Education has played a central role in Islam since the beginnings of the religion, owing in part to the centrality of scripture and its study in the Islamic tradition. Before the modern era, education would begin at a young age with study of Arabic and the Quran. For the first few centuries of Islam, educational settings were entirely informal, but beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, the ruling elites began to establish institutions of higher religious learning known as madrasas in an effort to secure support and cooperation of the ulema (religious scholars). Madrasas soon multiplied throughout the Islamic world, which helped to spread Islamic learning beyond urban centers and to unite diverse Islamic communities in a shared cultural project.[1] Madrasas were devoted principally to study of Islamic law, but they also offered other subjects such as theology, medicine, and mathematics.[2]Muslims historically distinguished disciplines inherited from pre-Islamic civilizations, such as philosophy and medicine, which they called "sciences of the ancients" or "rational sciences", from Islamic religious sciences. Sciences of the former type flourished for several centuries, and their transmission formed part of the educational framework in classical and medieval Islam. In some cases, they were supported by institutions such as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, but more often they were transmitted informally from teacher to student.[1]
In Arabic three terms are used for education. The most common term is ta'līm, from the root 'alima, which means knowing, being aware, perceiving and learning. Another term is Tarbiyah from the root of raba, which means spiritual and moral growth based on the will of God. The third term is Ta'dīb from the root aduba which means to be cultured or well accurate in social behavior.[3]
Education in pre-modern Islam
The centrality of scripture and its study in the Islamic tradition helped to make education a central pillar of the religion in virtually all times and places in the history of Islam.[1] The importance of learning in the Islamic tradition is reflected in a number of hadiths attributed to Muhammad, including one that instructs the faithful to "seek knowledge, even in China".[1] This injunction was seen to apply particularly to scholars, but also to some extent to the wider Muslims public, as exemplified by the dictum of Al-Zarnuji, "learning is prescribed for us all".[1] While it is impossible to calculate literacy rates in pre-modern Islamic societies, it is almost certain that they were relatively high, at least in comparison to their European counterparts.[1]
Organized instruction in the Cairo Al-Azhar Mosque began in 978.
Education would begin at a young age with study of Arabic and the Quran, either at home or in a primary school, which was often attached to a mosque.[1] Some students would then proceed to training in tafsir (Quranic exegesis) and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), which was seen as particularly important.[1] Education focused on memorization, but also trained the more advanced students to participate as readers and writers in the tradition of commentary on the studied texts.[1] It also involved a process of socialization of aspiring scholars, who came from virtually all social backgrounds, into the ranks of the ulema.[1]
The Islamic Empire, spanning for almost 1,000 years, saw at least 60 major learning centers throughout the Middle East and North Africa, some of the most prominent among these being Baghdad in the East and Cordoba in the West.[4] For the first few centuries of Islam, educational settings were entirely informal, but beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, the ruling elites began to establish institutions of higher religious learning known as madrasas in an effort to secure support and cooperation of the ulema.[1] Madrasas soon multiplied throughout the Islamic world, which helped to spread Islamic learning beyond urban centers and to unite diverse Islamic communities in a shared cultural project.[1] Nevertheless, instruction remained focused on individual relationships between students and their teacher.[1] The formal attestation of educational attainment, ijaza, was granted by a particular scholar rather than the institution, and it placed its holder within a genealogy of scholars, which was the only recognized hierarchy in the educational system.[1] While formal studies in madrasas were open only to men, women of prominent urban families were commonly educated in private settings and many of them received and later issued ijazas in hadith studies, calligraphy and poetry recitation.[5][6] Working women learned religious texts and practical skills primarily from each other, though they also received some instruction together with men in mosques and private homes.[5]
From the 8th century to the 12th century, the primary mode of receiving education in the Islamic world was from private tutors for wealthy families who could afford a formal education, not madrasas.[7] This formal education was most readily available to members of the caliphal court including the viziers, administrative officers, and wealthy merchants. These private instructors were well known scholars who taught their students Arabic, literature, religion, mathematics, and philosophy.[7] Islamic Sassanian tradition praises the idea of a 'just ruler' or a king learned in the ways of philosophy.[7] This concept of an 'enlightened philosopher-king' served as a catalyst for the spread of education to the populace.
