Places of transmission of knowledge

In Byzantium

Late Antiquity was characterized by the presence of schools in all the towns and the existence of several prestigious centres of further education: Athens for philosophy, Alexandria for philosophy, the sciences, and medicine, Beirut for law, and Antakya and Gaza for rhetoric. We know something of the life led by students in these large intellectual centres from the autobiographical letters and poems of Gregory of Nazianzus in Athens, and the Syriac Life of Severus by Zacharias the Scholastic, who studied in Alexandria and Beirut.

The urban decline provoked by the demographic crisis in the sixth and seventh centuries and the loss of many territories following the Arab conquest deeply affected the education system. However, elementary education was widely available throughout most of the empire's existence in the towns. This was provided by private schools (sometimes very small with just one teacher and a few pupils), monasteries, or parishes; upper class children were often educated by private tutors. From the eighth century, encyclopaedias (which focused on grammar and rhetoric) were distributed in private secondary schools in the towns, which were encouraged by the State. Competition led to the establishment of many private schools. The Eulogy of John Mesarites by his brother Nicolas provides us with a vivid description of one of these schools, which consisted of classrooms linked by a portico. However, most of the schools only had one classroom.

Hagiography tells us about the many elementary schools in the villages, but sources on secondary education focus on schools in Constantinople. They were usually named after a church, but it is not known whether they were dependent on a parish or if they simply shared the name of the district in which they were situated, organized around a church. This is the origin of the names of the two renowned schools, the Holy Apostles (the school described by Nicolas Mesarites) and St. Peter's. Slightly less prestigious were the school of the Forty Martyrs, the school of the Deaconess, and the Théotókos ton Chalkopratéiôn (in the quarter known as the ‘copper market’). These private schools, which were very competitive, were managed by a single maïstôr and supervised by the Maïstôr of the rhetors and the hypatos, philosophers who marked the end-of-study exams. After Constantinople was recaptured from the Latin Empire by Michael VIII Palaiologos (1261), the schools were re-established under the patronage of the State (St. Paul's Orphanage School was founded and financed by Michael VIII) or in monasteries (the school of Maximus Planudes at Akataleptos and that of Nicephorus Gregoras at Chora).

Constantinople was also the main centre for further education. Sources (they are inexplicit) relate that the regent Bardas established four chairs—philosophy, astronomy, geometry, and grammar, supervised by Leon the Mathematician—in the Magnaur Palace (in the Great Palace of Constantinople in the south-east of the town) in around 850. In doing so, he founded a ‘university’ in embryonic form (university, in the strictest sense of the word, can only be applied to the system that existed in the West in medieval times). In the fifth century, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus revived this practice by appointing prestigious professors to various chairs. It is also important to note that, in the eleventh century, new schools of philosophy and law were established at the St. George Palace in Mangan, Constantinople. The latter was managed by Joannes Xiphilinus who acquired the title nomophylax, and the former was managed by Michael Psellos (appointed hypatos of the philosophers), who also supervised the town's secondary schools. It seems that these two new schools were not part of a concerted effort to organize higher education, but were the result of an initiative by Constantine X Monomachus, who provided the finance, to set up a school co-founded by Psellos and Xiphilinus to educate the empire's executives.

Recent studies have provided greater insight into the training of doctors in the Byzantine Empire. The school in Alexandria owed its reputation to the critical interpretation of classical medical texts, but medical training in Byzantium focused on training practitioners. Theory was taught in small phrontisteria, such as the one attended by John Zacharias in the fourteenth century. He then received practical training as a hospital assistant, working in hospitals such as the Hospital of the Pantocrator in Constantinople. In the fifteenth century, John Argyropoulos provided trained doctors with further training, in the katholikon mouseion of the Hospital of the Kralj, in the Petra district.

In Constantinople, clerics, and particularly episcopal and patriarchal officers, were trained in the patriarchal school (near Hagia Sophia) by teachers appointed by the patriarch. Jurists and tax surveyors, on the other hand, were trained in small schools organized by the notary's guild.

Although most of the students in the empire studied in Constantinople, the provincial towns weren't entirely without prestigious places of study. Thessalonica was famous in the fourteenth century for the study of rhetoric, and seems to have established a ‘pool’ for jurists (Thomas Magistros, Matthew Blastares, Konstantinos Harmenopoulos, and Nicholas Cabasilas), which may point to the existence of a law school. Finally, around the same time, Trebizond was famous for its teaching in astronomy, which was open to influence from the East (Arab and Persian astronomy).

M.-H.C.

In Islam

Knowledge and teaching have been linked for a very long time and that is the reason why since the beginnings of Islam dedicated spaces have been created to study the Qu’ran and hadith. In the early days, that teaching took place in the mosques. They were not reserved specifically for prayer but were the very core of what came to be known as madrasahs (schools), where reading, writing, theology etc. were taught. Scholars, who where known as “men of learning”, gathered there. During the Omayyad era, mosques were open to anybody who was qualified to teach and to anybody who wished to attend a class. A teacher did not have to transmit a specific subject but rather his role was to share his knowledge.

