Aims and purposes of Muslim education
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Islam placed a high value on education, and, as the faith spread among diverse peoples, education became an important channel through which to create a universal and cohesive social order. By the middle of the 9th century, knowledge was divided into three categories: the Islamic sciences, the philosophical and natural sciences (Greek knowledge), and the literary arts. The Islamic sciences, which emphasized the study of the Qurʾān (the Islamic scripture) and the Ḥadīth (the sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) and their interpretation by leading scholars and theologians, were valued the most highly, but Greek scholarship was considered equally important, albeit less virtuous.
Early Muslim education emphasized practical studies, such as the application of technological expertise to the development of irrigation systems, architectural innovations, textiles, iron and steel products, earthenware, and leather products; the manufacture of paper and gunpowder; the advancement of commerce; and the maintenance of a merchant marine. After the 11th century, however, denominational interests dominated higher learning, and the Islamic sciences achieved preeminence. Greek knowledge was studied in private, if at all, and the literary arts diminished in significance as educational policies encouraging academic freedom and new learning were replaced by a closed system characterized by an intolerance toward scientific innovations, secular subjects, and creative scholarship. This denominational system spread throughout eastern Islam from Transoxania (roughly, modern-day Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and southwest Kazakhstan) to Egypt, with some 75 schools in existence between about 1050 and 1250.
Organization of education
The system of education in the Muslim world was unintegrated and undifferentiated. Learning took place in a variety of institutions, among them the ḥalqah, or study circle; the maktab (kuttab), or elementary school; the palace schools; bookshops and literary salons; and the various types of colleges, the meshed, the masjid, and the madrasa. All the schools taught essentially the same subjects.
The simplest type of early Muslim education was offered in the mosques, where scholars who had congregated to discuss the Qurʾān began before long to teach the religious sciences to interested adults. Mosques increased in number under the caliphs, particularly the ʿAbbāsids: 3,000 of them were reported in Baghdad alone in the first decades of the 10th century; as many as 12,000 were reported in Alexandria in the 14th century, most of them with schools attached. Some mosques—such as that of al-Manṣūr, built during the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd in Baghdad, or those in Isfahan, Mashhad, Ghom, Damascus, Cairo, and the Alhambra (Granada)—became centres of learning for students from all over the Muslim world. Each mosque usually contained several study circles (ḥalqah), so named because the teacher was, as a rule, seated on a dais or cushion with the pupils gathered in a semicircle before him. The more advanced a student, the closer he was seated to the teacher. The mosque circles varied in approach, course content, size, and quality of teaching, but the method of instruction usually emphasized lectures and memorization. Teachers were, as a rule, looked upon as masters of scholarship, and their lectures were meticulously recorded in notebooks. Students often made long journeys to join the circle of a great teacher. Some circles, especially those in which the Ḥadīth was studied, were so large that it was necessary for assistants to repeat the lecture so that every student could hear and record it.
Elementary schools (maktab, or kuttab), in which pupils learned to read and write, date to the pre-Islamic period in the Arab world. After the advent of Islam, these schools developed into centres for instruction in elementary Islamic subjects. Students were expected to memorize the Qurʾān as perfectly as possible. Some schools also included in their curriculum the study of poetry, elementary arithmetic, penmanship, ethics (manners), and elementary grammar. Maktabs were quite common in almost every town or village in the Middle East, Africa, Sicily, and Spain.
Schools conducted in royal palaces taught not only the curriculum of the maktabs but also social and cultural studies designed to prepare the pupil for higher education, for service in the government of the caliphs, or for polite society. The instructors were called muʾaddibs, or instructors in good manners. The exact content of the curriculum was specified by the ruler, but oratory, history, tradition, formal ethics, poetry, and the art of good conversation were often included. Instruction usually continued long after the pupils had passed elementary age.
The high degree of learning and scholarship in Islam, particularly during the ʿAbbāsid period in eastern Islam and the later Umayyads in western Islam, encouraged the development of bookshops, copyists, and book dealers in large, important Islamic cities such as Damascus, Baghdad, and Córdoba. Scholars and students spent many hours in these bookshop schools browsing, examining, and studying available books or purchasing favourite selections for their private libraries. Book dealers traveled to famous bookstores in search of rare manuscripts for purchase and resale to collectors and scholars and thus contributed to the spread of learning. Many such manuscripts found their way to private libraries of famous Muslim scholars such as Avicenna, al-Ghazālī, and al-Fārābī, who in turn made their homes centres of scholarly pursuits for their favourite students.