Madrasas were devoted principally to the study of law, but they also offered other subjects such as theology, medicine, and mathematics.[2][8] The madrasa complex usually consisted of a mosque, boarding house, and a library.[2] It was maintained by a waqf (charitable endowment), which paid salaries of professors, stipends of students, and defrayed the costs of construction and maintenance.[2] The madrasa was unlike a modern college in that it lacked a standardized curriculum or institutionalized system of certification.[2]
Madrasa education taught medicine and pharmacology primarily on the basis of humoral pathology.[9] The Greek physician Hippocrates is credited for developing the theory of the four humors, also known as humoral pathology.[7][9] The humors influence bodily health and emotion and it was thought that sickness and disease stemmed from an imbalance in a person's humors, and health could only be restored by finding humoral equilibrium through remedies of food or bloodletting.[7][9] Each humor is thought to be related to a universal element and every humor expresses specific properties.[10] The interpenetration of the individual effects of each humor on the body are called mizādj.[10] Black Bile is related to the earth element and expresses cold and dry properties, yellow bile is related to fire and subsequently is dry and warm, phlegm is related to water and it expresses moist and cold properties, and blood is air displaying moist and warm qualities.[11]
To aid in medical efforts to fight disease and sickness, Ibn Sina also known as Avicenna, wrote the Canon of Medicine.[9] This was a five-book encyclopedia compilation of Avicenna's research towards healing illnesses, and it was widely used for centuries across Eurasia as a medical textbook.[9] Many of Avicenna's ideas came from al-Razi'sal-Hawi.[12]
Muslims distinguished disciplines inherited from pre-Islamic civilizations, such as philosophy and medicine, which they called "sciences of the ancients" or "rational sciences", from Islamic religious sciences.[1] Sciences of the former type flourished for several centuries, and their transmission formed part of the educational framework in classical and medieval Islam.[1] In some cases, they were supported by institutions such as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, but more often they were transmitted informally from teacher to student.[1]
The University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 AD, is listed in The Guinness Book Of Records as the world's oldest degree-granting university.[13] Scholars occasionally call the University of al-Qarawiyyin (name given in 1963), founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, a university,[14][15][16][17] although some scholars such as Jacques Verger writes that this is done out of scholarly convenience.[18] Several scholars consider that al-Qarawiyyin was founded[19][20] and run[21][22][23][24][25] as a madrasa until after World War II. They date the transformation of the madrasa of al-Qarawiyyin into a university to its modern reorganization in 1963.[26][27][21] In the wake of these reforms, al-Qarawiyyin was officially renamed "University of Al Quaraouiyine" two years later.[26] The Al-Azhar University was another early university (madrasa). The madrasa is one of the relics of the Fatimid caliphate. The Fatimids traced their descent to Muhammad's daughter Fatimah and named the institution using a variant of her honorific title Al-Zahra (the brilliant).[28] Organized instruction in the Al-Azhar Mosque began in 978.[29]
Theories of Islamic education
A madarasa of the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srirangapatna, India
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas described the Islamic purpose of education as a balanced growth of the total personality through training the spirit, intellect, rational self, feelings and bodily senses such that faith is infused into the whole personality.[3]
One of the more prominent figures in the history of Islamic education, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali studied theology and education on a theoretical level in the late 1000s, early 1100s CE. One of the ideas that Al-Ghazali was most known for was his emphasis on the importance of connecting educational disciplines on both an instructional and philosophical level.[30] With this, Al-Ghazali heavily incorporated religion into his pedagogical processes, believing that the main purpose of education was to prepare and inspire a person to more faithfully participate in the teachings of Islam.[31]Seyyed Hossein Nasr stated that, while education does prepare humankind for happiness in this life, "its ultimate goal is the abode of permanence and all education points to the permanent world of eternity".[3]