In the first few centuries teaching was not based on specialized books, and no defined pedagogy was used. Judge Iyadh related that Malik ibn-Anas said, “We do not know anybody from our country or any of our ancestors who wrote. So people asked, ‘What should we do?’ He answered: ‘Learn as they did, and do as they did, so that there is light in your hearts; and that will spare you from having to write’.

In the beginning of Islam, faqihs and scholars’ teachings were free and independent of the authorities. However in the early eighth century a new regime arrived. Schools were opened in Muslim towns and villages to enable young people to learn the rudiments of their language, to learn the Qur’an, writing (or calligraphy) and grammar. These classes then made it possible for them to further their studies in the mosque.

There, students belonged to wider learning communities. They were taught in an equivalent of what is now secondary school. This was a transition between school and the circles that revolved around the most famous scholars. Those scholars taught the equivalent of what is now university level.

Mosques were the first type of building with a religious purpose in Islam. The very first example, the prophet Mosque in Medina, is thus the first place of learning. Since then, the ties between knowledge and culture in the mosque have strengthened. Amongst the most prestigious mosques are the Medina Mosque where Anas ibn Malik taught, the Kufa mosque where the imam Abu Hanifah taught, and the Fustat mosque where the imam Shafi’i studied. Al Basra Mosque, the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, the Ezzitouna mosque, Okba Ibn Nafaa mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia, and the Qarawiyyin mosque in Fez, Marocco were just as important.

Despite the competition between madrasahs and zawiyyas, mosques retained their prestige over the centuries, especially because theology was at the heart of the teaching. Scholars explained the substance of the new religion, as well as what Muslims had difficulties understanding.

According to several sources, whether Middle Eastern or Western Muslim, as soon as Islam started, numerous teaching circles sprung up in mosques. Whereas in the Middle East since the reign of Nur al-Din Zanki in Syria and that of Salah Ad-din in Egypt, scholars taught all four doctrines, in the Mahgreb, the Muslim West, the Malikite doctrine was the one commonly taught. In Tunisia and Algeria the teaching of the Hanafite doctrine started during the Ottoman Turks’ era.

As well as the mosques as centres of learning there were madrasahs. They were built all over the Muslim world. The teaching there was often of a high quality as was the case, for example in the Al-Mustansiriya madrasah in Baghdad or in the Shama’iya madrasah in Tunis.

It seems that students in mosques enjoyed total freedom. They did not have to attend regularly or to go to classes; they opted for their chosen circle. In madrasahs, students had to obey certain rules. The students were boarders and they had to be present at given times. They could only leave a lecture when the teacher had finished. Students could only attend the classes they had registered for. The fact that the organization of classes in madrasahs was/were supervised by a principal or a “sheikh” might be the reason why fewer students went to madrasahs than to mosques - the number of students was limited by the number of rooms - where unlimited teaching was available.

The Fatimid were the first in the Muslim world to intervene in matters of education. They opted for a precise religious orientation that served their needs. Most of the subsequent governments in Muslim countries followed their lead, especially in the subjects put forward for the curriculum and the selection of the teachers whose salaries they paid. They also manipulated the teachers according to their preferences and their doctrinal inclinations. There are numerous examples of this. Some teachers obeyed the politicians and sultans while others seemed to have refused to accept such a situation. They might have been reluctant to accept an official teaching post, especially since they didn’t share the same beliefs as the leaders, whose influence went further than the mosques, madrasahs or other teaching institutions.

Teaching did not take place solely in mosques or madrasahs. Some scholars used to teach hadith and case law, among other things, from home.

Before he used the mosque, Muhammad the prophet used the house of al-Arqam ibn abi al Arqam as a meeting place where he could teach his companions the principles of the new religion.

Caliphs, princes and wealthy parents used private tutors for their children. The Fatimid improved greatly the quality of private tuition by building private schools in their palaces where their children and those of the dignitaries they employed were educated. For example, the caliph al-Mu’tadid had a building reserved for scholars constructed next to his palace, and several members of the nobility followed suit. In 945, Abu-l-Qasim Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili founded the House of Knowledge in Mosul. He built with it a library he dedicated to all students without exception.

Besides being military and religious buildings the ribats (fortresses) were- and still are - places of learning. In Tunisia they played that role until the seventeenth century; for example at the ribat in Sousse students continued to live and work.

Several study circles also took place in the zawiyya and maqam which were commonplace especially in the western part of the Muslim world. Numerous examples show that these institutions played a significant role in spreading knowledge in a large part of the Arab Muslim world.

From the birth of the Abassid State, bookshops sprung up in the Middle East. For the most part, the booksellers were learned. Their shops attracted scholars and sheiks and they gave students a place where they could meet scholars and learn from them. In Arab and Muslim towns everywhere, students and scholars swarmed to these bookshops looking for manuscripts coming in from all over the world.