Fundamental to Muslim education though the circle schools, the maktabs, and the palace schools were, they embodied definite educational limitations. Their curricula were limited; they could not always attract well-trained teachers; physical facilities were not always conducive to a congenial educational environment; and conflicts between religious and secular aims in these schools were almost irreconcilable. Most importantly, these schools could not meet the growing need for trained personnel or provide sufficient educational opportunities for those who wished to continue their studies. These pressures led to the creation of a new type of school, the madrasa, which became the crown and glory of medieval Muslim education. The madrasa was an outgrowth of the masjid, a type of mosque college dating to the 8th century. The differences between these two institutions are still being studied, but most scholars believe that the masjid was also a place of worship and that, unlike the madrasa, its endowment supported only the faculty and not the students as well. A third type of college, the meshed (shrine college), was usually a madrasa built next to a pilgrimage centre. Whatever their particularities, all three types of college specialized in legal instruction, each turning out experts in one of the four schools of Sunni, or orthodox, Islamic law.
Madrasas may have existed as early as the 9th century, but the most famous one was founded in 1057 by the vizier Niẓām al-Mulk in Baghdad. The Niẓāmīyah, devoted to Sunni learning, served as a model for the establishment of an extensive network of such institutions throughout the eastern Islamic world, especially in Cairo, which had 75 madrasas; in Damascus, which had 51; and in Aleppo, where the number of madrasas rose from 6 to 44 between 1155 and 1260.
Important institutions also developed in western Islam, under the Umayyads, in the Spanish cities of Córdoba, Sevilla (Seville), Toledo, Granada, Murcia, Almería, Valencia, and Cádiz. The madrasas had no standard curriculum; the founder of each school determined the specific courses that would be taught, but they generally offered instruction in both the religious sciences and the physical sciences.
The contribution of these institutions to the advancement of knowledge was vast. Muslim scholars calculated the angle of the ecliptic; measured the size of the Earth; calculated the precession of the equinoxes; explained, in the field of optics and physics, such phenomena as refraction of light, gravity, capillary attraction, and twilight; and developed observatories for the empirical study of heavenly bodies. They made advances in the uses of drugs, herbs, and foods for medication; established hospitals with a system of interns and externs; discovered causes of certain diseases and developed correct diagnoses of them; proposed new concepts of hygiene; made use of anesthetics in surgery with newly innovated surgical tools; and introduced the science of dissection in anatomy. They furthered the scientific breeding of horses and cattle; found new ways of grafting to produce new types of flowers and fruits; introduced new concepts of irrigation, fertilization, and soil cultivation; and improved upon the science of navigation. In the area of chemistry, Muslim scholarship led to the discovery of such substances as potash, alcohol, nitrate of silver, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and mercury chloride. It also developed to a high degree of perfection the arts of textiles, ceramics, and metallurgy.
Major periods of Muslim education and learning
The renaissance of Islamic culture and scholarship developed largely under the ʿAbbāsid administration in eastern Islam and later under the Umayyads in western Islam, mainly in Spain, between 800 and 1000. This latter period, the golden age of Islamic scholarship, was largely a period of translation and interpretation of Classical thoughts and their adaptation to Islamic theology and philosophy. The period also witnessed the introduction and assimilation of Hellenistic, Persian, and Hindu mathematics, astronomy, algebra, trigonometry, and medicine into Muslim culture.
Whereas the 8th and 9th centuries—mainly between 750 and 900—were characterized by the introduction of Classical learning and its refinement and adaptation to Islamic culture, the 10th and 11th were centuries of interpretation, criticism, and further adaptation. There followed a period of modification and significant additions to Classical culture through Muslim scholarship. Creative scholarship in Islam from the 10th to the 12th century included works by such scholars as Omar Khayyam, al-Bīrūnī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), al-Ṭabarī, Avempace (Ibn Bājjah), and Averroës (Ibn Rushd). During the 12th and 13th centuries, most of the works of Classical learning and the creative Muslim additions were translated from Arabic into Hebrew and Latin. These translations were instrumental in bringing about the early phases of the European intellectual awakening, which coincided with the decline of Muslim scholarship.