According to Islam, there are three elements that make up an Islamic education. These are the learner, knowledge, and means of instruction.[31][32] Islam posits that humans are unique among all of creation in their ability to have 'Aql (faculty of reason).[33] According to the Nahj al-Balagha, there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge merely heard and that which is absorbed. The former has no benefit unless it is absorbed. The heard knowledge is gained from the outside and the other is absorbed knowledge means the knowledge that raised from nature and human disposition, referred to the power of innovation of a person.[34]
The Quran is the optimal source of knowledge in Islamic education.[35] For teaching Quranic traditions, the Maktab as elementary school emerged in mosques, private homes, shops, tents, and even outside.[36][3] The Quran is studied by both men and women in the locations listed above, however, women haven't always been permitted in study in mosques. The main place of study for women before the mosques changed their ideology was in their own homes or the homes of others. One well-known woman that allowed others into her home to teach the Quranic traditions was Khadija, Muhammad's wife.[37]
The Organization of the Islamic Conference has organized five conferences on Islamic education: in Mecca (1977), Islamabad (1980), Dhaka (1981), Jakarta (1982), and Cairo (1987).[38]
Modern education in Islam
In general, minority religious groups often have more education than a country's majority religious group, even more so when a large part of that minority are immigrants.[39] This trend applies to Islam: Muslims in North America have more formal years of formal education than Christians.[40] Furthermore, Christians have more formal years of education in many majority Muslim countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa.[40] However, global averages of education are far lower for Muslims than Jews, Christians, Buddhists and people unaffiliated with a religion.[39] Globally, Muslims and Hindus tend to have the fewest years of schooling.[41] However, younger Muslims have made much larger gains in education than any of these other groups.[39]
There is a perception of a large gender gap in majority Islam countries, but this is not always the case.[42] In fact, the quality of female education is more closely related to economic factors than religious factors.[42] Although the gender gap in education is real, it has been continuing to shrink in recent years.[43] Women in all religious groups have made much larger educational gains comparatively in recent generations than men.[39]
Europe's treatment of education of Muslims has shifted in the last few decades, with many countries developing some sort of new legislation regarding instructing with a religious bias starting in the late twentieth century. However, regardless of these changes, some level of inequality in access to education is still prevalent. In England, there are only five state-funded Muslim schools; this is in contrast to 4,716 state-funded Christian schools.[44] However, there are around 100 private Muslim schools which can instruct on religious education independent of the National Curriculum. In France, on the other hand, there are only two private Muslim schools. There are 30 private Muslim schools in the Netherlands.[44] This is despite the fact that Muslims make up the second largest religious population in Europe, following Christianity, with majorities being held in both Turkey (99%) and Albania (70%).[44]
Pesantren are Islamic boarding schools found in Muslim countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. These types of schools have received criticism for their tendency to focus more on religious subjects than secular school subjects, and in fact, pesantren taught primarily religious education until the late 1970s.[45] Due to this focus, some have even accused these schools as being breeding grounds for Islamic extremism and terrorism.[46] Others argue that pesantren teach secular subjects at the same level as any other school, steering students from extremism through education and opening the door for young Muslims of all backgrounds to go on to higher education and become involved in such fields as medicine, law, and the sciences.[45]
Modern education in Islam emphasizes the harmonious integration of religious and secular knowledge, guided by the principle of 'ilm (knowledge), which holds a central place in Islamic teachings. The Quran and Hadith encourage Muslims to seek knowledge throughout their lives, highlighting the value of both spiritual and worldly education.[47][48] Today, modern Islamic education systems seek to balance traditional religious education with contemporary subjects, preparing individuals for challenges in a globalized world while adhering to Islamic ethical principles.[49] Educational institutions in many Muslim-majority countries have adopted this model, aiming to foster both intellectual and moral development.[50] Also, there are currently many programs in place to prepare Muslim teachers in various Muslim countries, which work to develop teaching skills and religious knowledge. These programs aim to create teachers who positively impact students' lives by promoting strong ethical values, social standards, and professional morals.[51]
