Name: University of Al-Karaouine
Location: Fes, Morocco
Established in:1859 as a Mosque
Famous alumni:
- Ibn Khaldun (Historian, Economist and Sociologist)
- Leo Africanus (Author and Diplomat)
- Muhammad Allal al Fassi (Politician, Writer, Poet and Islamic
Scholar)
While highly contested, the University of Al-Karaouine in Morocco is
considered as the world’s first university and hence the oldest
university. The University is actually recognized by the Guinness Book
of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world.
It was originally founded as a mosque with an associated mosque
school (madrasa) which has been referred to as a university. The credit
of its foundation goes to a woman called Fatima al-Fihri, the daughter
of a wealthy merchant named Mohammed Al-Fihri, who along with many of
their community migrated from Kairouan (from where the name of the
mosque has come) in Tunisia to Fes in Morocco in the early 9th century.
Fatima al-Fihri together with her sibling inherited huge wealth from
their father, and Fatima had vowed to utilize her inheritance on the
construction and running of a mosque for her community. The dynasties
that followed continued to expand the Al-Karaouine mosque until it
became the largest in Africa.
The mosque, in addition to a mere place for offering prayers, was
developed into a place for religious and political deliberations and
instructions. Gradually, the education programme was extended to a
broad range of subjects, particularly the natural sciences, some of
which include rhetoric, grammar, logic, music, medicine, mathematics,
chemistry, history, geography, astronomy, etc. Al-Karaouine has been
and continues to be one of the leading spiritual and educational centers
of the Muslim world, was integrated into the state educational system
in the year 1947 and acquired the status of a state university in the
year 1963 by a royal decree, which brought it under the supervision of
the ministry of education. With the introduction of various reforms such
as modern curricula and textbooks, trained faculty, etc., Al-Karaouine
was officially renamed “University of Al-Karaouine” in the year 1965.
While many hail the evolution of Al-Karaouine spread across a period
of over 1000 years, there are other who dispute its institutional status
particularly prior to World War-II, claiming that it started as a
mosque school and its transformation into a full-fledged university took
place only in the year 1963. UNESCO in contrast considers Al-Karaouine
to have been a university since its founding.
Despite the debate, there is however no doubt that Al-Karaouine’s has
produced numerous scholars and intellectuals who have strongly
influenced the history of Muslim and Jewish worlds.
