries and cultures, to show contrasts between them. There's currently a link to minarets at WikiCommons. - Cyborg Ninja 15:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

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The article/image appears to depict an Ottoman-style minaret. When travelling in Anatolia this summer I saw, infrequently, minarets which looked somewhat different - an open-type structure with four posts supporting a square-shaped, vaulted roof. My guide advised me that this was a Seljuk-style minaret. This needs to be addressed in the article. 209.149.235.241 01:24, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Why do minarets always come in sets of two? Rmhermen 01:31, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)

Based on my travels in Turkiye, I do not think that paired minarets are universal. Most of the mosques (camii) I saw in small towns in Anatolia had a single minaret. The paired minarets were on larger, fancier, more historic buildings.

They don't always, typically the reason for two is just symetry of design I think. I have seen many smaller mosques with only one. Mark Richards 20:45, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"counterclockwise" is ambiguous. Counterclockwise when ascending or descending?

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"The minaret of the Al Muhdhar Mosque at Tarim, Yemen, is measured 53 metres (175 feet) high, and recognised to be one of the tallest earth structures in the world."

What does "tallest earth structure" mean? 175 ft doesn't sound very exceptional without some explanation. The Tallest structures page didn't shed any light. Thanks. --Battlehamster 14:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

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I have the highest minaret in Indonesia call Asmaulhusna Minaret 99 meters height in LDII Wali Barokah Islamic Boarding-school Kediri city Indonesia (Ldiisidoarjo (talk) 00:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

Lack of Detail

Given the recent Swiss ban on Minarets; it might be sensible to update this article with a few more details in regards to social standing, cultural impact, intended projection etc. At the moment this article seems to indicate that the building's main function is a ventilation system and while that may be accurate, it may not be sufficient for individuals who will inevitably come to this article in the future.

"Opposition" section

I renamed the "Opposition" section and took this part out:

As a symbolic marker of Muslim presence, minarets have occasionally elicited political and religious opposition in traditionally non-Muslim countries;

The article gives no evidence of this aside from the Swiss controversy. I can't find any examples aside from that. I think it was an inappropriate generalization. Please don't re-add unless you have reliably-sourced examples of political or religious opposition to minarets outside of Switzerland.—Chowbok ☠ 00:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

A quick search came up with this http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3360707,00.html which is cited as a reliable source in a related wikipedia articles. There a large minaret was opposed by those of the Jewish faith after their synagogue request was denied. Beyond those in the article objections were based on a) size of structure b) lack of justification for another one c) state emblems etc. That plus the Swiss incident (which may or may not matter). If we keep going further back we have Christian Austrians objecting to minarets "Minaret Reveals Division in Austrian Town; After Decades Spent Side by Side, Muslim Turks and Catholic Tiroleans Work Toward Understanding" The Washington Post | November 12, 2006| Veronika Oleksyn. So that's three countries where Muslims are a minority over three years and three different sources. Make of that what you will. 206.248.136.79 (talk) 00:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Ventillation

There is a dubious claim in the post that minarets function as air conditioners or provide ventillation. While this may or may not be true or just too ineffective to deserve a mention, ventilation will definitely not be due to the heating of the dome. Heating of the dome and the air below it can in no way cause the cooler air further down to rush up. Instead, the heated air will spill out the sides due to an increase in volume/pressure, but after this spill of air, equilibrium will have been reached. Callanv (talk) 22:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)callanv

The heat-chimney or cooling tower effect attribute of such structures is in no way dubious- I encourage you to pursue references until you have achieved satisfaction. I recommend that you do not limit yourself to minarets when conducting your search, as you will find more readily available material in the sphere of solar/sustainable architecture. Mavigogun (talk) 16:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The phrasing of the main article is very problematic. The main section argues that the main purpose of minarets is for ventilation, a claim that cannot be verified anywhere. The accompanying footnote is a paper that discusses the feasibility of turning minarets into devices for ventilation. Throughout all of Islamic history, the minaret has served the purpose of the call to prayer. If this has any ventilation benefit these are clearly secondary since they are not mentioned in any Islamic scholarship. Since these claims are spurious, I propose this section should read: "The purpose of minarets in traditional Eastern region architecture is for adhān, or call to prayer. However, in modern times, the purpose of minarets has changed to that of a traditional symbol. The minaret would be equipped with a speaker that would call people to prayers in Muslim countries. In addition to providing a visual cue to a Muslim community, the main function at present is to provide a vantage point from which the call to prayer, or adhan, is made. The call to prayer is issued five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night. In most modern mosques, the adhān is called from the musallah (prayer hall) via microphone to a speaker system on the minaret." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.184.73.130 (talk) 11:58, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Edit request from Ldiisidoarjo, 16 August 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} I need to add minaret example from Indonesia as I show at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asmaulhusna-minaret-Indonesia.jpg Thank you

Budi Waluyo Ldiisidoarjo (talk) 23:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

 Not done Please see: File:Asmaulhusna-minaret-Indonesia.jpg because the photo has a maintenance tag on it as needing a source, it can't be added to the article yet. If a source isn't added, the pic will be deleted in 7 days. Please take care of that first, then re-submit request. --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

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Self contradictory nature of history section.