After 1975 reforms made by the Indonesian government, today many pesantren now include madrasas. Muslim poet and political activist Emha Ainun Najib studied at one of the more famous pesantren, called Gontor. Other notable alumni include Hidayat Nur Wahid, Hasyim Muzadi, and Abu Bakr Ba'asyir.[45]
Women in Islamic education
Educational Mosque on Cairo Citadel
While formal studies in madrasas were open only to men, women of prominent urban families were commonly educated in private settings and many of them received and later issued ijazas (diplomas) in hadith studies, calligraphy and poetry recitation. Working women learned religious texts and practical skills primarily from each other, though they also received some instruction together with men in mosques and private homes.[3]
One of the largest roles that women played in education in Islam is that of muhaddithas. Muhaddithas are women who recount the stories, teachings, actions, and words of Muhammad adding to the isnad by studying and recording hadiths.[52] In order for a man or woman to produce hadiths, they must first hold an ijazah, or a form of permission, often granted by a teacher from private studies and not from a madrasa, allowing a muhaddith/muhadditha permission to transmit specific texts. Some of the most influential Muhaddithas are Zaynab bint al-Kamal who was known for her extensive collection of hadiths, A'isha bint Abu Bakr was Muhammad's third wife and she studied hadith from the early age of four.[52] A'isha was well known and respected for her line of teachers and ijazahs allowing her to present information from the Sahih collections of al-Bukhari, the Sira of Ibn Hashim, and parts of the Dhamm al-Kalam from al-Hawari.[52] Rabi'a Khatun, sister of the Ayyubid sultan Salah al-Din paid endowments to support the construction of a madrasa in Damascus, despite the facts that women were often not appointed teaching positions at the madrasas.[52] Because of Rabi'a Khatun's contributions to Damascus, scholarly traffic in the region increased greatly and involvement of female scholars boomed. As a result, female participation in hadith dissemination also grew.[52]
Among the areas in which individual's idiosyncratic views have been adopted and codified as veritable Islamic teaching throughout history include topics that relate to women's place in Islamic education. In some places, Muslim women have much more restricted access to education, despite the fact that this is not a mentioned doctrine in either the Quran or the Hadith.[30]
The Deobandi movement or Deobandism is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam that adheres to the Hanafi school of law. It was formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name derives, by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, Ashraf Ali Thanwi and Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri after the Indian Rebellion of 1857–58. They opposed the influence of non-Muslim cultures on the Muslims living in South Asia. The movement pioneered education in religious sciences through the Dars-i-Nizami associated with the Lucknow-based ulama of Firangi Mahal with the goal of preserving traditional Islamic teachings from the influx of modernist and secular ideas during British colonial rule. The Deobandi movement's Indian clerical wing, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, was founded in 1919 and played a major role in the Indian independence movement through its participation in the Pan-Islamist Khilafat movement and propagation of the doctrine of composite nationalism.
In Islam, the ulama, also spelled ulema, are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
Madrasa, sometimes transliterated as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious, whether for elementary education or higher learning. In countries outside the Arab world, the word usually refers to a specific type of religious school or college for the study of the religion of Islam, though this may not be the only subject studied.
The Al-Azhar University is a public university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is known as one of the most prestigious universities for Islamic learning. In addition to higher education, Al-Azhar oversees a national network of schools with approximately two million students. As of 1996, over 4,000 teaching institutes in Egypt were affiliated with the university.
Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic seminary in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, India, at which the Sunni Deobandi Islamic movement began. Established in 1866 by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Fazlur Rahman Usmani, Sayyid Muhammad Abid and others in 1866, it is one of the most important Islamic seminaries in India and the largest in the world. Mahmud Deobandi was the first teacher and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi was the first student.
A hawza or ḥawzah ʿilmīyah is the collective term for a madrasa where Shi'a Muslim scholars are educated.
The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah is a Sunni revivalist movement that generally adheres to the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, the Maturidi and Ash'ari creeds, a variety of Sufi orders, including the Qadiri, Chishti, Naqshbandi and Suhrawardi orders, as well as many other orders of Sufism, and has hundreds of millions of followers across the world. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and the Deobandi movement.
Sankoré Madrasa is one of three medieval mosques and centres of learning located in Timbuktu, Mali, the others being the Djinguereber and Sidi Yahya mosques. Founded in the 14th century, the Sankoré mosque went through multiple periods of patronage and renovation under both the Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire until its decline following the Battle of Tondibi in 1591. The mosque developed into a madrasa, reaching its peak in the 16th century.
The University of al-Qarawiyyin, also written Al-Karaouine or Al Quaraouiyine, is a university located in Fez, Morocco. It was founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 857–859 and subsequently became one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Islamic Golden Age. It was incorporated into Morocco's modern state university system in 1963 and officially renamed "University of Al Quaraouiyine" two years later. The mosque building itself is also a significant complex of historical Moroccan and Islamic architecture that features elements from many different periods of Moroccan history. Scholars consider al-Qarawiyyin to have been effectively run as a madrasa until after World War II. Many scholars distinguish this status from the status of "university", which they view as a distinctly European invention. They date al-Qarawiyyin's transformation from a madrasa into a university to its modern reorganization in 1963. UNESCO and the Guinness World Records, have cited al-Qarawiyyin as the oldest university or oldest continually operating higher learning institution in the world.
Islamic religious leaders have traditionally been people who, as part of the clerisy, mosque, or government, performed a prominent role within their community or nation. However, in the modern contexts of Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries as well as secularised Muslim states like Turkey, and Bangladesh, the religious leadership may take a variety of non-formal shapes.
Darul Uloom Karachi is a Madrasa in Karachi, Pakistan. It was founded by Muhammad Shafi Deobandi in June 1951 at Nanak Wara and later on it transferred to Korangi, Karachi, on 17 March 1957. It continues the tradition of the Darul uloom system initiated by Darul Uloom Deoband. The institution has adopted a balanced approach between religious and worldly matters. The secondary schools have individual faculties for both boys and girls. The school has the highest standards of Islamic education and offers a combined curriculum covering traditional Islamic studies and contemporary academic subjects. It is registered as one of the Islamic Schools under Wifaq ul Madaris Al-Arabia.
The experiences of Muslim women vary widely between and within different societies due to culture and values that were often predating Islam's introduction to the respective regions of the world. At the same time, their adherence to Islam is a shared factor that affects their lives to a varying degree and gives them a common identity that may serve to bridge the wide cultural, social, and economic differences between Muslim women.
Pesantren is a traditional Islamic boarding school in Indonesia. It is taught either in private houses, a pondok or a mosque, the teaching includes classical Islamic texts and santri thought, taught by kyais. According to one popular tradition, the pesantren education system originated from traditional Javanese pondokan, dormitories, ashrams for Hindus or viharas for Buddhists to learn religious philosophies, martial arts, and meditation. Institutions much like them are found across the Islamic world and are called pondok in Malaysia, Southern Thailand and madrasas in India and Pakistan and much of the Arabic-speaking world. The pesantren aims to deepen knowledge of the Quran, particularly through the study of Arabic, traditions of exegesis, the Sayings of the Prophet, law and logic. The term pesantren derives from the root word santri or student -- pe-santri-an or the place of the santri.