Influence of Islamic learning on the West
As Europe was absorbing the fruits of Islam’s centuries of creative productivity, signs of Latin Christian awakening were evident throughout the European continent. The 12th century was one of intensified traffic of Muslim learning into the Western world through many hundreds of translations of Muslim works, which helped Europe seize the initiative from Islam when political conditions in Islam brought about a decline in Muslim scholarship. By 1300, European scholars stood once again on the solid ground of Hellenistic thought, enriched or modified through Muslim and Byzantine efforts.
Mehdi K. Nakosteen Joseph S. SzyliowiczEurope in the Middle Ages
The background of early Christian education
From the beginnings to the 4th century
Initially, Christianity found most of its adherents among the poor and illiterate, making little headway—as St. Paul observed (1 Corinthians 1:26)—among the worldly-wise, the mighty, and those of high rank. But during the 2nd century ce and afterward, it appealed more and more to the educated class and to leading citizens. These individuals naturally wanted their children to have at least as good an education as they themselves had, but the only schools available were the grammar and rhetoric schools with their Greco-Roman, non-Christian culture. There were different opinions among Christian leaders about the right attitude to this dilemma that confronted all Christians who sought a good education for their children. The Greek Fathers—especially the Christian Platonists Clement of Alexandria and Origen—sought to prove that the Christian view of the universe was compatible with Greek thought and even regarded Christianity as the culmination of philosophy, to which the way must be sought through liberal studies. Without a liberal education, the Christian could live a life of faith and obedience but could not expect to attain an intellectual understanding of the mysteries of the faith or expect to appreciate the significance of the Gospel as the meeting ground of Hellenism and Judaism. St. Augustine and St. Basil also tolerated the use of the secular schools by Christians, maintaining that literary and rhetorical culture is valuable so long as it is kept subservient to the Christian life. The Roman theologian Tertullian, on the other hand, was suspicious of pagan culture, but he admitted the necessity (though deploring it) of making use of the educational facilities available.
In any event, most Christians who wanted their children to have a good education appear to have sent them to the secular schools; this practice continued even after 313, when the emperor Constantine, who had been converted to Christianity, stopped the persecution of Christians and gave them the same rights as other citizens. Christians also set up catechetical schools for the religious instruction of adults who wished to be baptized. Of these schools, the most famous was the one at Alexandria in Egypt, which had a succession of outstanding heads, including Clement and Origen. Under their scholarly guidance, it developed a much wider curriculum than was usual in catechetical schools, including the best in Greek science and philosophy in addition to Christian studies. Other schools modeled on that at Alexandria developed in some parts of the Middle East, notably in Syria, and continued for some time after the collapse of the empire in the west.
From the 5th to the 8th century
The gradual subjugation of the Western Empire by the barbarian invaders during the 5th century eventually entailed the breakup of the educational system that the Romans had developed over the centuries. The barbarians, however, did not destroy the empire; in fact, their entry was really in the form of vast migrations that swamped the existing and rapidly weakening Roman culture. The position of the emperor remained, the barbarians exercising local control through smaller kingdoms. Roman learning continued, and there were notable examples in the writings of Boethius—chiefly his Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius composed most of these studies while acting as director of civil administration under the Ostrogoths. Equally famous was his contemporary Cassiodorus (c. 490–c. 585), who, as a minister under the Ostrogoths, worked energetically at his vision of civilitas, a program of educating the public and developing a sound administrative structure. Thus, despite the political and social upheavals, the methods and program of ancient education survived into the 6th century in the new barbarian Mediterranean kingdoms; indeed, the barbarians were frequently impressed and attracted by things Roman. In Ostrogothic Italy (Milan, Ravenna, Rome) and in Vandal Africa (Carthage), the schools of the grammarians and rhetoricians survived for a time, and, even in those places where such schools soon disappeared—such as Gaul and Spain—private teachers or parents maintained the tradition of Classical culture until the 7th century. As in previous centuries, the culture bestowed was essentially literary and oratorical: grammar and rhetoric constituted the basis of the studies. The pupils read, reread, and commented on the Classical authors and imitated them by composing certain kinds of exercises (dictiones) with the aim of achieving a perfect mastery of their style. In fact, however, the practice was desultory, and the results were mechanical and poor. Greek was ignored more and more, and attempts to revive Hellenic studies were limited to a dwindling number of scholars.
