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I don't think anyone disputes that there were religious centers of learning that occurred earlier. But in cases where these institutions are Christian, people seem fine saying that they were monasteries and not universities. Monastic intellectual tradition is well known. But with many non-Christian intellectual religious centers, people seem intent on using the term "university."

Using different standards for Christian and non-Christian intellectual monasteries is strange. It doesn't make sense to call the latter universities and then turn around and act like the former weren't. For instance, from the article:

> The monastic university predates the University of Oxford and Europe's oldest university, Bologna, by more than 500 years.

If Nalanda counts as a university, then Europe certainly had universities older than Bologna. Or perhaps those institutions shouldn't count, and neither should Nalanda. I personally don't care which definition is used, as long as it's used consistently. But we seem to be dealing with definitions that change mid-sentence to accommodate whatever conclusion the author wants.

Monasteries were closed to the public and most orders ( if we exclude the jésuites) we’re not that into science. Rather theology / philosophy. Their main goal was often conservation of the scriptures.

>>If Nalanda counts as a university, then Europe certainly had universities older than Bologna.

Yup, a lot of things have existed earlier than we perceive. I do think 0 was invented by cave dwellers when they plucked 2 fruits from a tree, eat those 2 fruits over a day and counted the next day how many fruits were remaining(When they felt hungry and if they had to pluck more fruits)

That's the concept of lacking something you had before. What was revolutionary about zero, is it means you can add

and aligned like that, to get 1999, instead of having to do math to figure out what the hell MCMXCIX works out to be. With zero as the place holder, larger numbers are way easier to represent.

> Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using Arabic styled robe during graduation?

i believe you mean “monastic robes”; parts of the regalia retain liturgical names. (like “stole”).

european universities retain a distinct monastic connection because that’s where many of them arose: monks teaching the wastrel children of the rich to be marginally more civilized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_school

>There were numerous institutions of higher learning or universities

Those are not synonymous; and therein lies the problem with your assessment. There were many institutions of higher learning in the ancient world, with histories documented back to e.g. 21st c. BCE in China.

A university is not simply an institution of higher learning; the word implies a certain composition and structure, and that doesn't trace back prior to Bologna. There's no value judgment implied in that.

>Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using Arabic styled robe during graduation?

Academic dress in the early universities (Bologna, Oxford, etc) imported styles typical of contemporary ecclesiastical dress, which has a (fairly) straight line history back to the 4th c. CE Nicene church, and those styles were mimicked by later universities. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at there.

> histories documented back to e.g. 21st c. BCE in China.

How? Remember that the Chinese script isn't even that old...

>Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using Arabic styled robe during graduation?

I can't say I've ever found anything Arabic about Western university dress. But it does ressemble clerical gowns which have been around since the Roman Empire, and as it happens Medieval students were part of the clergy...

> Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using Arabic styled robe during graduation?

I always assumed that's an American thing. I'm from southern Europe, I've graduated from university, and I've never seen anyone do the graduation with hats and capes, I've only seen it in Hollywood movies.

In Portugal I know someone required to dress like Zorro for your PhD defense and face faculty all dressed like grand inquisitors. That isn't a joke. It was an amazing thing to see.

American universities probably inherit it from Britain, where it's very common.

But it's common across Europe, you can find plenty of pictures if you search things like "graduation robes Berlin" or Prague or Paris.

It's from the UK.

Finland does hats and swords for PhDs though.

> Saying that proper university did not exist before 11th century is disingenuous at its best and propaganda at its worst.

I'd say that Plato's Academy is a good candidate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy

Claiming, as you do, that everything was Muslim/Arab is clearly "disingenuous at its best and propaganda at its worst".

(Others have already disproven your etymological claims.)

https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=baccalaureus&old...

http://www.salaam.co.uk/new-light-on-the-origin-of-the-term-...

http://www.wata.cc/forums/archive/index.php/t-16001.html

A site called 'Salaam' and a forum post. Truly sources you can depend on for reliable, objective etymology.

Please check this discourse on the matter, perhaps someone can further research on original etymology of the Bachelor word [1].

I have read before about the origin of the convocation robe from the fruits gown but it's rather comical IMHO. The more plausible explanation is that they want to copy the learned people at the medieval time, i.e. Arabic speaking people, during the European dark ages by imitating the Arabic styled robe with the robe and the turban. It is very similar today when all the people in the corporate boardroom meeting are expected to wear two piece suits in order to look professional.

[1] About the etymology of Bachelor:

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/160839/about-the...

That's only more plausible if you're entirely unfamiliar with Christian clerical and liturgical garments. Traditional Christian religious garments are rooted to a large extent in the Mediterranean, especially Greece, the Levant, and North Africa, but none of those places would be centers of Arabic culture until centuries later. To the extent they're influenced by Arabic culture, the link probably goes both ways. There's a shared history, after all; shared at a time when what would become modern European and Arabic cultures were minority cultures at the periphery of far more ancient empires.

> The more plausible explanation is that they want to copy the learned people at the medieval time, i.e. Arabic speaking people, during the European dark ages by imitating the Arabic styled robe with the robe and the turban.

     The academic dress found in most universities in the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States is derived from that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which was a development of academic and clerical dress common throughout the medieval universities of Europe.[1]

     ...

     The modern gown is derived from the roba worn under the cappa clausa, a garment resembling a long black cape. In early medieval times, all students at the universities were in at least minor orders, and were required to wear the cappa or other clerical dress, and restricted to clothes of black or other dark colour. The gowns most commonly worn, that of the clerical type gowns of bachelor's degrees (BA and BS) and master's degrees (MA and MS), are substantially the same throughout the English-speaking world. All are traditionally made of black cloth, (although occasionally the gown is dyed in one of the university's colours) and the material at the back of the gown is gathered into a yoke.[2]

Medieval Arabic-styled robes were not necessarily black, but also white and many dyed colors. They were shaped differently and had a particular trim not seen in academic robes. Certainly, the Arabic world was more educated and advanced than the European during the Middle-Ages, but the robes are a coincidence.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dress#Overview_and_hi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dress#United_Kingdom_...

About the etymology of Bachelor

That's just terrifically improbable. Historically, bachelor's degrees were, in fact, intermediate degrees awarded part way through the period of study required to achieve a master's degree - which was the "real deal". The degrees emerged during a period when the term bachelor was already established as a term referring to a squire or junior knight.

We already have plenty of English words from Arabic; there's really no need to retcon even more.