Although we know that the name madrasah dates back to the tenth century (it is derived from the verb darassa, to study), historians don’t agree on when madrasahs first started in the Muslim world. Most of them believe that Nizam al-Mulk (1018 1092), a Seljuk vizier, founded madrasahs in the Muslim world, but Westenfield lists older madrasahs including the school founded by Abu Hatim Asabti (d 1092). Several houses dating from the ninth century were also built to spread knowledge, for example the library of the palace of Ali ibn-Yahya Binissabu (d 888) which was open to everyone.

In the middle of the ninth century, after the Khorasan, Baghdad also had a network of madrasahs, but they disappeared when the Mongols invaded.

The creation of madrasahs didn’t stop lessons taking place in mosques. Teaching took place in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus in the Qarawiyyin mosque in Fés, in the El-Azhar mosque in Cairo, in the Zaytuna mosque in Tunis and in Kufa and Baghdad.

Madrasahs were obviously created to fulfill needs that mosques, because of their particular organization of space, couldn’t – namely, housing students and teachers. Students often came from the other side of town and had difficulties finding lodgings. At the beginning of the ninth century, scholars and local grandees allocated part of their houses to students coming from afar. There are certainly other explanations for the spread of madrasahs. They started appearing in Egypt and in the Bilad al-Sham at the height of the wars between Muslims and Crusaders. Nur ad-Din Zengi is supposed to have taken advantage of the presence of Muslim scholars and teachers to incite the students to go and fight. As for the Shafi`i school, it tried to eradicate the Shiite school and to end the monopoly of its followers on teaching.

Muslim madrasahs, which are an expression of the very principle of the mosque as well as being lodgings and places of teaching, also played a cultural role. As was the case with mosques, where teaching and praying took place, inside every madrasah was a prayer room.

Since they offered free tuition and lodging, madrasahs allowed several of their graduates from poorer backgrounds to find their place in society and to land important government jobs, especially in the areas of law and education. Amongst them were several schoolteachers and public letter writers. However this is more verifiable in the West than in the Muslim Middle East. In madrasahs, two or three doctrines could be taught, sometimes even all four. The best- known madrasah, Mustansiriya, with its hundred large bedrooms, was founded in the year 1233 in Bagdad, and all four doctrines were taught there.

Students used to sit in a circle around their teacher, so classes were known as halaqa, circles. Even if students tried to position themselves closer to the teacher to better hear what he said, they still observed an established order. Everybody had his own place and did not go beyond the seat he had been assigned according to his age, how long he had been attending that particular teacher’s class, and the level he had reached in his studies. The youngest students sat in the furthest row, but could be moved closer to the teachers if they demonstrated certain abilities.

Teaching methods changed with the times and the progression of knowledge. During prosperous times, scientific knowledge developed and eminent scholars emerged. Such teachers would then make very subtle interpretations of difficult texts possible. On the contrary, during times of cultural and scientific decline other masters would barely dare to scribble a few commentaries or interpretations in a book margin. That is also somehow a way to pass on knowledge.

Interrogation is one of the first known teaching methods from the first centuries of Islam: the student asked his teacher questions. It disappeared and was replaced by other methods, the best known being dictation, where the student transcribes what the teacher says. The teacher who was proficient in Islamic sciences gave his interpretation of the paragraph he had dictated. The student wrote this down in the margins and then a discussion about the topic of the dictation took place. Sometimes teachers used a pupil as an assistant.

In the end, students were awarded diplomas without having to undergo a final exam as students do nowadays. After a student had studied one or several books with his teacher, the teacher awarded him a Master, idjaza, that is to say the diploma that would enable him in his turn to transmit was he had been taught by his teacher. When a student showed great aptitude and had perfectly assimilated the book interpretation classes, the teacher wrote a idjaza on either the first or the last page of the book. This handwritten inscription specified the name of the student, and the books he had studied, as well as the name of his teacher/master.

Given how important the idjaza delivered by great scholars were, those delivered by eminent academics were enthusiastically collected. Before their deaths, great academics used to grant idjaza to the current scholars and to those who asked. It is possible that some enthusiasts asked for idjaza for their children as well as for themselves. 

It is clear that both sides of the Mediterranean had very strong cultural and scientific links. The renowned scientist Tahar Ben Achour (1879 – 1973) in his book L’Aube n’est t-elle pas proche ? (Isn’t the Dawn Nearing?) explains: “the idea of creating schools to teach Islamic sciences is the result of the civic spirit of the Abbasid State marked by the synthesis between Greek and Muslim spirit, since they [the Abbasids] didn’t forget to quote the Platonic school of thought when they translated Greek books.

Arab scholars translated a large number of Greek doctors and philosophers and Europeans have also translated the works of numerous Arab academics such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, Ibn Al-Jazzar, Ibn Khaldun etc.

The flow of knowledge between the two sides of the Mediterranean since that time made it possible for the South of the Mediterranean to know the Western culture and for the North to use the Arab and Muslim assets whose progress in civilization had consolidated steadily since the advent of Islam.

M.B.M.