The article states that Umayyad mosques had no minarets but also states that minarets of Umayyad mosque were copy of church tower. How can these two things be true at the same time? 223.233.69.2 (talk) 11:29, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

They can't. When I was revising the history section I left that particular paragraph (the second paragraph of the history section) as an unresolved issue with inline tags for future revision.

In case it's helpful to explain: the paragraph cites Creswell 1926 and Bloom 1989, but those are two works from very different times and it doesn't say which information is based on which reference. Creswell's work is foundational to the field, but there has been much more research since then and some of his hypotheses would be considered out of date today. Bloom's work is more current and the most detailed recent source, it has been revised republished more recently (see The Minaret from 2013), and he's also the author/editor of minaret-related articles in the most recent specialized encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Islam 3 and the Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. So it's fair to say his work is a more relevant reference for a Wikipedia article per WP:SOURCETYPES. Hence the need for the text to be more precise in stating which scholar(s) said what. If I have time and if I can access the Creswell reference, I'll come back and revise that paragraph accordingly.

Bloom is also very careful about explaining the problems in historical terminology, and is clear about the fact that there is no evidence for the "tower minaret" (in other words, the "minaret" as we know it today) before the Abbasid period (9th century specifically), although other structures relevant to the issue existed before then, as explained in the following (third) paragraph of the article's history section. This also appears to reflect current scholarly consensus in the last few decades; for example, Petersen's Dictionary of Islamic Architecture (1996), p.187 (see full reference in article), says: "Although the mosques of Damascus, Fustat and Medina had towers during the Umayyad period it is now generally agreed that the minaret was introduced during the Abbasid period (i.e. after 750 CE)." I don't personally know of any significant recent work that says otherwise. R Prazeres (talk) 15:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

PS: It also occurs to me that we could simply remove or temporarily hide the word "Umayyad" in the second paragraph (e.g. we can put it in a hidden comment with a note), until we have a chance to verify and revise the information in the whole paragraph. The information about the influences/inspiration for early minarets needs to be verified and clarified as well, but hiding the word "Umayyad" in the meantime might reduce confusion for readers until then. R Prazeres (talk) 15:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

After doing some further reading, it seems the paragraph in question is simply a summary of what Bloom 1989 says in his overview of the preceding literature, with a citation to the relevant Creswell work added. So I've expanded the explanation along the same lines using Bloom's overview, while also indicating more explicitly where most scholarship stands now (in this edit). Hopefully things are clearer now, though some minor copy-editing may still be needed. R Prazeres (talk) 17:58, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

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

The result of this discussion was: merged. R Prazeres (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

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Propose merging Şerefe (minaret) with Minaret.

This is a case of WP:DICTIONARY. Small article with little evidence of WP:NOTABILITY as something separate from the main topic of minaret (see also my earlier comments at Talk:Şerefe (minaret)). This is simply the Turkish word for the balcony of a minaret, and such balconies are features of nearly all major minarets outside of Turkey as well, where they are known by different terms and most English references just use the word "balcony" or "gallery", etc. Even the main reference there, the Turkish Islam Ansiklopedisi, redirects this topic to its own minaret article ([1]) and the Turkish version of that article adds little else too. Anything worth covering there can be, or already is, covered here at minaret, or at Ottoman architecture, etc. R Prazeres (talk) 19:17, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Support: Also a feature far from unique to Turkish mosque architecture, with balconies featuring on minarets from Damascus to Delhi. This material, together with the existing mention of balconies on the page, would potentially lend itself well to a discrete subsection on the feature, but nothing standalone at this point. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I nearly forgot about this proposal. I'll carry out the merge shortly. R Prazeres (talk) 17:23, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

After looking closer at Şerefe (minaret), it turns out that none of the potentially relevant content there is supported by the cited sources, so I don't see a point in transferring any of it here. For future reference, if needed, the pre-redirect version of that page can be found here. R Prazeres (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

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

Wiki Education assignment: Arts of the Islamic World

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 12 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Emschec22, Rachelb4444 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Wearsmart, Stellachewybear1128, Falldel24, Dressytea, Josephalma, Marah23.

— Assignment last updated by Stellachewybear1128 (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Emschec22, just commenting here to further explain why I reverted this edit. On Wikipedia, the text generally consists of statements summarizing information already found in published sources in a formal, factual manner (there are general guidelines for this at here and here, for example). It should not read as essay-style commentary or "puffery", which a lot of this edit does. In a way, we have to simplify our writing for Wikipedia.

There should be nothing else of substance added on top what the cited sources say, as explained at Wikipedia:No original research (i.e. don't add your own analysis or claims). A lot of the edit is attributed to Ettinghausen et al 2001, but I'm pretty sure these authors do not devote this much attention to proclaiming the symbolism of minarets; they mention it briefly on pages 21-22. It's not clear to me that most of the new material attributed to this source is actually supported there, including the stuff about contemporary architecture. When citing a book, you should also add page numbers, which would make it easier to verify if the source actually says this. I also have concerns about the other citations and statements. Note that MuslimHeritage.com ([2]) is generally not a reliable source; stick to the academic sources instead.

If you'd like to re-add some of the material, please condense it considerably (maybe into a couple of sentences) and restrict it to more factual statements that simply summarize things that can found directly in the accompanying cited source. Please include page numbers for citations where applicable. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. R Prazeres (talk) 18:51, 30 November 2023 (UTC)