Christianity, meanwhile, was becoming more formally organized, and in the Latin-speaking Western division of the empire the Catholic church (as it was beginning to be called, from the Greek katholikos, the “whole”) developed an administrative pattern, based upon that of the empire itself, for which learning was essential for the proper discharge of its duties. Schools began to be formed in the rudimentary cathedrals, although the main centres of learning from the 5th century to the time of Charlemagne in the 8th century were in the monasteries. The prototype of Western monasticism was the great monastery founded at Monte Cassino in 529 by Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 547), probably on the model of Vivarium, the scholarly monastery established by Cassiodorus. The rule developed by Benedict to guide monastic life stimulated many other foundations, and one result was the rapid spread of Benedictine monasteries and the establishment of an order. The Benedictine monasteries became the chief centres of learning and the source of the many literate scribes needed for the civil administration.
The monastic schools, however, are no more significant in the history of education than the schools founded by bishops, usually in connection with a cathedral. These episcopal schools are sometimes looked upon as successors of the grammar schools of the Roman Empire. First specializing in the development of the clergy, they later admitted young laypeople when the small Roman schools had disappeared. At the same time, there were bishops who organized a kind of boarding school where the aspiring clergyman, living in a community, participated in duties of a monastic character and learned his clerical trade.
The influence of monasticism affected the content of instruction and the method of presenting it. Children were to be dutiful; as the Celtic and English monks Columban and Bede were to remark, “A child does not remain angry, he is not spiteful, does not contradict the professors, but receives with confidence what is taught him.” In the case of the adolescent destined for a religious profession, the monastic lawgiver was severe. The teacher must know and teach the doctrine, reprimand the undisciplined, and adapt his method to the different temperaments of the young monks. The education of young girls destined for monastic life was similar: the mistress of the novices recommended prayer, manual work, and study.
Between the 5th and 8th centuries the principles of education of the laity likewise evolved. The treatises on education, later called the “mirrors,” pointed to the importance of the moral virtues of prudence, courage, justice, and temperance. The Institutionum disciplinae of an anonymous Visigoth pedagogue expressed the desire that all young men “quench their thirst at the quadruple fountain of the virtues.” In the 7th and 8th centuries the moral concepts of antiquity completely surrendered to religious principles. The Christian Bible was more and more considered as the only source of moral life—as the mirror in which humans must learn to see themselves. A bishop addressing himself to a son of the Frankish king Dagobert (died 639) drew his examples from the books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The mother of Didier of Cahors addressed to her son letters of edification on the fear of God, on the horror of vice, and on penitence.
The Christian education of children who were not aristocrats or future clergymen or monks was irregular. Whereas in antiquity catechetical instruction was organized especially for the adult laity, after the 5th century more and more children and then infants received baptism, and, once baptized, a child was not required to receive any particular religious education. His parents and godparents assisted him in learning the minimum, if anything at all. Only by attending church services and listening to sermons did the child acquire his religious culture.
The Irish and English revivals
During the 5th and 6th centuries there was a renaissance of learning in the remote land of Ireland, introduced there initially by the patron saints of Ireland—Patrick, Bridget, and Columba—who established schools at Armagh, Kildare, and Iona. They were followed by a number of other native scholars, who also founded colleges—the most famous and greatest university being the one at Clonmacnois, on the River Shannon near Athlone. To these and lesser schools flocked Anglo-Saxons, Gauls, Scots, and Teutons from Britain and the Continent. From about 600 to 850 Ireland itself sent scholars to the Continent to teach, found monasteries, and establish schools.
Although the very earliest Irish scholars may have aimed primarily at propagating the Christian faith, their successors soon began studying and teaching the Greek and Roman classics (but only in Latin versions), along with Christian theology. Eventually there were additions of mathematics, nature study, rhetoric, poetry, grammar, and astronomy—all studied, it seems, very largely through the medium of the Irish language.
England was next to experience the reawakening, and, though there were notable schools at such places as Canterbury and Winchester, it was in Northumbria that the schools flourished most. At the monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth and at the Cathedral School of York, some of the greatest of early medieval writers and schoolmasters appeared, including the Venerable Bede and Alcuin. The latter went to France in 780 to become master of Charlemagne’s palace school.