Muslim scholars have developed a spectrum of viewpoints on science within the context of Islam. Scientists of medieval Muslim civilization contributed to the new discoveries in science. From the eighth to fifteenth century, Muslim mathematicians and astronomers furthered the development of mathematics. Concerns have been raised about the lack of scientific literacy in parts of the modern Muslim world.
An ijazah is a license authorizing its holder to transmit a certain text or subject, which is issued by someone already possessing such authority. It is particularly associated with transmission of Islamic religious knowledge. The license usually implies that the student has acquired this knowledge from the issuer of the ijaza through first-hand oral instruction, although this requirement came to be relaxed over time. An ijaza providing a chain of authorized transmitters going back to the original author often accompanied texts of hadith, fiqh and tafsir; but also appeared in mystical, historical, and philological works, as well as literary collections. While the ijaza is primarily associated with Sunni Islam, the concept also appears in the hadith traditions of Twelver Shia.
Madrassas of Pakistan are Islamic seminaries in Pakistan, known in Urdu as Madaris-e-Deeniya . Most madrassas teach mostly Islamic subjects such as tafseer, hadith, fiqh and Arabic ; but include some non-Islamic subjects, which enable students to understand the religious ones. The number of madrassas grew dramatically during and since the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. They are especially popular among Pakistan's poorest families, in part because they feed and house their students. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. In some areas of Pakistan they outnumber the underfunded public schools.
A university is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. University is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century.
Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam is a book by Akram Nadwi, originally published in 2007. This work serves as an English introduction to his Arabic publication, Al-Wafa bi Asma al-Nisa, which consists of 43 volumes and focuses on the biographies of women scholars of hadith. Nadwi worked in this field of research for 15 years. The book highlights the historical significance of learned women in the early years of Islam, including their participation in religious education and the extensive journeys they undertook to seek knowledge, actively engaging in mosques and madrasas throughout the Islamic world, advancing the study and dissemination of Prophetic hadith. The book is divided into ten chapters and is published with supporting materials such as photographs of mosque courtyards, original manuscripts, maps of educational journeys, lists of female teachers, bibliographies, charts detailing the transmission of major hadith collections, and tables depicting the notable students of renowned female scholars.
↑ Verger, Jacques: "Patterns", in: Ridder-Symoens, Hilde de (ed.): A History of the University in Europe. Vol. I: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN978-0-521-54113-8, pp. 35–76 (35)
The Quaraouiyine Mosque, founded in 859, is the most famous mosque of Morocco and attracted continuous investment by Muslim rulers.
↑ Lulat, Y. G.-M.: A History Of African Higher Education From Antiquity To The Present: A Critical Synthesis Studies in Higher Education, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN978-0-313-32061-3, p.70:
As for the nature of its curriculum, it was typical of other major madrasahs such as al-Azhar and Al Quaraouiyine, though many of the texts used at the institution came from Muslim Spain...Al Quaraouiyine began its life as a small mosque constructed in 859 C.E. by means of an endowment bequeathed by a wealthy woman of much piety, Fatima bint Muhammed al-Fahri.
1 2 Belhachmi, Zakia: "Gender, Education, and Feminist Knowledge in al-Maghrib (North Africa) – 1950–70", Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Intellectual and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2–3, 2003, pp.55–82 (65):
The Adjustments of Original Institutions of the Higher Learning: the Madrasah. Significantly, the institutional adjustments of the madrasahs affected both the structure and the content of these institutions. In terms of structure, the adjustments were twofold: the reorganization of the available original madaris and the creation of new institutions. This resulted in two different types of Islamic teaching institutions in al-Maghrib. The first type was derived from the fusion of old madaris with new universities. For example, Morocco transformed Al-Qarawiyin (859 A.D.) into a university under the supervision of the ministry of education in 1963.
Higher education has always been an integral part of Morocco, going back to the ninth century when the Karaouine Mosque was established. The madrasa, known today as Al Qayrawaniyan University, became part of the state university system in 1947.
They consider institutions like al-Qarawiyyin to be higher education colleges of Islamic law where other subjects were only of secondary importance.
