Can the University of Bologna be considered the first university in the world?
Upvote:4
The criteria of inclusion in that list is quite arbitrary. For example, University of Constantinople (Pandidacterium) was established in 425. It much better resembled modern institution than the University of Bologna because it had fixed curriculum and state funding.
Upvote:5
So I think these kinds of questions are problematic since they rely on a very specific definition that seems to exclude other traditions. As an easterner I find such claims in Wikipedia that the University is a "European institution par excellence" myopic and rooted in a misguided tradition of them v.s us, rather than seeing world history as one common thread.
Consider for example the Academy of Gondishapur, of which the medical school had exams, required doctors to study and train in hospitals, and conferred degrees that qualified doctors to practice medicine. This university existed from around 500 CE till just around 900 CE. In addition it had centers for study of mathematics, astronomy, theology, dentistry, philosophy, military commandership, architecture, craftsmanship, agriculture and irrigation, and geometry. It's methods were widely emulated in Islamic universities, including those in Spain and Sicily that almost definitely influenced European schools. Note, for example, that Avicenna's treatise on medicine (~900CE) which, was the main canon of medicine in Europe and the Islamic world until 1700, was likely heavily influenced from the knowledge and learning bequeathed by Gondishapur.
Yet, I would hesitate to name Gondishapur as the first since this institution had Greek, Indian, Jewish, Chinese, as well as Persian scholars who perhaps had come from institutions of their own. So I think a more constructive approach to these subjects, is rather than claim who is first, which at best is extremely hard to define, to consider how an institution has evolved.
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