Medieval European universities are often considered the first true universities, because they are direct ancestors of modern universities, and their traditions have survived and evolved into what we see today. There were earlier institutes of higher education all around the world (including Europe), but those traditions have not survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_al-Qarawiyyin
Surprisingly, there are some schools for adolescents in England which are even older, the oldest dating to 597:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_School,_Canterbur...
That the oldest continuously operating institutions in the world are mostly in England (schools), Japan (hotels) and the desert mountains of North Africa (madrasas and St. Catherine's Monastery) is likely a consequence of "splendid isolation". Nobody is quite sure how old the government of Haida Gwaii is.
I think the institution that invented the term probably gets to define it. And that is the University of Bologna.
If we define humans as having a sufficiently sophisticated language, and using a term to reference one's entire species is characteristic of that, then at a stretch we could define the first human being as the child of proto-humans who first invented this linguistic concept.
What if "human" would be replaced by "ape"?
The logic of these arguments is fine. I just noticed a way to nit-pick your implementation of it.
That would be hard to object to.
> and using a term to reference one's entire species is characteristic of that
But this is easy to object to. People can easily do without a term for the species; it's more common to use tribal names, so that a contrast is drawn between different groups of humans (as opposed to between humans and animals, or humans and gods).
Terms for humans as a species come along pretty quickly, but they're not universal.
Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab tradition.
The medieval Enlightenment and subsequent Renaissance was huge for Europe, yes, but just as important to realize today is that a lot of it was taking heavy inspiration from other cultures and regions and “Europeanizing” it and then calling it their own (I.E. a cultural exchange)
Muslims are just as capable as Christians at promoting theories with very little evidence to support their arguments.
Both of your assertions are unproven theories, with the evidence against them: bachelor originally meant a young knight who followed another (though the etymology before that is uncertain), and academic robes derive from similar (European) mediaeval clerical and secular clothing.
A comedy, but I think it does reflect how a lot of people can be so impressed by their own culture that they end up spinning fictional narratives about it. For example, I was surprised to find that a common myth among Germans was that the USA almost had German become its official language, and German only lost out by a single vote.
Pride in one's culture isn't a bad thing, but too much of it can definitely lead people to believe some very questionable claims.
And there is linguistics, a science that studies language including etymology.
That myth does exist, but I do not think that it is a belief commonly held by Germans (i.e. people living in Germany, not referring to those US citizens tracing their heritage to the Fatherland here). I heard about it only long after crossing the pond. I rather think it's spread by people interested in German language/German culture albeit living in the USA. And I don't think anyone takes it too seriously.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-german-vote/
EDIT: I stand corrected: it's not only known in Germany, but was apparently first spread there in 1847: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg-Legende
Battle of ideologies, groups, regions and culture is as old as history and does not seem like it will ever completely die down. We need a more hybrid understanding where we evolve with time and apply modern lens to historical ideas carefully. Without ideological pride in Christianity, white superiority I doubt most of the European countries would've had been the colonizing superpowers they became controlling most of the world.
Change "Hinduism" into some other word and you have a pretty general description of liberal historians in most Western countries.
This might be an imperialist perspective, but I'm guessing India imported this cultural tradition from them. :/
What evidence do you have for this extraordinary claim?
> Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab tradition.
This is also an unfounded claim. University garb is derived from monstic order garb, which in turn is from early Nicean period monk tradition. This long predates your source.
From French baccalauréat, from Medieval Latin baccalaureatus, from Latin baccalaureus, an alteration of baccalārius (“young man aspiring to knighthood”), to resemble bacca lauri (“laurel berry”) (the ancient symbol of victory). Compare bachelor.
For "baccalaureus":
Alteration of baccalārius, influenced (by folk etymology) by Latin bacca ("berry") and laurea ("laurel") due to the fact that graduates wore laurel crowns filled with berries in order to represent the fruit of their study. Perhaps of Celtic origin, from Gaulish *bakalakos, itself borrowed from Latin baculum (“stick”).[1]
No Arabic roots here.
This particular "fact" is in error unless you believe Medieval Christian monks copied Arabic dress. Academic dress in the US derives from Oxford and Cambridge, which was developed from extremely common clerical garb of the Middle Ages. Arabic dress is not necessarily black, but also white and dyed colors, are shaped differently than academic dress and have a trim never seen in academic dress. The two types of dress have origins distinct from each other. They may both belong to a larger category of robes, but the similarity ends there.