↑ Pedersen, J.; Rahman, Munibur; Hillenbrand, R.: "Madrasa", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Brill, 2010:
Madrasa, in modern usage, the name of an institution of learning where the Islamic sciences are taught, i.e. a college for higher studies, as opposed to an elementary school of traditional type (kuttab); in medieval usage, essentially a college of law in which the other Islamic sciences, including literary and philosophical ones, were ancillary subjects only.
A madrasa is a college of Islamic law. The madrasa was an educational institution in which Islamic law (fiqh) was taught according to one or more Sunni rites: Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanafi, or Hanbali. It was supported by an endowment or charitable trust (waqf) that provided for at least one chair for one professor of law, income for other faculty or staff, scholarships for students, and funds for the maintenance of the building. Madrasas contained lodgings for the professor and some of his students. Subjects other than law were frequently taught in madrasas, and even Sufi seances were held in them, but there could be no madrasa without law as technically the major subject.
↑ Makdisi, George: "Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages", Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 255–264 (255f.):
In studying an institution which is foreign and remote in point of time, as is the case of the medieval madrasa, one runs the double risk of attributing to it characteristics borrowed from one's own institutions and one's own times. Thus gratuitous transfers may be made from one culture to the other, and the time factor may be ignored or dismissed as being without significance. One cannot therefore be too careful in attempting a comparative study of these two institutions: the madrasa and the university. But in spite of the pitfalls inherent in such a study, albeit sketchy, the results which may be obtained are well worth the risks involved. In any case, one cannot avoid making comparisons when certain unwarranted statements have already been made and seem to be currently accepted without question. The most unwarranted of these statements is the one which makes of the "madrasa" a "university".
1 2 Lulat, Y. G.-M.: A History Of African Higher Education From Antiquity To The Present: A Critical Synthesis, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN978-0-313-32061-3, pp.154–157
↑ Park, Thomas K.; Boum, Aomar: Historical Dictionary of Morocco, 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN978-0-8108-5341-6, p.348
al-qarawiyin is the oldest university in Morocco. It was founded as a mosque in Fès in the middle of the ninth century. It has been a destination for students and scholars of Islamic sciences and Arabic studies throughout the history of Morocco. There were also other religious schools like the madras of ibn yusuf and other schools in the sus. This system of basic education called al-ta'lim al-aSil was funded by the sultans of Morocco and many famous traditional families. After independence, al-qarawiyin maintained its reputation, but it seemed important to transform it into a university that would prepare graduates for a modern country while maintaining an emphasis on Islamic studies. Hence, al-qarawiyin university was founded in February 1963 and, while the dean's residence was kept in Fès, the new university initially had four colleges located in major regions of the country known for their religious influences and madrasas. These colleges were kuliyat al-shari's in Fès, kuliyat uSul al-din in Tétouan, kuliyat al-lugha al-'arabiya in Marrakech (all founded in 1963), and kuliyat al-shari'a in Ait Melloul near Agadir, which was founded in 1979.
↑ Halm, Heinz. The Fatimids and their Traditions of Learning. London: The Institute of Ismaili Studies and I.B. Tauris. 1997.
↑ As seen in verses such as "Read in the name of your Lord who created" (Quran 96:1)
↑ Hadiths like "The seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim" (Sunan Ibn Majah)
↑ Ḥasan, Aḥmad Yūsuf al-; Hill, Donald Routledge (1994). Islamic technology: an illustrated history (Repred.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr. [u.a.] ISBN978-0-521-42239-0.
↑ Khasawneh, Omar; Altakhaineh, Abdel Rahman Mitib (2020). "Teacher Education from an Islamic Perspective". The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. 10 (3). Retrieved 2024-10-23– via ProQuest.
1 2 3 4 5 Sayeed, Asma (2013). Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam. Cambridge University Press. pp.165–173. ISBN978-1107031586.
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